Thank you for all the happy birthday wishes, friends! I had a fun weekend celebrating. 🙂
Pictured above is my “Happy BDay” toast from Matt on Saturday morning. 🙂 He’s so creative!
The birthday celebrations started on Friday night with dinner and drinks with friends. I didn’t snag a shot of us all at dinner, but here’s a picture of the smaller crew that made it out to the bars afterward. 🙂 Fun night!
On Saturday morning, Matt had to head off to do some top secret birthday preparations, so I decided to take myself to CrossFit. I haven’t been great about going lately with all the marathon training – yoga and swimming have just felt better in between runs! But I want to make sure to keep my upper body strength up for the Tough Mudder next month!
As part of my ongoing partnership with Reebok, I picked up a pair of their CrossFit spandex shorts, which I really loved for the workout – no worries about shorts gapping and flashing anyone! Comfy and cute, too. On my feet I have on the CrossFit Nano 3.0s, which I still really like. And on top is one of my favorites – the tire flip shirt. 🙂
CrossFit was hard but it felt good to get back after it. We did a partner WOD – 10 rounds of the following: 10 squat thrusters, 15 toes to bar (in my case, knees to elbows), and 20 hand release pushups. WHEW! My arms were dead by the end.
Once Matt returned and I changed, we headed off on my birthday adventure! We grabbed our bikes and took a nice and easy ride out to Vienna, where he had left his car. From there, we headed to a park for a picnic lunch. 🙂
We had some crackers, meat, cheese, and olives, plus a big salad and some fruit. Hit the spot!
To drink, we shared these juices – two of my faves! Matt always makes fun of me for impulse buying overpriced juice at the grocery store (I need to get better about making it at home!), but for my birthday, he treated us. 🙂
After our picnic, it was on to the next adventure – a trip to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain up in Maryland! Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the weather had taken a turn for the gross and was raining. Major bummer! The views would have been gorgeous on a clear day. We still made a short 1/4 mile hike up to the summit just to see it – must come back on a nice day!
Spooooky! We definitely want to make a trip back here when the weather is better – there were a ton of trails to explore!
From there, we headed to our main event for the night: an outdoor concert at Tarara Winery in Leesburg, VA!
Back in 2010, I randomly saw a local DC area band called Melodime perform at Iota, a small bar in Clarendon. I snagged a couple of their CDs that night, and have since fallen in love with the band and still listen to them all the time in the car. A couple months ago, we had their CD on and I asked Matt to check and see if they were playing anywhere nearby since it would be fun to see them again. Turns out they were playing on my birthday – fate!
I so wish the weather had been nicer because this would have been an awesome venue on a beautiful day. When we got to the venue, it was soggy and gross out and I was cranky and bummed, but we decided we might as well stay since it was rain or shine. And I was so glad we did!
It ended up being really fun, even with the rain. Apparently normally concerts at Tarara on nice days pull in up to 1,000 people. On Saturday, it was so gross out about only 50 people showed, which meant we got a front row seat (from under our umbrellas)! How cool is this stage with the lake behind it?
It also meant we got to meet the band! I told them I was a big fan while I was buying one of the CDs they had for sale (this one came out in 2011, but I didn’t have it yet), so they all signed it for me. They were super nice – now I’m an even bigger fan! 🙂
Their new CD comes out on October 15th – excited to check it out. Give them a listen on YouTube if you want – they’re great! I really love the lead singer’s voice.
I also have to give some love to Monk’s BBQ, which was available for purchase during the concert. Sooo good.
I had a mix of the pulled pork & pulled chicken on a bun, plus baked beans.
And… they had bacon on a stick. Whoa. Matt got some and I had a bite. Super smoky – mmm.
The rest of the weekend was filled with running! Yesterday, I did a 19 mile marathon training run with my running buddies Kathleen and Rachel. It went really well! I’ll be back with a full report tomorrow. 🙂
p.s. I’m heading off to the airport this morning to fly to Canada for a fun press trip! It’s my first trip to Canada (lame I’ve never been there before, right?!) and I can’t wait to share the adventures with you. In the meantime, you can see what I’m up to on Twitter and Instagram. 🙂
