Meet Virginia

This weekend was full of so much goodness, I don’t know if I can even put it into words.

But I am going to try.  Here we go.

Thursday:

A moment of poor planning led to me finding myself in a bar in hot pink scrub pants Thursday night.  Basically, because I worked last Sunday, I had this Friday off!. Thursday night after work, I hopped in the car, and headed straight to Raleigh.  I arrived just in time to meet some friends at The Broad Street Cafe to watch our friend’s band, Robinson, play.  Yes, in the hot pink scrub pants I had worn to work.  Word.

The band was, of course, wonderful.

Right before the show started, we got some exciting news.  Our friend Allison called to tell us that she and her boyfriend, Tim, had just gotten engaged!  Just imagine lots of screaming and squealing and jumping around.  That was us.

Friday:

Since we didn’t make it home until late Thursday night, we took Allison out to breakfast on Friday morning to celebrate her engagement!  Whole Foods was certainly in order!

Someone forgot to focus the camera.

Of course it was a feast.

Oh my this is one of my favorite meals ever.

Baby Eve even came with us to celebrate.  Love that kid.

And now what I know you are all dying to see… Allison’s ring!

So shiny!  Way to go, Tim!

On Friday night I got to babysit for my favorite 5 kiddos.  We took our ice cream sundaes to the next level with 3 different flavors of ice cream, chocolate sauce, sprinkles, gummy vitamins (huh?), and leftover Halloween candy.  Amazing.

Saturday:

Saturday was my niece Emerson’s 2nd birthday!

It is so hard to believe that she wasn’t part of our lives two years ago!  We can’t imagine life without her now.  If you are interested, I wrote about the day she was born HERE.

Emmy opened lots of presents, with Caleb’s help of course.

After an amazing brunch, it was time for birthday cake!

Only the best apple cake with brown butter icing.  So yum.

After cake, it was time for the mandatory outdoor photo session.

At Emmy’s party last year, I took a picture holding Caleb on one hip and Emmy on the other.  I wanted to get another picture like it this year to start a little tradition, but this time it proved to be much more difficult.

See what I mean?  We got an almost-winner at the end.

Annnnnd I just realized that I wore that same shirt last year.  Whoops.

That afternoon, the NC State v. UNC game was on TV.  As you might remember, there is quite the rivalry in my family when it comes to these two teams.  But like I said, when NC State plays UNC, I have to stay true to my school and pull for the Pack!  NC State beat UNC in football all 4 years that I was in college (my Dad took me to the game last year), and I was hoping for another Wolfpack victory to keep the winning streak going.

I ended up leaving town before the game was over, so I did something that I almost never do.  I listened to the game on the radio!  I may have done a fist pump alone in my car when the Wolfpack beat the Tarheels 13-0.  Five years strong!

Sunday:

Sunday was another wonderful day as I got to go cheer for a few of my friends who were running in the Raleigh City of Oaks Half Marathon!

This is the same race that I ran last year, and being out there definitely brought back lots of memories of that day!  I tried to remember the most difficult parts of the course, and planned to go to those places to cheer on my friends.

My first stop was at mile 5, which is at the top of a long hill.  I remember seeing my friend’s parents there last year and being so thankful for the extra encouragement!  My sister-in-law, Ashley, was running the race, but she was too speedy and had already passed by the time I got there!  After a few minutes, I spotted my friends Christin, Laney, and Halie.  They were feeling good and having fun!

I wanted to go to another spot to cheer, but I was too afraid I was going to miss seeing them finish!  I couldn’t risk it.  I had to park at a nearby shopping center and walk a little ways to the finish line, so I thought I’d get some Starbucks to take with me.  Apparently lots of other people had the same idea!

With my Skinny Peppermint Mocha in hand (so good), I was ready to go!

The course finished right by NC State’s bell tower, a spot near and dear to my heart.  I loved watching all of the runners cross the finish line, but I’ve gotta tell ya, I was itching to be out there with them!  Soon I spotted these 3:

I loved that they all grabbed hands about 200 yards from the finish line and ran like that all the way to the end.  I totally almost cried.

Laney, on the far right in the picture below, ended up shaving 21 minutes off of her PR.  It was Christin‘s first half marathon and she absolutely killed it.  Halie is a seasoned pro and could kick my tail running any day.

I was so proud of them!

Race Fever has officially set in.  I will definitely be out there with them next time.  Christin and I have already been talking about doing the Disney Princess race this Spring.  Now that would be a fun time.  Wanna join?

I also found my friend Ariel who also got engaged this weekend!

Check out her rock!  I can’t get over this thing!

I followed all of that race-watching up with… more race-watching.  I watched the live stream of the New York City Marathon on my computer, which was pretty amazing.  Also pretty crazy that the first marathon finisher ran the whole thing almost an hour faster than I ran a half.  Oy!

If you have made it to the end of this blog post, you truly deserve a prize.  This may be my longest post to date?  Oh well, a long wonderful weekend deserves a long wonderful blog post, right?  I hope you have the best Monday!