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A runner with an appetite for adventure!

30 Day Challenge–My Relationship May 9, 2011

Filed under: 30 Day Challenge,Family,Happy,Love — Kelocity @ 4:00 am
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I saw a great list of blogging prompts recently (On Katy Widrick’s blog) and I thought it would be a great way to blast through some writers block. I don’t plan to do this in 30 consecutive days, but I will do them in order.

Here’s the breakdown of what’s to come:
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On July 11, 2009, I married my husband, Irving. Our wedding was in New Hampshire and we just loved every minute. I replay the whole day in my head sometimes when I’m trying to fall asleep. It really was the best day week of my life.
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But our relationship wasn’t your typical ‘girl meets boy, falls in love, gets engaged and gets married’ story. Our courtship was eight years long, and three of those years were long distance. Here’s our story.

September 2001
We met during my first week at Emerson College. Our first encounter was at a party before classes even started. We didn’t really talk until a week after that, but my family rolled their eyes when I told them I’d already met a guy within the first week of school. Our first real ‘date’ was to dinner at Remington’s, a cute casual restaurant next to our dorm.
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Summer 2002
Irving is from San Francisco, but he got a job in Boston for the summer so we could be closer. I was working long hours at a production company, but we saw each other as much as we could, stealing dinners here and there. It was an important summer for us both to grow. We supported each other and lived independently, it was as close as we ever got to actual ‘dating’.
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Fall 2002
Irving moved to Los Angeles for his last semester at Emerson, while I continued in Boston. We talked on the phone a lot and he would tell me about all the fun things he was doing in LA. This set the foundation for the upcoming three years we’d be in different time zones. But since I was four years younger, we both needed the time to grow independently and make sure we were both following our dreams.

Spring 2003
I moved to Europe for a semester, and Irving moved to New York.  A 6-hour time difference was hard (and there were 75 kids in my program and only two phone lines)! But we sent lots of letters and emails. Irving also surprised me in Paris on Valentine’s Day!
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Fall 2003 – Summer 2004
Irving continued to work in New York, and I focused on school in Boston. We’d see each other once a month or so with little weekend trips.
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Fall 2004
I moved to Los Angeles and Irving stayed in New York. We only saw each other twice in those four months (once in San Francisco and once in LA). Irving told me that if I loved LA as much as he did, he’d quit his job and move out west so we could finally live together.
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January 2005
We pack up a minivan and drive cross country together to our new life in LA. We moved into a small 1 room apartment in Hollywood and lived it up. We may not have had jobs for three months or even a bed for a while, but we were together and ready to conquer the world.
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Spring 2006 – 2008
We bought a condo together, our careers were going well and we got used to life as a couple.

January 2008
We FINALLY get engaged! After being together for 7 years, Irving popped the question in Temecula, CA.

July 2009
We got married!

And the rest was history! We loved that we had a few years apart because it laid a strong foundation of communication and respect that we are grateful to have now. It’s been almost ten years since we met, and I’m so excited to see what other fun adventures are in store for us. Only time will tell!
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NTOTHAK May 8, 2011

Filed under: Family — Kelocity @ 4:00 am
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Growing up, my mother signed all of our lunchbox notes and birthday cards like this:
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Seven simple letters that meant (and still means) so much to me and my sisters.
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It stands for:
Never To Old To Hug And Kiss

In context, it would look like this:

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I’m not 100% sure what it means, but something to the effect of no matter how old you get, you’re never too old for a hug and a kiss from your parents.

I tried to google it, and just as I thought, it looks like my mom made that phrase up. She does that a lot. My sisters and I crack up at night sometimes thinking of all the funny things she used to tell us. We believed everything she said when we were little. Her creativity and sense of humor is one of the things I love most about my mom.

I’d like to think that a lot of my quirkiness comes from her. She always finds the bright side of everything. People say that we look alike too. Picasa Photos actually thinks we’re the same person when it does photo recognition. This makes me happy every time it happens.
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Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
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And Happy Mother’s Day to my second mom, Julie! And our grandmothers. We love and miss you all!

 

I Golfed 18 Holes! May 2, 2011

Filed under: Family,Workout — Kelocity @ 7:00 pm
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First of all, is ‘golfed’ a word? Doesn’t that sound funny?

Sunday, Irving and I drove two hours to Temecula to golf with Jake and Janie. It was another perfect day in Southern California. If they keep giving us days like these, we are never going to leave! I rarely golf, and have never actually finished 18 holes before. But this weekend I did and it was awesome!
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But let’s back up. Before I played, Irving played 18 holes on his own first!
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While he golfed…
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I got to drive the golfcart and read my favorite magazine!
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Eeek! The only bad thing about livin’ in the southwest:
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He had a great round (that included a lunch stop at the 9th stop). Mmm!
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Then it was my turn to play too! I came prepared.
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We had a fivesome: Irving, me, Jake, Janie and Janie’s Dad!
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I played all 18 holes without complaining. And I actually really enjoyed it. I hit a lot of great shots (and every shot except for 1 went straight where I wanted it to go. YAY!) But by the 18th hole, I was happy to be done. I think golf courses should be 14 holes. That would be perfect.

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And every time I see a golf course, I can’t help but wonder how nice it would be to spread out a blanket, have a picnic and read a book all afternoon on the greens. This grass is just BEGGING to be laid on! But I resisted.
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It was a lovely day with family, the perfect Sunday.
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Easter at the Beaches April 26, 2011

Filed under: California,Family,Travel — Kelocity @ 6:41 am
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We woke up Easter morning and discovered the EASTER BUNNY CAME!!!!!!
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Maybe he was impressed by our mad baking skills? Either way, he left lots of goodies for us! We were SUPER excited! PEEPS!
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The four of us had reservations for brunch at the Madonna Inn.
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It’s famous, but not for the reasons you’d expect in a renowned restaurant/inn. You’ll just have to trust me. The entrance to the restaurant looked like this:
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And our table for brunch looked like this… actually the whole restaurant looked like this… Pink Pink Pink.
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But the food was pretty good.
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Drinking Pineapple Juice from a goblet is just plain fun if you ask me!
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After breakfast, we drove up to Cambria and did a little antique store window shopping.
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It reminded me of New England, everything was so cute!
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We found s store that had all homemade rocking chairs. We spent a fair amount of time testing them out.
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When I was little, my parents used to take us to flea markets and antique stores ALLLLL the time. I kept getting deajavous.
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Wait, That’s not an antique!
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And neither is THAT! That’s the year I met Irving and graduated high school! Whaaa? Now I feel old. haha
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The highlight of the day was finding a box of old postcards from the early 1900s. Janie and I spent almost an hour reading through them. Did you know the price of a postcard was only 1 cent from 1900 til 1945? Some of the cards were really funny and interesting. I’d love to buy a whole box of these and track down the relatives of the people and see who they are. That would make for a great documentary, don’t you think? Some of them didn’t even have addresses, they just said “Mary Smith, Philadelphia” and I guess the postman just knew where they were! My, how times have changed!
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We drove back down the coast to Morro Bay.
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Check out this pimped out golfcart!
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We had a snack (croutons and cheese from Pea Soup Andersens!)
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Morro Bay is famous for this huge rock in the bay.
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Also on the drive, we saw one of the California Missions in San Luis Obisbo. There are 21 total in the state. It was right near Cal Poly University. I love college towns. Everyone was outside drinking coffee and reading.

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When we made it back to Avila, we had dinner at Fat Cat Diner. This was our view while we dined!
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I drove back to LA solo on Sunday night, and Irving stayed an extra day to play some golf. Yesterday, he took the train home and I picked him up at the station.

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What a great weekend. It felt like week long vacation, so relaxing and fun. Thanks Jake and Janie! See you soon!

 

An Easter Getaway April 25, 2011

Filed under: California,Family,Travel — Kelocity @ 8:53 pm
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This weekend, Irving and I headed up to the California Central Coast for a little Easter Getaway. We stayed in Avila Beach, which is about three hours north of Los Angeles. Along the way, we stopped at Pea Soup Andersen’s! I’ve been wanting to stop there for ages!!
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It’s a California Road Trip destination and they’re known for…. Pea Soup!
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It was far too early in the morning to enjoy any soup, but we had fun looking around the gift shop and buying some canned soup for later. I’m sure it’s not quite as good, but we couldn’t resist. This is what we’ll look like when we cook the soup! BAHAHA!
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We “conveniently” saw the LuggageBase.com store along the route (turns out Irving mapped it ahead of time and was planning on stopping all along!) This is the website where we buy all of our luggage and travel gear from. Great prices, fast shipping and good people. It’s always nice to put a face to an online retailer. It’s just a family owned company who started a business that just happens to be on the web. We forget sometimes that online companies can be mom and pop shops sometimes. It was really nice to visit. We bought a few things while we were in there too.
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When we finally pulled in to Avila Beach, we went for a walk to explore.
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The beach was really pretty and not too crowded. I never put my toes in the water, but it looked really nice.
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The boardwalk area was really beautiful. It’s all relatively new, and commercially untouched. So refreshing coming from LA.
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There are three main piers and we walked to the end of each of them. We didn’t have much of an agenda on Saturday, so it was nice to just walk, chat and relax.

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From the end, we got a good glimpse of our hotel for the night too. So pretty up on the cliffs.
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Wait for it…. Ready….

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It just felt right….
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Under the pier is a second level, and you could see starfish clinging to the posts! So weird!
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My date for the weekend life!
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Our walk continued along the bay.

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We saw a sign for “BJ’s Restaurant” and I’m like “YAY! PAZOOKI!” But alas, that was not the case. at all.
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But we did find Sea Lions hanging out under that pier! You could get really close to them too!
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Later that night, we met up with Jake and Janie (Irving’s aunt and uncle, whom we haven’t seen in a year!!) It was so nice spending some time with them again! While we caught up and chatted, we baked some Easter Treats in the hotel.
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PS. How scary does the dough boy look?!
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Before…
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After!
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We enjoyed the cookies while looking at the ocean from our room.
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After our snack, we headed out for some more coastal exploring. First stop was Pismo Beach.
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There was a pretty wedding going on too! We stopped to listen to the vows. Creepers!
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Look! A mom, dad and baby goose! See the baby in the middle?
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We followed them for a while, it was adorable!
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After sight seeing a little more, we pulled into the Oak Pit BBQ for dinner. We read rave reviews on yelp and were very excited to try it! The owner took our picture for us too! Thanks Sammy!

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Lots of wildlife sightings this weekend!
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Stay tuned for Day 2 later! It’s a picture heavy weekend, so I’m splitting it up.

What’s the strangest wild animal you ever saw on vacation? We saw Bears on the side of the road in Russia!