noBOLOGNA

Blountville, TN

Good Morning & Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  I had two baby showers to go to and some raw vegan food-prep to do, it was a fun weekend and I look forward to recapping that later.  Right now, I’m excited to share about our Memorial Day weekend – it was a doozy!  We had two weddings to attend.  One was Nick’s neighbor growing up and friend from Boy Scouts which was in town.  The second wedding was for Nick’s cousin and it was in Blountville, TN – the weddings were less than 24 hours apart, 8.5 hours away from each other and we intended to be at both.

Let’s back up though to Friday…. On Friday, I felt like I was coming down with a sinus infection.  Immediately after work, I went home and tried to rest up, drinking lots of fluids.  I knew that I couldn’t get sick because we had an intense weekend ahead.  Thankfully, I woke up Saturday morning feeling much better as if I was on the mend!  Nick picked me up early Saturday morning so we could work on a French Drain at my boss’ house.  That was some of the toughest work I’ve ever done.  Nick had agreed to the project before getting a job offer so he was able to start earlier in the week, but paused Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday because of his new job.  We picked back up on Saturday, hoping to finish the project.  I was there for some manual labor and motivation.  We worked from 7:30 AM – 4:30 PM.  We finished up just in time.  We rushed home to get ready for our first wedding that weekend. We barely made it to the wedding on time and at this point, my poor legs were killing me from all the squatting that day for the French Drain work.  We stayed at that wedding for a brief while to say hello to the very few people Nick knew, enjoyed some food, had one beverage each, zero dancing ensued, and we devoured rock candy on the way back to Nick’s.

We decided to go ahead and start our journey to Blouteville, TN for the second wedding.  It was at 1:30 PM on Sunday so we knew we were driving through the night.  We drove for a few hours starting at 9 PM before stopping at a rest stop to take a nap.  We napped from 11 PM to 3 AM and then I woke up to drive until Sunrise.  Nick finished off the drive and we arrived to the hotel by 11 AM.  Luckily, they let us check in early so we could go ahead and get ready and meet up with Nick’s fam before heading to the wedding.

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With Trey & Kathryn living in Florida, we don’t get to see Cade as much as we would like so every time we’re all together, he clearly steals the show.  His cuteness knows no bounds!  He loves his aunts and uncles so so much, it is the most precious thing to see.

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What a little ham.  I love him so much!

This was one of the funnest weddings we’ve ever been too and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the outdoor wedding.  I’m not an outdoorsy person – I don’t like bugs and grass can be so itchy, plus there are ants… and I don’t do ants EVER!  They did a great job planning this outdoor wedding though.  I’m so disappointed that I didn’t take more pictures of the decor, food, drinks, and farm!

The ceremony was held outside and it was short & sweet.  The bride was absolutely beautiful and there was clearly love in the air!  Once the ceremony was over, the bridal party went to take some pictures and we reconnected with friends and family.

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It was fairly hot so my hair went up pretty quickly.  The rest of the day was full of yummy food & drinks paired with lots and lots of dancing!  Nick’s family is so much fun!  This was my first time meeting his cousins in Pennsylvania and they were so sweet and fun to hang out with.  His cousin, Katherine, who got married, as I mentioned… was gorgeous!

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I didn’t get the best pictures (my phone isn’t doing a spectacular job these days), but look how pretty!!!  The wedding wrapped up around 8:30 PM and we decided to meet up with some family at Olive Garden to end out the night.  The visit was extremely short, but oh so sweet.  Hopefully we have another reason to all get together soon!

I woke up Monday morning completely miserable though and my sinus infection came back with a vengeance!  I’m so glad it decided to post-pone itself until after the wedding, but I was pretty miserable the rest of the week.  The drive home was awful and a struggle for both of us.  Nick had a pretty bad headache when we started out, but it cleared up a few hours into the drive, thank goodness.  I only worked an hour and a half on Tuesday because I was so sick, so I rested up Tuesday, felt a little better Wednesday, and about 95% Thursday.

Overall, Bloutville, TN was good to us!

 

Hello Mornings!

Hi there!

How did your Monday shape up?  Mine was a typical Monday.  Nothing too exciting, just work and realizing that the weekend was officially over.  What a bummer.  Onward and upward though as we look forward to the next weekend!  I’ve realized that the majority of my weekends are full between now and the end of the summer.  I’m excited about all the trips I have planned so far – Milwaukee, Houston, Birmingham, Tennessee!  It’s going to be a fun-filled summer, that’s for sure.

This past weekend, we wrapped up Girls on the Run with our 5k race.  Our chapter is so incredibly small right now, we team up with races in our area for the Girls on the Run 5k each season.  This season we ran the Magnolia Meltdown race.  Our girls did a fantastic job and we had so much fun celebrating their accomplishment.  I was a running buddy for a sweet girl on another team.  The girls are required to run with a running buddy throughout the race and if their family doesn’t have someone to run with them then our chapter provides a running buddy.  All three of the girls on my team had their own running buddies, so I filled in elsewhere.

This organization has been such a blessing in my life!  I have two girls from my very first seasons with Girls on the Run who come back each year to run the 5k with us.  This season was no different and I was thrilled when I ran into one of them just a few days before the race and they told me that they had just signed up and they would be seeing me on Saturday!  They have the sweetest hearts and I’m so proud of the young ladies they are becoming.

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HELLO MORNINGS!

Have you heard of Hello, Mornings?!  It’s so neat.  I’m currently in a biblestudy group with 15 other women and we’re using the Voxer app to communicate.  It’s really cool because we can either voice talk in the app or text, depending on our preference or length of our conversation.  It has been such a tremendous blessing in my life.  We check in with each other every morning and the program encourages healthy living habits along with daily quiet time with God.  I’m loving it!  You commit to a six week program and then they take 2 weeks off before you sign up to do another session.  We’re currently on week 4, so there are about 5 weeks before the next session starts, but I strongly encourage you to take a look at what this organization is all about!  I’ve been so impressed with the program and love that I have the opportunity to meet 15 ladies from all walks of life for one common purpose.

  • Have you done a Hello Mornings biblestudy?
  • Do you volunteer with Girls on the Run?  Do they even have that in your area?
  • What is something fun you have planned this week?

My 2nd Disney Princess Half-Marathon

Alrighty… so full discretion, I have deleted and re-written the beginning of this post 3 times now.  I have no idea how to start it off.  Let’s try this again: The past year or two, I’ve been blogging from a desktop computer.  That doesn’t bode well for a busy body like myself so I haven’t made much of an appearance around these parts lately, but my blogging bug has been biting for quite some time.  I decided that it was time to switch the desktop for a laptop so I could be more full functioning in the blog world and with my Arbonne business.  So here I am, yay!  I’m excited to use my time more efficiently by popping into a coffee shop in between work and an evening event or during lunch to get some work done, blogging or otherwise.

Now the question is… what post should I start with?!  How about something fun?  Yes.  Something Fun.  And not just a little fun, but a lot of fun!

Let’s chat about my recent Disney Princess Half-Marathon today!!

In true Nick & Heather fashion, we left Jackson right after I got off work Thursday and decided to drive through the night.  We arrived to Orlando Friday morning.  It’s been a little while since we took this trip and I’m not putting all the pieces together, so this may be a hodge podge of events throughout our trip.  I know that we hung out around the parks on Friday, but I don’t recall which ones because apparently I didn’t take pictures.  On Saturday though, we hit up Magic Kingdom!  I needed a nice carb-loaded breakfast to prepare myself for race day so we tried something new, Belgium waffles from Sleepy Hollow.  Let me tell you, we were extremely pleased.

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I went with the nutella waffle that came with deliciously fresh bananas and strawberries.  It was a great serving size for the price and I’ll definitely be getting this again!  Nick got the Waffle with Strawberries & Whip Cream.  He really enjoyed his too.  The strawberries on his were more of a syrup-like blend of strawberries, which I’m not a huge fan of, so I’m really glad I went with the nutella option.

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Later that day, Kathryn & her friends finally got to Orlando and we went to the Expo to pick up our packets.  At this point, Nick and I split up.  Nick met up with Trey & Cade for dinner and quality time while I went off with the girls.  Kathryn sent me the most adorable picture of Cade & Nick walking together.  They’re relationship is absolutely precious!  Cade looks up to his Uncle Nick so much and is obsessed with saying his name.  The girls went on a short jog to warm up our legs before race day and then soaked our feet in the hot tub.  We decided on a relaxed dinner at the pool before heading upstairs to get ready for a very early morning.

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The alarm went off at 3:30am (if I remember correctly) and we got ready for race day!  The hotel we stayed at was incredible.  They had the biggest send off party.  The staff had signs and were taking pictures for us and cheering us on as we walked down the hallways.  They provided a free breakfast spread full of fruit, granola bars, bagels, coffee, and water bottles.  Kathryn and Kelly got on the first send-off bus, but Laura and I missed it so we grabbed the second bus.  It actually worked out in our favor though because the first bus got lost and we arrived before they did!  They made it in plenty of time though and we headed towards the starting line.

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This race turned out to be a lot better than I expected if we’re being honest here.  I did a really good job pacing myself and was able to run about 5 miles without any trouble.  I started noticing slight knee resistance, so I started stopping at character pictures to give me time for stretching in between running.  I kept up with that for another 5 miles.  I noticed that I was slowing down a lot more towards the end, which was to be expected.  Luckily, right around this time, I got an extra burst of motivation when I ran into Meg from My Borrowed Heaven.  We ran off and on together for a few miles until I had to actually stop and stretch really good because my thighs were seizing up.

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Once I got my thighs all stretched out, I finished the race strong! Overall, I was very pleased.  It wasn’t my best time, but with all the knee issues I’ve been having the past few years and with how awful my Disney Wine & Dine Half was, I was thrilled with how I felt overall.  I also had the best cheer squad ever!

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After the race, we went and relaxed at the hotel room for a bit, then headed off to Epcot for a celebratory dinner at Tokyo Dining in Japan.  Nick and I stuck around Disney for another day before heading back to Jackson.  It was a short, but super sweet trip.  We had a blast, I had another successful half marathon, and we got to spend some quality time with our favorites.  Of course, every time I go to Disney, I never want to go back home.  I’m looking forward to our next visit, even though we’re not really sure when that will be at this point.

I’ll call this a successful post back to blogging – I could talk Disney all day & all night.

  • Did you do the Disney Half Marathon?
  • What’s the best race you’ve ever participated in?

 

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The views and statements expressed on No Bologna are my own. You are reading No Bologna at your own risk and I am not providing any type of professional advice. Unless otherwise noted, all material on No Bologna may not be used, reprinted, or published without my consent. I do occasionally have affiliated links on my blog - this does not raise the price of the product, I simply get a very small commission from the regular retail price if something is purchased using an affiliated link on my site. I appreciate any support by you in regards to affiliated links.