M+G

Our engagement pictures are done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some of my favorites:

True story: We are avid baseball fans. He is a Texas Rangers fan and I am a Red Sox fan so we thought it would be fun to incorporate that into our photos. So, we had shirts made with Davis on the back of both of our shirts (Mark has the number 25 on his and I have the number 12 because Mike Napoli was #25 on the Rangers and now is #12 on the Red Sox...just another little connection we have!). Anyway. The day of engagements we had to make some very last minute changes on our location and Mark had a stroke of genius and remembered this "Green Monster" that conveniently had Texas and Boston on there. Coincidence? I think not. This is meant for us! The only discrepancy is that Texas is winning and, well, that's an exaggeration. ;) 

I love Mark. A whole lot. I can't wait to marry him.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go look through the pictures for the 183rd time! 

WHABAM!

Let's just cut to the chase shall we? 

We shall.

Ran half marathon #2 yesterday and....

...it was THE BEES KNEES.

This calls for story time!

To be completely honest, I did not feel ready mentally or physically. I didn't do much running the week before the race and thought I would be lucky if I tied my first time. Really. I was not ready. But when I woke up on Saturday I felt surprisingly good. I was extra motivated from a good luck call from absolute darling friend of mine (4:30am my time, 3:30am his time). I ate, got dressed and was ready. At this point, I was going into the race not really caring and just wanting to get this race over with...and I think it really helped. The weather was perfect (well, perfect by running standards). It was cold (40s) but I like running in the cold and actually, I thought it was warmer than my first race in October. The race began at 6:30am and I told myself to go start off easy this time. Last time I was flying the first half of the race and then paid for it dearly the second half. I picked off my two (unofficial) pacers by the time I got to 5 miles and was feeling good. Now, there was a marathon and a half marathon and we all ran together until around mile 11. I couldn't find the 2:00 half marathon pacer, though I knew I began the race in front of him so I decided to just keep my eye on the 4:00 marathon pacer and noticed that as the race went on I was creeping closer and closer to him. This pleased me. I felt surprisingly well when I hit mile 8 and ate a shot block and decided I would eat another, if needed at mile 10 or 11. Well, for the love of mankind THEY DIDN'T POST THE NEXT MILE MARKER UNTIL MILE 12!!!!! You see, when I hit mile 8 and was still feeling pretty good, my competitive side revved up and I decided I was going to try to PR this race.  Trust me when I say I panicked a little after mile 8 and didn't see mile markers because I didn't know what mile I was at or what my time was. AH-NNOYING. I could tell I was at least at mile 10 when my quads starting talking to me, so that was kind of nice but for the love of running where the HECK were my mile markers!!??!?!? Every 2 miles huh? HUH? HUH??? LIES!!!! 

Well. All of the sudden I saw the mile 12 marker and was ecstatic, relieved, and then the exhaustion hit me. But my adrenaline also kicked it into (higher) gear and I was determined. Also I noticed the dude next to me perk up a little when we saw the mile 12 marker, I gave him a side ward glance and secretly challenged him to a running duel. And then the sensible side kicked in and I decided maybe I should just aim at finishing the race at my current pace (instead of trying run really fast/sprint the last 1.2 miles like I thought of doing for 0.3 seconds) so I let him get a little ahead of me but I kept pace with him. WELL. Then I saw, what I thought was the mile 13 marker, so I picked up my speed a little bit only to realize after I had passed it that the marker was the 26 mile marker for the marathoners and in actuality I was quickly approaching the REAL mile 13 marker. So once again I got my adrenaline going for the 3rd time and I was in some serious pain. But a good pain. But still, pain. And at this point they funnel the runners in so it got kind of tight. Well, I passed the mile 13 marker, say the clock and the finish line and SPRINTED. FOR. MY. LIFE. I'm sure my quads were ready to kill me but I was darned and determined to PR this race and be done. 

My unofficial time was a 1:57....

SET A NEW PR!!!!!!!

And then today I checked for my official chip time...

1:55:48

WHABAM!!!!!

I beat my first half marathon time by a little over 5 minutes!!!!!!

I felt like a rockstar. Could not believe it!!!!! I'm still floating.

And now in other news.....

My visitor over a long weekend left Tuesday evening (sad, sad day). It was, undoubtedly one of the best times of my life. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun. Pure bliss.  

Well, I walked into my office on Wednesday morning, I had this waiting for me:

Thank you my dear colleagues for 1) the messages and 2) messages on STICKY notes everywhere!!! I have an infatuation with sticky notes. I love them. It's kind of ridiculous but I do, I love them. 

Oh and hey! It was Valentine's Day too! I decorated Valentine's Day cookies with some of the rehab patients and the staff. It was fun!  

And my stepdad sent me chocolates. I am now a part of the tradition. I wish I describe to tell you how utterly happy this makes me. Happiness. 

AND my best friend sent my a Valentine's Day card with treats. 

Love this girl!

AND!! OH SNAPDRAGON! IT SNOWED IN SOUTH CAROLINA!!!!!!

(This is considered a heavy frost in NH, but I was still excited to see some white stuff here in the south. I'm sure the snowbirds weren't...bahahahaha! And you thought you could escape it!!! MUAHAHAHA!)

Also. Tim McGraw came out with a new CD. It's FABULOUS!!! A throwback to some of his old stuff, his GOOD stuff. Love it. I bought the whole CD and have been listening to it all week. A few songs even made it to my half marathon playlist. 

It's been the best week ever.

Love

There are a few blogs that I check on a daily basis. One, and I've mentioned her blog before, is Nie Nie.

If you've never read her blog before, please go now! Go! Shoo! Off you go! Her blog is fabulous. Her story is just fantastic and she is one of the most amazing women you'll ever know or read about. She's sweet and adorable and her life is beautiful.

Anyways, you'll have to read her story to understand why she's undergoing surgery, but her husband posted a little update about her and ended it with this:

Thank you so much to all of you who are thinking of and praying for my dear wife. She is the love of my life and I know that the power of prayer is real and it works. We are going to get through this thing.

Love, Mr. Nielson

Isn't that so sweet? I want my own Mr. Nielson!