Five on Friday - Anniversary Edition

 Happy Friday!!!!! I'm actually sad to see this Friday arrive since it means the end of our week at the beach. It's been such a laid back and relaxing week. Alarm clocks are going to come as a rude awakening next week.

So without further ado, my 5 on this Friday

One (year ago) - Dinner at L'Auberge Chez Francois to celebrate our 4th anniversary. Easily in the top 3 meals of my life. As we were sitting down we hear the woman at a nearby table declare "This is the best carrot I have ever tasted", so clearly we had to order something with carrots. When hubs' dinner came it it did indeed include THE. BEST. CARROTS. EVER. Weird memory from that night, but that place is so stinkin' good. Also, the Baked Alaska. GET IT. You're welcome.

Two (years ago) - Celebrating our third Anni in the Dominican Republic. We got upgraded to a suite bigger than our condo and then spent the whole week daydreaming about buying a bigger house. The house we ended up buying had an Open House the day we got back so we were off the plane and straight to see the house we had been obsessing over on Red Fin. After some drama with it getting an offer before we could work out financing (sad) then that one falling through and our offer being accepted the minute we found out it was available again (HAPPY) it would finally be ours.

Best friend to make at the resort? 

The bartender who saves you the good beers every night.

Three (years ago) - Spent our second anniversary in Chicago. What a fun city, but they weren't lying about it being windy. That place was cold!!! We had such a blast exploring the city and had some of THE BEST FOOD. I can't wait to go back someday and explore the city even more.

At The Bean 

(minutes before my camera died and I had not brought my charger)

Four (years ago) - Our first anniversary!!! We went to New York City and planned our entire itinerary around our lunch and dinner reservations. So glad we took an entire week there, there is so much to do and we didn't feel rushed through anything. It rained for several days and we had to make a purchase of rain boots while there, those things are still kickin and one of my favorite items I own. We were on The Today Show asking the financial experts about 2nd mortgages (that wouldn't come into play for two more years when we pulled the trigger on the town house (see #2 above)) We went to Peter Luger for our anniversary dinner and stayed at The Pierre for the night. Amazing dinner, even more amazing hotel. I've never felt so fancy.

 We totally saved the top tier of our wedding cake and carted it up to NYC on the train. 

Five (years ago) - BEST. DAY. EVA. I can't even sum it all up in a few sentences. The whole day was a dream and I got to marry my best friend. Totally had the time of my life.

Love you Hubs!!!! Cheers to our first FIVE years and here's to the next five (and then the next five and the next five....)

Five on Friday - What's been happening

Happy Friday everyone!!!!  This is the winter that never ends....I can't wait for the spring and to get outside and do some new things. We've had a busy week over here, some of the highlights for this Five on Friday.

5. Last Sunday hubs and I took a little road trip to help transport a rescue dog from Alabama to Connecticut. We had a 90 mile drive from Front Royal, VA to Hagerstown, MD. If this pup wasn't heading to a forever home in CT, I would have driven him straight to my house. He was so sweet and such an adorable little guy. He slept in my lap the entire trip and I might have cried a little bit when we had to pass him off to the next person.

4. Wilbur had his first dental cleaning on Monday. His breath was BAD and his teeth were pretty gross. We were probably a year past due for getting it done and he had to have three teeth extracted. While he was under he had a skin tag removed and now has a couple stitches on his leg. While I feel bad for the little guy going through so much, a dog in a cone is so stinkin adorable. I've nicknamed him Flower for the next week until he gets his stitches out.

3. Thanks to Hubs getting a company vehicle, we found ourselves with 3 cars and only two drivers. Having car payments on two cars that we wouldn't even be driving seemed silly, so we traded two in to upgrade from a coupe and sedan to an SUV. Tuesday we both had off of work and spent all afternoon on car stuff. Picked up his new car, took our two cars to CarMax to be appraised (walked out with written offers for our cars), went to the Honda dealership that we knew had the color/model we wanted, had them match our CarMax quotes for our trade ins (Honda had come in $500 lower on each), and walked out with a new car a couple hours later. Some of my favorite features are: I now sit high enough to see over the hill by our house to be able to tell if I closed the garage door, the cup holders are big enough for my Nalgene, and calling hubs on the Bluetooth. Now we have so much more room for tailgating stuff (and friends!) for this coming Penn State football season.

2.. We just booked a beach house down at the Outer Banks in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to hit the road and take the pups for a week away from it all.

1. My 1/2 Marathon is tomorrow!!!!! The longest run I got in while training was 9 miles and that run was AMAZING. I felt like I was flying and could have gone all day. A week later I went out to do 10 miles and was so miserable I quit after 6 1/2 miles. I'm hoping tomorrow is more like two weeks ago. I'm spending today with my feet up and drinking plenty of water.

30 While 30 - Check In

Whooooooooa we're halfway there, WHOOOOOOOOA livin' on a prayer!

6 months until I turn 31, time to check in on how my list is going.....

Healthier Me:

 1. PR a 5k  38:03 12/31/13
 2. PR a 10k - Don't have one scheduled yet
 3. PR a 10 Miler - Broad Street (May 4)
 4. Run 1/2 Marathon - Rock & Roll DC (March 15)
 5. Complete a Triathlon Tri for Love, September 15
 6. Complete a mud run - Not scheduled yet. Hoping for a fun one to come up this summer.
 7. Try every class on the schedule at my gym (15?/62)
 8. Ride entire W&OD Trail from Purcellville to Shirlington - Hoping to do this one sometime this summer.
 9. Try CrossFit - Keeping my eye out for a Groupon
10. Lose 30lbs (11/30)
11. 30 consecutive days off from drinking - I had planned to do this in January and fell off the wagon 12 days in, I don't know that this will happen now that we're heading into spring/summer. Can't imagine 30 days of no patio drinking.....
12. 30 days of Paleo - Not important to me anymore, more likely to try 30 consecutive days of food tracking.

Financial Me:

13. Pay off one car - Nope
14. No credit card debt - Nope
15. Follow all cash plan for one month - Not yet
16. Make $300 outside of my day job - I need a plan for this....
17. Have 3 month emergency fund - Not even close, and it's becoming more clear how important an emergency fund is since we don't current have tenants in our rental condo.
18. Build a wardrobe of 30 essential pieces - I'm starting to get some pieces that I know I can wear over and over again and mix up. My current favorites are black skinnies and distressed boyfriend jeans. My chambray shirt is another favorite I can wear at LEAST once a week, and so many different ways to style it! I think once I get closer to my goal weight I'll pick up some more classic pieces.
19. Donate 30 items of clothing - I have a big bag of clothes to go to GoodWill, not quite 30, still working on paring down the closet. I will probably have several more items once I start pulling out summer stuff.

Experiences:

20. Travel to a new country - London, England
21. Take a spur of the moment out of town trip - Have some ideas, but that kind of defeats the purpose of spur of the moment, yes?
22. Attend an outdoor concert
23. Volunteer for 30 hours
24. Have professional pics taken
25. Read 30 books (8 books read)

Around the house:

26. Try 30 new recipes - I've tried probably about 10 recipes so far, many more on Pinterest to try though!
27. Get all recipes and magazine tear sheets pinned - I've gotten through a couple big stacks of recipes, still have a lot more to go through.
28. Paint powder room - Thinking of completing this soon actually.
29. Hang pictures in living room and fill empty frames around the house - Two more empties hanging on the wall, 10 more planned to go up in the living room.
30. Minimum of 30 blog posts (21/30)

So only 3 items completely crossed off, but a couple races coming up in the spring and several in progress. I think I will be crossing off many more come spring/summertime.

What have you been working on this year????

Linking up with Renee at SassyWife for Tuesday Tea