Holden Beach

Last week Andrew and I had an amazing time on a week-long vacation to Holden Beach, NC. Our trip was planned somewhat last minute, but we're so glad we decided to go somewhere over Andrew's spring break instead of just staying at home. It was so wonderful to be able to get away from everything and just spend time relaxing together with few distractions. We had never been to Holden Beach before, but after last week I have a feeling we'll be back!

The weather was perfect with only two days being rainy or extremely windy, but it worked out perfectly because we went outlet shopping on the rainy day and went for a walk on the beach (making sure there weren't any tornado warnings) and watched movies inside when it was really windy. On all of the other picturesque days, we went for bike rides in the morning and in the afternoon we were on the beach reading, sleeping, or just watching the waves roll in. We went out to dinner three nights and ate in on the others. Overall I'd say it was a perfect vacation...we didn't really want to come home!

I took a ton of pictures, but they were mostly of the beautiful sunsets we witnessed nearly every night. So with no further ado, I'll let the photos roll...

This is the house we stayed in. It was on the 2nd row (way cheaper than the ocean front homes!) so we just had to walk across the street to get to the beach!

Even though we weren't right on the ocean, we still had a little bit of a view from the upstairs. We ate breakfast and drank coffee out on the front deck in the mornings.

One of the things I really loved about the house was all of the windows upstairs displaying the beautiful views in the front and the back. Behind the house was a marshy area and the intracoastal waterway, so even with all of the windows it was still pretty private. The picture above is from the kitchen...I would just LOVE to have a view like that from my kitchen at home!

Now onto the many beautiful sunsets...these first few are of the sun setting over the intracoastal waterway.

We even got a beautiful rainbow and sunset on the rainy day.

And here are a few more pictures of the beach in the late afternoon.

Besides shrimp, I'm not a huge fan of seafood, so of course Andrew was really excited that he got to eat his fill during the week!

Becks!! (somewhat of a Sharpley family tradition/novelty)

I enjoyed some shrimp with a delicious pasta from Sharky's in Ocean Isle.

And of course, who doesn't love HUSH PUPPIES!?!

We also ate at Inlet View Bar & Grill (no food pictures, sorry!) and I enjoyed a delicious grilled shrimp burger and Andrew had yet another seafood platter!

Now onto a few pictures of us...

The island was great for bike rides in the morning.

There was a pier about a mile away so we walked to it when it was too windy to sit out on the beach.

Gettin' our beach on!

On the back deck

Trying to get some photos worthy of the Christmas card...

And a few more random ones...

Boats in the intracoastal waterway

A cute little house!

And this ends the slide show of our vacation. As you can see we didn't do way too much, but that's exactly the way we wanted it to be. Holden Beach is a beautiful place and we really enjoyed it. Although we didn't want to leave, we came home relaxed and refreshed...and looking forward to going back again!

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Nice Weeds!

A few weeks ago I updated my Facebook status to something about how I was a little disappointed that the landscaping crew hadn't hit our garden of weeds in the back yard when they mowed the grass for the first time of the season. I publicly admitted that my gardening skills were inadequate and that I was a little upset that I hadn’t inherited my mom’s and grandmother’s green thumbs.

This unfortunate fact was only further confirmed a week or so later when my weeds started getting these beautiful orange flowers on them, and I realized that these weeds were in fact my wildflowers coming back to life from last year (I obviously didn’t have faith in the “perennial” that was on the box of seeds). There are definitely some weeds in my garden, but obviously I have no idea how to discern a weed from a wildflower.

So since I was on the verge of going out and ripping up all of my wildflowers thinking that they were weeds, I think I’ll just accept my own gardening ignorance and let them just try to live together…

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The Running Cook

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I now have another blog in addition to this one. I would like to officially introduce you to The Running Cook.

As you can probably tell from the title, the blog will be about all of my running as well as any good recipes that I try and would like to share. Yes, I will still continue to post on this blog, but it will be more about things that Andrew and I do together and to keep you updated about our lives as a couple, which was the original intention of the blog anyways. For some reason I just felt like I needed to separate the two in case readers didn't really care to hear about me running 9 minute miles and improving my VO2 max or something.

Posts from The Running Cook will not be automatically e-mailed out to everyone, so you will actually have to visit the website (www.therunningcook.blogspot.com) to get updates. However, when I run a race or if I share a particularly amazing recipe, I will put a link to it on here so that you'll know it's there. So if you're a follower now, be sure to click on over to that blog and follow me there, too!

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An Epic Day

Yesterday was quite an eventful and epic day.

My morning started at 4:15 AM as I woke up to get ready for the Blue Ridge Half Marathon. I was more nervous than usual about it, not only because of the difficulty of the race, but the uncertainties involving the weather. Perhaps I should say that one thing was actually certain. It was going to rain. A lot. What I didn't know was how it could impact the race. If severe storms rolled through, they could call the race off and I might not get to finish. I didn't know quite what to wear because I wasn't sure whether I'd be cold or hot. I wasn't sure how my feet would do being wet the whole time. And what if I panicked again about getting through the porta potty line before the race started?!? So with all of this going through my head, it's no surprise that I think I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before. Even though I knew I was physically ready for the race, I was still nervous.

"lucky" bib number!

So, fast forward a few hours to 7:30 and, after going through the porta potty line THREE times, we were standing in the rain ready to go. The beginning of the race is probably one of the most exciting times because it is a united atmosphere of nervous energy. Everyone stayed pretty close for the first mile until we hit Mill Mountain, then we all started to space out more and more for the rest of the race. I am definitely glad to have been running with someone, because there were some points along the course where it could have gotten really lonely, especially with the rain. We tackled the mountain fairly well and we were relieved once we knew we had gotten that over with. The rest of the course did contain some minor hills, but nothing compared to Mill Mountain.

One of the things that made this race so bearable in the pouring rain was all of the wonderful spectators (to include my amazing family) and volunteers who stood out in the rain supporting us. I tried to say thank you as we passed each volunteer and spectator cheering us on without even knowing us, but I will say it again: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Running in the rain!

We took some walking breaks throughout our run as we had planned, and we finished with an amazing time. Our goal was to finish the race in around 2:20, but our chip time was a little under 2:15! We were definitely very excited about our performance because it was obvious to us that all of our training had paid off!

Coming across the finish line

Me with my training partner, Grace

Me with my brother, Walter (who also ran the race and finished in 1:48!)

Awesome finisher medal!

Normally I would have loved to stick around and cheer on other people finishing and eat my fill of delicious bagels, but it was really wet and I was starting to get cold. So we went home where I finally got warm and dry. I stretched for a little while and refueled, then enjoyed a nice nap in the afternoon. We all met for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, then we headed downtown for the Roanoke Twilight Criterium.

We have never been to a bike race before, so it was really neat to watch, especially downtown in the dark! We watched the professional race, so they were going FAST! So fast that it was hard to get a picture of them!

I also shot a video of the riders as they were going by (if you get our blog through e-mail, you'll have to visit the website to watch it):

Going to the bike race was an exciting way to end a great day, but I'm definitely exhausted today! Right now we're both looking forward to being on our way to the beach in less than a week. Hopefully it will be a good change for us to just relax and have fun.

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Like A Kid On Christmas Morning

Greetings everyone. It's been quite a while since I've done a blog posting. I tell Lauren that I let her handle the blogging because, in my opinion, she does a much better job. Since this post is all about me, though, I figured I'd handle it.

As faithful followers of our blog know, Lauren has become quite a runner! I think it's great that she's found a hobby that lets her get outside and exercise. In fact, her enjoyment of running encouraged me to find something I could do for exercise and for some outside active fun as well. I ran track and cross country in high school and, as I like to say, that got running out of my system. I also have a knee that will hurt sometimes, so I was looking for something a little "lower impact". I've always enjoyed biking and did a lot when I was a kid, so I decided to look into that route, but with a twist. With the exception of an old Schwinn I had in middle school, I've always had mountain bikes. This time, I'm going to try out road biking.

I did research on different brands, different frame materials (aluminum, aluminum and carbon fiber, carbon fiber, titanium and carbon fiber), different components. I did some shopping and test riding at different bike stores. Yesterday I got one! A new bike for a new adventure into the world of cycling on the road!

Many of the online forums I read advised "you're new... buy used;" and so I did. I purchased a very gently used 2009 Specialized Allez Sport. The name is apparently French for "go". It was owned by a friend of the people at the bike store who is very meticulous with his bikes and so it was well cared for and never even ridden in the rain. In fact, they said he came in and bought a slightly lower end bike to use as his "rain bike" and couldn't even bring himself to ride that one in the rain.

The people at Cardinal Bicycle were very helpful in getting me a good bike and helping pick out my necessary accessories (seat bag, spare tube, mini pump, patches, tire tool, computer, and water bottle cages) and even put it all on for me while I waited. I was really pleased with the fact that they were not pushy at all. They knew I was just getting started and helped me pick what I needed for my level of experience. Unlike other bike stores, the salesman I talked to Saturday never even attempted to "close the sale". He gave me his card and told me to mention I talked to him if/when I came back. I really appreciated the fact that they recognized I was shopping around, and getting a feel for what was out there and didn't try to sell me that day.

Here it is!

My plan is to start on the Greenway and in the roads around our house. My goal is to be able to ride to the top of Mill Mountain (where the giant star is) by the end of the summer. We'll see how that goes! Right now though, on this cold and rainy day in Roanoke, I am "like a kid on Christmas morning," waiting for the weather to be nice so I can go outside and ride my new bike!

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