GoodBye Summer

It seems like it was just last week, my girls and I were celebrating the first day of summer at the Y's pool party and I was jetting off for a girls' weekend to Puerto Rico.  And here we are, bookbags hung by the front door all ready to go in just under two weeks.

Yes, we still have the rest of this week and another full week of summer vacation.  So we are going to live it up as we have been doing for the last ten weeks!

Some of our favorite memories from this summer are:

• Summer Play Days @ the Disney Store
• Mr. Kurt singing at the library
• Playdates with our friends from school
• ARUBA!
• The girls' birthdays & collaborative birthday party
• Having our cousins visit for a few days

Every year I do a "best of summer" playlist.  It's a collaborative playlist from the regulars in my spin class where they suggest their favorite song of that summer.  I work in all of their suggestions whether it be as a warm-up, cool down or a killer climb.  They love hearing their suggestion come up.  This year, most of my regulars are on vacation this last week before Labor Day, so they begged me to do it next week.  How could I say no??  But last night, while catching up on facebook, another instructor posted a  fantastic End of Summer playlist.  I changed a few songs around, but the idea came from Chris.  I am really excited about the playlist tonight.

GoodBye Summer

I am looking forward to the fall.  My oldest daughter starts kindergarten and my youngest is going to preschool which means lots of time to run and swim. (Yes, I have something I am training for! More info on that later!)

We have a lot to look forward to this fall:

• apple & pumpkin picking
• running an Oktoberfest 10k
• my husband's birthday
• Halloween (can you believe that the girls know what they are going to be?)
• my BFF's wedding & wedding related events

Thanksgiving

Being grateful and thankful for the people in our lives and things we have shouldn't only happen on Thanksgiving Day, but it's a special day to pay extra special thanks to our family and friends.  I have always wanted to have a "friends" Thanksgiving and this year, we were lucky enough to have three of our dear friends join our dinner table, two of which were last minute, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  It was a wonderful holiday surrounded by wonderful friends and delicious food.

Below is the playlist I used for my class the night before Thanksgiving.  The overall theme of the ride was what Thanksgiving is all about: coming to America, freedom, having courage, following our dreams, and being grateful for the life we live.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Weekend on Repeat

This weekend was one to remember and one that I want to repeat over and over in my head.  My husband and I went to see Zac Brown Band at Madison Square Garden; his first country concert & my first time seeing ZBB!  We had a phenomenal time away.  ZBB was definitely one of the highlights as was the delicious food we indulged on.  We hit Sala One Nine, a tapas restaurant in the Flatiron district, which was absolutely fantastic.  The three best tapas we had were the fried goat cheese with honey, bacon wrapped dates stuffed with almonds, and the sea scallops.  My mouth is still watering now.  Thankfully we had a few hours to digest, boogie, and sleep before our fantastic breakfast at the Breslin Bar.  Dave & I shared a greek yogurt to start, but this wasn't your run of the mill yogurt.  No, it came with macerated fruit, honey, and pistachio pralines, not too mention it was the creamiest, most delicious greek yogurt.  And then for my main dish, I decided to have the goat cheese & leek tart.  And from start to end that was the best breakfast I have ever had.  

Thankfully, Sala One Nine was twelve blocks from our hotel and the Breslin was three so we were able to walk off a few of the calories we ingested.  :)  But seriously, it was worth every calorie!

So this playlist is my weekend on repeat.  And my class thoroughly enjoyed the profile that I created for class tonight.  Enjoy!

Don't Stop the Party Playlist

Mother Nature was pretty crappy to us last week.  Just over a week after Hurricane Sandy touched down in NJ, we had a snowstorm.  No, you aren't crazy and yes, you read that correctly.  Snow.  Here in southern Somerset county, we were lucky to only get about one to two inches of snow, but the areas that were also hit hard by Sandy got more than a foot of snow.  Thankfully by Thursday afternoon most of it melted away.  

I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving yet and it's a mere eight days away.  Maybe because NJ rescheduled Halloween this year.  Maybe it's the warm weather.  Maybe it's just me.  

Hopefully this week won't bring any more precipitation.  The sunshine has been sparse and I could definitely use a week of rays.  Until then this playlist lifted my spirits!  

Hurricane Sandy // Anything Could Happen

Oh it feels so good to be back in some sort of routine.  We were very unfortunate here in NJ this past week when Hurricane Sandy barreled into us, but fortunately, my family and I made it through without any major damage to our home.  However, the rest of the state wasn't so lucky namely the Jersey Shore.  Schools and businesses were halted for a week and while some are still closed, our district is lucky enough to resume some sort of normalcy although part of our borough is still without power.

It is devastating to see the pictures and videos on tv and news sites, but it is hard to not look at all the pictures too.

Ever since I was a tot, my family rented a vacation house on Central Avenue in Point Pleasant Beach.  It was the best two weeks of the summer every single year.  Back then a water park stood where the aquarium is now. We spent hours and hours on those foam mats sliding down the water slides and even more hours on the rides at Jenks.

As the years passed by, I would venture to PPB with my friends to hang out during the summer nights. One of my first dates with my husband was to the Point boardwalk so it will always hold a special place in our hearts.  We have taken our girls to the boardwalk numerous times to continue making memories.

Sea Bright was hit even harder than PPB.  Dave and I got married in Sea Bright in 2005.  However with all the devastation surrounding it, our wedding venue withstood Sandy's punch and survived with minimal damage.  But the town is completely devastated.

But we are Jersey Strong.  We will rebuild, restore & recover.  Although the iconic places will not be there, I look forward to seeing an even better Jersey shore.

The gym I teach Spinning at was closed for almost a week so all of my classes were canceled.  So Monday was my first day back in the saddle.  It felt so good to sweat and ride and workout all the stress from the week.  Here's the playlist we rode to:

Playlist:: 80s R Good Enough

I am obsessed with this mix from Steady Mixes.  I swam to it Tuesday morning, it's been on repeat in the house as I clean and am quite excited to swim to it tomorrow morning as well.  And I decided it will make a fantastic playlist for my group cycling class tonight.  

This mix is only 44 minutes long and the class I teach is about 50 minutes so I added two songs at the end for cool down & our stretch segments.  

Playlist:: Enter the Danger Zone

While I am still tinkering around with Spotify and deciding how much I love or hate it, here is a link to the complete playlist: Enter the Danger Zone

Spooky Sprint 5k + tunes

Tomorrow I am running in the Somerville Spooky 5k.  I have been looking forward to running in this race since last year I wasn't able to run in the race because I had a back injury.  Although I did volunteer and was the sweeper for the end of the race, it wasn't completely the same.  So to say I am excited is an understatement.

Here is my playlist for the Spooky Sprint:

Post-race update:
What a fantastic day yesterday turned out to be!  It was a chilly fall morning, perfect for the Spooky Sprint!  The race kicked off at 9:30am.  I have run this course twice before as well as walked it last year, so I know it fairly well.

When I rounded the corner for the homestretch, I saw my husband and two daughters waving and cheering on the other runners.  They were the only ones on this part of the street and it was the perfect spot for them to sit and cheer everyone on.  As they gave me a high five and their best cheers, I was off on my final minute of the race.

I crossed the finish at 29:21, my very first sub 30 min 5k.  I have worked SO hard to get my time down and it paid off.  Not to mention I crushed my last PR by a minute and a half.