Weekend in Pics

I promised pics and I am a woman of my word.  My sister and niece got in on Wednesday so we headed over right after work to say hello.  We took the girls to the park and they hit it off right away.  We haven't seen my niece since Maddie was 4 and Lori was 2 so it's been awhile.  Here they are walking home from the park.

From left - Lori, Maddie, and my niece Alex

Thursday, my sis and I planned a girls' day away from hubbies and children.  We had lunch and spent a few hours at the spa getting pampered.  We arranged a hotel room for the night, got showered, changed and hit the hotel happy hour which included free food.  I was pretty proud of myself here...just had some veggies with ranch (not alot of ranch) and couple of fried jalapeno poppers.  Then we had another happy hour (seeing a trend here?) at a little tequila bar that had AWESOME salsa and great drink specials.  We split 3 small appetizers here.  After that was a VIP happy hour at the piano bar we were going to with again, free food and great drink specials.  I abstained from food altogether at that place, except for the popsicles.  That's right...I said popsicles.  The thing to know about Tempe, AZ is that it's an eclectic kind of place and a new place just opened up and they sell...well...popsicles.  They were giving them away for free and then "recommend" a $2 shot to dip them in.  So of course, we had to give it a go.  We tried the pineapple popsicle dipped in Bacardi Coconut Rum (pina colada, anyone?) and the orange popsicle dipped in a Smirnoff whipped cream (think dreamsicle).  Very yummy!  We had a great time at the piano bar and stumbled back to the hotel around 12:30 and promptly fell asleep.  Friday was low key and I gave my sister a chance to recuperate before the Color Run.

Our night out

So that brings us to bright and early Saturday morning.  The Color Run out here actually sold out a week before the event.  We had 6,000 runners/walkers/dogs/strollers show up at this "little" event.  Here's the thing and I'll be interested in hearing how the experience is in other cities.  Unless you're one of those "I run a 6 minute mile" kind of people and get to be first at the starting line, it would be a difficult event to run.  I chose not to run this one and just walk it with our group but even if I had wanted to run it, it would be difficult to get into a groove.  The route would bottleneck every 1k at a new color marker so people could get doused in color (which was kind of the point).  I heard a few "I wear spandex every time I run and I actually look good in it" people complaining that they weren't really able to run it.  The event is pretty upfront about this not being a race though and they don't even time it so I think people need to lighten up a bit but I digress.  So I can check off my first 5k of the year and I feel really good about it.  The 3 miles were no sweat whatsoever and I wasn't sore or anything the next day.  Amazing what 70 lbs off your body can do for you.  Anyway, it was a TON of fun and I could see myself doing this every year.  They let kids sign up and I think next year (if I can afford to register them), I'll let my girls do it with us.  Now for the fun part - PICTURES!

Me and Hubby before

Me and Hubby After - He did great on this walk!

Sis and Me Before (side note: Those workout pants I'm wearing - Size MEDIUM!!!!)

Me and Sis After

Everyone all clean at the beginning

They did a color throw every 15 minutes at the finish line - looks like a color explosion!

Sis, Me and Hubby

The guys

Our Team

Best part of finishing a 5k

This one I just thought was cute

So there you have it.  Sunday, we took my niece to another park and then for ice cream.  Then we took our girls to play with some friends later that night.  Monday night, I babysat my niece while my parents and sister went to the casino and had a nice dinner.  I had to ask them to cut their evening short as the girls had school the next day and I had what I think may have been my first ever migraine.  Not good.  But anyway... it was so great seeing them and I hated to see them go yesterday. Sometimes it really sucks living so far away from them.

OK...so I know I'm way late with these but as I was downloading the Color Run pics on to my laptop last night, I realized that I never posted Christmas pics...So better late than never....

Our first Christmas with a fireplace and mantel.  It was neat

Christmas morning

I once wrote a blog post about my devastation of not being able to fit into these Tinkerbell jammies...check it out

So there you have it.  Great weekend through and through.  This week at work is a bit tough...not sleeping well, Hubby isn't sleeping well and my youngest has started sleepwalking.  Eek!  I know almost all kids sleepwalk at one time or another.  My oldest has done it a few times but Lori's just seems different.  After having night terrors and sleep walking, talking, etc. my whole life, I worry for her.  Anyhoo...it is Hump Day!  Thank goodness!  And I think I've rambled on enough in this post so hope y'all are having a great week!