Writing Contest and Marathon

So . . . I'm thinking of starting out the new year with a bang. I just signed up for a writing contest - it's only like a week long but in two days they e-mail you a topic and how many words it can be. You have a week to write it and then submit it online. It gets judged and if it's good you pass on to the next round. I think there's like 4 rounds, so we'll see how far I get. I was also looking into marathon's today because I decided that 2009 was my year of running. There's a 5k in Huntington Beach on February 1st but that seems a little soon considering I haven't run further than like half a mile within the last three or four months haha. I was also curious to see exactly how far these marathons were, because, really, who knows distance in terms of kilometers? These are the results I discovered:

5k - 3.1 miles

10k - 6.2 miles

15k - 9.3 miles

20k - 12.4 miles

half marathon - 13.1 miles

25k = 15.5 miles

30k - 18.6 miles

marathon - 26.2 miles

So . . . I think I could handle the 5k without a problem, maybe not in two weeks, but soonish. However, I don't know if I could ever do the full marathon! 26.2 miles is really far . . . that's from Goleta to downtown S.B. I mean, even in my car that felt like forever when I wanted to go shopping haha. Anywhoo . . . I know Matt trained to do a marathon right before his wedding - maybe it's a trend? We are cousins, after all . . . but he ended up hurting himself and I don't think that sounds like so much fun. We will have to see how this goes.

8 Years . . . And Going Strong

Happy 8 Year Anniversary. Yes, that's right - today makes 8 years that Kevin and I have been dating. Pretty crazy. These are all kind of just a mix of pictures from the last few weeks . . . we took a ton of pictures for Christmas, which is so weird for the Verissimo's to do ha ha so I included some here and from our time at the Reiswig house on Christmas Day. Have a great day!














We are looking very John Michael Terry or whatever his name is that did all of our senior pictures! :) Keep is classy.

Engaged Encounter

Kevin and I just got back from our Engaged Encounter weekend earlier this evening at about 4pm. We were supposed to head to LAX and fly to Washington right after and catch a flight at 7pm but earlier in the weekend the roads had been closed from flooding and it didn't appear like we would be able to get to Wenatchee from Seattle so we decided to cancel our flights and get a credit so we could visit Bryan and Erika sometime soon. Now that the retreat is over, we decided that maybe God wanted us to concentrate on what we had learned over the weekend and not have to be distracted with traveling and flying somewhere else. I think both of us were surprised at how much we enjoyed the experience and how much we learned about each other and ourselves. It was also nice to be surrounded by almost 60 other engaged couples who were also in the same boat as we were and had the stresses of planning a wedding and starting a new life together like we were. We didn't meet anyone else who shared our wedding date but did meet two couples who were getting married the week after us and it was nice to hear about how other people had met and how long they had been together. Although Kevin and I have been together a long time, 8 years on Wednesday! lol, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that a lot of other couples on the retreat have also been together a long time. I guess I thought most couples were going to be young and naive and had only been together 6 months before deciding to get engaged, but actually we met more people who had been together at least 2 years and all the way up to 7 years. I still think we win as being together the longest, but we never found out for sure ha ha. The 2nd picture is of the room I was in - actually it was a cubicle ha ha and the girls were in what are usually the priests' dorms and the guys were in what are normally the nuns dorms. It was a really fun weekend and we were really glad and happy that we ended up going :)

4 Months to Go!

Drumroll please . . . the wedding is in exactly 4 months from this very day. Pretty scary! ha ha And just in time we are headed to our 'Engaged Encounter' this weekend in Montibello which is approximately 45 minutes away from Redondo. We have to arrive around 7-7:30pm this evening and stay until Sunday afternoon. We were going to head to LAX after the retreat and fly to Washington to visit Kevin's brother Bryan, wife Erika and their new baby Carter but now it's looking like the weather is pretty bad in Washington and there is flooding occurring. Unfortunately we won't find out until Sunday if we actually get to fly there that day. Otherwise it looks like we'll have to re-schedule the trip for another time.
I haven't written since before Christmas so just wanted to show how much fun Christmas was - we ended up hitting up pretty much the whole Verissimo side of things this year. Kevin's parents were visiting his brother in Washington for the holidays so Kevin was stuck in Modesto with all of us :) We were able to meet up with Aunt Sandy, Heather, Matt, Jill and Pete the day of Christmas and we had so much fun looking at such old pictures and just laughing. And it was great to see Matt and Jill and of course to meet Pete! He's a cutie!
Also, I went to the flower district in L.A. a few days ago and I just had to take a picture of this crazy thing. It's like a centerpiece type thing but holds champagne glasses and a bottle in the middle. I think it is a must for everyone!

Lindy also got us a Newlywed Cookbook for Christmas, so I took some pictures of us actually trying to buy things that we needed for the recipe we chose the other night and then attempted to make ha ha.