It's Official!!!

No, I'm not pregnant. I AM RUNNING THE CHICAGO MARATHON 2013! After all of the spazzing...ok, well, really just one day of it...but after all of the anticipation, I got my lottery entry and signed up today! So did the hubster! So freaking excited it's unreal! Please remind me to come back to this entry when it is the middle of the summer and I'm logging 15 and 20 mile runs about how enthusiastic I was about this.  But for now, I will stay on the chipper side of life!

We've been some busy folks the last few weeks. I went home for a long weekend for my dad's birthday, the big 6-0! Had a great time celebrating with the family. We went to an AMAZING Persian restaurant in Grand Rapids, MI, called Shiraz.  Truly delicious food. I've eaten at several Persian restaurants here in Boston and this is on par. My parents, brother, and I shared a wonderful sampler of their appetizers. You got to choose 4 of the many they had and we ended up agreeing on the baba ghannouj (roasted eggplant blended with herbs and olive oil), hummus, dolmeh (stuffed grape leaves), and maust khiar (yogurt with cucumbers and walnuts). I think we went through two baskets of pitas to get all the goodness out of that sampler! For dinner I had gheymeh bodemjon, which was braised beef with yellow split peas, and eggplant in a cinnamon-tomato sauce with Persian sun-dried limes. I chose to substitute in the zereshk polo, which is a saffron rice with barberries and sweet butter. I am obsessed with barberries! They give a great tartness to offset the savoriness of the meal. This was my dinner:

While I was home, I also got the privilege of meeting my brand new baby niece, Shelby!  Isn't she the cutest freaking thing on the planet?

 Her mama and I have been best friends since playing travel softball together in high school.  So glad she's here to spoil!














This past weekend we finally were able to go skiing in Sunday River, Maine! And I did not die (again)! The weather was absolutely amazing with temps in the 40's and bluebird skies. I forgot how much of a workout skiing is, let alone 2 full days in a row. 2 days later, I am still sore...everywhere. But this was totally worth it:

I have had yesterday and today off to recuperate. Tomorrow it's back to the running. Might have a date with my treadmill friend if the rain continues. But knowing Nashville is in about 6 weeks is some wonderful motivation!!!