Full Day in St Thomas

On our only full day in St. Thomas we traveled around Charlotte Amelie. Not exactly a happening town, but we can always provide ourselves random entertainment.

Peter & a shaleighleigh

So excited to find my favorite flavor of Gatorade that I can never seem to find in the states

There's no open container law in the USVI....

...so, I made him drink a beer on the street!

The authentic food we were looking for!

Oh, yeah, that's authentic, alright!

Peter's excited about his curry goat!

Mmmm, and I got some grouper!

Beautiful scenery

The new Real World House!

Float Plane landing

Chickens

Stairs to climb to get to our hotel (notice the wild chicken)

Find the cat

Our hotel

On to St. Thomas!

Arrived in St. Thomas close to dinner time. We were escorted to our room by a friendly kitty... ah, it feels like home!

Weekend in Chicago

Finally made it to Chicago for the weekend! Saturday was the wedding in the suburbs which rocked! Then, on Sunday we headed for a night in the city & continued to hang with some of my "old" college friends.

Hottie couple

Hottie Bride

Hotties from Canisius' Class of 2001

Hottie in a Wedding Dress

Hottie Newlyweds

Me & the Original Hottie Peter

Hottie Peters x2

Hottie view from the John Hancock Building

Pour some sugar on me hotties

Train to Chicago

We've begun our spring break adventure! For a variety of reasons we decided to take the train to Chicago for my college friend's wedding this weekend.... yes, the train!

I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about traveling on a train. It was an overnight train that left Rochester at 11pm and arrived in Chicago at 10am. I wasn't really worried about sleeping on the train, since I can pretty much sleep anywhere, but I was concerned about the toilet situation. We had a sleeper car & the toilet would be right there next to me.... eww.

Peter on the toilet

The toilet next to my bed

In the end, the toilet wasn't really that big of a deal. We didn't allow each other to actually use it (we had to travel down the hall for the bathroom), and no, it did not smell.

The night of sleeping actually turned out to be a bit rougher than anticipated. The tracks are definitely not maintained that well & there was a lot of jerking around done by the train. When we awoke in the morning from our poor slumber we were definitely ready for some breakfast.

Breakfast is included in the ticket price for sleeper cars. We were able to pick anything off the menu.

Ready for some bacon

Ready for his hash

Yum

The food actually was pretty good. After breakfast we headed back to our room & did some reading as we waited to arrive in Chi-town.

A non-sleeper car

Peter reading book 2 of Game of Thrones

Spaetzle & Mini Tartlets

High Five for Friday

Things I'm LOVING right now:

1. My Keurig is just about the best thing ever! It was a Christmas gift from my mom & dad and I'm seriously addicted to it!

2. Urban Decay's Naked & Naked 2 palettes! My friend, Abbey, introduced me to these during our getaway to Chicago last month & I'm totally enamoured by them!

3. My half marathon training program was a great decision on my part. It's pushing me more that I ever would on my own.

4. I just started reading my first book on my kindle touch & I'm loving it!

5. The book I'm reading on my kindle touch is The Hunger Games & I'm having trouble putting it down!

The Last 2 Months In Short...

I'm once again going to try to use the blog to keep a journal of my half marathon training (as well as various random daily activities), but before jumping to today, I will offer a brief recap of the last 2 months. Just to give you a quick idea of some of what I've been doing physically & personally. (Oh, and please don't judge me on my run-on sentences.... that's just how I roll.... don't hate!)

Back in the end of November I bought a Groupon for a series of 10 classes of Crossfit 101 at 585 Crossfit Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I've been dying to try crossfit & this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. Hopefully, I'll return to it someday & get more into the ins & outs of it & why I like & dislike it, but for now I'll just leave it as a memory of the end of 2011. I was training for a half marathon at the same time & found that my love of running far outweighed my interest in continuing crossfit.

Next was Christmas & Christmas parties...

Peter's company holiday party photobooth

Rogers cousins (at least most of them) on Christmas

Next was New Years... unfortunately Peter & I were both pretty sick & needed to make last second changes to our plans.... we celebrated locally instead of Niagara Falls as planned.

2012 brought the appearance of my VENEERS! Finally! Just the thing I've been waiting for all of my life to close that gap! I'll spare you the details, but this was not an easy feat! In the end all is going well now (knock of wood)!

I think I'll have to recap the next event in an entry all of it's own. I ran the Nike+ Women's Half Marathon on January 14th. I ran it in my house.... and I don't own a treadmill.... yeah, think about that for a few moments.

My friend Abbey & I made a quick 30 hour trip to Chicago in the middle of January. It was a friend's bachelorette party & lots of fun was had by all.

Let's not talk about these lemon drops.

At the Karaoke Lounge

I decided to commit myself to a new half marathon training plan for the Flower City Challenge on Sunday, April 29th. This is the half I ran 2 years ago and the half I was training for when I got injured last year. I figured a structured plan might be just what I need to avoid injury & finally reach that sub 2 hour goal I've had my eye on!

The end of January brought the celebration of the anniversary of my husband's birth. Once again we rented a house with friends in the Fingerlakes for the weekend to celebrate.

Awesome cookie cake. Courtesy of Wegmans.

Sadly, on Saturday, January 28th, 2012 my Grandpa Slowik passed away. He was 93 years old. He will be missed more than words can say.