My Weekend Was Better Than Yours.

Hey y’all – just wanted to check in.  B is napping on the couch so I thought I’d take the opportunity to throw up a quick post NOT on the company’s time.  [innocent face]

I know I have a gabazillion things to catch you up on still – the last week of Mini Twin’s visit, the (almost) finished abode, and the healthy dose of hillbilly I got in Irvine – but I have to tell you about the amazing weekend we just had.  Seriously, A-MAY-zing.  Serious.

Friday night we ventured out to Aliso Viejo and found what will likely be our new fav Thai place.  I had the pineapple tofu curry and ate every last morsel.  So good.  We left with food-babies and attempted to walk them off at the outdoor mall across from our apt.  There was coffee-ing, people-watching, and gawking&drooling window-shopping at an art gallery that was featuring a lot of Stephen Holland’s work.  In particular, this one, which would look abs incredible in our office :

The “Bloody Ryan”

Image from Village Gallery

Saturday we woke up early for a work out, which I have to credit B for.  No matter how motivated I’m feeling when I slip under the covers at night, without fail I will hit the snooze until my workout window has closed.  It’s that whole will-power thing I’ve been hearing about…

Anyways, so we worked out, and then we did something kind of crazy and “grown up”.  We trotted over to Chase and joined our bank accounts.  About two months ago I would have been all, no way jose, I like my shopping money where I, and only I can see it.  But now that B is gainfully employed (yay!) I suppose I’ll play by the “what’s mine is yours” rules.  :)

We drove up to Anaheim to pick up a few things, including our ALL STAR GAME TICKETS.  It should be no surprise that I am deliriously excited about this, nor that I dropped quite a few benjamins without the blink of an eye for nosebleed seats.  Tuesday evening I will be crossing off one of my “bucket list” items, and it was pretty high up on that list.  That is worth any amount of $$ in my book.

Since the ballpark is literally three miles from Disneyland, MLB had a Mickey Mouse for each team planted in various locations throught SoCal.  I remember about a month ago walking through the mall next door and seeing a giant Mickey statue clad in NY Mets crap.  I was baffled and saw “VANDALIZE ME” written all over it.  Once I found out what tha hack the deal was, I decided it was pretty sweet.

Game tickets in my purse and giddy grin on my face, B and I headed down to Newport Beach to (finally) cash in on the 2hr bike rental I placed like, forever ago.  It took forever and a day to find parking, but I guess that’s normal.  Not in Kansas anymore…

We hopped on a couple of these bad boys and set off.  We sure got a workout in, and had a blast cruising through the beach city and trying not to run people over on the boardwalk.  Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with Yogurtland, and called the calorie burn a wash.

Now this is where it gets good.  What?  You thought all that sounds like fun???

The alarms went off at 5:45 this morning, and we stumbled out the door somewhere around 6:30 for the All Star Game Charity 5K.  Short races usually aren’t my thang, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a combo of two of my favorite.things.EVER – running and baseball.  Plus, Jillian Michaels was slated to attend, and I thought we might bump into each other and become BFFs.

Via MLB on Twitter

All of the proceeds went to cancer research, through Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C), Susan G Komen for the Cure, Prostate Cancer Foundation, and City of Hope.  Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside when my silly hobby can actually benefit in bettering the world somehow.  Gabrielle Union was also in attendance and shared her passion for the foundations, which is fueled by her close friend who lost her long-time battle with breast cancer just last month.  I don’t want this to turn into some big long depressing post about my personal “relationship” with this terrible disease, but as someone who’s seen loved ones lose the battle, others beat it, and still others that are currently fighting it, I felt empowered (and a little choked-up) by the inspirational words before the start.  I’m not sure how much my $30 registration fee really has an impact, but I pray that in some small way it makes a difference.  As one of the small t-shirt booths in the parking lot said, “F*ck Cancer”

[time out.  B is now awake and keeps randomly stumbling into the office, where I sit trying to secretly blog.  I hope he doesn’t think my nervous clicking and switching between screens each time he comes in means I’m doing something scandalous…]

So here’s the race in a nutshell.  There were 10,000 participants.  That’s a lot of people to be fighting for elbow room on a 3.1 mile course.  I threw a couple of my own, and found myself angrily sprinting by people who decided to line up in front and run slow.  I never claimed to be a friendly runner.  I did allow B to run with me though, which I thought was nice of me.  [reminder: B is faster than me]  I also did something else I never do – run with my phone, and paparazzi during the race.  Here for your viewing pleasure, are the fruits of my labor :

In the starting corale at Angels Stadium – I make awkward faces at 7:30am

Sea of runners in front of us – most of whom got passed for being too slow-pokey

Through the city streets – it was pretty gray but I think half the fuzziness is due to sweat on the lens

Heading back towards the stadium

A band, who I think might be kind of famous (?), but have been too lazy to check

Heading into the stadium!

Got to run all the way around the warning track…

… which we were really excited about.

And even all sweaty and gross, we still managed to take a pretty good picture together afterwards.

[sidenote: while getting my gait analyzed at the Nike tent, a photographer asked if he could take some shots of me running because I’m “cute and wearing eye candy.”  I’ve been ruthlessly scouring the ‘net for photo evidence of my newly acquired celebrity status, and will share accordingly.]

[sidenote’s sidenote: Under Armour running skirt and pink shoes is apparently “eye candy”]

After the race (and once we stopped sweating) we headed over to the Convention Center for MLB’s Fan Fest.  It was really cool with a ton of interactive games and booths, and gobs of famous people that you could wait 3 hours for them to sign something.  I love me some Bob Feller and Luis Aparicio, but was cool with a long-distance glance.  We saw some cool stuff from the Hall of FAme, and I had flashbacks of our vacay to Cooperstown two winters ago.  Remind me to tell you the story if I ever get caught up on real life.

My favorite part about the Fan Fest though, and I don’t care how lame-o this seems, was the Mascot Home Run Derby.  Cleveland’s Slider was one of the four contestants so you know we had to go and obnoxiously yell and cheer so everyone knew we were from Ohio.  After Slider won (score!) the gentleman behind us joked that “that’s the only thing Cleveland will win all year!”  Touche dude, but, ouch.

Duuhhhh… yes I got my picture taken with him

B showing he’s taller (and apparently more of a bad ass) than Strasburg

Driving THIS might put you at Strasburg bad-ass levels

In a true showing of good sportsmanship, someone decided to pummel the Red Sox Mickey at its previous location.  Couldn’t help but laugh, even though this is behavior you would expect FROM a Boston fan…

Tiffany does all of the trophies and awards for MLB – World Series, World Baseball Classic, etc.  Pretty much if it’s big and shiny and comes with a champagne shower, Tiffany&Co’s got MLB’s back.

[I retract my previous statement about my two favorite things.  Please add Tiffany&Co to the running+MLB menu of things I LOVE.  (I know you didn’t forget about my rationale for the Nike Women’s Marathon)]

That’s all for now, folks.  I’m tired of dancing around B’s random appearances in here and making up fibs about what I’m doing and why he can’t check his mail.  Hope y’all had a wonderful weekend – even though it’s highly unlikely, maybe it was even better than ours?

Your running, MLB-ing, Tiffany-dreaming machine,

Sarah Soon-To-Be

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