Christmas + Birthday Celebrations

I had such a great Christmas this year. I've been a bit of a Scrooge the last couple of years since my mom passed away because she was always so obsessed with Christmas, it was hard to celebrate without her. This year I decided to pick up the slack and be back to my typical Elf self and celebrate extra hard.

Including getting my nails into the spirit with a fun manicure before the occasion.

Ollie was pretty excited that there was a snapchat filter specifically for dogs.

One of my running buddies got me this awesome travel tumbler which worked really well for Christmas flavored wine!

Family photo. Ollie is super enthused. 

Ollie and I were excited to stay in our matching pjs on Christmas morning since we didn't have plans until later in the day.

Kyle and I attempted to take a nice family photo, and it was a struggle, per usual.

But eventually we succeeded.

The day after Christmas was my birthday and I took a vacation day from work. I had a super low-key day planned including a long-is run, yoga at the running store, followed by some beers at my favorite brewery in town.

I did make a run to Target and bought some extra Christmas ornaments that matched mine. I'm probably the only person that decorates their Christmas tree AGAIN the day after Christmas, but whatever.

It snowed, and then torrentially rained. It was the craziest weather I've experienced on my birthday.

My running buddy Chris got me a donut with some candles for before our run. 

Happy Birthday Kyle!

Happy birthday to my best friend and husband, Kyle. You are the best pug dad an Ollie Girl could ask for. You are a pretty stellar fisher person, and you match my weirdness to a T. Thank you for being you, and for loving me the way you do.

Happy Holidays

Kyle's BFF was back in town over Christmas, so we put on our fun pants for one whole night to join him.

Several Moscow mules were consumed, but not so many that I couldn't still run 5 miles the next day. Priorities and stuff. Also, so many beards.

On Christmas I got a new NoxGear vest, and was so excited that I proceeded to wear it for most of Christmas present opening. Everyone was... thrilled. I'm sure.

Ollie and I managed to take a super adorable Christmas selfie, but somehow we never got a family picture in our matching Christmas jammies. Given how much I $pent on Ollie's I'm more than a little bummed.

A bunch of my favorite people joined me at my favorite local brewery after yoga for some beers to celebrate my birthday. Obviously Toni bought me a new matching stocking hat for us to show off.

Ollie's Birthday Celebration

It was my sweet pugbear's adoptiversary last month. Five years ago we rescued her, and she's truly my best friend on the planet. A couple of days prior to her birthday/adoptiversary, she was very sick, almost unresponsive, and I didn't think she was going to make it through the night. I was terrified and inconsolable. Eventually I fell asleep with her by my side, fully expecting her to not wake up in the morning. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she woke up and started licking her paws, a totally normal thing for her to do. And at another point, she got up, twirled around and snuggled up closer to me, another totally Ollie thing to do.

The next morning she was still really out of it, but not nearly as scary as she was the night before. I took her to the vet asap and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. They, and I, suspect she had some doggy vertigo, and is 100% back to normal now. THANK GOD.

At one point during the night I may have whispered into her sweet ear that if she made it through the night I would no longer portion out her meals, and she could eat as much as she wanted whenever she wanted.

Well. I sort of made good on that promise by purchasing $50 of treats and things for her at Shopdog to celebrate her birthday. Including dog beer, yes that's a thing, yes I went with the pug porter for obvious reasons.

I love you Ollie Girl, and I hope that your promise to live forever comes true, because I can't imagine a world with you!

Ollie's Adoptiversary

Happy Adoptiversary Sweet baby girl! Five years ago Kyle and I welcomed a chunky monkey, anxiety filled bundle of pug fur into our lives. She's seriously the light of my life and I love her like crazy.

50k Birthday

Does anyone remember when I suggested running 31 miles on my 31st birthday?? Lolz. I don't think I've managed 31 miles in the last 31 days, let alone in a 24 hour period. Needless to say, that did not happen, nor did it get attempted. Someday!

I woke up super early to go to a sculpt class, and then saw this adorable baby Jerbear picture of my 2nd birthday. And then I did the math and realized this picture was 29 years ago, and I almost had a heart attack.

The day was super lowkey full of lots of snuggles with Ollie.

I met some friends out for dinner and drinks.

Sometimes it's necessary to have multiple drink(s) yourself.

We had fun and still managed to be home and in bed by 10:30. I consider this an all around win.

And Kyle surprised me with flowers. 3 yellow for 30 years, and a pink for the 1 extra. Yes, he had to explain that because I didn't get it.

Happy 50k Birthday Megan

Last Saturday I got to spend the evening with my dear friend Megan celebrating her day of birth. Clearly we need to teach her hubby some paparazzi skills because we got a sad amount of photos out of the evening!

We started out the evening at dinner, and Otto and I coordinated our nerdy outfits/accessories, natch. He's quite possibly the cutest little baby in the world, and every time I'd smile at him I'd get a huge toothy grin back from him. Looooove.

Then we got to enjoy some desserts and drinks while listening to some live piano music. (And take poorly lit photos.)



And since it was gorgeous out, we were able to hoof it to some other places without freezing to death. And then Kyle was nice enough to join us after work and give me a ride home. Sweet man.

Did I mention Taco Bell drive thru made an appearance as well? Because it did. Yum.

Can you tell I had just woken Ollie up for this photo? Sleepy baby.

Birthday Run

A few years back, Krista did a birthday run, where throughout the day, she ran a mile for every year she'd been alive (I don't remember which birthday it was) but I've always thought it was the coolest idea. A couple of years ago, Jenn did the same thing and did 26 miles throughout the day. ON A TREADMILL. Whoa.

I've always wanted to do this and possibly "train" to do this, but with my birthday being the day after Christmas, it's hard to commit to doing this not knowing what the weather would be. I could *not* run on a treadmill for the miles (kudos to Jenn).

Is this insane?

What would the breakdown be? 15/10/6? 14/10/7?

That'd be a solid 5-6 hours of running, not to mention showering after. Hmm....

Feel free to chime in on your thoughts. I'd definitely like to do this some year if not for 31, but every year I wait it's just more miles!

Katy Perry singing Birthday in Fargo.

Edited to add: Since thinking of this harebrained scheme, I've been running a lot less and working on my strength and flexibility issues, so unless some magical things happen with my running mileage over the next month it'd be d-u-m-b dumb to attempt this, but I STILL want to do it some year so I'd appreciate feedback. :)

They Say It's Your Birthday

... It's my birthday too.... Yeah!

Goodbye 20s, hello 30s. 29 was the best year so far so I can only imagine that 30 will be even better!