My friends sure know how to throw a lovely engagement brunch!
My former roommate Elisa hosted my closest friends and their boyfriends this morning and stuffed us full of everything from French toast to three types of quiche… and let’s not forget the mimosas.
After we ate, clinked our glasses in a toast, and retold the engagement story, Aaron took a group photo of the girls and I took one of the boys.
It was Aaron’s idea for them to hold hands in a sort of four-way bromance. Awww. : )
Register for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon or Half-Marathon today and save $13 with the code LUCKY13!
I just registered for the half and put 1:58 for my finish time. I want to PR!
Will I be seeing any of you there??
Today, I went on my first run since September 27. Yes, I went more than a month without running! Shame on me.
The first half of October, I was in Italy and too busy sightseeing and stuffing my face with pasta to run (and I never planned to run on that trip).
The second half of October, I started my new job and began planning a wedding. After nearly a year of being on an adult version of summer vacation, working 40-hour weeks again took some getting used to. Now I’m ready to add exercise into my new routine.
Today’s run felt way rougher than it should have for only three miles. It just goes to show that once you lose your fitness, you always have to earn it back the hard way!
Don’t let the numbers fool you; I had to stop and hold my knees several times during this run (true life: I stopped my Garmin — the whole ordeal probably took at least 35 minutes).
The good — no, GREAT — number I have to share with you is my weight. I’ve been eating Paleo about 90% of the time since returning from Italy and am down to 142.6 — the lowest number I’ve seen since before I left for my big trip in February, and well within reach of my goal of 138 (my marathon-running weight, at which I felt healthy, strong and in the best shape of my life).
(I’m not sure who those random creepers are, or why they wanted their picture taken with me.)
I attribute the recent loss to having a solid routine again and being too busy to mindlessly snack. I’m not terribly strict, though, and ate plenty of candy on Halloween and will have a cookie at work from time to time. I’ll share a sample of my daily eating soon.
The LAST bit of good news that I have to share is, well, more of an introduction.
Tumblr friends… meet our wedding venue:
I’ve had my heart set on this venue from the get-go, and the second tour with my mom and future MIL on Saturday morning solidified it. They both loved it, too, and when I showed them the outdoor area where the ceremony would take place (in good weather), I began to cry. I could just see it all perfectly at that moment.
If the weather is terrible, we can have the ceremony inside in the beautiful chateau. I’ll have my fingers crossed for sunshine, of course, but I certainly wouldn’t mind getting married in the romantic, candle-lit room you see in photo #2, right in front of the fireplace. Either way, that’s where we’ll hold the reception.
Our wedding is just under two years away, so the bulk of the planning will take place later on now that we have the date and venue nailed down. If the bit of planning we did this weekend is any indication, there will be many more (happy) tears throughout the process, and I will be an absolute f—ing mess on the actual day.
I can’t wait.
Happy Caturday! Winston likes to help with wedding planning.
(Photo and cat-friend courtesy of my future MIL, Greta 🙂 )
Just wanted to say “happy one month of being engaged!” to this guy.
This is my favorite photo of him, taken on the day we celebrated his 25th birthday last year.
A month ago, we were poppin’ bottles to celebrate.
Tomorrow, I’m going to visit my dream wedding venue for the second time with my mom and my future mother-in-law.
In about 23 months, we’ll (hopefully) be married there.
(“Hopefully” in reference to the location, not the marrying. That part is a “definitely.”)
And tonight… we’re drinking Italian wine and watching Downton Abbey, the latter of which is like 95% of what has kept me from blogging regularly these past couple of weeks.
Damn, that show is good.
Anyway. Cheers!
Happy Halloween!!
It’s my faaaaavorite holiday! I’ve been busy enjoying all the festivities that go along with it and clearly neglecting to blog. I just decided to take October mostly off from the Internet and return in November… aka tomorrow.
Recap of the photos above:
1. and 2. I was a red panda for Halloween and Aaron was a horse head.
3. You MUST look at the customer images on Amazon for the horse head. Hardest I’ve ever laughed.
4. Aaron was a real sport at the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. I’m a picky pumpkin-picker. The ones he’s holding aren’t even the ones we bought. You know.
5. Loving it.
6. Name that movie!
7. Aaron’s on the left, mine on the right.
8. The festivities at work today: A costume contest (yes, I wore mine), pumpkin-carving contest, festive decor and lots of pumpkin beer.
I’ve definitely eaten too much fun-sized candy today, and Aaron and I just got back from getting the bejeezus scared out of us at a haunted house. That means I’ve officially checked off all of my essential Halloween activities!
Hope you all had a great one. See you in November.
Ohhh, Tumblr, how I’ve failed you!
I started my new job a week ago and have totally neglected the Internets since then.
The good news is that I’m LOVING the job — perfect location, fun environment, friendly and cool people — and am very, very happy with the direction life is heading.
The bad news is that I’ve turned into an exhausted old lady who wants to go to sleep by 8:00 every night, but manages to stay up until 9:00. Barely.
But, wait, there’s more good news! Aaron and I are already making huge progress planning our wedding. Check out our Wedding board on Pinterest for huge, major hints about the decor, colors, time of year, dress and more that we have in mind. Mark your calendars for 2014!
Hint, hint, hint!
My next post on Answering Oliver WILL be the full proposal story, but I just have one more person I want to tell it to in person (my dad) before it goes online.
But… I’ll give you this. I don’t know about you, but I really like to stalk people’s engagement rings on Facebook, so here’s a better look at mine…
You can tell I was unprepared for the proposal because my nails were NOT groomed or cute at all. I thought about getting a manicure before the trip, but I’m not usually a manicure girl and I didn’t want to jinx things. : )
(This photo is from right after the proposal, and this is actually my right hand flipped to look like my left. I finally did get the ring on my left hand, though! Yay for soap + water + cold temps that reduced the swelling of my joint!)
Whoa, sorry for the huge pic. The round center stone is the diamond from Aaron’s mom’s wedding band (she now wears her mother’s wedding set), which is hugely sweet and meaningful! There are smaller diamonds in the halo around the center stone, partially around the band and up each of the four prongs.
We did a little ring shopping a few months ago, and Aaron quickly learned what kind of setting I liked and picked this one out of the case himself. We both knew it was just perfect. I couldn’t be happier (for many reasons)!
In running news, it is ridiculously cold in Seattle right now, and I haven’t mustered the energy or bravery to go for my first post-trip run yet. I will… soon… I hope.
I want this to stay a running blog and not turn into a wedding-planning blog! Or maybe I can blog about running with updates here and there about wedding planning? We shall see.
Good night!
I’m baaack in Seattle!
It’s cold, dark and rainy here, so as I prepare to venture out to the first day of my NEW JOB, I will pretend I’m back in hot, sunny Rome, strolling along scooter-lined streets with nothing but my shades and Rick Steves’ Italy.
OK, not possible. But, yay, new job!!!
The highlight of our day in Rome: a tour of the Colosseum. Wow, oh wow.
We also wandered through the Roman Forum, climbed Palatine Hill, splashed our hands in the Trevi Fountain, marveled at the incredible interior of the Pantheon and sauntered down the Spanish Steps.
Aaron is a fast eater and not much of a drinker, but that night we rested our tired feet and lingered over bruschetta, lasagna and beef topped with sage and prosciutto, polishing off quite a bit of wine (and limoncello, on the house) along the way.
The walk back to our apartment was all stumbling over cobbled sidewalks and holding hands and laughing at stupid jokes that only seem funny on the other end of a bottle of house red. It was just fantastic.
When in Rome…
Dev on Running 