Shamrock Half Marathon

On Sunday I ran the Shamrock Half Marathon. This was my sixth half marathon and my third time running the Shamrock.

In 2008 Sean and I ran this race together and he proposed at the finish, so it's our special race even if he won't run it with me again. He supports me by being my biggest fan and race photographer!

The race started at 7 am in Virginia Beach, so we got up about 3:45 and started our day closer to when most of the world was going to bed as opposed to getting up.

We got down to the race area a little after 6. We had time to use the bathroom, get my race gear on and walk to the start.

My St. Patty's Day outfit!

Once we got to the start I only had about 5-10 minutes until the start. I gave Sean a kiss and he went to find a good spot to take photos while I got into my corral and found my friend Emily to chat with before the race.

Once the race started the adrenaline kicked in and I started out too fast, but what's new. I have been sick with an awful cough and didn't want to push it, plus I hadn't trained well. Today's goal was to have fun and run the entire race. Not a goal I usually have with myself, but I really wanted to take care of myself, especially since I have my first triathlon on Saturday, The Smithfield Triathlon.

It was still pretty dark out, so it's a bit blurry with the setting Sean had, but I'm still smiling at 1/4 mile!

The race ended up being much warmer than previous years, probably by 20 degrees. I was over dressed and really should have worn a tank top and shorts. I found myself drinking two waters at every water stop and dumping a third water on my head to cool myself down. It worked to make me feel refreshed.

My friend Caroline is a college friend that I haven't seen in 7 years. We've re-connected through technology and our common interest in running races and triathlons. She came down from Northern Virginia to race, so we made sure to catch up. It was so much fun!

Go Caroline!

JoJo got a new PR, must have been the Green hair that made her extra speedy!

I didn't finish fast, but I finished strong with negative splits for the second half, so I was happy and all smiles.

After the race I got into dry clothes. I was so excited to get a finisher's t-shirt, a hat and a medal. I'm all about the recognition.

Once I was dry it was time to go and watch the marathoners.

Go Jami!

Go Suzi!

Taking a break in the beer tent!

Caroline and I show off our finisher's medals!

Jami pushing it until the end at the marathon.

Go Suzy, finish strong!

Everyone had great races and are such strong athletes. I had such a fun time racing and supporting my friends. It's just the beginning of the season, I can't wait for many more races to come. 2010 is going to be an awesome year!

Irish Soda Bread

As my first St. Patrick's Day as a Murphy I wanted to be extra Irish and take a stab at making Irish Soda Bread.

I had two different recipes in my wedding cookbook (a cookbook family and friends compiled for Sean and I of their favorite recipes).

I wasn't sure which recipe to choose, so I decided to make one loaf of each.

I only remembered to take photos of one loaf, but they looked the same so you get the idea.

Watching it cook!

Fresh out of the oven!

We waited to do the taste test on St. Patrick's Day and the verdict was unanimous. Sean's father's law partner's Grandmother's recipe was the winner! Although in all fairness it did have more sugar than the other recipe, and sugar always helps, so I'm not sure if this was the reason for it winning.

I'd post the recipes but I don't feel like typing so you'll just have to ask me and maybe I'll share!

Maria visits

Maria came to visit this last weekend and we had a lot of fun. She arrived Saturday afternoon and the first thing we did was make Sangria! Every time Maria visits we make Sangria, because, let's face it, she's "Sangria Maria!"

You can't really tell from this photo, but we got this pitcher as a wedding gift. It's supposed to have our names and est. 2009. It's really cute. We have matching glasses and everything. The only problem is the manufacturer sent us one that says "Polly and Nick Antol." We have since received the correct pitcher, actually just this Monday, 4 months later, but it's still fun to pull out the Antol pitcher.

Maria stirs up the Sangria after we cut the fruit and let it soak. It looked so delicious. Unfortunately I gave up alcohol for lent so I had to make "virgin" versions which just weren't the same but were still pretty tasty.

Some of the delicious finished product

Fresh fruit is delicious

Maria becomes Mona once these glasses are put on. Playing the empty wine bottle.

After the Sangria was finished we made a few different appetizers for the evening, and than just relaxed and did what we always do, talk and caught up.  Maria is one of those people you can talk to forever, at least that's how it always is with me.  We have our Thursday phone date night and talk while I'm driving home from work, and we never have a lack of stuff to talk about.

I had invited a bunch of my friends over to hang out and enjoy our Sangria, so around 8 pm, the house started to fill up and we had such a fun time visiting.  We put the Wii on for a little bit, and although there weren't many brave soles willing to try the game I borrowed from my co-worker, Let's Dance, the few of us that did dance entertained the entire crowd.

We visited until close to midnight, and than because we're all old farts we called it a night.

Sunday morning Maria and I slept in while Sean got up early to play golf.  It was really nice out, mid 60's, so once we got up and showered we decided to go to Colonial Williamsburg and walk around.  

We first visited The Peanut Shop, because let's face it, they have free samples, and one can never eat too much chocolate covered peanut brittle, unless of course you are my sister and deathly allergic.  

After The Peanut Shop we stopped in Aromas for Maria to get her coffee, and I decided on a hot chocolate.  Than we started walking.  We didn't realize that we would be visiting the "Williamsburg Petting Zoo."  Okay it wasn't really a zoo, but there were a ton of animals out, much more than I normally see.  

This Ox was super cute 

Across the road were the mom and babies

The pretty horse, that was "neighing" at this lady because her perfume smelled bad 

(at least that's what the lady thought)

What's Williamsburg without some Colonial sheep

We found this cool tree that we took turns hiding behind

Okay I guess I'm not really hiding but we had fun on our little adventure.

We walked around for over 2 hours and than decided to head back to the house and watch trashing TV.  It's relaxing and we could talk some more without really having to watch the TV.

Sean finally got home, he had taken a trip up to Richmond after his golf game to get his new tri toy.....a new Triathlon bike.

We decided to go out for dinner, and went to one of our favorite restaurants, Bonefish.  Maria had never been, and we introduced her to Bang, Bang, Shrimp...which is the best, especially since I had a coupon for a free appetizer!

After dinner, we came home relaxed and but on our Mona glasses for a fun photo together.

Cheese!

And can't forget to take a photo for the "pick-up" album

And just so Sean didn't feel left out I took a photo of him with his new toy...

Someone's a little extra happy!

Monday morning Maria left me for an "exciting" conference in D.C.  I'll miss her, but hope she visits us when we're up in Cape May this summer and we can't wait to visit her at her new place.

Until next time, thanks for visiting Maria, and I'll see you soon!

Maria comes Today!!

I've been busy and haven't posted in a while, but I'm excited that Maria is coming to visit today. Maria is a college friend and was also in my wedding last May.

I haven't seen her since October. She lives up in Northern New Jersey, so every time Sean and I visit his parents we make a trip into NYC and meet up with Maria.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started a day early with a 4 am wake-up on Valentine's Eve. Sean and I were running the Virginia is for Lovers 14K in Virginia Beach. I ran the race last year with Jami and this year we got Sean, JoJo and our friend Laura to join us.

The race started at 8 but we had to get to Virginia Beach and also to packet pick-up so we left around 5 am. Luckily Jami volunteered to drive and we had a carload that made the race extra fun!

It was a cold morning in the high 20's/low 30's and they were calling for light snow.

We got to the race with plenty of time to get our race packet, break in the port-a-potties (we all got to unwrap the toilet paper, which may not seem exciting to most, but it was so nice to have a clean place to pee!)

Jami gets ready putting her timing chip on her shoe

Putting Valentine's Day stickers on!

Sean's not excited to run in the cold

Okay, now he's excited!

The race started about 15 minutes late due to traffic. I always love hearing the national anthem before the start of a race. We also had a moment of silence for the Olympic athlete that had died on Friday, this was a nice touch and made us remember that we are all athletes.

My race was awful. Right from the beginning I didn't feel great. I had a side cramp and it didn't seem to go away. I didn't push it and the race went by fast, even though I wasn't running fast. With about 3 miles left in the race I thought maybe I could pick the pace up a bit, but than I got a pain in my shin and found myself walking through water stops and just begging for the finish line to come.

I crossed the finish line over 10 minutes slower than last year, but I finished and I was still proud of myself. Sean wasn't far behind me. He did great!

JoJo and Sean all smiles since the race is done

Yay we're done!

JoJo smiles with JoJo. She was the Shamrock face last year and is still on a bunch of their marketing pieces. So cool!

I love that there are Valentine balloons behind us!

We stuck around for the awards and prizes. Sean pretended to be Jami's husband and they each won a prize.

We all desperately wanted hot chocolate so we stopped at the first 7-11 we came across. Of course the machine was broken. They had at least 3 people trying to fix it, but after about 10 minutes of waiting we all wanted to get on the road, so we left with no hot chocolate.

We got home around 1:30 and our new furniture had arrived, (blog is below). After the furniture guys left I took an hour and a half nap and than got ready for my Valentine's evening with the girls.

We went to Kyoto. They cook in front of you and although it took FOREVER for them to get to us it was worth the wait.

The food was delicious, and I had enough leftovers for both Sean and I. After dinner we went and saw Valentine's Day. Such a great movie! It kind of reminded me of Love Actually with all of the sub plots. The movie got out at around 12:30, which was WAY past my bedtime, especially when I had woken up at 4 am. I was so excited to get to my bed, that I think I fell asleep immediately.

Valentine's Day was wonderful. I slept in until about 9, and than spent the majority of the day on our new couch! It was great. I caught up on my blogs, visited with Sean, and watched tidbits of the Olympic coverage.

I thought about cleaning, but that didn't happen. We thought about going out to dinner, but than decided take-out Red Lobster was a better option.

Sean's yummy dinner

My yummy dinner

We even have enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow, which I'm excited about.

After dinner we watched Sharkwater. We had seen part of this movie on the last day of our honeymoon while visiting an aquarium. We didn't realize it was a full length movie when we first sat down to watch it while in Ireland. It was really good, but we didn't want to spend an hour and a half on our last day watching a movie.

I bought the movie for us for Christmas, and we decided tonight would be a good night to watch it. It was really good, and gives a completely different perspective of how the media portrays sharks.

So I spent the entire Valentine's Day in my PJ's, it was amazing. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our new couch!

We have been waiting what seems like forever for our new couch. Back in September Sean and I took a road trip to High Point, NC to go Furniture Shopping. We went to Furnitureland South and found something we both love!

Now fast forward 5 months later and we are finally getting our couch. We had a false alarm a few weeks ago when we had a scheduled delivery and were not home to accept delivery. In all fairness we assumed delivery would be postponed do to the snowy weather.

We had delivery re-scheduled for this weekend and we were so excited. We started clearing out the area and moving the old couches out of the way.

Love seat on the side moved to the front of the house

It looks so empty in here now

We had our VIFL 14K race Saturday morning, will blog about that separately, and didn't worry about being home for delivery since delivery was between 2-6 pm. I made sure the furniture company had my cell phone number this time, since I always have my phone with me. Well always except this day.

When leaving the house before the race I slipped on the icy front steps (we never go out the front door, but since our friends that picked us up came through the front, we left through the front) and my cell phone fell out of my pocket into a snow pile. I didn't realize this until we were on the road and I noticed I didn't have my phone. I assumed I had left it on the counter though.

After the race we got home around 1:30, and what do we see when we get home, but the delivery truck next to our house...agh! I ran out of the car and was thinking they were going to be upset. I pulled out my defensiveness right away. "You're early!" They said they were ahead of schedule. They asked if I lost my phone. I again thought because I didn't answer when they called they were being smart with me. I told them I left it at home because I wasn't expecting them until 2. The guy than hands me my phone and asks if it was mine. He found it in a pile of snow by my front steps. Oops they were being nice, and were super friendly.

We took them inside and showed them where everything was going.

The first piece

This would be funny if it was the only piece we got (our old couch is in the back)

More pieces brought in!

I'm excited. I love how the color looks with our green walls.

The final product (prior to taking the plastic off the recliner)

The delivery guys were really fast putting everything together and even helped load one of the old couches into Sean's truck (the heavy pull out bed one). We are giving our friends Jami and Ryan the old couches since they have space in their house. We brought it to Jami's after the guys left and will bring the other couch sometime soon.

Sean and I have been loving the new couch and we each have our assigned spots. I have my chaise lounge, which I love, and Sean has his recliner with a table right next to it for the remote and some snacks.

We're ready to have some friends over soon to break in the new couch! I guess you're officially a grown-up when you get excited about furniture.

Another snowy weekend

The snow we received at the end of January was a pleasant surprise, but when they called for snow the following weekend we started to wonder why it only snowed on the weekends. Unlike our friend's in the school district, when it snows on the weekends we still have to work on Monday. I think the schools have been open a total of 2 days for the month of February. Crazy!

The sleeting rain started Friday evening and we decided to go bowling! This is something we haven't done in a long time.

Audrey gets a strike!

Sean is kicking butt!

Jonathon sports his bowling shoes that were given to him as a gift

Jami goes for the strike! Can't remember if she got it.

Overall it was a really fun evening. I broke 100 the first game but not the second. We found a coupon for 99 cent games too so it was a really affordable evening!

Saturday morning I went for a nice 10.6 mile run with Suzy. It was great to get a long run in before the VIFL 14K.

In the afternoon Sean and I did a few errands and I loved how pretty the trees looked as we drove around.

Our house looks nice with the snow covering the ground and definitely looks much nicer than the brown ground.

The snowy weather always makes me hungry so I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to make some snickerdoodles! Sean had been talking about these cookies for awhile, and I am always in the mood to make cookies. The only problem is I have zero self control. Because of this we decided to invite Sonny and Suzy over so they could share our cookies and so I didn't eat 3 dozen cookies alone.

It was a fun low key evening chatting with friends.

Sunday was the superbowl and although I could have cared less who won. We went to a friend of a friend's house and ended up winning $10 because of the score in the second quarter!