winter wonderland!!

I woke up to a lot of snow! Alona met me to run and it was so awesome! It was like large flakes coming down and it wasn't too cold. I am starting to realize that snow is actually a good thing because it tends to be a little warmer when it is snowing. When we got back she said she had something for me. She got me a mini Christmas tree!...well soon to be Christmas tree ( I have to water and it and give it some love : ).

Fleet Feet team meeting

Had our work Christmas lunch at Miller's Pub today. That was fun.
Ran with Beth E. and Beth L in the evening then worked out some logistics with Mark for this weekend (Club XC Nationals). Mark had gotten a few shirts in from Nike for us which is always exciting-- except for the fact that I realized my closet is 80% running clothes that say Fleet Feet Nike Racing on them : )

Church and time to relax

Today we woke up at 6:40 and Kelly, Lauren, Annika, and I left. This was the easiest way to get me to the city because they were driving North to Gilberts Illinois for a race and it was only a couple minutes out of the way to drop me off at the farthest west blue line stop- Forest Park. They dropped me off and I had about an hour train ride to the loop. Not bad. I am like 2/3 through the book "Devil in the White City" from all this train time. But I would not recommend this book to anyone. It's getting more and more disturbing- the main character keeps killing women in order to sell their bodies to med schools. but the history of the world's fair and learning about the inventions of the time / architects is interesting.
I got back around 8:30 and had some breakfast and made alittle exam pack for Pam because she has finals. then I went to Church and then Church Potluck, then dropped off Pam's exam gift, and then relaxed the rest of the day. Oh I watched "Twighlight" since it is based in Forks Washington.

fun with Alona and Orland Park with Calvin Girls

Talk about a busy day! I had stayed up too late the night before but got up early today to run with Alona. I took the train and arrived in Oak Park at 8AM. We then drove a few minutes to the trail head. It was sooo fun! It kind of reminded me of Sunriver and we saw a lot of deer. At one point about 6 ran right in front of us. The trail actually goes al the way to the airport. You can kind of get a feeling of what it looked like from the picture. We went back to Alona’s afterwards and changed and went to this really trendy vegetarian brunch place. The walls were covered with individuals art that they were trying to sell but it made for a cool look because none of the pictures were similar and the walls were filled with pictures. All the chairs were painted differently. Anyway- we had a great time. We both agreed that this was the most ideal way to spend a Saturday morning- Long run in nature and then going out to brunch with a good friend. (oh and I don't have black eyes in the picture above- I wore mascara the for the party the night before and forgot to take it off : )

It took me a long time to get home because they were doing construction on the el so I had to take a shuttle bus into the loop and then take a bus. I got back at 2 and went to do some errands and got back around 4pm. Then I thought I should look at the train times because I was going to Orland Park for the evening because Kelly and Lauren were in town. I looked online and was shocked to see that the last inbound train from Orland Park was at 3:40PM…no biggy- I can spend the night and leave Sunday—no trains running on Sunday! I was a bit panicked so I called Annika and said what the deal was and she said just to hussle and make it on the 5PM train (only other outbound train was at 11pm) and then they will figure out how to get me back. So I grabbed my toothbrush and PJ’s, phone and charger and ran to the bus. I actually got there with 15 minutes to spare.

I arrived in Orland Park at 6:00 and was so excited to see Kelly and Lauren! I missed them. We hung out and Laura Jackson’s and Emily Arkus’ house for awhile and then went to Rock Bottom for dinner at 8pm. At dinner we celebrated Kristen Van Sickel’s birthday (which is tomorrow). (Oh funny thing about Van Sickel and I- we both did the Seafair Tri in 2005- and didn’t know each other). After dinner we went back and we all chipped in to buy supplies to make Grasshoppers—perhaps the most delicious alcoholic beverage (well dessert because it’s pretty much a mint milkshake : ). We made some toasts to Lauren and Kristen who got engaged and also to Annika who is leaving for Zambia on Monday.

Annika and I went over to Kristin Haugsma’ to sleep around 1pm. I hadn’t seen Kristin’s apartment before. I liked it a lot. We went right to bed though because Kelly and Lauren were going to pick us up at 7am because they are driving to Gilbert, il to do the Cross Country Extreme race….

Engagement Party for Val

Afterwork I got dressed up and went over to Mel’s where Haugs, Annika, Val, Anne F, Arkus and Kristin V were. We were going out to celebrate Val’s engagement. We went to a several bars and to a restaurant. Val had a great time accomplishing a list of tasks that Annika had put together for her.

(I was taking the picture)

windy city

I went to Fleet Feet to try on different cross country spikes for cross country nationals which is only like a week away!! Kentucky here we come!! I then met Heather for the windiest run of my LIFE!! We could barely move forward. When we turned around it was pushing us so hard from the back that it was almost just as hard because we had to move our legs so fast so we wouldn’t fall down! It was quite the experience. Then I tried to work out some details because a bunch of Calvin friends are coming to Chicago for the weekend.

run with Alona and coffee with Mel

Yesterday I went for a run with Alona in the morning. We did 5, 3, 1, 3, 5 minutes hard with 1.5 minutes easy in between. It was hilarious to try to have a conversation in between reps. We had to talk really fast : ) but we could talk on the warm-up and cool down. After work I met Mel at Starbucks and then we walked down to the Zoo to go to the zoo lights. Unfortunately, the zoo was closed. So we just walked around with our lattes and talked. It was nice. On my way back I talked to Jeff. I am giving him a really hard time because I bought three books on Ipod and loved it and when he was at my apartment I told him to download them to his Ipod and now he is obsessed with listening to books. I am giving him a hard time about this because he made fun of me so much for listening to books and now he is hooked : )