I’m doing the Drenched 5K in Philly on August 17th! 

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So what’s the Drenched 5K?  This race is all about bringing back those memories of summer fun.  You can run or walk from dry to drenched through “hot zones” and drenched zones which may include mist tunnels, sprinkler minefields, spectator “sniper” zones, foam, bubbles, and fire hoses.  At the finish line there’s the world’s biggest water balloon fight, music, drinks and dancing. The race also benefits local Children’s Hospitals and firefighters. 

Dancing? Water balloons?  Charity component?  I’ll be there.

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You’re probably wondering why I haven’t told you about the cost.

It’s $40 up until June 21, but that doesn’t matter because…

I have a free race entry for 1 lucky reader! 

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Comment below letting me know which “fun” races you’ve done (ex: Color Run, Mud Run)
2. “Like” me on facebook 
3. “Follow” me on twitter (optional)
4. Tweet –>  Want to run in Philly’s Drenched 5K for free? @_nicolekennedy is hosting a giveaway!  (optional)
5. ** please comment below each time you either “like” “follow” or “tweet”.  That way I know to give you separate entries!

All dressed up for a client event on Saturday morning

Saturday

After work on Saturday, I went over to my dad’s girlfriend’s house to surprise him for an early Father’s Day BBQ.  He had no idea we were coming!  It was me, Bryan, my sister & her boyfriend.  We ate so much great BBQ food: skewers of shrimp with pineapple, skewers of tomatoes and mushrooms, and skewers of peppers and onions. 

Dad with his Father’s Day cake

It’s always nice to spend time with my family.  I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like, because all of our scheduled are always different.  I work full-time during the week and my sister is in school full-time and works part-time during the weekends.  She thinks her schedule is crazy now.  She’s going to school to be a nurse!

After dinner and dessert, I drove home, took a shower and crashed into bed.  I was exhausted!  It was such a long day.  I’m just glad that traffic wasn’t bad on Saturday.  It took me 30 minutes to drive four blocks in Center City on Friday afternoon.

Sunday

On Sunday, I got to sleep in until about 9 when the sun was too bright to keep sleeping.  Bry and I watched Psych in bed for an hour or so, had breakfast and went shopping!  Our first stop however, was a pet adoption event.  There were a fair amount of dogs there, but not many puppies and no dachshunds .  It seemed like a lot of the dogs were going home with new owners, so that was pretty uplifting to see. 

After we left there, we went over to IKEA so I could finally purchase a chair for my office!  It’s taken me this long to find a suitable chair.  It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but it’s pretty close and I love it already.  It was also really inexpensive! 

We also went food shopping, which surprisingly is one of my favorite things to do on the weekends.  I told that to my dad’s girlfriend on Saturday and she said food shopping is the one chore that she hates!  I’m sure I’m in the minority with this one.  When we got home from running errands, I made lunch and relaxed on the couch for the majority of the day.

After eating lunch, I finally fixed up my office!  It’s by no means 100% completed, but it’s getting there.  I still need to hang a few photos and get a new lamp.  Here’s what it looks like so far:

Talk to Me

• What did you do this weekend?
• Do you have a home office?  What does yours look like?
• How often do you get to see your family?

This week was pretty strange.  We’ve been having absolutely crazy weather.  Some days it’s bright and sunny and then days like yesterday we had torrential downpour. 

Today it’s supposed to be nice, so that’s a good start for the weekend! 

Here are my Friday favorites for this week.  Not too many, but all very great things from this week:

Had a great day on Wednesday.  I told you about it in yesterday’s post, but Wednesday was just a great day.  The sun was shining, yoga was amazing and Whole Foods had my favorite oatmeal at the breakfast bar.

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Booked our caterer.  We technically did this at the end of last week, but I received confirmation from them this week.  We’ve decided to go with Jeffrey Miller Catering!  We are beyond excited and I can’t wait to finalize all the details with them in the coming months.  We’ll be serving swordfish and prime rib for our entrée options – I LOVE MY SWORDFISH!  The swordfish will be served with a Thai coconut curry sauce.  Talk about perfection!  I can’t wait.

Organized my Pinterest boards.  I finally made most of my wedding Pinterest boards public.  I wanted to make sure they truly portrayed the wedding I had in mind before making them open to view.  I’m so happy that I took the time to organize everything, because it will make a huge difference when I’m looking for a specific image to show a vendor.

Talk to Me

• What are your favorites from this week?
• Leave me a link below to your Pinterest account so I can start following your boards!
• Do you like taking yoga classes at home or in a studio?

The class was a bit smaller than last week (I don’t know why because it was a bright and sunny day!) but I had such an amazing time.  Our instructor started the class like usual with reminding us to set a personal intention for the class that day – whether it’s just letting myself think about nothing but the class, focusing on my breath, or any other number of things. 

She then read a quote that she wanted us to remember throughout the class. She brought up sections of it as the class was progressing.  It stuck with me so much that I posted about it on facebook and now here on the blog. 

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I’m planning on finding a high-res version of that quote someplace online, printing it out and placing it in a picture frame in our home.  I like it THAT much. 

After having a great class, I came home, showered, got dressed and headed to Whole Foods for a quick breakfast before work.  When I got there I realized that they had my favorite oatmeal of all time – the tropical oats!  As I was standing at the breakfast buffet scooping out my delicious meal, an older woman and her daughter (probably about my age) started up a conversation with me.  It was such a simple conversation about my preference in oatmeal, what was good, and what toppings I preferred, but they were having a good day too and it continued to put me in a good mood. 

Once I got to work, no matter what the world through back at me I wasn’t going to let it ruin my good day.  Lesson Learned:  I need more yoga classes in my life.

Talk to Me

• When’s the last time you had a really good day?
• What made that day great?
• What the best quote you’ve heard recently?

Aside from my prescription Ray-Ban sunglasses and Bryan’s Oakley sunglasses, I don’t own expensive ones. I’m prone to sitting on them, losing them and even stepping on them. (Yes, people actually do that). 

When I was contacted by Sunglasses Shop, I was thrilled because they have a lot of different sunglasses, not just those that are designer sunglasses. There are sunglasses to fit every price point. 

They asked me to do a review and I was thrilled to try out the “Jenny” from SXUC.  At $31.16 (or if you’re in the UK, £20), these are a steal! 

I was really surprised how fast the sunglasses got to my apartment, because they are shipped directly from the UK. I typically never order sunglasses online, because who knows what they are going to look like on my face.

I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box and these were inside:

My favorite part about these sunglasses is the side! They are pretty classic, so I don’t expect them to go out of style any time soon. I’ve had them for a few weeks so far and I’ve worn them with everything from a bridesmaids dress, jeans and a t-shirt, and my bathing suit – very versatile!

FTC: These sunglasses were provided by Sunglasses Shop. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Talk to Me

• Do you own expensive sunglasses?
• What’s your favorite brand of sunglasses?
• Do you break them as frequently as I do?

Saturday

On Saturday morning, Bryan and I drove to his parents’ house for the night.  Bryan, his dad and his sister went to see Kenny Chesney in concert, so I stayed with his mom.  We did a lot in a few hours!  We went to the Lenox outlet, ate at Bonefish Grill and watched Magic Mike.  Haha, have any of you seen Magic Mike?  There’s not much of a plot line to the movie and it’s very predictable, but there’s a LOT of footage of Channing Tatum dancing which is always good. 

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I also go to take a quick nap on Saturday, which is always the best.  Weekend afternoon naps are mandatory for me.  Especially since I wanted to stay up until after midnight when Bryan would be back from the concert. 

Sunday

It was a bit overcast on Saturday, but Sunday ended up being a gorgeous day!  On Sunday morning, Bryan and I took his grandmom shopping for a couple hours and had breakfast at a dining car in Philly. 

After all the errands were done, we drove back home just in time to enjoy the sun at our pool.  The pool was packed!  Lots of young people our age with only a few families with little kids.  We spent about 2 hours by the pool until we started getting hungry for dinner.  Next time we’ll be bringing a cooler with drinks and snacks. 

For dinner I made a quick salad: romaine, hot salsa, falafel, and penne pasta.  Bryan opted out of the salsa and had a champagne vinaigrette instead.  We ate our salad on our deck with Shock Top beer.  I had the honeycrisp apple wheat and Bryan had a lemon shandy.  Both were very good! 

Now it’s Monday again, my friends.  The weather in the Philly area is gross today.  Lots of rain which made it hard to wake up this morning.  We’re having heavy thunderstorms all day today.  Lovely. Well, I hope you all have a fantastic Monday!  If it’s raining in your area, be safe out there.  I woke up to a text message that said flood warning.

Talk to Me

• What did you do this weekend?
• Have you had the Shock Top seasonal collection?  Which beer flavor is your favorite?
• Any goals for this week?

Since I still have a work-day to get through, here are my Friday Favorites for this week to remind me of how great this past week was.  Since I already did a whole post yesterday about how much I loved my hot yoga class Wednesday morning, you know that was a favorite thing of mine this week.  Here are some others:

Tortilla crusted tilapia.  I went food shopping this week and needed to restock on this.  I probably buy this brand’s tortilla crusted tilapia every time I go food shopping.  After baking in the oven for about 25 minutes, the tilapia comes out crispy and a tad spicy (which I love).  I ate this early in the week with corn on the cob.  Perfect combo!

Giant brand hot salsa.  I forgot how much I love this stuff.  I bought it this week and fell in love all over again.  If you live near a Giant grocery store, definitely pick this up.  It is pretty spicy though, so if you don’t like poblano peppers, this probably isn’t right for you. 

Client event at the CBS3 studios.  On Thursday, one of our clients participated in a phone drive for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation at the CBS3 studios.  Sometimes it takes these types of charity events to really understand why your job matters.  It’s the big picture, people!

Amy’s Organic Spicy Chili.  You probably know that I love my food spicy.  I hate bland food.  This chili I probably wrote about here on the blog 100x already, but it’s been a favorite this week.  Sometimes when I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is stand in the kitchen for an hour and cook dinner.  This chili is great because since there is no meat, all I have to do it put it on the stove until it starts boiling.  Oh & it’s delicious too!  Bryan’s tried it a few times and didn’t hate it!

Talk to Me

• What are you doing this weekend?
• What are some of your favorite things from this week?
• What’s your favorite thing to make for dinner in a short amount of time?

It was my first in-studio yoga class in a while, so I am definitely feeling a bit sore today but I loved every minute of it.  I loved that I felt like I accomplished so much so early in the morning. 

My studio only offers early morning yoga on Wednesdays, so I’ll have to go again next week.  I need to start going more frequently, because lately my life has been: wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, sleep.  For most of America I’m sure has this same routine, but I can’t stand it.  I need to do something other than work, otherwise I’ll go insane.  Morning yoga is the best because when I get to work I’m happier and more energized.

Yoga classes can get expensive, so I’m going to try to buy a bulk package so I can go whenever I want and not worry about spending the $15 for each class. 

One pose that I want to master this year is yoga bird of paradise.  I hope to get back the flexibility I’ve lost, because I don’t think the pose it too difficult.  It’s the flexibility factor that’s holding me back. 

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Some other poses I want to keep working towards are:

crow (source)

side crow (source)

scorpion (source)

Talk to Me

• What’s the earliest yoga class you’ve ever done?
• What yoga poses are you working towards?
• What’s your favorite yoga pose?

Here are the goals I set for myself for May and the current status of them.

1.  Get my skin and hair in order.  Skin – somewhat completed, Hair – completed.  My skin had a crazy breakout this month and now I have dark spots from the scarring.  Luckily, last night I went to Macy’s and picked up the Clinique Clinical Dark Spot Corrector.  It’s guaranteed to lighten your scars up to two shades in a month.  I’ll be using this religiously twice a day so hopefully I see some improvement.  In hair news, I finally got my hair trimmed this month, so it no longer looks like 2 inches of fried hair at the ends.  That’s definitely a positive. 

2. Take at least one yoga class at a studio.  Did not complete/Will complete tomorrow.  I signed up for a class tomorrow morning at 5:45AM!  I was chatting with my yoga teacher on Facebook last week and was joking around with her that she needs to start an early morning/pre-work class.  To my surprise, she has that class on Wednesday mornings!  

3. Get back to the gym.  Somewhat completed.  I did get to the gym a few times this month, but nothing significant.  It’s so nice out these days that the last place I want to be is cooped up in our gym. 

4.  Take more walks around my development.  Did not complete.  Completely forgot this was a goal of mine for this past month.  We’ve been so busy that any down time we had this month was spent laying on the couch. 

I’m only going to have three goals this month, so I can really focus on each one.  I find that if I have tons of goals, none of them ever get done because I either forget what they are or I just get overwhelmed.

1. Take at least one yoga class in a studio and practice more yoga/meditation at home.  I already have a class scheduled for tomorrow, but I want to start attending more frequently to truly benefit. 

2.  Stop picking/biting my nails.  My nails were actually pretty long at the beginning of May, but after a really bad gel manicure, they all broke and then I started picking at them.  I.Will.Stop.Picking/Biting.My.Nails.

3.  Organize our office.  Now that we have an office in our apartment, I need to start actually putting it all together.  That means: buying a desk chair, cleaning out the closet, and decorating. 

Talk to Me

• What are your goals for June?
• Do you have an office in your home?  If so, where did you buy your chair?  I’m looking for a more formal dining chair for my office.  Nothing with wheels.
• When do you find is the best time for meditation/yoga? In the mornings or at night?

Friday

On Friday, we took a vacation day so we could drive down to the beach early.  We arrived in Stone Harbor, NJ around 11:30AM and checked into our motel room.  It was actually pretty nice.  Only a block and a half from the beach! 

We spent most of the day on Friday laying on the beach and playing frisbee.  The weather was perfect for a beach day.  It was warm with a slight breeze.  Out of all the days of the weekend, Friday was definitely the best day for sun-tanning on the beach.  We got a bit sunburnt.  Mine was mainly on the backs of my legs.  I always forget to put sunblock on the backs of my knees!  Stone Harbor beach is really clean and wasn’t that crowded.  Maybe it was because we went on a Friday.  I don’t know.  All I know is that I had a blast just laying in the sand listening to the Vampire Weekend Pandora station.  That is the PERFECT beach music.

After the beach, we went back to the motel, showered and took a quick nap before heading over to the Rehearsal.  The church was gorgeous.  It was in Avalon and had the most amazing wood beams on the ceiling.  Although we’re not having our wedding in a church, I can appreciate other people’s beliefs and choices for doing so. 

After the Rehearsal was the Rehearsal Dinner which lasted a good 3.5 hours – a true Italian dinner.  We had so much food: appetizers, salad, pasta, our entrée, and dessert!  It was so nice to have some quiet time with just the wedding party and our dates.  It turned the wedding into a wedding weekend, and who doesn’t love that!?

Saturday

Saturday was the wedding day!  We woke up and went to Lauren’s beach house at 8AM, then headed over to the salon to all get our hair done.  I don’t have a photo of the back of my hair, but it was so cool.  The stylist twisted the back of my hair and almost made a faux hair clip.  Here’s the picture that I showed the stylist.

After everyone’s hair was good to go, we went back to the beach house for breakfast and to get ready!  The photographer was already there, so we had to quickly put on our dresses and accessories and head to the church.  Lauren looked GORGEOUS!  Once the ceremony was over, we hopped onto the limo bus and drove around the different beaches in NJ for photos!  We did a lot in just a few short hours.  We took photos in Sea Isle on the beach and even on the pier in Wildwood.  Lauren’s going to have such fun photos!  I can’t wait to see them all. 

The reception was a lot of fun.  She had a DJ and a band, so there was the best of both worlds.  The DJ played more recent stuff and the band was 70’s funk. 

Her reception was at the Yacht Club of Stone Harbor, which is the most gorgeous beachy venue I’ve ever seen.  There was a two-story deck that the bridal party took photos on before the reception. 

Downstairs was where you would find the main dining room, dance floor and bar.  The deck downstairs was filled with lots of people enjoying cigars, mixed drinks and the great weather.  She honestly couldn’t have had a better day!

Sunday

On Sunday, Bryan and I woke up early in hopes we could check out and start heading back home before the traffic.  Unfortunately at 7:30 when we left the motel, the office wasn’t open yet.  Instead, we finished packing up the car and drove to North Wildwood and had breakfast at Samuel’s Pancake House.  Bryan said he went there as a kid and since I was never there, I was pumped to try a new breakfast place.

After breakfast we still had some time, so we walked on the Wildwood boardwalk for a little bit.  No photos of that, but although it was pretty windy in the morning, it was still a gorgeous day.  I had a sweatshirt on and it wasn’t too hot just yet.  Once we got back to Philly, however it was much warmer. 

We got back to our apartment around 12PM and took a nap for an hour.  We were exhausted from our busy, but exciting weekend.  Bryan just got a few Surfing Magazines in the mail, so I laid in bed and flipped through them before drifting off to sleep.

After our nap, we made dinner and sat by our complex’s pool.  Although it was overcast, it was still really hot.  We didn’t go swimming, but I got to read another chapter or two of Creating Your Best Life and listen to more of the Vampire Weekend Pandora station.  That band is my favorite this summer. 

We only stayed at the pool for about an hour before heading over to Whole Foods.  I realized I didn’t have any food for lunches this week and that was a problem.  After shopping, we put the groceries in the car and headed back into the Whole Foods pub.  I got a cherry wheat beer and Bryan had something more dark.  Such a great way to end our weekend. 

When we got home, we quickly made dinner and watched The Killing!  It was one of my favorite shows last year and when they said they were coming back with a third season, I was ecstatic.  Such a great show.  This season is going to be wild.

Talk to Me

• What did you do this weekend?
• Do you watch The Killing? What did you think of the first episode of season 3?
• How often do you go to the beach in the summers?