Settling back in

We're back! South Africa was amazing... Truly one the most beautiful, unique places I've ever been, and I would highly, highly recommend it as an awesome vacation destination for just about anyone. Of course getting there isn't super easy... over 40 hours each way. Painful. But it was more than worth it! I will be back later this week with a full recap and pictures. I need to go through start organizing and editing our hundreds of shots.

These past few days we've just been busy getting adjusted back to normal life... lots of laundry, grocery shopping, trying to get our bodies used to this time zone, and of course work (yuck.) On Saturday, J moved to Charlotte, NC, for the rest of the summer, where he'll be doing his MBA internship. I've known since we started school that we'd likely be apart for the summer, and I'm really happy and thankful that he found a great internship that will give him more experience in his field of interest (plus the additional income will be kinda nice...), but I was definitely a little sad to drop him off at the airport. The house has been so quiet this weekend, and I'm not used to spending so much alone-- particularly after two weeks of togetherness during out trip.

But I know that two months apart (with a handful of visits in there) is absolutely nothing compared to what military families and so many other couples deal with. So I'm thinking positive and getting excited for all the things I can do with my new found free time... I'm hoping to spend a lot of time with friends, work on my writing, and be super productive around the house so I can wrap up some projects that have been lingering on my to-do list for months.

First up? Crashing in front of The Bachelorette tonight with no judgement. ; )

Back in a bit

I'll back on the 24th of June. In the meantime, we'll be cheering on a little of this:

...enjoying some of this:

...and checking out some of this... from a distance!

Catch you on the flip side!

A year of blogging & spring in Austin

In all the craziness of the past few weeks, I totally forgot that my one year anniversary of blogging came and went on May 29th. What an action packed year the last one has been... from quitting our jobs, packing up and spending 8 days in the car driving through some of the most scenic parts of the United States between Seattle and Austin... to getting settled in here, making friends, and becoming part of the Longhorn tradition (I know I'm a real fan now because I'm already excited for football season to start.) From surviving J's gall bladder surgery and tough first semester of classes-- to trips home to visit family and friends, as well as trips to Boston and New York, and numerous visits here from some of the same family members and friends. And, now we're off on our biggest adventure of the year-- our trip to South Africa!

But, before we leave, I want to post some pictures from earlier this spring-- visits from my best college girlfriends, both sets of our parents, and the beauty of the Texas wildflowers in bloom. Enjoy!

One of my best college gal pals, Camille and sweet baby Elise.

Look at that cutie in the Texas blue bonnets!

With Anne (also a college bestie) at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Dinner al fresco with Anne and Diana at Botticelli's. I love all 3 of these girls (including Camille above) and seeing as we're scattered across the country, we don't get together near enough. I'm already looking forward to our next reunion in 2011!

Dinner with J's parents at our favorite guests-in-town grub fest, The Salt Lick.

More wildflowers...

Jason and I en route to the UT McCombs b-school "prom."

Mom and I sporting our boots!

And back at The Salt Lick with mom, dad, and J.

Mom and I in front of the Capitol on Mother's Day.

We did it!

40 minutes of icing (knees and shins), a huge tex mex lunch, and a two hour nap later, and I'm feeling almost 100% recovered from the triathlon this morning. My friend Anne and I competed together, and, if I don't say so myself, we both kind of kicked some you-know-what.

I was a little daunted when we left the house at 5:45am and it was already 81 degrees and sticky hot (yet still dark), but as the sun rose, we found that we had full cloud cover and it lasted just about the whole race. So, despite the humidity, it was not nearly as searing as I had expected.

Overall, the race was great. The worst part was just waiting around for our heat (dead last) to start!

The swim was awesome. As I expected, it was my strongest leg, and I was super psyched to find out that I placed 75th out of over 1500 people with my swim time (15:42 for a half mile). I also gave it all I had in the bike race and am pretty happy about that time, especially because the bike race was the biggest wild card for me. I thought I'd get somewhere between 45-60 minutes, and I wound up with a time of 46:35 for just under 12 miles, so I felt great about that.

The last leg was the run and, no surprises here, it was definitely the most challenging for me. I walked 40-50 yards at the beginning and then walked the water stations, and I felt like my pace was just crawling. But after my initial little walk, I told myself I'd jog it in if it killed me (minus those water stations) and I did. I managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other up the huge hill at the end, and then did my best to sprint the straight-away, finishing with a 5K time of 34:39. With my transition times between races added in, my official finishing time was 1:50:01-- killing my goal of coming in under 2 hours.

After today, I just might be a triathlete! It was such a fun race, and I genuinely enjoyed 2/3 of it (the swimming and biking.) The run was painful, but if at least part of the race didn't require me to really dig down and push through some pain, I would have felt disappointed that I could have done better. I really think I might have to try an Olympic distance triathlon (about twice the distance that we did today) one of these days!

Here are some pics of our day:

Our heat starting the swim

Anne finishing the swim strong!

Me, wrapping up the bike leg

Me, super excited to see J and trying to muster the energy to spring the last few hundred yards

Jumping in to finish the last stretch with Anne-- she's looking fantastic in this final stretch!

South Africa!

In just 5 days we'll be boarding a plane for a long voyage to South Africa! Sounds cool, but why South Africa you ask? The short story is that my soccer obsessed husband wore me down after months of begging, pleading, and cajoling discussions, and convinced me that we should travel to the bottom of the southern hemisphere to catch the World Cup live. Finally, I caved. Actually, Uncle Sam helped in the form of a nice tax return, and then I had to agree: two weeks of soccer + wine tasting + wild animal viewing sounded pretty good.

So here we are, just 5 days from departure, and I am frantically trying to cram about 2 weeks of work into the 2.5 remaining work days until we leave. Oh, yeah, and kick butt at my triathlon on Sunday. Plus do laundry, pack, clean, and take care of all that stuff you suddenly find yourself needing to take care of before you leave the country for 16 days. Can you say multi-tasking? But, really, I know I can't complain. I'm getting pretty darn excited.

I'll be back to post pictures of our adventures in late June, but here's a quick overview of our itinerary:

June 8-10: Travel to Johannesburg. Yes, it takes two days. And believe it or not, only 7 hours of that 2 days is due to the time change. We just have two really, really long flights, with a 12 hour layover in Dubai. But that's cool. We plan to leave the airport for a few hours to see if Dubai lives up to all the hype.

June 10-12: Spend some time in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria, including touring a game park and attending the USA vs. England soccer match on the 12th. Go USA!


June 13-17: Travel down south to Cape Town where we'll get our fill of amazing food, see the sights (including Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and the Cape of Good Hope), and attend the Italy vs. Paraguay match.

June 18-19: Two words: Wine Country. Lots and lots of good food and wine in a beautiful setting. (My reward for sitting through all the soccer matches I'll undoubtedly be watching at cafes and bars for the first week of the trip.)

June 20-22: We'll travel down to the Whale Coast, for whale and great white shark viewing. No cage diving for us, but we plan to take a boat tour to watch them from a safe distance.

Can't wait for it all to begin!