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!

Relaxation

This weekend has been just what the doctor ordered... after numerous weeks of visitors, my sister's bachlorette festivities last weekend, and plenty of work travel scattered in for good measure, I really needed a weekend to veg out and do nothing. Well, not much anyway.

J was out of town this weekend, so I got home from a business trip to Houston on Friday evening and watched the final 3 episodes of Grey's Anatomy while doing a couple loads of laundry. My interest in that show kind of ebbs and flows, but the season finale was surprisingly riveting. I was totally glued to the TV. Then I got a strange little burst of energy at about 11:45 and wound up cleaning the house for an hour. That doesn't happen often, but when the mood strikes, I go with it.

Saturday I slept in, and then my friend Anne came up from San Antonio. She is doing the triathlon with me, so we headed out to my gym to do a 30 minute open water swim, followed by a 5K. The swim felt great, but we started the run around 1:30pm. Probably not the best timing considering it was well north of 90 degrees and humid. But we got through it and rewarded ourselves a few hours later with a medium pie and a Greek salad at Home Slice. Later, we met up with a few of my friends at Lustre Pearl to enjoy a cocktail and celebrate at birthday.

Now it's Sunday and I've got to tackle one long bike ride-- probably an hour or so-- and then I plan to pretty much just lie around and relax for the rest of the day. Ahhhhhhh.

Bachelorette Weekend

I'm back after my long hiatus and vowing to get back to posting more regularly... let's say at least twice a week. First up, my sister's bachelorette party last weekend in Vancouver, B.C. It was so much fun, and so great to spend 4 days with her after not having seen her since Christmas, but let's just say I am really happy she is getting married at 26 because if she had waited another few years, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had the stamina to host the bachelorette party and make it through the weekend!

There were a grand total of 17 girls, and between making sure everyone got to where we needed to be over the course of 48 hours (across the border, to the hotel, to all the restaurants and bars, etc.), doing head counts over and over (um, cruise director anyone?), making sure the bride to be didn't get into too much trouble, and of course partaking in the merriment and late nights to celebrate the end of her singlehood, I think it took me about 4 days to recover and return to my usual energy level. Well worth it, however, well worth it... A few snapshots of the weekend:

L & I getting ready to head out on the town Friday night. Yes, we look just a little bit alike.

Drinks out on Friday night... most of the bridesmaids pictured here.

L with her ribbon bouquet after the lingerie shower. Let's just say she is now more than equipped for the honeymoon!

All of the bride's and groom's sisters and sisters-in-law before heading out on Saturday night.

All in all, I think it was a success, and I'm feeling good that I can check off this maid of honor duty. Next up, showers and general encouragement through the final stretch. Can't wait 'til August!

Whirlwind!

Hi friends-- Sorry for my absence of late. It has been an absolutely crazy spring! We just wrapped up seven nearly consecutive weeks of visitors. Combine that with bi-weekly business travel and trying to squeeze in those um, super fun triathlon workouts, and the result is not a whole lot of free time for blog posting or, you know... cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, eating, sleeping, or generally taking care of business. This Thursday I am heading west to meet my sis in Seattle and then drive up to Vancouver for her bachelorette party. But, upon my return, I promise to get back to more regular posting. Get excited for recaps on:

• A visit from my best girlfriends from college
• Visits from both sets of our parents
• Bluebonnets galore: spring in Austin!
• Final stretch of the triathlon training
• The bachelorette party (duh)
• And, travel plans for our upcoming trip to South Africa in June!

Lots of exciting stuff to share... stick with me as I wrap up one more crazy week!