I did it! I mean WE did it!

Today I ran my first 5K. My little sister ran by my side and the hubs who has been rehabbing his knees ran with us for the first part and then ran the 10K on his own (alpha male show off).

The race went through the beautiful town of Wheaton. The weather was hot & humid and by the end of the race I was nothing but itchy and sticky but ... we did it.

My goal is to continue running and to make it to the Indy Mini. I have no desire to run an entire Marathon but I think the goal of getting there could help me make the healthy lifestyle changes that will help to make me live longer, stronger and healthier. It may also help to keep the hubs motivated.  

334 days till next year's Mini.

Final Four, Butler vs State

Looking back at Saturday of the Final Four is a little bit of a blur. Everything happened so fast and there was so much excitement, it was so hard to keep it straight. Here goes my best attempt (and I am sure the hubs will correct me if I am wrong).

We woke up and got ready for the day, but we had to make an unexpected pit stop to Keystone Mall so that we could swing by Banana Republic to pick the hubs up a new belt (while getting ready he realized he forgot this men's essential). We grabbed some lunch with our girl JD and we made our way down town Indy. Once we arrived we decided to meet some of my BU college friends/sorority sisters and their men at Cadillac Ranch. Here we watched and boo-d the State fans who tried to ride the mechanical bull. We also consumed quite a bit of beverages. Overall, it was just great to celebrate being a proud alum with other alum. Recognize anyone you may know? Check it out:


After quite a bit of fun here, we worked our way over to Lucas Oil. Remember when I said that place was a beast? Well it is. Our seats were in the 600 level! But we had a great view of the entire place:

Overall, the fan experience was ehhh-ok. There were people from the 2nd game (Duke vs West Virginia) walking up and down the aisle the entire time with no ushers to be found. However, we did have some State fans walk by wearing these lovely State snuggies, is it bad i secretly want to make a Butler Bulldog snuggie now?

The game was intense. My nerves were all over the place and my battery was drained. This was probably a good thing because I don't think that I could handle the pressure of everyone elses nerves via text or facebook updates. As the final seconds approached and Butler won, we were able to snag some decent photos:

After the game ended, there was so much joy in Lucas Oil for every Butler and Indianapolis fan. Beating State was a huge game and even most State fans were wishing congrats to the dawgs (man I love the midwest). The hubs and I decided to celebrate with the rest of Indianapolis, so we made our way for the elevators down to the first level (remember I said we were on the 600 level!). All of a sudden we saw a rush of State fans selling their championship game tickets at the fan exchange booth. The lines was ridiculous so it looked like people were taking their own liberties to sell them on their own. Check out the chaos:


As we got outside, the roads were insane. Everyone wearing Butler attire was giving high fives, handshakes and I think there were even some fist pumps, no joke. We ran into the hubs old roommates from the Indians and then made our way to a few different bars before we ended at Rock Bottom to meet up with another girlfriend from college and her man.

We had some more friends who said they were either in Boradripple or headed that way so we figured we should jump on the B-ripple bandwagon. It's not every weekend I get to see so many friends so we had to capitalize on it. We met up with JD & her brother and headed to her car but first a quick stop at Victory Field, home of the Indianapolis Indians. This spot is huge for us because it is where me and the hubs met and it's where our friendship with JD began. If only we had taken some better more errrr serious photos?


We loaded in JDs car and headed north. As we were sitting in the traffic the hubs looks at me and says hey look is Clark Kellogg. After that awesome Butler win, I had to ask him what his thoughts were for the next game but my words got jumbled. I think I ended with something like this "Hey Clark, now that Butler took out State, will you be routin' for them" (yup I said routin, sometimes I pick up a little slang while I am in Indy, it drive my sisters crazy).

Clark looked at me with pointed fingers and said "Young Lady - pause - I can't cheer I can only cover the games." The next morning my husband was still talking about how I yelled at Clark Kellog, I feel a little bad looking back at it. I probably looked/acted like a fool, but when else would it be ok to yell like that?

Whenw e arrived in Boradripple the hubs was a little confused. Many new bars had moved in and some old ones out. One of hsi favorite little cantinas was now closed. Sorry pacos

At this point we realized our friends had bailed. It's hard to really blame them, those sort of festivities are a lot for a person to handle. And lets be honest, not everyone has the super strength of my husband. So instead of calling it quits we made one last stop, at Landsharks. The hubs ended up running into an old hs friend. Say hi

After that, we were ready to go but we realized we hadn't eaten in quite some time. There was no line at the Hot Box Pizza so we figured it was a great time to put in an order as we waited for our ride home. Here we ran into one of my younger DG sisters who now is on a local Indy morning radio show. Meet Hot Box & Monica of Radio Now


We headed home and crashed because the next day was Easter Sunday. We spent most of that Sunday playing with my Indy family kiddo-s and spending time with my Indy mom. We then headed to the hubs family's house and had an amazing Easter Dinner put on my his mom and his sister. It was a great way to finish up an amazing weekend and a great way to prep for an awesome championship game, Duke vs Butler.

Unfortunately, here's where our photos started to go bizerk again. We don't have many photos from the Championship game but we did get a few.

Since we were on the 600 level, the screens were a good shot for some of the player intros.

At halftime they did a special for some of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame that was presented during the Final Four. What was really cool about it? Well being from Chicago and working for the United Center, seeing Scottie Pipen was awesome. You can meet the entire class by clicking here or checking out this photo:


Some of the game


Despite the loss to Duke, I still don't feel like there was any real loser. Butler held their own against a very strong team and they ventured grounds they had never seen before. The overall experience was amazing and I am so glad that the hubs was so encouraging. It was great to experience something so cool with someone I love so much (even if he isn't a Butler Alumn).

Bulldawg Videos to Make You Smile

While I try to buy myself some time on getting my recaps together from this weekends festivities, here's some great video clips.

The hubs and I were at Hinkle to witness this live


Blue 2 takes on Sparty!


This is in response to "Too Big Yo" which can be heard here

It's 7am and I Want To Go To Bed

As many of you know this weekend was an incredible weekend to be a Butler Alumni. I have so many photos and wonderful stories to share with you about our family trip to the Final Four in Indianapolis. I just don't know when I'll get to it. The hubs, Minne and I strolled into our home around 4 am, hit the bed for a few hours and got up just in time to make it to work. I am living on an Iced Grande Skinny French Vanilla Latte from Starbucks and plan on jumping to Redbull next. This week is a busy week between events at the United Center and Banana Republic. I promise I will update you as soon as I can.

In the meantime, hop on over to my girl laura's blog. I have no doubt that she will do some great recapping before I have the chance.

Real anxious

Photo from Blue2 himself, found here


I am writing this post a few days early. I know that a few minutes before game time my nervousness for tonight's game will be multiplied to the max. If tonight's game is anything like the games from the Elite 8 and the Sweet 16, I am guessing my stomache will be in knots, my limbs will be jittery, I may be struggling to keep myself from getting physically sick and my eyes will be watering with a mix of excitement and sickness all at the same time. I can only imagine how the players are handling the pressure of their first ever Final Four in their home city. If you're a friend of mine, please be a friend of the dawgs and send all your good luck wishes to their hometown, Indianapolis.

Cheers,

Indy Final Four 2006

In 2006 I was a senior at Butler when the Final Four rolled into town, I should say rolled over it. Literally, the entire city of Indianapolis becomes the final four, garbage cans on the street start to look like basketball hoops and everyone has college spirit. The feeling of a Final Four in one’s city is amazing and it can spread like wildfire.

I was blessed in 2006 with knowing almost everyone in Indy, it is a small city right? (I say that half jokingly since I am from Chicago – I do love Indy, don’t get me wrong.)

Well, by knowing lots of people I ended up working all the days of the Final Four festivities. One third of the time I was working for Radio Disney at the NCAA Hall of Champions. It was a really cool experience and I had a lot more interaction with all the little kiddos, even if they aren’t old enough to appreciate basketball, they sure love the Mickey ears! While working, I was able to see a lot of the NCAA and the Hall of Champions, it was a really cool experience.

Another third of the time was spent earning some major cash working as a “show model” in the convention center for the DiGiorno Booth. Look at this photo and try not to laugh please! The money was good and when I got hungry, there was always pizza!



The last third of the time was spent volunteering as part of the Local Organizing Committee. One of my professors who I spoke about here helped to make it all happen. I was housed for most of the time during the games at the media information and hospitality booth.



Here I got to see Indy Icon Peyton Manning and past UCLA Bruin Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.





I was also able to get some behind the scene tours. In fact, I even woke up super early to watch the lights turn on in Indy with the Mayor. It was fantastic. I also enjoyed checking out the press conference background here:



After some networking events with the committee I may have stumbled into Nicki Blains where Coldplay's Chris Martin's gave a private show:



But one of may favorite parts was attending the game with my mom. At the last minute my professor was able to get us tickets and my mom happened to be driving through Indy on her way home from an ICE competition with my little sister. So Mom and I watched Florida take on UCLA. Sadly, the annoying Gator fans with all their gator chopping won but the experience was still super cool.



I am sure this years Final Four in Indy won't be anything like the last. Instead of working and volunteering, I am selfishly going to enjoy all of the events with my hubs and local friends (my hubs missed out on the last experience as he was already living and working in Minnesota). Also, instead of being in the RCA Dome the events will be housed in the fairly new Lucas Oil Stadium which I have yet to see so we are pumped about that. PLUS I know this will be an even better trip than the last time because I will get to see my college team, on my ground, with my friends and the entire city's support. I look forward to sharing many photos after this weekends festivities and have nothing but great feelings about the weekend. The hubs and I will be leaving after work to make the drive back to Indiana, it will be worth every mile driven. Way to go Butler and GO Dawgs!

Butler Blog Love

One of my favorite blog reads can be found here. If you love Butler and their basketball team, it's worth a follow. Or if you just love adorable little kids is a great follow too.

PS I am so excited for this weekend festivities. Will anyone else be in Indy this weekend?

Elite 8 Weekend Summary

As I talked about here, we had a very hectic weekend that happened to fall over Butler's first appearance in an Elite 8.

Our week started with a drive to Elwood with a determination to get to get to the hubs parent's house prior to the Purdue vs Duke tip off. The drive looked like this, full of semis:


Because of all the semis & Chicago traffic I ended up having a very impatient husband and doggie:


When we arrived to Elwood, Minne and her cousin Buddy celebrated while mom and dd ate Pizza King Pizza. Minne continued celebrating the dawgs well through Sunday.

Saturday looked like this:

Lunch and Play date with the Lozers. Landon got to do some of his favorite things including, lunch at 5 Guys, a morning full of boys, some basketball and LEGOS


From there, I made my way to Laura's house for a nice little bridal shower. I can only imagine Minne's jealousy over Laura's Bullies toys:


The shower was beautiful. Jessica helped to host it and definitely used her expertise to help make the shower a success. Case in point, check out these bad boys:


Check out the beautiful bride too, ok ok the photo isn't great but still, couldn't she be a model?


We then headed over to our friend JDs house to drink some Blue Moon (Blue like Bulldawgs) and watch Butler take on K State. Good times were had by all, there was lots of screaming, gaging, crying, yelling...ect by all, I mean me. We didn't take any photos but here's what it looked like:


From there we went to dinner with some of the hubs close friends. Dinner itself was blah but the company was fabuslous. We even got to meet Mr Baby L. I think the hubs was smitten:

Landon especially liked when little "L" passed some gas:


After dinner we drove to Hinkle and waited for 3 hours for the Butler team to arrive back from Salt Lake City. (Had we still been in college we would have had more Butler friends in town to do some celebrating with, unfortunately it was just the hubs and I but it still rocked)


We waited in the cold, we waited in the rain, we waited while college kids passed out, but we waited for the one and only Bulldawgs. So worth it. Best part? Seeing how humble the guys were when they got off the buses? perhaps. Seeing Bobby Fong completely disoriented? perhaps. See Blue II. perhaps. What was really the coolest was surprising one of my BFFs. I think her hat shows it all:


After a long weekend for us, we drove home on Sunday. It didn't even take 2 minutes into the drive till Minne was asleep. I think the hubs and I both felt like she did.


For more about my love of Butler Basketball, read here

And then there were 4!

And guess what, Butler is one of them! We had a fabulous weekend in Indiana, with lots of time spent in the home city of the Butler Bulldawgs and the 2010 Final Four, Indianapolis. I have so many thoughts running through my head and am not 100% sure how to articulate it so here is my best attempt:


Photo 1 & 6 found here, Photo 2 Found here, Photo 5 found here, Photo 3 found here, Photos 4 and 7 are courtesy of my dear friend.