I found a cute baby (but they still frighten me)

 In 2004, three friends were really busy in college studying to become teachers.

PS - that picture was from Halloween.

 

In 2007, we all taught in different states, and were really busy with teacher stuff.

PS - that picture WASN'T taken on New Year's Eve. And we had never met that guy in our lives.

And in 2011, we added another gorgeous lady to our trio!

This past Saturday, the two of us who are still childless (Nicole and I) headed to Queens to spend the day with our friend Nikki and 3 month old Fiona. How cute are Mom & baby?

 

And how creepy am I when I try to pretend that I'm not scared of babies?

Not only did Nikki's husband help create such a gorgeous child, but he brought us real New York pizza, straight from Manhattan, which we ate while he gave the baby a bath. That guy's a keeper.

Sunday morning, after an extremely overpriced night at the extremely special Ramada in Queens, I went for a five mile run through the pouring rain. Sometimes runs suck. This one did. Not because of the rain though, I just was exhausted and dehydrated. A real New York bagel from a hole in the wall deli cheered me right up afterwards though. I'll take this as a sign that 50 Mile training requires TWO full rest days.

The part of the weekend that we spent in Queens was fantastic. The part spent traveling too and from Queens was horrendous. 

The drive from Baltimore to Queens should take about 3.5 hours. Saturday it took just under 6.  Ok, not too bad.

Sunday it took over 8 hours. 3 of which were spent sitting at a standstill on the New Jersey turnpike. Ya, that happened. Luckily, we had cookies.

 

The secret to taking good pictures while you're on the expressway? You just put the emergency brake on because you're parked anyway and there's a monsoon going on.

As soon as we made it to an exit, we got off and called our husbands to demand that they get on googlemaps and find us an alternate route home. 

Nicole and I have priorities though. As they were directing us, we saw some handpainted signs that said things like "chocolate factory" and "free samples". We immediately hung up and followed the signs. Which led us to an office park, with a locked and closed chocolate shop, that remained closed even though we spent a significant amount of time pounding on the door in the rain. Then we got lost in the office park. Twenty minutes well spent. 

Definitely a better waste of time than driving around chasing the apparently imaginary Ruby Tuesdays that immediately followed.

When we finally made it back to my apartment at 10:30 pm, we discovered that Eric had completely rearranged the living room (as per a previously discussed plan), organized the desk and the observatory, and cleaned the fridge. My husband is amazing. He had also chilled wine for us, and put "Sorority Wars" on the top of the instant queue. At that point, the night got awesome. Even more so because of the Wegmans chocolate whoopie pie I picked up on the trip.

 

It looked like this. Only better.

 

Dear Anonymous who asked if Eric ever wears shirts around the house,

He's wearing one right now! Here's a pic I took of him putting on my chapstick just moments ago. He didn't even notice.

The past few days totally caught up with me and since today's bike ride was canceled due to thunderstorms, today is official this week's rest day number one. 

I am super excited that I'm not traveling this weekend, and told my friend at work today that I plan on doing NOTHING all weekend. Her response? "Oh, right, like you're just going to clean and organize and stuff?". Um, I don't think you heard me quite right.

I'm doing NOTHING. Just running 18-20 miles, and completing my first triathlon. And that's IT.

Last random pic:

 

WTF kind of product that comes from a bakery is inedible? As Nicole said, give me a product from a bakery, and I'll eat it.