Weekend Roundup

I had an awesome weekend, hope yours was just as great, if not better! Ever since I've been back in New York and becoming more and more settled into our new place, I feel I can enjoy the weekends more. This weekend was full of some fun, some challenges, relaxation, and of course family. 

Friday

I got out of work a little earlier then usual because of my half marathon Saturday morning. On my commute home, I stopped at the farmers market by the ferry and  picked up a beautiful bouquet of lilacs. I loved that by purchasing these pretty flowers, I was supporting my local farmers market.

Friday night the manfriend and I went to dinner with our great friends James and Elisa, we went to a great Italian spot called, Pasticceria Bruno. I love this place and the manfriend and I frequent this restaurant. It's always hopping, the food is great as well as the service.  It was a really nice night out, I enjoyed a yummy salad and a glass of wine. We ran into my brother and sister-in-law as we were getting ready to leave, that's the great place about where I'm from, it's a city but it has that small town charm where you can run into family throughout your day. 

Pretty Lilacs from the Farmers Market

Saturday

I had to wake up rather early Saturday morning, 4:00am to be exact, to get ready to compete in the Brooklyn Half Marathon. I was nervous about this marathon, I had a certain time I wanted to hit, so I had a little added pressure but when I woke up Saturday morning, all that nervousness seemed to disappeared .

The manfriend drove a couple of my Team and Training teammates into Coney Island, where we hopped on the train to the start of the race in Prospect Park. Now instead of being nervous I was excited to get this race started. When you see all the other runners, there is nothig but good vibes and I live for good vibrations. I was nice and relaxed, I had a great playlist on my iPod to helo me through the next 13.1 miles.

When the race went off I got into a nice rhythm, hitting the mile markers with ease, I was feeling great. That is until the heat set in, it was very humid and the air was thick but I wasn't going to let this stop me from giving a maxium effort. This was my  first time runing  for Team in Training, and I have to say when it comes to cheer spots along the course they were phenominal! They gave me the confidence boost I needed to conquer this beast of a half marathon.

Finishing the Brooklyn Half Marathon with a smile on my face.

With a mile to go, my face lit up and I realized that it wasn't even 9:00am and I finished a 13.1 mile race, this actually made me feel like a badass. I did't hit the time I was going for but I was really proud of myself, I broke some mental barriers in this race and I'm learning that not every race is going to be a PR but you do walk away learning something new about yourself.

We planned on going to a local food festival called Uncorked, but due to the silly rain we've been having, we cancelled our plans. We did however stumble across something awesome, a church around the corner from us was having a yard sale, and what we walked away with for the amount of money we spent, felt like we were robbing these people. Kyle spotted a great end table that would look perfect in our living room for all of our coffee table books. We also found a brand new espresso machine (never used) hiding in the corner. Me being the coffee addict I am had to have it. Well when we asked the gentleman how much he was asking for the table a espresso machine, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He told us $5.00 each! This was quite the steal and I couldn't wait to get our new purchases back to the apartment.

We cleaned up the end table with some Murphy's Lemon Oil, which makes older wooden pieces look as good as new. We placed it next to Kyle's man chair, added some books and it really looks great. It's awesome when you find something like this for so cheap.

Loving our new end table.

Our Brand New $5.00 Espresso Machine!!

Saturday night we went to a local pub, Jody's and enjoyed some yummy food, beers and great conversation. I love nights like this and it makes me fall more and more in love with the manfriend when I see how much he enjoys these nights as well.

Sunday

This was the first morning in a very long time where I had no place to be. I didn't have a practice, race or work, so the plan was to sleep in. Well at 7:00am I was wide awake, my body won't allow me to sleep in, instead I put on a pot of coffee for the manfriend and me to enjoy and relaxed. I love the mornings, I love my apartment the most in the morning, it's so cozy. I love curling up working on a blog post, watching SportsCenter and planning out my day.

Since it was another dreary day, the manfriend and I took a trip to New Jersey to do a little shopping. We went to the Menlo Park Mall, it was great, we got some stuff for the apartment. I picked up some clothes at Urban Outfitters and also picked up a pair of Hunter Boots. Kyle added to his ever growing collection of white v-neck tee's.

My new Hunter Rain Boots.

While we were walking the manfriend pointed out that this is what he misses most about Greece. When I asked what he meant, he explained that whe we were in Greece we got to spend a lot more time doing things together and that he really missed that time we shared. My heart literally melted when I heard him explain, I obviously felt the same way but I am a lady so I thought it was just a common mushy girl feeling, it's good to know the feeling is mutual.



Sunday evening Kyle's brother and fiance stopped by are brought us a really cool house warming gift. They know we are wine lovers and gave us this awesome wine barrel accompanied with a bottle of merlot. The wine barrel is for us to save our wine corks, which we were already doig but we only had them in an old jar, this was way cooler. It was so nice of them to do that for us and I look forward to enjoying wine with them at the new place.

Our Cool Cork Collector from Ryan and Tara

I couldn't believe the weekend was over! They always go way to fast. I got a lot done this weekend and I am ready for what this work week has in store for me. I begin serious training for my Half Ironman this week, while this scares me a little, it also has me excited to tackle this huge goal on my bucket list.

How was your weekend?!?