Flying Lion

Monday, June 24, 2013

Wedding Week

Here we are in the car on our way down to Lexington for our wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lola, the wedding-mobile

One of my favorite exits, Lexington, VA

Our wedding week happened to overlap with W&L's graduation

Graduation set up on the Colonnade

Essential wedding project: Welcome Bags. Must have Dogfish Head for all wedding tasks.

This is Roux, our friend's dog. He was visiting Lexington from NYC for the wedding.

Such a cute pup

My wonderful bridesmaid, Laurel, with our cart full of essentials from Sam's Club. Laurel was such an amazing helper. She's in Sierra Leone right now with the Peace Corps! You can check her blog out at: http://laurelinsalone.blogspot.com/

Rehearsal Day!

When we headed down to Lexington on Tuesday, the week of our wedding, things weren't looking so great. It was cold, rainy, foggy, just generally gross weather. Things started to clear up on Friday just in time for the festivities the next day.

Tent and site set up in progress

Fuzzy action shot

Chatting with my groom before our rehearsal :)

My parents 4Runner full of wedding flowers!

We did all of the wedding flowers ourselves on Friday before the rehearsal and finished up that evening. There were four or five of us making arrangements, boutonnieres, etc, and two others running errands and working on set up and other small details. I would definitely DIY the flowers again. However, I'd say that if you are easily stressed, don't have many helpers, or have elaborate designs in mind you may want to go with a florist.

I ordered spray roses, hydrangea, baby's breath, and stock from Sam's Club and we supplemented the flowers with greens from my mother's wonderful friend, JoEllen. I think we had just the right amount. We made:

9 bouquets (1 bridal, 7 bridesmaids, 1 toss bouquet)

14 boutonnieres (baby's breath)

4 large arrangements in galvanized pails

18 centerpieces

5 arrangements for buffet and bars

20 assorted arrangements (extras)

Decorations for cake

More flower pictures to come!

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Broad Street Run

A few weeks ago (who am I kidding, it's been a month, but a busy month!) I participated in the Philadelphia Blue Cross Broad Street Run, a 10 mile street race with around 40,000 registered runners. It was a blast! The race begins near Olney in North Philly and follows Broad Street straight through the city, past the stadiums, until you hit the Navy Yard. Before race day I've never run 10 miles, 8 miles was my max (which I did two or three days before the race - probably not the greatest idea). I knew I could do it, but I had no idea how long it would take me or what I would feel like at the end.

My nutritious pre-race breakfast... I don't get anything done with coffee and bacon.

Post-race with my then fiance, now husband! Yep, it takes me that long to post!

In the end I felt great. I finished the race in one hour and 23 minutes exactly which comes out to an 8:18 pace. I am so pleased with my time, I put myself in the 9-10 minute per mile heat which ended up being too slow. The race was such a great experience. Since we will be leaving Philadelphia soon-ish, it felt like a great way to begin the countdown, a tour of our city before we say goodbye. I saw mummers, ate my first peanut chew, I almost even high fived Mayor Nutter (he was standing on a median near City Hall high fiving runners, I didn't realize it was him until it was too late :( too bad!).

After the race I spent some time napping with Julius to recover. Here he is on his absolute favorite bed, a grocery box from Fresh Direct. I think he just likes it because it says "seafood" on the side.

Trying to read

I wanted to take a day or so off from running after Broad Street so I decided to use my lunch breaks to take walks. This is a pretty little pond near my office stocked with fish and turtles. It's so nice to have quiet green places like this in the city. Sometimes I just need to see plants!