The Boston Marathon!

The Boston Marathon was finally here and I was so excited! I had been training hard, running my hills and long runs and felt ready. My friend Susan and I were both running in it this year for the first time. This was the 113th Annual Boston Marathon - the oldest and most prestigious race in the world. The Boston Marathon is the only qualifying race so every runner at Boston had to run a previous marathon at a certain time to be able to run. For my division, I had to run it in 3:40 and I made my time in Philadelphia this year finishing in 3:37. So ever since then, I've been training and preparing for this day to arrive.

The race is on Monday every year on Patriot's Day, which is always the third Monday of April. We left on Saturday morning. Susan picked me and Philip up for our four-hour journey to Boston. When we arrived we met one of Susan's best friends, Marie, and checked out Marie's apartment in the city where Susan would be staying and the post-marathon party would be held. Her apartment was adorable and on the famous Commonwealth Avenue. You could even see the Green Monster (Fenway Park) from the bedroom window!

Right away we grabbed some lunch at U-Burger and then headed to the Marathon Expo to get our bibs, t-shirt and goodie bag. I absolutely love expos! You're surrounded by all these runners and get to check out all this running gear and Boston Marathon attire and lots of free samples! Here's a photo of me picking up my bib - #15350. I couldn't believe it! All the official Boston Marathon merchandise was bright yellow and blue so you could spot all the runners walking around the city. We all had this special bond - we had all qualified and were running Boston on Monday! It was pretty cool. During the expo I also got to meet the famous Kathrine Switzer, the first girl to officially run the Boston Marathon! Here's a photo of me, Kathrine and Susan after she signed the book she wrote, "Marathon Woman".

It was also me and Philip's first time to Boston so we were excited to explore the city. The first thing we noticed was how young iit was. It is such a college-town with so many universities in Boston. Our hotel was in Cambridge so we were right by Harvard. And it was just like you would picture, very New England and with all the crew teams out on river in the morning.

That evening Philip and I decided to walk around Cambridge and have dinner in Harvard Square at this large brew house and then we walked around the square looking for a place for dessert. We circled twice and almost gave up until we found the absolutely

BEST dessert place! It's called Finale and the place only serves desserts! We couldn't believe we'd found such a perfect place. We were so impressed with the menu and since I had no guilt knowing I was running a marathon in two days...we decided to get the sampler platter. Here's a photo of us with all of our desserts. It was so delicious! We are really trying to find a place like that here in New York, but we haven't found anything like it yet.

Sarah's Wedding in Florida

On April 3, 2009 my really good friend from elementary school, Sarah, was getting married in Florida. I couldn't miss her wedding and I was excited to visit her again in Florida - my sister and I had visited her two years ago and had a blast! It also so happened that Philip had a wedding that weekend of a college roommate in Cincinatti. What are the odds?! I was pretty bummed he couldn't go with me, but it turned out almost better because my mom decided to go to the wedding so we got to hang out in Florida together! I hadn't seen her since she came and visited me in December so it was a good time to see my mom.

We had such a WONDERFUL time. It was so great to see Sarah and her family and to catch up with everyone. Sarah looked absolutely beautiful and so happy. I really like her husband, Joel. He's a great guy - very fun and definitely adores Sarah. About two years ago my sister and I visited Sarah in Florida and had a blast with her and Joel. It was also nice to have a little beach time too! My mom and I stayed in Seminole at this Holiday Inn Habourside. We were a short walk from the beach and they also had two pools. We both want to go back! It was cold in both New York and Omaha when we visited, so we really appreciated the Florida sun.

Here's a view of the beach - beautiful!

Omaha Party in NYC!

One day I received an email from my friend Kiersten who I went to high school and college with, about this Omaha Party in NYC. Neither of us knew who was organizing the party or anyone on the email list...but it was forwarded to her and then she sent it to me...so we HAD TO ATTEND! I invited Courtney and Philip told some of this work friends including his friend Ken who also lived in Omaha for some time. The gathering was at this bar on the lower east side and we had the entire basement for all of us Omaha folks! It was pretty fun. I also invited friends Paula & Mike who both went to Creighton. I didn't really meet any new people or see familiar faces, but it was fun to go to this Omaha Party here in NYC.

There are Nebraska people everywhere in the city!

The photo above is of all of Philip's fski and work friends. From left to right: (back row - Ken, Chris, front row - Kenta, Danny, Philip)

A Day of Drinking...Trailer Park to Tortilla Flats

One random Saturday Philip and I went to meet my friend, Courtney in the city at one of our favorite BBQ sports bars - Brother Jimmy's. We met for lunch and a couple of Philip's work friends joined us, Kevin and Kenta. After lunch, we decided to start walking around the city trying new bars. We ended up at this one bar called Trailer Park. There is actually a trailer in the bar and they serve macaroni and cheese and tator tots. Plus they were having a margarita special. It was really fun! The photo on the left is of Kevin sitting at Trailer Park. The lockers in the photo actually had shoes in them!

After Trailer Park we went to a couple of other bars and met up with more friends. Finally we ended up in Greenich Village at this little Mexican bar/restaurant called Tortilla Flats. It was a great place. They had streamers on the ceiling, good chips & salsa and this delicious and extremely strong margarita mix that they had in this huge bowl at the bar. Here's some photos of us there that night. The photo on the left is of me, Philip and Bill. Bill also works for Kiewit but at a different job. The photo on the right is of me and Kevin.


It was a fun day of bar hopping!

Hookah Night in Chinatown!

One Saturday night, Philip and I were invited to listen to one of his Kiewit co-workers DJ gig at Moomia, this hookah bar in Chinatown. Hookah is a large pipe shown on the right that you smoke. It is flavored and legal. I'm not a very good smoker, so I was coughing and it hurt my throat a little bit, but it did smell very good. Our group got a couple hookahs for us all to share.

Philip's co-worker, Kyle, didn't play until 2am so we got there pretty late and didn't get home until about 3am. He only played for about 30 minutes, but it was a fun night...just a little late for me.

Here's some photos from the night.

Our Dinner Dates with Chris and Erin!

Philip and I have been planning for months to have dinner with our friends, Chris and Erin, and we finally went out last month! Philip and I chose the restaurant for our first of many dinner dates and picked our favorite place - Las Ramblas, the tiny tapas place in Greenwich Village. Again it was absolutely delicious and I already can’t wait to go back! They seriously have the most amazing food, a wonderful staff and this cozy/fun ambiance – definitely one of my favorite places in NYC!

After dinner, we walked around the corner to this Jazz Bar called the Garage and sat at the bar, listened to some jazz and had a couple cocktails. Erin and I just had one as we realized that we had some very strong martinis. Here’s a photo of us four at the Garage.

After a little music, we walked to the Meatpacking District and actually found a table at the Buddha Bar. I felt so New York. It was a really cool place, huge space with very tall ceilings, dark lighting with candles, low tables and chairs, loud music & lights and lots of pretty people. Philip and I don’t usually hang out in these areas…cause drinks are a little pricey (like our $15 cocktails and Erin’s $22 flute of champagne!) but it was so much fun! So after our one drink – we headed across the street to a club and danced the night away! Our little dinner date turned into a VERY FUN NIGHT!

Our Next Dinner Date...

And just a week ago, we had our second dinner date with Erin and Chris in Brooklyn! It was Restaurant Week in Brooklyn where a ton of restaurants feature a three-course prefix menu for just $23. Erin actually lives in Brooklyn and Philip and I have wanted to check out some restaurants and bars there so this was a perfect opportunity for us to visit. So on Sunday night we met Erin and Chris at this adorable French restaurant called Le Petite Marche located on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. Our food was great and we all loved the bread pudding for dessert! The area is really nice too, if you walk just a couple blocks, you can see this amazing view of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was too bad that it was rainy that night, but we had such a great evening and are looking forward to our next dinner date!

Valentine's Day in Chicago with Matt & Casey

Philip's District Meeting ended Saturday morning, so we spent the rest of the weekend with his high school buddies - Matt & Casey - who live in Lincoln Park. But before we met up with them, we had to check out the Chicago Auto Show, of course!

It was Valentine's Day on Saturday, so Matt & Casey had made plans to go out to dinner at a Belgium Beer House. There were seven of us (Casey & his girlfriend, Laura, Matt and his friend, Lanissa, Casey's little brother, Bobby, and me and Philip). The Belgium place was pretty cool as it had a selection of over 400 beers. It wasn't the most romantic, but very fun and really good food and beer. Afterward we accidently ended up at this dive bar where Matt and I thought there was country karaoke - but we were apparently mistaken. There was a country band playing, but they didn't find it very amusing when I asked them for the karaoke song books - oops! But then we went to a much cooler bar called the Liverteen and stayed there the rest of the night. Matt and Casey knew the bartender...so that is always a good thing making it another fun night as usual! Here's some more photos from that night. Casey, Philip and Matt on the left at the Belgium Beer House. And one of the two of us later that night.

The next day was the kick-off to the Nascar season so we watched the pre-game of the Daytona 500. This was something else I learned about Philip last year. I didn't know he was such a Nascar fan. I never really understood why people enjoyed Nascar, but after watching it with people who enjoyed it, I saw how it could be fun to watch and hopefully we'll be able to go to an actual race this year. So as we were all watching the Nascar pre-game, Matt and Casey walk up the stairs with these ridiculous looking hunting camouflage outfits. They looked pretty funny, resembling green cookie monsters. I'd never seen anything like it before...but leave it up to Matt and Casey to have something like that. Here's a photo of them on the right.

Too bad we had an earlier flight home on Sunday and had to leave Matt & Casey's around noon. :( We had such a great vacation in Chicago and I can't wait for next year's District Meeting...but too bad we won't be traveling to Chicago for it. They announced that it will be in Brooklyn next year. But hopefully we'll still make it out to Chicago to visit Philip's friends again!