Bye Bye 2009

I can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of the year. This year has been a very busy one for us but we have had a blast.

The start of 2009 brought us a new home, an accomplishment that we are very proud of. I was very hesitant at first to dive into this huge commitment but my hubby got me to see that it was a great decision for us. The drop in housing prices was not good for many people but it was good for us. We love our home and I'm glad we took the plunge. Within the first few months we did some renovations and upgrades with the big one being our new kitchen which makes me a very happy girl because with that new kitchen has come a lot of cooking :o)

We traveled quite a bit this year as well. Hubby and I took a trip to Las Vegas for our anniversary, we went on a small cruise with Olivia to Ensenada for my birthday, attended the yearly Reyes Family Reunion in Arizona, ran a small 26.2 mile race in Chicago and traveled with hubby's family to Palm Springs for Thanksgiving.

Lot's of bday's were celebrated, a bridal shower for the Big Fat Indian Wedding we attened which was a blast :o)

We saw Cher, Beyonce, Stone Temple Pilots, Confunkshun, The So You Think You Can Dance Tour and hubby saw a few more with his friends.

Hubby had a few gigs including the Brenda Donato 5K which is held in memory of our friend Brenda.

My parents moved to Brentwood.

We ran a few races...Chicago and Nike.

We ATE A LOT :o)

We made new friends along the way as well.

Unfortunelty the end of 2009 also brought a loss of a dear friend who I miss dearly so we cried a little :o(

All of this was done with the people we love. I am so greatful for our families and for all of our friends who are in our lives. I am looking forward to 2010 and what it has in store for us and all the new memories to be made :o)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

R.I.P Raji Watawala

On Friday night around midnight we lost another friend to cancer. It was not a blood related cancer but still a cancer and it's why we continue to fight for a cure. I will miss Raji dearly but I will never forget her and she will forever live on in our hearts.

We have lite a candle for Raji and bought her some flowers,

this is set up on our table.

Trainer Day 2

Met the trainer this morning at 6am. I got up 15 minutes later today than I did Wednesday and the timing for me to get ready, get on the road and be ready for the trainer at 6 was perfect. I'm a little tired now but I think if I keep doing it it'll get better.

I am sore today from Wednesday and I had mentioned that which she laughed at :o( she said on her way to the gym she was trying to think of how to push me harder...YIKES!!!

She had me to 6 sets of different exercises. Each set consists of 2 different exercises and I have to do each exercise 3 times. So that ends up being 36 reps and it takes 50 minutes. I am surely feeling eat. We are going on vacation next week which means I'll only get to go to the gym once but the nice thing is that I can do all this stuff on my own. The resort we are going to has a gym and since hubby has to workout I plan on doing my workouts also. I'm also liking that all these exercises will help my running :o)

Trainer Day 1

Well I decided to work with a trainer at my gym. Today was day #1 and OMG, I have a feeling I won't be able to move tomorrow. So my plan since hubby is training almost everyday was too go to the gym in the morning so I could be home a night. I also like the idea of getting my workouts out of the way because I like being able to just go home after work and not have to worry about doing something else afterwards. The downside is that I have to be up at 4:45am so that I can leave my house by 5:15 and start working out by 6am....YIKES!!! I woke up pretty easily this morning but by noon I was starting to fall asleep and got a second wind around 2pm. I am hoping that once my body gets used to doing this it won't be so hard but we shall see.

As for the training part it went well. I was not easy at all but it went well. I also had some issues with my stomach so I'm going to have to change my breakfast strategy. I usually have yogurt with cereal well the yogurt just did not make me feel good after bouncing around and drinking gatorade so that will have to go. I'm going to try a bagel with peanut butter the next time.

If I can keep this up I plan on going 3 days a week :o) and run on Sunday's with my neighbor. This will hopefully help me shed the last 15 lbs I want to lose and it will also help me stay healthy and in shape since I won't be doing any crazy endurance events next year.

Crock Pot Dinner

I've been trying to come up with new recipes that are healthy and that also give us a left overs so that I don't have to cook every day. The one easy way to do that is Crock Pot Recipes because they usually yield a larger amount of food and that way hubby can have left overs for lunch or we can have dinner for 2 days in a row. So this week I decided to try a pot roast. I don't usually eat pot roast but I know hubby likes it. I tried a recipe from Allrecipes.com and it was delicious and I think it's one I'll try again. The only change I made to this was to add some potatoes and carrotts since it didn't have any veggies included in the recipe. We put everything over rice and it was a perfect dinner.

I'm back, NO really I am...

I am taking this first line directly from Brandy's blog

The idea of blogging has become a chore. Although simple in nature, the idea of writing about something.. anything... exhausts me.

I think it's how I started feeling and part of it because I wanted to write about all our summer adventures and once I missed a day and then another and then another it just became to overwhelming to keep writing. So let's just say our summer was crazy and it was buy and it was a lot of fun. Can't believe we are so close to this year being over.

I will just start updating with what's been going on this past week and move forward from there.

The rest of 2009 and all of 2010 will be a mellow year for me. I plan on running the Oakland Half Maraton and Nike Half but other than that I don't plan on too much training. I am going to devote my year to helping hubby get through his year of Ironman Training and help him with his fundraising. He was told by a friend to expect a fun year but also a hard year. He'll have days of happy and excitment and days he'll just want to cry. Doing an Ironman is a tough challenge so it's going to be an interesting 10 months. He's excited to take on this journey and I'm along for the ride :o)

So he made it through week 1 and so did I...haa, haa. I told hubby I'd make sure to be home in the evenings so that I could cook dinner and have it ready for him when he got home from his workouts. If you know Rocky you know he eats A LOT and OMG now he eats A LOT x3. I think I'm going to have to start shopping at CostCo. The good thing about all this is that I do love cooking and this week I managed to cook 4 of the seven days. He also got a packed lunch everyday with lots and lots of goodies to keep him fueled.

In case anyone is looking for some yummy recipe's I'll try to post what I've made

Spaghetti w/Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoes (I used less cream and butter and more broth and I added a spicy turkey sausage)

Chicken Tacos (bought some already marinated chicken tenders from Trader Joes's, they were in sundried tomoatoe marinade, flour tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes and a little mexican cheese mix)

Farfalle w/Zucchini (also cut down on the amount of cream and used more broth/wine and added in Aidells Meatballs)

Last night I put a roast with potatoes and carrots in the crock pot. Can't wait to see how it came out.

Got to see my parents and Mr. Hendrix who is a little overweight and now needs to be put on a doggie diet...lol! We'll have to see how well he does since he loves his treats.

Looking forward to one more week of work before Thanksgiving week :o)

Phil's Not Alone!

Remember 2 posts ago when I said that Phil was crazy? Well, my hubby is CRAZY too :o)

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Rocky has decided to go Ironman!

and so have our friends Brian and Chris. It's a decision that Rocky's been thinking about since all the boys started talking about it and last week he decided that this was the best time to do it, he's got my 100% support, he's got the other boys on the team to do it with and other than work being our main obligation there really isnt't any reason why he can't do it. I had already decided that I wasn't going to really train this year. I'll probably do the Oakland Half Marathon in March and Nike Half in October but other than that my year will be fairly mellow. So let the madness begin.

You can follow him on his blog here and if you are feeling like you want to give a little you can donate to him here.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I haven't updated much about my training but training is over and it's now time to head to Chicago. The first 2 months of training went great but I feel like the last 2 could have been much better. I got bronchitis and then I just kind of lost steam. I did manage to keep plugging along and although I won't be setting a PR I know that this race will be much much better than NY.

GOOD LUCK to the rest of our CHI TOWN Team :o) I'll see you in the windy city!

Crazy Phil!

As Phil said, I would have never thought 4 years ago that he'd grow to love TNT and endurance events so much that he'd sign up for an IRONMAN...WOW!!! I am so proud of him and can't wait to see and support him on this journey.

You can follow him too and if you can support him with a donation :o)

http://www.ironphil.com/

Still here...

....I know I know, I keep saying I'm going to get better about updating and I haven't :o( I think part of the reason I don't update is because we've had so much going on this year that I just don't even know where to begin. It's been a fun but very busy summer for us. We are 3 short weeks away from heading to Chicago..woohoo and YIKES! I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. The 3 weeks I'm sure will go by super fast since we have quite a bit going on.

Our friends Chris and Meenu will be getting married this Friday. Meenu is Indian and because of their tradition there are a few events that we've been invited too. One of them being the Sangeet which waw held this past Saturday.

What is a Sangeet?

The literal translation for sangeet is "music." The sangeet is the Indian version of a rehearsal dinner. At the sangeet, ladies sing traditional Indian songs, using the dholki (a two sided drum). Friends and family from both sides come together for a night of great food, dancing and singing.

It was a such a fun event and very different from anything we've ever attended. It was really sweet to see how happy and excited Meenu's parents were for her and Chris.

me with the lovely bride

New Look

I am working on giving the blog a new look, I'm not sure if I'll stick with this or change it a bit. Hopefully once I get that all done I can get back on here and update more often. I've been really bad about it :o(

Bday Wishes

Today is my dad's birthday :o)

Happy Birthday Dad!!

2 months down 2 to go

This Saturday we did 15 miles! WOW!! I can't believe I cactually did it. Life has been a bit hectic and Olivia and I have only managed to do Track Wokouts on Tuesday and our long run on Saturday's but somehow we are doing it and feeling pretty okay. Phil and Sandra were out there with us as well this weekend and they too kicked butt. I am really proud of our little group.

I have to admit though that at 14 miles I wanted to quit but Phil would not allow it...THANKS PHIL!! I was tired and I was also having some knee/hip pain. I pushed through it though and it felt great to do it and be done.

:o) YAY US!

Reyes Family Reunion

Last weekend we were in Arizona for the Reyes Family Reunion. Why Arizona in July you ask? Well because the uncle hosting it lives out there. The family reunion rotates between Arizona, San Diego, Concord and Daly City. Next year we head to San Diego.

The family reunion is always on the 3rd weekend of July. Rocky's grandparents started this and now his parents and uncle's have kept it going and eventually the responsibility will be passed down to our generation.

We have a great time and it's nice to see the rest of the family we don't see often like the cousins in Oregon and Maryland. It's also very cool to see how close the little ones are. The nieces and nephews look forward to this all year and seeing everyone.

I've Fallen and I can't get up

Okay, I didn't fall under a tree but my poor car did. I arrived at work yesterday around 8:30 and my co-worker around 8:40, he said "um, you might want to go check out your car, it's stuck under a fallen branch" YIKES!!! The good news is that there was no damage to my car just a few scratches. The other good news is the branch fell after I had gotten out of my car or I really would have been stuck under it.

The property owner felt really bad so he took my car to get washed and polished til all the scratches were out. It looks pretty now :o)

Running is going okay. Our schedules have been a bit busy so Olivia and I have managed to do our track workouts on Tuesday and our Saturday run's. This weekend we have a 15 miler and I'm pretty nervous about it but I know we'll get it done. I can't believe we only have 2 months til our race.

Birthday Dinner Pics

I've been celebrating my birthday for a few weeks now :o) and one of the celebrations was my birthday dinner with some of our family and friends. We decided to have it at Petar's in Lafayette because there is a guy there, Diamond Dave, that we wanted to see. It wasn't til later in the night that we found out he was on vacation :o( but we still had a great time. Thanks to everyone who came out and thanks for all the b-day gifts :o) I had a great time.

Also THANK YOU to all my friends who have taken me out for individual dinners and will be taking me out :o) very sweet of you. I think I'll officially stop celebrating August 5th, haa, haa. One whole month of celebrating sounds good.

I think my mother-in-law took more pictures of the fun evening so I'll post those pictures when I get them form her.

Ensenada by Pictures

These aren't in the right order but blogger is too much of a pain and I don't feel like turning the pictures around from bottom to top :o(

Rocky, Olivia and I took a 3 day cruise from Long Beach to Ensenada on 4th of July/My B-day weekend and we had a blast. We also got to see my parents while waiting for our flight in Long Beach so that was nice also.