Wild Wedding Weekend

Samantha and Joe got married this weekend in a lavish and beautiful wedding. Samantha and I have been friends since freshman year of high school, and I am so happy that I could be a part of her special day. The weekend started on Thursday night with a couples shower, then went into Friday night with the rehearsal and dinner, and finally, Saturday arrived.

The reception was awesome. Open bar, excellent food, and a totally awesome band. Seriously, I think I found the band I want for my wedding. They played all the songs that everyone knows and loves, they had this amazing energy, and the lead singer's name was "Shang" and he had a rat tail/jerry curl. I'm not exactly sure which one it was, but it was awesome.

And.... D agrees with me! He liked the band too! We made a joint decision! Now, we may not have a date, location, budget, or anything else, but we found a band we love. This band was so good that after several glasses of champagne, D even came out on the dance floor. That is practically unprecedented. I wish I had it on film. No one will ever believe me. He denies it ever happened :).

The night ended with several old friends congregating at Lizzard's pub for old times sake. Nell even pulled out high school pictures, and we all went back.... back in time, back to our beginnings :).

The low down

This post doesn't have any particular focus, it's more of a catch up of what I have been up to.

The only real downer about doing Team in Training is that my Friday nights have to be fairly tame. Enough sleep and no hangover makes for a better Saturday morning run. Last Friday night, D and I went to Mixers and Elixers at the Museum of Natural Science. I had a couple of cocktails, browsed the gem vault, checked out the geosphere, and we caught the Grand Canyon movie on IMAX. It was very fun, and we got home around 10ish. Well, D ended up going out with some friends, and while that didn't bother me.... I just wanted to go out too. :). It's somewhat of a foreign concept to me to not go out drinking with a group when there is a group drinking.

However, I thanked myself on Saturday morning when I went to Memorial Park. We are currently meeting at 7am, but it will change to 6am once we increase our running distances. The run itself was pretty rough, I wasn't feeling as good as I had the previous week, but I somehow managed to cut 4 minutes off my time. I consider that I small victory.

I spent much of the rest of Saturday alternately napping and watching Olympics. D and I went out Saturday night with a big group for El Tiempo, and then we went back to Erin and Stephen's to watch more Olympics and drink. I so, so, so love American swimmers. And not just Michael Phelps. He's great, but there are a few others that I have even greater affection for (Aaron Piersol, Ryan Lochte, Jason Lezak, MWAH).

Sunday was spent running errands and being lazy. We saw Tropic Thunder, which was an awful, awful movie. Controversy aside, I don't understand the critical acclaim the movie has received. In no way, shape, or form was it funny, and Jack Black's character makes you want to tear out part of the movie screen just so you don't have to watch his train wreck of a performance. Just my two cents.

Tonight is my first TNT track night, which helps us work on speed, breathing, and the other stuff besides just distance. I look forward to it, only because I have accepted that I suck, and I need all the help I can get :). But the good news is that I am out there doing it, I am sticking with the program, I have been doing every run according to the training schedule on my own, and I feel kind of proud of myself. This is such a huge endeavour for me, I've NEVER been a runner.

Tonight the friends also come in town!!!!!! Samantha is getting married this weekend, so she, Nell, Chacko, and I will all be reunited for the next few nights to participate in wedding related extravaganzas. I am very excited to see them all, spend time with them, and have a fabulously tipsy reunion.

I adore my friends!

I'm (almost) a runner!

So, this past Saturday marked my first official training with Team in Training. It was so cool to see how many people are supporting the cause and raising money! Now, over the past month or so, I have started doing interval training-- the walk/run approach to begin becoming a runner.

Mind you, calling what I am doing "running" is really overstating it. I'm jogging. I'm jogging incredibly slowly. I can power walk faster than I can job. But, all those things aside, I have made some progress, and while I still can't run a whole three miles without walking, I can run MORE than I walk, and I can run for longer intervals than I could when I started.

It was SO hot and humid during the run, but luckily a girl I went to college with has signed up with Team in Training also. She and I are about on the same level, so we jogged together, and I think having someone there helped me to push myself a little further. I am in the slowest running group (I run about a 14 minute mile right now), but the point is that I am out there doing it!!! I hope speed will happen a little later on as I get better with the endurance part of it, but regardless of whether I have to run, walk, or crawl, I am going to be crossing that finish line.

Besides, I have all those Olympic athletes on tv right now to encourage me. Have you seen their abs???? I'm training for 2012, baby!

It was a pretty good trip :)

Chicago was amazing, fantastic, best trip ever...... I celebrated my birthday... and made some plans for the future.

An August 4, 2008, my 26th birthday, the man I love got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of COURSE I said yes. It was a magical, romantic, and wonderful proposal, one that caught me totally off guard. Want the full story? Travel back in time with me, to one month ago......

Ok, so if you read my blog, you know that for D's 30th birthday, I surprised him with a trip to Chicago and tickets to three games at Wrigley. He loved the present, and I guess felt like he had to top me for my birthday. Anyway, apparently the idea of proposing had been spinning in his head for a while, so he just needed to figure out the right way to do it.

Enter the Cubs. They came in town for a three game series against the Astros in July. D sent me off to go get us some beers, and he proceeded to go down and catch the attention of the Cubs general manager. He explained that he wanted to propose, that we were going to be in Chicago, and the guy gave D his card and told him to give his office a call.

In the meantime, I remained oblivious while D picked out a ring and got us ready and set for the trip. The week before the trip, D told me that he had purchased us tickets for a tour of Wrigley field that happened to be on my birthday. I agreed, thought it could be cool, but was a little insulted that he was referring to it as my birthday gift. D also confessed to me that he had been so busy at work and so overwhelmed by trying to match my gift, that he hadn't gotten me anything, and he would buy me something I liked in Chicago. I was kind of hurt by this, I felt like he didn't care enough to do something, but I let it slide.

So, we travel to Chicago, and our first two days there are amazing. However, every time we pass by a store, D asked me if I saw anything I liked. He purchased me some small items like t-shirts and other souvenirs, and he kept asking me if he had "bought enough". I just gave up on the idea of a real birthday gift, and I threw myself into enjoying the trip.

On Monday, we woke up to yucky, rainy weather, which apparently caused D anxiety. The rain stopped in the afternoon though, just in time for our tour. We showed up for this tour of Wrigley, and I went to stand in the line that had formed while D went to pick up the tickets. He went to the will call window, but ended up having to go inside to the administrative offices. He came back out with a story about how they had a record of his tickets, but they didn't print them. I just believed what he said, even though it seemed weird. Turns out our whole tour was comped by the Cubs because of the special ending.....

Anyway, so the tour as quite interesting, but it was very hot and humid, since it had been raining all morning. D suggested bagging out on the tour a couple times to go across the street to an air conditioned bar. Turns out this was him just trying to lead me further astray. The tour ended down by the field, and at the end of the tour, people are supposed to be able to go down onto the field to take pictures. Only problem for our tour is that the players had already started warming up for the game that night, so they weren't letting people out there. This too caused D great anxiety, as it was about to ruin his plans.

I was in a totally oblivious state, taking pictures of the players, while D was getting the attention of someone on the field, and trying to explain without letting me know that we needed to get down there. They called the GM's office to make sure D was who he said he was, and eventually led us down on the field. We handed off the camera to a staff member, and we posed for a picture. I grabbed my bag to leave the field, when I turned and saw D drop to one knee and pull a box out of his pocket. He opened the box revealing the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. he then asked me to marry him.

I. was. a. mess. I was crying and laughing and shaking and squealing all at the same time. I think at some point I actually said "yes", but my actions gave away my answer. We hugged and kissed and celebrated right there, 10 feet away from the Cubs who were warming up. It was pretty cool.

We went and had a celebratory beer and called out families, and then returned for that night's game. The flashed a "Congratulations" and out names across the scoreboard, which was very cool. The game ended up getting rained out in the fifth inning due to incredibly severe rain, lightening, and tornadoes, but we just played in the rain and had an awesome time.

I'm still flying so high right now. I'm getting married!!!!!!!!!

Off to Chi-town!

I'm off to the Windy City for 5 fabulous days of vacation. Baseball, beer, food, museums, Second City, fancy hotel.... I can't wait. You won't hear from me until after I return, but hopefully I will have fun stories to share.

I'm in desperate need of vacation. Maybe my jaw will unclench. :)

I'll also be celebrating my 26th birthday on Monday. Happy birthday to me! If you want to get me a gift, make a donation to my run!!!!!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/txg/houston09/klilienstern

See y'all next week!