What a wonderful Christmas we had! The entire month of December was filled with merry times and great memories with friends and family. I must say the month kicked off with quite a great way to get in the Holiday Spirit by making Stockings over at Shea’s house! It was such a wonderful night, and with her reminding me to be patient the entire time, the stockings came out so good. You should check out her stocking post if you want a step by step tutorial. Seriously, make your own next year. I have such special memories making them and love that they came out so professional, and knowing that I have them for years to come is amazing!

We got our first tree, which was beautiful all month and I enjoyed sitting by it sipping tea every morning.

A friend and I went to the Grove where it ‘snows’ every evening in December, and it was everything I wanted! It was so much fun and I finished up my Christmas shopping.

A few friends and I also went on a lovely Christmas light walk in the canals down in Long Beach. Wow. Amazingly beautiful houses with awesome decorations.

George got his Christmas gift early! He loves it and now I don’t feel terrible about leaving him outside all day with no shelter.

We had committed to both having Christmas Eve with B’s family (12 people) and Christmas Day with my family (9 people) so we had a lot to prepare! I did all the cleaning and setting up and B did ALL the cooking. I am not much of help when he’s on a cooking mission and since he cooks for 16 guys at  his station, I knew he could handle it and I tried to stay out of the kitchen to not annoy him. Both evenings turned out wonderful and we truly enjoyed having everyone at our house, though prep was pretty stressful! We are so grateful to have such amazing families who were open to creating new memories in our new home.

We left for the mountains the day after Christmas with some friends and it was a great time of relaxation and hanging out, and now I need to detox all this holiday cheer! We got back and have been cleaning and trying to get back into the normal routine. B went back to work today and we took down our Christmas tree. :( but I did get this lovely idea off Pintrest and made B run out to the curb before they took it away to saw off a little piece that I can now remember always!

We both got ROAD BIKES for Christmas! I still can’t believe it and can’t wait to start using it! It’s beautiful black and red and I will post lots more pictures of it, right now it’s still over at B’s parents house because we haven’t been home much but I am looking forward to riding around town on it soon. I also got two new pair of Toms and a Michael Kors watch that I was eying as well. Such a fun and exciting time opening gifts!

What a fun first Christmas we shared together. Here’s to many more together!

xoxo

Wow! Time flies. We’ve been up in the mountains and I’ve been away from the computer for quite some time. We were SO blessed in 2011… Engaged, married, new home, new pup, can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring. No, to those wondering, no babies. (sidenote: these wedding pictures must make me remind you that our wedding will be on JANUARY15th!!! :) WE Channel! and that whole week I’m going to post ALL our wedding pictures in their glory, well not all but a lot! YAY!)

Our very first Christmas card! :) Our wedding, the night of our engagement, our first family picture in the snow and another wedding shot! (All wedding pictures taken by Jonathan Moore Photography)

I’ll post all about our Christmas festivities tomorrow and then of course those darn resolutions for 2012 will be coming up soon. As for running, I’m back in the game! Had a tough but good high elevation run in Big Bear and going for a long run tomorrow. Can’t wait for those miles to start piling up!

xoxo

Hooray! Saturday was the big chopping day for my hair! I must admit, the night before and leading up to it, I was pretty nervous because the previous times I cut my hair I wasn’t totally sold on it being short. I looked like a little girl and didn’t really like the a-line bob cut I had. I told my amazing stylist to not give me an a-line bob and she promised she wouldn’t.

I also made sure that she took lots of picture s throughout the whole process! Once she did the first snip of the ponytails I knew there was no turning back! I instantly felt way lighter… Here’s the first picture right after the cut.

Yup! I was really nervous still, because these were sitting in front of me.

All my hair! I felt so light and fresh and my hair was so clean! Then it was time to wash and style. I was really nervous about styling part, I didn’t know how it would come out. Kelly knew what she was doing though.

I was SO happy with how it turned out! It’s so cute and fun and sassy!

The highlights that I already had that were way more obvious in the short hair, which I liked.

The ponytails are heading on their way to locks of love!

after the haircut, Shea and I were off to do some last minute shopping for christmas, and for once, Shea has longer hair than I do! :)

So the next morning I went for a 6 mile run and wore my hair up in it’s little baby ponytail and washed it after. Which was pretty scary because I had no idea if I could do the hair the same way Kelly did it. With a much shorter blow drying time, and a little work with the straighter, my hair was done and I was ready to go much quicker than normal. The short hair cut down my getting ready time by 30 minutes! I must admit, I think it came out exactly how I envisioned, just like Kristin Wiig in Bridesmaids! I’m so glad it all goes up in a ponytail… granted it’s a baby ponytail, but that’s all I asked for. So glad I donated!

Hooray for Locks of Love! I’m so glad I did it again and can’t believe I have short hair again. B finally came back home from working a few extra days yesterday morning and he LOVES it! He’s never seen me with short hair and he thinks it looks great, which was another thing that I was pretty worried about, that he wouldn’t like it! But, it came out great and I’m so happy! If you wanted to make a donation to Locks of Love, I will leave up the donate button until the end of the month!

Big Thanks to all those who helped me reach my goal already and thanks to Kelly who made my hair look awesome!

xoxo

The lucky winner of the Sony Walkman is Melissa! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and get lots of awesome tunes on it for training. I loved reading all your suggestions for songs and updated my play list as well.

As for this weekend, tomorrow is the BIG CHOP! I cannot wait to get my hair cut and donate 10 inches to Locks of Love. I have reached  my goal and it means so much to me that I’ve raised $500 for Locks of Love.

Sunday morning is my long run and I’m actually looking forward to it. I’m finally rested after all our work and so looking forward to our time off and working out. We went Christmas shopping last night and got a lot purchased. I ordered George his Dog House so now I won’t feel terrible leaving him at home when it is so cold out.

And here are some fun George videos

He is going to get his last round of shots today and next week he will be 5 months old! He hasn’t grown for a while, but he is such a good dog and he LOVES to run! Loves, loves, loves. I think he might be a miniature greyhound/terrier mix. He is up to 5 miles on a run and could keep going FOREVER.

Here is a video of him in the snow the other weekend. I sound like a freak in the video, but you can see how fast he is.

Happy weekend. Cannot WAIT to cut my hair off tomorrow!
xoxo

I am more than halfway to my goal of $500 for Locks of Love and I made the appointment to cut my hair! I am so excited. I was going to wait until the very end of the month, but after talking about doing it, I’m ready to do it and make the cut.

I would truly appreciate if you could make a small donation towards my goal. It truly means so much to me.

On the running front, I’ve started really training. That means I’ve brought back CLAUDE, the Garmin! I haven’t run with a Garmin since June. I usually would just map out a run on map my run and not care about my pace, but now that I’m looking to start going much longer distances, I know it’s time to start being much more on target with my mileage. With Claude I run much faster and check where I’m at much more often. I know this weekend my 8 miler will go much smoother with him and I can track where I am at during the run much easier as well.

Yesterday I went for a 4 miler and all my miles were under 9 minute pace, which hasn’t happened in a long time. Like REALLY long time. It hurt to run that fast, but at the same time, it hurt SO good. Tonight I have a 5 miler planned and it will be much slower than the earlier run this week, but I’m feeling much better in my new shoes and some new jams on my headphones.

And Christmas shopping… I’m almost done! I just need to get a few more gifts, which I plan on doing next Wednesday at the Grove with a friend. I cannot wait until Christmas! The cold weather and almost being on Christmas vacation aka lots of time to work out, is so exciting!

There is one more day to enter the Giveaway for the Sony W! Make sure you check it out, and all the song recommendations are awesome!

xoxo