Leave’n…on a…err…in a truck…

to start my lovely vacation!  Well, technically it started forever and a day ago on the 18th of June…but who’s counting, right?  Yes!  Where do I start!?!?!?!

We headed off after Brad took his dear sweet time finishing packing and cleaning up…and took some great photos departing from our job!

Then off to Miami!!!  We reserved a SWEEEEET hotel called the Intercontinental Miami Downtown and got there about mid afternoon.  Seriously, probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in in my life!!!  No kidding…this place was freak’n awesome!  Anyhow, we checked in, found out that parking was ONLY VALET at 35 BUCKS and we were totally against that…so we parked in a park at meters and only paid $15 instead. Hah! 

 

We headed out that evening to scope out the bay area that was around us and took some fun pictures at all the little spots:

 

And of course we had to have food and drinks, right!?  We ended up at a Cuban/Mexican Restaurant near the bay and got some Sangria w/ white wine…along w/ some super filling meals…that I don’t have pictures of.  Oops.

After dinner we wandered around the shops on the Bayside Market and headed back to hang out at the hotel and finally crash out! 

The next day consisted of more Miami but you’ll have to stay tuned and come back for more of that in my next post!!!!

Ciao!

And Finally

I'm getting ready to start blogging again! I can't believe I haven't blogged in almost TWO WEEKS! I hope that I still have all my readers around too! I know I've def missed keeping up with all of your blogs!

Anyhow, I finally made it to Brad's Family's house in Ingleside, TX tonight! I left Florida Saturday mid morning and drove for 11.5 hrs straight to just outside of New Orleans when I finally couldn't drive anymore. The next day we took off and drove up to Hemphill, TX to attend a family anniversary party for some of Brad's relatives, then headed out the next day to get to Houston. I couldn't take the driving anymore, due to the fact that my AIR CONDITONER FAN STOPPED WORKING right as we got into Alabama. It is horrible with all the heat we've been traveling through, which has gotten as high at 112F!!! Madness!

Today has been a good day after getting in my first run in NINE DAYS this morning for a (measly) 25 minutes...and then proceeded to go back to sleep till around 11 am! Haha! I love not having working! But yeah, Brad and I finally made it to his house tonight and are going to crash soon as we're still exhausted from all the driving...

Hopefully I'll be able to start uploading photos by tomorrow so you can see some of what the two of us have been up to!

Until then, Happy Day!

Have You Missed Me?!?!

Because I know I've missed you! But I'm having a blast on vacation, so I can't complain! I can't show you any pictures yet because I have yet to upload any, but as soon as I get the chance I will!

Things were super fun at both the hotels in Miami, both downtown and in South Beach, where Brad and I spent lots of time swimming at the beach and hitting up the clubs until the wee hours of the morning. Yeah, we're crazy like that. Now we're in the Key ready to get lots of snorkeling and water time in!

Miss you all! Hopefully I'll be back to blogging and reading (with a vicious amount of catching up to do!) by the end of the week!!!

Breakfast and Lunch All In One

Oh yeah…because I woke up late, as I was up super late…breakfast turned into lunch…but I guess I could just say brunch.

I started off w/ these while I was cooking because I couldn’t wait:

  

Then ended with these babies before it got too cold to eat:

And then, there were Brad’s:

Happy Wednesday!

And my last day…

has come!  I can’t believe I finished this job!  I still seems like yesterday that I was making my way across the country just to get here!  And what wonderful adventures I’ve had!

But now I get to go and have even more fun having adventures across Southern Florida!  In the next few days I’m making my way down to Miami, the Southern Everglades, Key Largo, Marathon, Key West…and then back up to Gainesville, New Orleans and Houston!  It is going to be a very fast and fun week to look forward to!  Yay!

Anyhow, today I got worked to the bone on my last field day!  I was supposed to be out the door by 7.15 to meet up at 8 but the girl I was going to be working with was running late, so I had till 8.45 till I had to be there.  So since I was up and had time to spare?  RUN TIME!  I jetted out the door and got in a nice 3.86 mile run up to Lake Jackson.  It was marvelous.  I got home and had a new and improved cereal bowl!  I always put bananas or blueberries in my cereal but today I had none, so I had to improvise and used an apple and a peach!  I loved the flavor of the peach w/ the kashi cereals and the crunch of the apples!  It was sooooo good!

Lunch was the last of my bananas in a wrap w/ pb…omg how did I not make this before?!  So much more PORTABLE!!!  I added to that an apple and a clif bar…this one freak’n hella rocks!!!

I finished helping out checking snail traps and settled on this wonderful snack: chocolate chip raspberry bread w/ pb…

 

Check out how dirty my nice white shirt got.  Oh yeah…hard core baby!!!

By the time I got cleaned up and showered I made a super quick dinner of morningstar farm crumbles with frozen veggies and vodka pasta sauce…ahhh.

 

And I attempted to make baked french fries but left them in way too long…so they got burnt…and I only got to eat half of them.

And then I had to have dessert: LOVE TRADER JOES!

Miss Gliding Calm gave this to me a while back in my TJ’s package and I finally broke into it…yummer yummer.  I ate all the nice chocolate/white chocolate pieces out of the package…hahaha. :D

Now I’m off to finish packing up all my stuff…Adventures await me!

Past few days and good news…

I’m in the midst of packing things up, getting ready for my vacation then figuring out what to do for a few months:

BEFORE I START MY NEW JOB! And not only did I get a job offer today, but SO DID BRAD!

Only bad news: I’m in Texas; He’s going to be in Pennsylvania.

(Major sad face)

But here are some things that might make you laugh instead:

Hopefully I’ll be up to updating in the next few days as I finish packing and start traveling…tomorrow is my last day of official work!

WWR: What would you do??

Are you wondering what WWR means??  I know some of you know!!!

So, it has just occurred to me with some of the planning that is taking place that I’m going to be running a RELAY RACE with some AWESOME PEOPLE/BLOGGERS in oh, JUST LESS THAN TWO MONTHS. 

And have I started training?

Nope.  I’m not quite sure how to train for something like this!  It’s going to include some major elevation changes due to the fact that it’s going to be run in COLORADO and there are going to be some hills/mountains to climb over…so how do I train for that, when I live in a place at sea level AND THERE ARE NO MOUNTAINOUS AREAS?!?!?!?!?!

Suggestions?  I was pondering this during my 5 miler today…in which it was so humid that I was sweating buckets and had to stop a few times because I thought I was going to pass out! Yikes!

Anyhow, quick food recap as I’m back down to the Everglades for the last time tomorrow for four straight days of work then: DONE!  And I’m officially on vacation!!! Yay!!!

Breakfast was delicious and different this morning!  Well, not very different, but it had it’s quirks!  I had a frozen banana I wanted to use as I’m trying to use up all my foods so I sliced it up w/ a peach on top of h2h with some vanilla unsweetened almond breeze…love the frozen bananas!!!  Sooo much better than regular ones!  And especially if they’re covered in chocolate…ok, someone’s mind is wandering…or craving…either or. hah!

 

Mid morning I had about 10-12 fresh strawberries…

 

And then lunch in the car while I was doing (hahaha…i just spelled doing backwards) work errands: veggie sandwich w/ hummus and two carrots w/ extra hummus.

And some grapes!  So super sweet and crunchy!  No pb to go w/ them this time though…

I didn’t bring enough snacks with me so when we stopped by the store to pick up w few things I picked up a few cans of cashews and had some in the parking lot waiting for Brad to finish shopping…

But dinner was the best part of the day today!  Brad made himself and some of our coworkers some totally rad and flavorful chicken for fajitas and I got some of the veggies to add to the last of my spaghetti squash!

Behold, my bowl of awesomeness: spaghetti squash, salsa, sauteed mushrooms, onions and bell peppers, guacamole and a quorn chik’n breast.  Damn, that was a good meal…and I was soooooooo full afterwards.  Totally felt like an umpa lumpa.

And of course I had to share what one of the two (?? Maybe three) of Bra'd’s burritos/tacos/fajitas looked like:

I know you want it.

That’s how awesome my bowl was. :D

G’night and happy Friday everyone!

And the day rolls on…

Today was kinda a doozy but I’m not complaining as we’re working straight through this weekend with a whole load of surveys under our belts to get done.  I think the highlight of my day today was my Life List Post from this afternoon. Haha!

Woke up this morning w/ a RAGING HEADACHE.  I felt like I had a super nasty hangover…w/o the joys of drinking the night before.  Boo.  I think I was just exhausted.  But I still managed to get my butt out of bed for a 5 mile run!  Yeah!  I actually ran the first 2.5 miles to my turn around then did some tempo and speed work the 2.5 miles back.  I didn’t have a watch so I used the songs on my iPod instead.  And it worked perfectly since I picked all the good songs w/ really fast beats to sprint to!

Breakfast was the same as it has been for the past few days, but unassembled.  I had the cereals dry and the strawberries on the side…tada!  So yummy!

     

Then I worked on data for hours…nest status, nest detection, nests, nests, nests…:)

And lunch finally rolled around: 1 egg and two whites, double protein arnold’s bread w/ soy butter, a huge carrot and mango. And damn, was that mango GOOD.

I had a nice snack in the afternoon as I was applying for jobs and having an interview…and it totally hit the spot: chocolate chip raspberry bread w/ some chocolate cookie dough pb by pb loco…DIVINE.

la di da…so boring today…so I napped.  Then dinner!  Which is probably just as boring: spaghetti squash w/ salsa, corn, quorn chick’n patty and spinach.

But I think dessert was the best: peach and kiwi, then my grapes dipped in more of my lovely chocolate cookie dough pb…yes yes yes.  I like grapes w/ pb.

Now…off to catch up with my boy since he was out all day long!