Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 by the months

So I have a little spare time since I'm confined to the house (well, no big loss there, it's supposed to be uber-cold the rest of the week), so I figured I'd do a little recap of 2009. Even though it's ending in a completely below average way, it was still a pretty darn awesome year for me. We've had our ups and downs but I've enjoyed myself, seen some sweet new places and accomplished a ton of goals along the way.

JANUARY:

I ran the first of my 3 half marathons in Austin and had a huge cheering section waiting for me at the finish. Thanks to all the family and friends who braved the cold-for-TX temperatures to cheer me on. It was also my first time to take Adam home to Texas and he got to meet my brother and grandparents. It, as always, was a really fun trip and we had a blast. In Chicago, it was cold. I don't really remember much about the month other than that, maybe I like to block it out? I was reading in my favorite WGN weather blog that we set a bunch of snow records last Jan so I must have been just LOVIN that :)

FEBRUARY:

OMG... one of the best months of the year. My dear friend Amy and I had been planning our trip to Sydney for months and at the last minute my boyfriend and his best friend horned their way in to our girls vacay. I'll still always wonder just what it was that made Amy say yes. Methinks there was more than a little crush a'brewin on her end. Either way, we had a megablast of a trip, celebrated Adam's birthday while we were there and all rode home together in the new layflat business class seats. It was a trip that will be so hard to top but I think the four of us are going to try one of these days! Luckily, we were able to work on our sweet tans and forget about the cold seeing as how they were setting heatwave records and having horrific brush fires while we were in Australia. Loved every minute of it!

MARCH:

In March, I toted around the pictured above Flat Stanley for my friend Sally's class in Ft. Worth. He was a pretty sweet good luck charm because I definitely had my best ever San Francisco layover while I had him. See, I even treated the guy to Starbucks before I walked him to death (all in the name of training, of course). We also took him to a wedding in Virginia and Adam got to visit DC for the first time and we had lovely times with Amy, including one of the best stories of the year. It involves Carmax and $5. My friend Meredith and her mom also visited Chicago and we had fun showing them our very cold city!

APRIL:

I ran my second half of the year with Amy in St. Louis. It rained the whole race and I wanted to punch her for probably half of it. I did not do well with her attempts at motivation. Sorry, Amo! Perhaps the pasta from the night before really didn't do it for me. We had a fun weekend though, despite the rather dreary weather. We did the Budweiser brewery so that makes up for the fact that I had a totally wankster race. I think this was also right around the time that I started this blog to help document my preparation for the Chicago Marathon. My, how the time flies!

MAY:

I got the swine flu, which was immediately followed by my only international trip of the year to Narita, Japan. I had to lie to the scary Outbreak quarantine people when they asked if I'd been sick recently and I lived in petrified fear for the hour that they inspected everyone on our plane. It was worth it for the sushi though! I also ran a 10 mile race at Soldier Field, which I'll have to put on the calendar for 2010, it was pretty fun. We also did 2 weddings in 2 days in May, followed immediately by Adam getting sick. We had my dad and brother up for a Cubs game and lots of fun around town.

JUNE:

We went to Texas for a week again, this time for my friend Tracee's wedding. My friend, Charlotte (pictured above), and I got to take our then-boyfriends to a real Texas Honky Tonk bar in Victoria and we had a blast. I also moved into Adam's condo in June and my mom and I painted the bedroom in our semi-pro way. We spent way too much money on new (but needed) furniture at IKEA and began the process of becoming settled cohabitants.

JULY:

We'd been waiting months for it but it was finally time for our trip to Boston. My dad's family lives all over the area so we had fun carting Adam around and introducing him to everyone. We got to go to a Red Sox game, which was hugely awesome for both of us! The weather back home wasn't too bad also (slightly colder than we'd have liked but nice enough to ride bikes and get out on the beach). I started settling into my serious marathon training and we also had two local weddings.

AUGUST:

I lost a boyfriend but gained a fiance. Adam proposed at the beginning of the month and I went home to San Antonio at the end of August and got a ton of wedding planning done. I remember August as being a really fun time for us, the weather was nice and we did a lot of outdoor activities. Since I was in TX for two weeks, Adam came down for the weekend in between and we got to do lots of engagement celebrating. Lots of good times were had by all!

SEPTEMBER:

I had my last half marathon scheduled for Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach, which is also Amy's hometown. Kind of like the Sydney trip, Adam and Brian also decided to run with us. I really wanted to beat Adam but we ended up running together as I had a mega overheat episode toward the end of the race. We had a great time with our favorite couple in VB and I finished about 12 minutes faster than I'd ever run a half before so it was a good day. It was also Adam's longest race to date and I think he enjoyed it. At the end of the month, I went home to SA to just start the dress finding process and ended up finding my perfect dress at the third store. HUGE check off the list!

OCTOBER:

We took engagement pictures with the fabulous Steve Koo all over downtown Chicago....


oh yeah, and I ran the Chicago Marathon!! It only took me 17 million minutes but I finished and managed to only walk for a few minutes of the entire race. My family, Adam's family and several friends were out there to support me and I was so humbled and appreciative of the entire experience.

NOVEMBER:

I hosted Thanksgiving in Chicago for the second year in a row, hopefully this will become an annual thing! My dad and brother flew up from San Antonio and Adam's brother drove in from the suburbs to eat with us. We had quite a spread and I gained about ten billion pounds, which in turn drove me to start Weight Watchers on the last day of the month. We were blessed with some decent weather during the month and my friend Brooke came up so we could sign up for the Avon Breast Cancer walk for next June.



DECEMBER:

I celebrated the big 2-8 and we went to finally see Jersey Boys (AWESOME SHOW, btw). We traveled (on paid tickets for the first time in some three-odd years) to San Antonio for Christmas week. And as you know, I got to spend the last week of 2009 bedridden being sicker than I've ever been in my life with double pink eyes, the regular flu (that's 2 flus for '09 if you were counting) and strep throat. Oh well, at least because I was half-dying the whole week, I had the time to write this and to relive some of my favorite memories from the year.

Here's to 2010... we're getting married and planning a rockin' honeymoon so I know it will most certainly be a year to remember.

1 comment:

  1. Mind if I copy this? I love it. Mine's a little late, but, eh...

    ReplyDelete