Two Weekends of California!

So to catch everyone up...
we have been in the very thick of track season!
All of my friends and family have been traveling almost every weekend it seems like to different track meets around Texas (and for me and a few others, and the country!)

So lets start waayy back at Easter weekend. That weekend was the first Stanford meet held at where else, Stanford (which is right down the road from San Francisco, I didn't know that before I went!).
I went to run the 5k, my second 5k of the season with hopes to bring my time down to the 16:30s!

The heat I was in went out very slow, and for my racing I generally like to run in the pack for a while and pass people as they start to tire. But that was not meant to happen that day, No sirree after several laps of 20 girls all bunched together and running slow times I couldn't take it anymore I made a out of character move for myself and took the lead trying to speed us up! The rest of the race went a lot better and I ended up 4th overall with a time of 16:35 (an 18 sec pr!).
We had two more guys from Team Green run the 800 and 1500, but after that we had the afternoon and night left to drive down and explore San Fran!

 

Driving Over the bridge!

I was seriously so excited!

View of Alcatraz from our picture spot

The city of San Francisco

Ryan, Me, and Chris (I think this was Chris' Idea lol)

We flew back on Easter Sunday so I got to eat my Easter Reese's egg that night driving home to Nac :)

This past weekend we were back in California but instead of San Fran we headed to a place called Walnut right outside of  L.A.! We were going to one of my most favorite meets the Mt. Sac meet! 

If you know me very well then you know for the past few years the Mt. Sac meet is the big meet we went to and its always so much fun for several reasons. 1) Obviously- Its in Cali and not only Cali but the L.A. area so you get to do things like fly into LAX (last year, not this year though) and have those experiences and 2) Its a very competitive meet where you get to watch some of the best in the nation and world compete! All around its always a pretty good time!

This year was no different than in the past, I came to race: the 10k. I was in the Olympic Development heat and excited about the goals I wanted to hit. 

The race in itself actually like the 5k at Stanford went out a little slow...correction: the 10k always goes out a little slow but this race stayed a bit slow. But unlike the 5k I knew that this was much longer of a race and I did not want to have to be the lead man.  So I made the decision during the race to stay with my pack of 3 even though we were going a bit slower than the times I was planning on going.

The race ended up shaking out where I got 4th (again lol) and had about a 40 sec pr from my last 10k!

A few picts from the trip...

The View from our hotel

Can't leave with out this picture :)

Caught up with the SFA team Friday 

The start of our recovery day camera run!

The perks of running the invite or the Olympic Development...you get your name on the bib. Oh yeah! 

Always a wonderful time in Cali!

   

Rice Meet and Hunger Games

Whew Tuesday is done with and the good part of the week begins (my one class is Tuesday nights so I generally am pretty glad when Tuesday night is done)

Recap of the weekend:
This past Friday night was the Victor Lopez Classic held at Rice University.
Adam and I drove down Friday afternoon, after his mile repeats.  The Rice meet is historically pretty good, the competition the weather, and its a meet I look forward to every year. (This could possibly be because I have done relatively well at them the past few years but hey who knows? lol)
[HiStOrY of my past rice meets]
2009- 17:57 (this was my first time to break 18)
2010- 17:34 (ish somewhere around there)
2011- 17:17
2012- 16:53
Thats right....i'm no longer a 17 min girl, as Coach Snelling would say :)
The race itself I was not incredibly happy about, I ended up getting second overall I wanted a little better and I believe I could have done better but I'll take a 25 second PR and go with it....at least until next weekend at Stanford.

After the meet my parents, Adam and I race over to a restaurant called Bucca di beppo, before it closes and have some fun at a spunky little Italian restaurant.

I don't think this picture really does it justice, but image this many pictures all over a maze of rooms throughout the restaurant. It was a lot of fun :)

The next morning/afternoon we headed back to Nac and on the way I started reading....The HUNGER GAMES. I officially finished it Monday and I am ready for the 2nd book and to see the movie 

Though most people have seen this already lets just post it for kicks anyways.....

 

Spring Break Rodeo with the Band Perry

Last week was so nice and relaxing, being home with family and friends. But this week has been the complete opposite, today has been the only day where there felt like a bit of lag time in the evening. So of course little time (or no time)  has been donated to blogging....

Last week though was so much fun....I started out the week in Lafayette with Adam, we went to a friend of the family's wedding and along the way had several wonderful crawfish dishes!  The next big event was the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo with Robbie, Amanda, Kelli, Trey and the Graham Kiddos! We watched THE BAND PERRY and ate some rodeo food mmm

Before we left...I should get a tan or something!

Amanda and Brittany learning about dairy 

 Kelli and I talking to the cows 

We found a truck, and in turn a nice place to actually sit for a while :)

So I encountered several Louisianans over the break (my in-laws and my two future roomies) and I was so shocked to hear that they really didn't know what the rodeo was! When I told someone I was going to the rodeo they replied "which rodeo" I kind of laughed and replied "no, THE rodeo" 

The Band Perry was terrific!

Group picture afterwards with everyone

Later on in the week was dedicated to TEAM GREEN. In June I plan on moving to the woodlands so all Thursday and Friday was filled with apartment hunting with Marie, Kadi and Amy. 

                                       You have met Marie before through our other running adventures, and here are two  other additions to Team Green. Meet Kadi and Amy! These are my future roomies... were gonna have fun :)           

On Saturday we ran at the TSU Relays in Houston. We ran the 800 and 1500 with new personal PRs for me of 2:22 and 4:39 (I had never ran the 800 before so it was gonna be a PR either way).

Tomorrow I am headed down to Rice for meet 2 of the season, running the 5k tomorrow night!

Parmesan Chicken Bake, Focus Test

Some time last week I found (on Pinterest of course) a recipe that caught my eye and looked completely delicious!
The Image that caught my eyes:

Parmesan Chicken Bake!

Last night I decided to give it ago and I my taste buds were overjoyed with the result!  It was so simple to make, only taking about 10 minutes to put together and then after the oven viola! I cant wait to make this for my family over the break! (p.s. family I am making this for you over the break!) 

Here is the video from the website with easy step-by-step instructions....

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/02/end-of-chicken-parmesan-as-you-know-it.html

On more of a running note: 

Yesterdays work out was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself :) 

I had my best mile repeat workout to date!

6x mile w/ 2:30 min recovery

Mile 1)5:27

2) 5:29

3) 5:26

4) 5:27

5) 5:23

6) 5:18

Getting ready for all of the races that will be starting soon!

After work yesterday Adam and I had a meeting with Deacon Gary to discuss the results of our focus test that we took the week before. 

[A focus test is a test given to to engaged couples by the church that asks about 200 questions over the many dimensions of relationships.]

It was so much fun answering the questions and wondering what Adam had put down, so we were excited to see what we had differed and agreed on!

Woo excited about focus test!

The cover of our test...

We scored high on our first section but our financial planning section was kind of low...but we knew that was going to happen since I marked uncertain on pretty much all of them lol. (come on were college kids how certain can you be on financial decisions right now!!) He said we would work on that one.....

We had a lot of fun with Deacon Gary, we got to talk about our wedding, kids, our family and our faith! I think this should be a test everyone needs to take, even if for married couples as a refresher!

First Furniture Purchase Together!

Living in Nacogdoches there always seems to be plenty of estate sales to go to! And since the town is not very big and the SFA campus is in the middle none of these sales are very far away, most of the good ones are in the neighborhoods right around our apartment.....So on Friday when I saw a sign for one on Saturday Adam and I decided to go check it out!

And look what we found....

A buffet type table with a record player inside!

And for $30!!!

After we lugged that thing inside of Adams apartment (thankfully there was a nice man who helped Adam carry it to his car my my muscles just weren't cutting it!)

Later Nicole came over and Adam figured out how to work the record player!

Also yesterday was one of my roomie's (Lauren) Birthday! The team came over and we had a spaghetti dinner and Steph made her a cookie cake!

Moving on to today....

After a long run in the morning and a whole day jammed with studying Adam and I grilled steaks and sweet potatoes for dinner (I wish I had a picture!) They were sooo good, I didn't want my steak to end! 

Afterwards we had a "light and fun" (competitive and serious) game of FARKLE....

We played this Friday night and I beat Adam pretty severely, so he was back for revenge!....That didn't work out to well for him, because I crushed him again!!! And I learned Adam doesn't take to well at loosing twice in a row to a game of Farkle, even though I was a perfectly good sport about it ;) 

A little about running...

Our next meet for Team Green is right around the corner! The TSU Relays on Saturday the 17th, the girls will be running the 1500 & 800!

Today I had a nice 18 mile run, nice way to start out a big 80 mile week woop!

Time to get through this week and make it to spring break!

Turtle Thursday and Southland Indoor Conference

Its Thursday......
Initially I intended to write something fun for the rest of that sentence but when I wrote Thursday the word association that automatically came to my mind was "Turtle Thursday" 

Not Exactly this kind of turtle but...the term "Turtle Thursday" will be recognized by almost everyone i've been running with the past 5 years.  Thursdays were always set aside for a recovery day.  It would be the day with the least amount of mileage and the girls team came up with the thought of looking forward to that day and naming it after a slow moving animal.

While I don't have a set "Turtle Thursday" anymore in my running schedule I still think the idea is very important! You need to have that day to give yourself a break. While i'm looking at this in regards to running it applies with generally every aspect of life. There needs to be a day of rest (even God knew that! Thats what he did on the 7th day) and a day of recovery.  This can help you push hard on the days that you need to.

Moving on,( but not too far from running of course!) This past weekend, like I said before was the Track and Field Indoor Southland Conference.  I did not get to go :( But luckily Dennis (a friend from the team) was there and gave me a play by play during both the girls and guys 5k and 3k 

During the 5k:

Adam had a conservative start, but worked his way up during the 25 laps and had an amazing last k of the race and came in 2ND PLACE!!!!

This is Adam during his race, I wish I knew where the podium picture was!

My roomie, Lauren, got 2nd in the 5k after leading the whole way and 1st in the 3k!

And the Women's team took 1st Overall!! 4th year in a row!!!

Congratulations Ladies!!

Three Year Anniversary Dinner

Several days ago on February 24th Adam and I had our big "3 year" woop woop!
As I said on the blog last time Adam and the team were at conference in Oklahoma (tearing it up on the track!), which in turn meant that Adam and I had to postpone our 3rd year tradition of an anniversary Lufkin dinner date to last night.

Adam came and picked me up at my apartment, when he tried to automatically come in the door (like he always does) I made him knock first... so I could answer it, like I did 3 years ago :) And then I asked him "oh do I need to go change?" Which was the first thing I asked when I opened the door 3 years ago lol, back then in 2009 I was wearing jeans and a nice top and I opened the door and Adam had dressed up a lot more than I had!
Last night we didn't have that problem....

On our first year together Adam gave me a picture frame that had pictures of our first year together, and I gave Adam a scrapbook with that was a calendar that had all of the things we had done over the year written down.  We decided then that we both loved our gifts and that we wanted the same thing each year! 

So I opened....

And Adam got......

Afterwards we drove to Lufkin and had dinner at Ralph and Kacoos!

What a wonderful three years it has been! Love you Adam :)