It's been too long, but I've been busy.

It's been too long since I last posted. And I'll readily admit that there's not enough hours in the day combined with the fact that I was too tired to divide my attention between watching Scandal and writing blog posts.  Some things just deserve a person's full attention.

Ya know?

Along with my commitment to JLSA (winning JLSA 2012-2013 Board Member of the year! what?!)

Justin's first JLSA meeting EVER!

                                               

The award!

helping a dear friend raise funds to beat blood cancers ($130,000+ for the LLS Man and Woman of the Year competition),

Justin, Bryce, Erin and me celebrating Team Bryce!

focusing on my running (which has gone past a jogrun to an actual run),

Beach 2 Bay half marathon relay team: Coastbusters (Lake, Erica, Matt, Mireya, Justin and Me).

#AintFraidOfNoCoast.  We finished in 4:43:21 with an avg pace of  10:48.

                                   
going to community events at awesome places like SAMA,

Justin, Elizabeth and me holding art we liked. Duh.

                               
keeping my Mom happy on Mother's Day (don't knock the bowling),
                                      

and visiting my best friend, Amy, in San Fran,

They have happy hours at places with views of things like the light show on the Bay Bridge. (Me, Tori and Amy) #LivinsEasy

                                   
I've also maintained my sanity by watching TV that makes the hubs retch (no pics of the poor programming choices or pics of Justin looking ill are necessary).

But I also go to Scorpions games with him, so you won't hear any real complaints.

They won!

So that's a quick recap of the last month.  What's new with you?

2012 Year in Review.

What to say about 2012?

It had it's ups and downs.

My family mourned the loss of my paternal Grandmother early this year. She lived a long full life and because of her we are all here. She was a mother, a traveler, an ice skater, a storyteller, an artist. She loved and is loved and she will always be remembered.

In comparison to that the other low points are not even blips on the radar. Her long full life is a reminder to constantly go and create my own stories and I definitely did my best this year.

I completed my second half-marathon, this time properly training and beating my first time by almost an hour. Thanks to a lovely group of ladies (and one of their committed husbands and the constant cheering on from my own) I completed one race a month, besides the half along with all of them.

I've had the honor of being on the Junior League of San Antonio Board of Directors as the Community Council Chair for the 2012-2013 year (the fun continues until May of 2013).

Justin and I traveled. Mostly together, sometimes separately. We went to Minnesota to remember my Grandmother, Leakey on the Frio River to celebrate friends, San Francisco to celebrate the 4th of July with Amy and Doug, Las Vegas to celebrate birthdays, Madrid/Toledo/Paris/Brussels/Barcelona to celebrate Christmas.

I went to Cabo and Rockport/Port Aransas to celebrate friendships and Austin to celebrate music at ACL.

We renovated our kitchen. Not with our own hands, unless writing checks counts. We are smart enough to know our limits. So soon we will travel to our dining room to celebrate cooking in our house.

It's been a year to remember. The ups and the downs.

2011- A year in review

We are looking forward to ringing in 2012 with friends and starting a new year of adventures.
This year we've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to:

Explore Parisian culture:

Walk through ancient history in Rome

 Eat a little barbeque with friends

See the sights of San Francisco

Drink some fine Napa wines 

And enjoy them with friends

Listen to 20+ hours of music at ACL

See some college football (we'll be wearing orange and blue next year- Go Gators!!)

Enjoy the holidays with family

And the beauty of the San Antonio River walk

Enjoy the sites in Fredericksburg

And lots more great times with friends and family!

Cheers to you and yours and may 2012 bring everyone all they looking for in the new year. 

Seven hours...

Seven hours is about the length of the work day for most people. Seven hours also happened to be the difference in time zones between San Antonio, TX and Rome, Italy.  Which is where we were two weeks ago today.

This week my friend pointed out to me that I hadn't posted anything since the spring forward time change. Honestly, the time change felt like it was less than two weeks ago and for me it kinda was since we were traveling.

The week or so leading up to our trip was a little bit crazy. I planned a surprise party for Justin's 30th birthday and it was awesome and actually surprised him, despite my constant paranoia about it.

Here's the cake in all its Gator Orange and Blue glory.

Back to our trip- we went to Paris and Rome and had quite an amazing time with a fine balance between the stuff you're supposed to see and the stuff we wanted to do (eat/drink/people watch).

We might not have seen it all, but we saw a ton. I will actually post more later. I pinky swear.

And it made us re-appreciate spending time together.  Now, Justin thinks a nice evening is drinking an awesome bottle of wine friends brought over to a past shindig and watching something fun on t.v.  Tonight's movie is Role Models on FX.  Tonight's wine is Saxon Brown's 2007 Semillon from Cricket Creek Vineyards in Alexander Valley.

If anyone wants to buy us a real a real flexible ice pack that would be fantastic. Tonight we went a little Whiskey Tango and used my eye mask that was in the freezer.

Here's hoping everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!  We enjoyed lunch with our moms and Justin's Grandma, Sister and Brother-in-Law with a lunch at El Chaparral in Boerne.  And our awesome neighbor brought over some delicious homemade cheesecake with homemade crust and some homemade chocolate cakes.

And what could top an awesome day like today?

Tomorrow I have jury duty.

Can I bring bottle of white wine there? It's not metal, it should make it through the metal detectors, right?