The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Philip and I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving. I don't think we could be any luckier. The company I work for, Hess, has a float in the Macy's Day Parade, and so the company was given special Grandstand tickets for the Parade that are not even available to the public. One of the executives at Hess who I work with knew we were planning to go to our first Macy's Day Parade, so she gave us two tickets to the Grandstand seats!!! These were absolutely the BEST seats at the Parade. First of all, we didn't have to stand or sit on the curb and all of the performers stopped and performed for us! We were next to Matt & Merideth from the Today Show and sat where all the cameras were, so everything you watched on television, we watched live about 30 feet away. I don't know if we can ever top that Parade experience..Here are a bunch of photos from the day! On the left is a photos of the Radio City Rockettes. The bottom photo is of the Hess Float.

Boston Bound!

Last weekend Philip and I headed to Philadelphia (which is only 1 1/2 hours away) to run the Philadelphia Marathon. I had been training for this race a long time with the goal of qualifying for Boston - which means I had to run the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes...and I did it! Philip ran the Half Marathon so we were able to run the first half of the race together which was awesome - we had a really good first half and I was way under my qualifying pace. And I finished with a time of 3:37:51. I was thrilled and still can't believe it! (Here's a photo of us after the race!) I already signed up for the Boston Marathon, which is April 20th. I can't wait to run in the most historic race!

While Philip and I were in Philadelphia we toured the city, including City Hall (which is behind us in this photo) and ate at this wonderful Italian restaurant called Magianos, so we could fill up with pasta to carbo load before the race. We rode out to Philadelphia with Philip's friend Ken who went to school at Drexel University. He showed us around the city and after the race on Sunday took us to get an orginal Philly cheesesteak from the famous Geno's. Here's a photo of Philip and Ken in front of Geno's.

We hope we'll be able to go back to Philadelphia soon and go out in the city. We had a great time and I'll never forget my experience of qualifying for Boston there...

Here's a video Philip took of me finishing.

Celebrating Our One Year!

Philip and I just celebrated our 1-Year Anniversary on November 1st so we decided to have a special date night - dinner and a Broadway Show - my perfect date! Philip picked out the restaurant we went to called Las Ramblas in Greenwich Village, which was absolutely fabulous. It was a tapas restaurant and we had the most delicious food I have ever tasted...I am still craving our dinner. My favorite was the seasonal stuffed mini pumpkin. It was so good! The restaurant was adorable, had wonderful service and was extremely small, but seriously had the best food. We'll definitely be going back. Here's a photo of us at the restaurant.

After dinner we headed to Broadway to see the musical, Avenue Q, which was hilarious! It's pretty dirty but also very cute. It's a musical with puppets and critics describe it as a mix of Rent, South Park and Sesame Street. We had awesome seats and were very entertained. It's definitely a must-see!

After the show, we walked around town and stopped at a place where we could have some dessert. We ended up at this very trendy French restaurant just a few blocks away from our apartment. We had a wonderful experience there - when we sat down they brought an appetizer to us "compliments of the Chef" and then gave us to two portions of this amazing dessert of fried cream puffs filled with ice cream drizzled with chocolate - it was sinfully delicious.

It was such a great evening and a wonderful way to celebrate this past year Philip and I have been together. Who would have ever thought a year ago I'd be here in NYC and living with Philip. So much has happened in a year, but I feel very lucky and know I am exactly where I should be right now. :)

Surprise Visit to Clinton!

This past weekend on Halloween, Philip and I headed back to his hometown Clinton, Iowa to surprise his mom for her birthday! Ken (Philip's dad) thought that the best gift he could give Sue (Philip's mom) for her birthday was to have all of her sons home. So...he flew me and Philip from New York and Andrew and his girlfriend, Cari, from Fresno, California and the youngest brother, Dave, came home from college and all the boys were home in Clinton for the weekend.

Sue was completely surprised! When she first saw Dave walk in she thought it was nice he came home for her birthday (but she sees him fairly often), and then she saw Andrew & Cari from California walk in and tears were streaming down her face. She still didn't think anything of Philip and me coming so when we walked by the window of the bar and she saw us...she started crying again. She couldn't believe it! Here's a photo of the Strom family after the surprise. From left to right: (Ken, Dave, Philip, Sue & Andrew Strom - by the way, none of the Strom brothers look anything alike.)

Philip was so excited to go home and see his family and a lot of his high school friends too. Here are some of his close friends from back home in the photo on the right. (From left to right: Matt, Andrew, Beau, Philip, Dave and Nolan.) More friends were able to make it that weekend like Melissa & Nolan, who grew up in Clinton and used to live with Philip when he lived in Chicago. Here's a photo of us four from that night.

It was such a great weekend having the entire family home in Clinton and I know that Sue had the best birthday! I don't know how Ken is going to be able to top this one. Here's another photo on the left of Sue and her boys.

On Saturday Philip and I took a drive around Clinton in his 1971 Chevelle that he fully restored while he was in high school and college. I didn't think I really cared much about Classic cars before, but Philip has taught me a lot about them and I think they are really cool. Here's a photo of Philip taking his car out.

Since Clinton is a little over 5 hours from Omaha and only 2 1/2 hours from Des Moines, where my sister lives, my mom decided to come out on Saturday so she could meet Philip's parents and family and so I could see her again too. So she came out Saturday afternoon and we all went to dinner at this wonderful Italian restaurant in Clinton. We had 25 people with us - all of Philip's family, his Grandma Doris, my mom, Cari's family and grandparents and some of Philip's friends too (Beau & Pam and Nolan & Melissa). It was such a great time and the food was delicious! It was so nice that everyone could be there. Later that night we out for awhile, but we were pretty tired from the late night before and were full from dinner. Here's a photo of my mom, Philp and me after dinner at a local bar next door.

The next day I still had to run 20 miles for my Marathon Training, but it was one of the most beautiful runs. Clinton is a very pretty city built right on the River so I ran along the River and went over the bridge. Then I found a bike trail with the beautiful fall leaves framing it. It was breathtaking. During my run, I saw my mom driving by as she was on her way back to the Strom's house for some coffee & breakfast. I know my mom had such a wonderful time too. Ken and Sue were so welcoming and it was such a fun weekend for my mom. I'm so glad we were able to come back. Happy Birthday Sue and Thanks Again Ken for bringing us to Clinton for the weekend!

The Women's Nike Marathon - Race Day!

Race day was Sunday, October 19th and we started at 7am. Before we headed out all the Distance Divas took a group photo together outside of our adorable hotel - The Cornell - the oldest hotel in San Francisco. It was a cold morning, but we were all excited about our race through beautiful San Francisco. Amanda took her camera on the run so she got some photos during the race so you can see a little bit of how beautiful it was...but the photos don't do justice.

I was one of 20,000 runners that day who ran either the Half or Full Marathon through San Francisco. They had a wall of all our names and I'm pointing at my name on the pink wall here. Most of the runners were women and at the end of the race we all got a Tiffany's necklace, given to us by firemen dressed up in tuxes at the Finish Line. And yes, it was even in the little Tiffany's box! See photo on right with box and the finisher's necklace.

I finished the race just under 4 hours and felt great! I am feeling really ready for the Philiadelphia Marathon set for November 23rd.

Overall our San Francisco trip was FABULOUS! What a beautiful city that I definitely want to visit again soon!

To view more photos from our trip - you can check out Amanda's Shutterfly page - http://arsimpson.shutterfly.com/

Our Trip to Alcatrez - San Fran Trip cont.

On our 2nd full day in San Francisco we decided to go take a trip to Alcatrez. It was such a cool tour. We took a 15 minute ferry ride to the island and then they had an interactive audio tour for you when you got inside. We added a couple friends for our trip. Kalina, who is married to another Kiewit boy, Luke, joined us since they live near San Fran. Then Sarah, Amanda's best friend who she went to school with also joined us because she too was running the race the next day. Here's a photo of all five of us that day - left to right: Kalina, Amanda, Amy, Sarah & me. Below are more photos of our day in Alcatrez. When we were done with the tour we walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area and Pier 39, where hundreds of sea lions hang out and bark all day! What a life!

Wine Country - San Francisco Trip

I just got back from San Francisco on Monday night and had such a wonderful time! Although the original trip was planned because we signed up for the Women's Nike Marathon...we did so much more than run! On Friday we decided to take a 9 hour wine tour trip. This may have been my favorite part of the trip. Our 9 hours started with a shuttle ride into Napa Valley, going over the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we stopped at 4 wineries, enjoyed a beautiful picnic lunch, drank lots of wine and headed back to San Francisco on a ferry boat ride! It was wonderful. Here are some of my favorite photos from the day. (The photo on the left is us getting to the Ferry Building in San Fran enjoying some hot tea and Asian pears - which were so delicious! It was such an enjoyable morning. The four of us girls stayed together throughout the trip even though we met up with 20 other women (Distance Divas) who were running the Marathon too.

The photo on the right is of us at my favorite winery stop where we had out picnic lunch and bought lots of wine too! From left to right: Amanda, Amy, Melanie and Me. Here's how we all know each other - Amy and I used to work together at NCHS in Omaha, Amy & Amanda are neighbors in Omaha, and Melanie used to work with Amanda in Omaha at Kiewit and now she lives near San Fran still working for Kiewit. And it was Amy & Amanda actually introduced Philip and I)

Here's a link to all of Amanda's photos from our San Francisco trip! - http://arsimpson.shu/tterfly.com/

The sign below reads "Marathon Hydration Station"

We found two other women running the Marathon that were on our wine tour too!