Photo Blogging Challenge – Friends and Family

The April photo blogging challenge theme was “Friends & Family“.

I had a little trouble with the theme this month. Lots of photo ideas, but also friends & family that aren’t fans of being in photos (or are against having photos of them shared on the internet).

Does anyone else feel like this month flew by? I started a new job the 1st week in April but when I went to draft this post I wanted to type “the challenge for March was”…

Anyway, here we go for April!

A lot of my friends are people that share a love of fitness & work out with me.

Above is a photo from yesterday’s November Project Boston workout, to represent all my friends from November Project, Social Boston Sports, She Runs Boston, BollyX, and any other fun fitness activities I’m forgetting.

Above is a photo of me & my friend from college, Marina – to represent my friends from school. 

Marina & I were both bridesmaids in each other’s weddings.

She & her husband Mike welcomed a healthy baby boy into their lives in Feb. My husband & I are wicked happy for them!

Celebrating my Great Aunt Phyllis’s 80th birthday

My Mom’s side of the family.

(Table pictures are hard. You can’t really see my cousin Steve & his wife Sarah, but they were there.)

Program from Emmanuel College’s production of Xanadu

The photo above is intended to represent my husband’s side of the family.

My sister-in-law Jackie made puppets for this play (amazing looking!) so Dave, Doug, Jen, & I saw the musical on Friday night.

Dave has 3 siblings & a big extended family. There’s a party for someone’s birthday nearly every weekend. 🙂

Homemade meatballs

My final photo representing family was taken at my parent’s house on Sunday.

My Mom invited us over for a pasta dinner with homemade sauce.

Honestly, of all the Italian-American stereotypes there are, I’m OK with the “food is love” one.

My husband & I are very lucky and we see our families nearly every weekend.

We live 2 miles from our in-laws (which has come in very handy when our old cars broke down & I needed a ride home from the mechanic shop near their house). We head over on Sunday nights to watch Game of Thrones with them. This Saturday, we’ll probably see if anyone’s interested in joining us to visit comic shops for Free Comic Book Day.

We’re about a 45 minute drive from my parents house, but we make an effort to see them each weekend too. If we go on a Sunday, we often stop by my Grandmother’s house on the way, to bring her along.

As you may have guessed by my blog posts, I keep my schedule pretty busy, but I do make sure to schedule in time to see friends too. I have a monthly “girls night out” with 2 friends I’ve known since middle school. (Sadly, scheduling didn’t work out for this month with my new job & a friend’s trip to FL, but we’re working on getting a date for May set.)

This monthly photo blogging challenge is facilitated by PJ of the Northeast Bloggers Network.

Thanks for inspiring me to take more photos!

Light It Up Neon – Spin Class for Autism Speaks

On Saturday, I had a great time joining my friend Meg’s spin class fundraiser to benefit Autism Speaks. We were once again back at Velo-City!

Meg, in yellow, at the front getting ready to start class.

I enjoyed the class. (I need to come back to one of Meg’s regular spin classes during the week.)

My bike – checked in on Yelp & ready to go!

You may remember from last year, Light It Up Neon, that I have a God-son that has Autism. I thought of him a lot during class. I’m wicked proud of Meg for raising $4,000 with her fundraising class!

Blue is the color of Autism Speaks so I wore blue (with yellow for the neon theme)

and got my nails painted with a blue gel polish

If you’d like to donate to this fundraiser you still can!

Red Sox – 4/19

It’s been a wicked busy weekend for me.

On Saturday afternoon, I took my Dad to a Red Sox game. (The tickets were a Christmas gift to him.)

We sat in the right field roof box & had a fun day – despite the Red Sox losing & David Ortiz getting himself thrown out of the game for arguing with an umpire.

Me & Dad in our seats – with a Boston Marathon runner behind me

Because the game was the day before the Boston Marathon, they had Rick & Dick Hoyt throw out the 1st pitch. They’re heroes of the Boston Marathon & Dick is the grand marshal this year. Another teammate will be pushing his son Rick in his wheelchair for the marathon.

They also honored a wounded warrior team of veterans during the 7th inning that would be running the marathon the next day.

The weather for the game was amazing! I forgot to put on sun block & got a burn on the left side of my face, but it was worth it!

The last time Dad had been to Fenway Park was when I brought him, my Grandpa, and my Uncle in 2005.

Marathon Monday 2015

On Monday, I got to cheer runners in at Mile 14 of the Boston Marathon as part of my job.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s my 3rd week working in fundraising for the National Organization for Rare Disorders.

We had an awesome group of runners in the Boston Marathon fundraising for us!

It ended up being a very cold (40s) & rainy day – but before the rain came, we chalked the road supporting our runners!

Here’s a photo of the mile 14 cheering section for Running for Rare Diseases:

In in the front, kneeling in the pink jacket, with the “Thank You x 26.2” sign

My co-worker Ahleum is to my left, with a “Conquering Rare Diseases 1 Mile at a time” sign

Even though it was bitterly cold & I got soaked with rain – I honestly didn’t feel the chill till I stopped cheering. I was fueled by adrenaline from 9:30 AM – 2:45 PM.

As an added bonus, I could cheer for my friends that were running the race.

Every time I saw someone in November Project tagged gear, I’d lose my head for a bit cheering.

Then I got to explain to the President of the nonprofit I work for what the heck November Project was & why I would continue to scream at any NP tagged runner.

Worth it though!

I didn’t get to see all of my friends who were running. (There’s a crowd of 30,000 runners. Very hard to spot people.) But, I did have fun giving shout outs to those I did see. Your smiles made my day!

Me with my sign

Great job to all the runners that trained in the worst winter on record!

Last SBS Soccer Game for Team Uno Mas

Indoor Soccer

Team Uno Mas – picture from our 1st game

Sunday night was our last soccer game for this league.

We lost, 10-4, but came back in the 2nd half to at least keep it from being a shut out.

Maggie & Jess are planning to use their Chipotle winnings to treat us to a “team banquet” in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to that, because our team members just rock.

After the game, we discussed creating another team in a future league. I said, “I’m still not a fan of playing soccer, but I like all of you, so I’d join a future team if you make one.”

Here’s hoping we can make a future team work.

BAA 5K – 2015

Saturday morning was a beautiful day for the Boston Athletic Association 5K!

The race is put on by the same organization that manages the Boston Marathon (this Monday!).

The race starts at Boston common, then brings us over the Boston Marathon finish line in Copley Square, before finishing back at the common.

It’s my favorite race to run (due to the route & organizers)! I ran the BAA 5K last year too.

I wasn’t going for speed, since I just got back into running after taking a break through this winter.

I finished in about 45 minutes. Not my best, but not my worse either. 🙂

Here are some photos from the race (thanks to my awesome husband Dave):

In the starting corral

Running over the Boston Marathon finish line

Near the 5K finish

Done & posing near the finish line!

I had fun after the race posing with this turtle in Copley Square

After the race, my husband & I headed to the Hynes Convention Center for the Marathon Expo.

It was fun to wander around the booths & get free samples of food. I also took advantage of the expo specials and got another Sparkly Soul headband. (This time in purple.) You can never have enough workout headbands. (Yes, I just bought 2 Sparkly Soul headbands on Tuesday. I’m a big fan!)

Celebrating One Boston Day with November Project

This morning marked my return to November Project Boston stair climbing, after way too long of a winter break.

I couldn’t have returned on a better day.

Today is the 2 year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. To honor the victims & the spirit of pride the city had after the bombings, Mayor Walsh declared April 15th One Boston Day.

The goal of One Boston Day is to spread random acts of kindness & be there for your community.

We honored the day at NP with a moment of silence followed by a slow clap turning into some loud cheering.

I got in 11 sections climbed today – which I’m OK with. My legs were shaking & a little mad at me for taking so long of a break – but I’m back & will only get better. I made sure to cheer extra loud for people that were taking it slow on the steps like I was, and introduce myself.

How can you feel sad when puppies are climbing too?!

Photo credit Elin

It was also great to see friends from NP that are running the Boston Marathon on Monday & wish them luck. I get to staff a water stop at mile 14 of the marathon as part of my job, so hopefully I’ll see them run by on race day too! (We have a team of runners that run Boston and fundraise for National Organization for Rare Disorders, the nonprofit I work for.)

Here’s our 6:30 AM group photo!

I’m in the back, under the 36 – proudly making a heart with my neighbors hands

November Project Boston just posted an awesome blog post about today that I recommend you check out: Love Is Stronger!

She Runs Boston – 4/14

It’s finally spring in MA!

I got out of my winter rut, and went for a 3 mile run with She Runs Boston.

She Runs Boston is the new name for Luna Chix – the running group I’ve raved about in the past. When they say they won’t leave anyone behind, they mean it! They assign a runner to stay at the back of the pack with the last person in the group. I was the last one tonight, but you can only improve by putting one foot in front of the other, right?

I saw Dani & Jessie both leading sections of the run.

Here’s the group pre-run! I’m in the back row.

After the run, there was a shopping night at Athleta with a percentage of sales going to the Breast Cancer Fund.

I bought 2 new sparkly soul headbands & a pair of running socks.

I’m looking forward to running the B.A.A. 5k on Saturday. It’s wicked awesome to be running in Boston on marathon weekend!

SBS Soccer 4/12

We had another indoor soccer game Sunday night at 6 PM. We were actually competitive in the 1st half, ending only 1 goal behind 5-4. But we couldn’t score in the 2nd half and the game ended with a score of 10-4.

Oh well! We still had fun.

We’ve had bad luck this season though with the sponsor bar in the gym we play at being closed after our games. So, I’m missing the “social” that I’ve had with other SBS teams, but that’s not SBS’s fault. Next Sunday is our last game.

I’m taking my Dad to an afternoon Red Sox game that day, so wish me luck that it isn’t like Monday’s game that went 19 innings, so I can get to South Boston by our 7 PM game start time.

Spin Class Fundraiser for Pan Mass Challenge

Saturday afternoon I attended an awesome spin class fundraiser at Pursuit put on by Little Miss Runshine for her Pan Mass Challenge fundraising.

For those of you that aren’t local to MA, Pan Mass Challenge is a huge cycling event and fundraiser for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The spin class fundraiser raised $1070!

I’m not good at spinnning while taking a photo, but here’s my bike during class.

All set with my Essentia water!

One of my favorite parts of spinning at Pursuit is Bo the dog is always there!

It was a fun class & I’m glad I attended.

At one point, the instructor told us to close our eyes and think of the most bad ass person we know, to channel them to get through a tough set of hills. I thought of Jess L and how she’ll be running the Boston Marathon again in just a few days.

She, and all my friends running the marathon, really rock!