26.2 Reasons We Are Excited to Race the Louisiana Marathon

1.  It will be our first time to run in Louisiana not just race but actually do even a run in this state!
2.  ROAD TRIP!!
3.  Look at this pretty bling we get to add to our collection:
la marathon medal
4.  This will be the 1st time either one of us has been to Baton Rouge! Unless there was sometime when we were little kids and do not remember………..
5.  We will have two of the most handsome dudes out there cheering us on!
just the two in the front, we don't know the guy in the white shirt! :)

the two in the front, we don’t know the guy in the white shirt! 🙂

6.   We can’t wait for the race swag! Whoever does the design work for their logos ROCKS!
the la marathon 9.25.12
7.  We heard the Race Director has a brother-in-law who lives in Texas – who doesn’t love a good Texas connection?!
8.  This is the Louisiana Marathon’s 2nd year and they have runners (as of 1/15/13) from 47 states and 12 countries participating.
9.  There are designated Cheer Zones on the course that are actually stocked with snacks, refreshments AND cheering supplies! Talk about a great race for runners and spectators!
10.  We get to run with each other until this mile, ok, really it is like until 10.5.
11.  We hear it’s a fast course which who doesn’t like a fast course?!
12. The weather for race day is looking awwwwwesome! *knock on wood*
13.  The course is suppose to be beautiful!
13.1.  Teal will finish her 16th half marathon!!
14.  People have constantly asked us WHY we are running THIS race, well, we think this best explains it: THE WHY
15.  This race starts and finishes right by the State’s Capitol.
16. To steal the words from Brian, we are excited to “carbeaux leauxd” for this race! 🙂 In fact let us point out one more time if you aren’t following Brian on twitter then you’re doing twitter wrong! Might we also point out, if you are in the market for a running coach you should get in touch with Brian! OK, enough about Brian….
17.  Po’ boys!
18. ALL of the snacks we have planned for the car ride! 🙂
IMG_7760
19. Not only are there cheer zones set up on this course, but a lot of great opportunities to see runners multiple times without having to cover a lot of ground!
20.  We will actually run on the campus of LSU!
21.  Race weekends in which Monday is a holiday are awwwesome!  Though please note Teal was the only one who didn’t have to request this day off from work. Ha.
22.  Our pre-race dinner at Mike Anderson’s…unless something happens between now and Saturday night to change that!
23.  The two of us and our husbands all sharing one hotel room the night before the race!
24. Craft beer at the Finish Festival.
25.  Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish Etouffee and more food selections at the Finish Festival.
26.  We will end our trip to Louisiana with a celebration in New Orleans! 🙂
from Beth & Brent's trip to NOLA in 2009

from Beth & Brent’s trip to NOLA in 2009

26.2. Beth will finish marathon no. 2!

The Good, the Messy & the Hilarious {Wedding Weekend Take 1}

For the two of us ladies the whole wedding weekend kind of kicked off Thursday afternoon! Teal rocks and took not only Friday off, but also Thursday to help me with last minute things.  Priorities first though we went that afternoon with my mom and sister, Kate, to get manicures & pedicures for the weekend.  The nail salon loved Kate, Teal and me because we all wanted the exact same colors on our fingers and toes, but it gave us more time to drink our wine since they only had one bottle of the green polish!

Green and gray to match the wedding colors!

Then the four of us were off to run a few errands.  Teal and I stopped by Target for wine and goldfish. 🙂 Y’all, these are essentials in our lives – haha! And then Teal very graciously continued to stick around and helped me do a mock of the cupcake table, pack up all those supplies in bins, get the place cards ready to go and really just get organized for the weekend.  Also, a big shout out to my sister too for all her input and helping me load up our cars that night to head to downtown Dallas Friday afternoon!

This is from Wednesday when my SIL, Tiffany, and littlest nephew, Easton, were over helping me with stuff. My sister & I’s house has been a wedding mess forever. Thanks for putting up with me and the wedding mess!

Friday my dad’s sisters and my one and only girl cousin threw me an awesome bridal luncheon! I’m sad because I don’t think I snapped a picture with just them at the luncheon. 🙁  But should you read this Aunt Cindy, Aunt Leslie and Erin I am truly blessed by the 3 of you and lucky to have such wonderful women in my life I get to call family! It was so fun to just get to hangout with the ladies in my family and  my wedding party!

Mother of the Bride & Bride

Sisters!

LiAR!

 

My House Party dude! 🙂

I was fiiinally able to give my Bridesmaids their presents for being in my wedding.  One of the things I gave them in particular I was trying really hard to either keep it all or aspects of it a secret, but one of them ended up having to teach my mom and me how to make so she knew ALL about it.  My mom sewed clutch purses for all of my Bridesmaids (well and me, my MIL and herself – a lot of purses!) and I don’t really sew so the only contribution I was really able to make was being the fabric cutter.  Lots of hours went into these bad boys but thankfully we started pretty early on them and they were done well in advance of the wedding! I think they’re sooo cuute!  Thank you to my mom for generously giving up all of that time to work on these for me amongst other things!

One of the other things I got them and was really excited about was that OPI in the spring, I think, came out with a Holland collection (my future last name), so I was able to find a good deal on a set of the Holland collection nail polishes. Perfect timing, OPI!

Anyway, after that we all kind of went in separate directions until the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night. Brent and I both grew up in Dallas, but didn’t know each other so pretty much the whole weekend of events was in Dallas proper which seemed appropriate with both of us being born (same hospital just a couple years apart) and raised here.  The wedding venue had some fabulous views of the Dallas skyline, and my in-laws also picked out a wonderful rehearsal dinner venue with just as awesome views!

Bride & Father of the Bride ready to rehearse!

with my in-laws to be (the next day)

The rehearsal dinner was full of good food, lots of laughs and just fun time with family and close friends.  Brent & I are truly blessed by the not only amazing family we have but the true friends in our lives!  After dinner a lot of us headed to the hotel bar to have more time to just hangout before we called it a night.  Eventually Brent left to head to his house for the night  and most of the wedding party was staying at the hotel so when we were ready to call it a night we just went upstairs.  And let’s end this Friday night on a funny note – when Kate, Teal and I got to our floor and off the elevator we look to our left and what do we see?  Two men in their boxer briefs wrestling. Haha.

**Disclaimer: There are SO many people that graciously gave of their time and helped me out throughout the last year of my life if you weren’t specifically mentioned in this post please know that doesn’t mean I forgot about you or by any means am not completely indebted to you for your time you shared with me.**

Five Things About Us

If you follow us on Instagram you might have seen the picture below on Friday. If you don’t follow us on Instagram and you are in fact on there – go follow us! Right now!

Anyway, Courtney tagged us in a 5 Things About Us post on instagram and we thought we’d share that here with a little more detail.

1. Yes, Teal is married and Beth is engaged, but it’s ok to have a celebrity boyfriend on the side right?? One that we happen to both share?

2. You would really never know it since Teal straightens her hair all the time, but yes, she does in fact have curly hair! It’s not often that it’s in curly form and we actually had to go back to our beach trip in 2007 to find that picture.

3. We shop at the exact same clothing stores. We are not afraid to buy an article of clothing the other one has – clearly based on the above picture! This must mean we both have great taste! And we big time puffy heart Francesca’s!

4. Yep, we are! At any given moment we probably each have a bottle of nail polish on us or in our car. Ok, not actually when we are out on a run, but guarantee we both always have one bottle in our purse!

5. Could anyone be more obsessed with goldfish than the two of us? We don’t think so! Put a bag infront of us and it will NOT last!

Tagged: Beth Edition

1. Which of your race medals is your favorite? Why?

It’s hard to say a medal other than the New Year’s Double medal.  I mean seriously, the weight of it! The way it’s put together and how we got it! It’s just awesome plus it does represent the first time ever doing back to back half marathons, BUT I will say that the White Rock Marathon medal comes in verry close to the NYD medal!

2. It’s a leap year! What are you going to do with your extra day on February 29th?

Probably just be thankful because it being a leap year enables Brent & I to get married on the day that he proposed to me – October 27th!

3. What food can you not live without?

I definitely go in stages of the food I LOVE! Goldfish for a long time have been the food I love but I rarely buy them because I’ll eat the whole bag. Ha, but for awhile now it’s been egg rolls. Ha I looooove egg rolls! I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine’s version of them to not be eating high calorie egg rolls.

4. What race is your dream race? Why?

I would say that my dream race is The Kauai Marathon!  Absolutely love Hawaii and then Kauai is just beautiful! I’d love a chance to go back there and run!  Plus the view on that course? Has to be amazing!  Because of the time difference, travel time and money I’d need to save up for that race it seems like a dream!

5. What cartoon character are you most like? Why?

Uhhh, well cartoon character automatically makes me think about Disney and if I had to pick a Disney Princess I think I’m most like I’d say Belle and conveniently that’s who I am dressing up as for the Princess Half at the end of the month!

(source)

6. Does each pair of sock have a “left” sock and a “right” sock?

Uhh, they are socks. Ha, if I manage to have two that are the same or even have two at times it’s a miracle! 🙂

7. What is your favorite way to cross train?

SPIN!!  I’ve been regularly going to spin class for about 5 years now! I own a pair of spin shoes because I love it so much!  You know how runners (myself included) get a runner’s high? I also get a spinning high!

8. What is your favorite race shirt?

Ummm, I don’t totally have one. Just love races that give me long sleeve regular shirts! The design of the Dallas Turkey Trot shirts are always great!

9. Do you have a bucket list?

Nope!  My friend Rebekah and I once had a list of things we wanted to do locally, domestically and internationally but I think I lost it.  Bucket lists are great and I’m interested in what I’d come up with to put on it….

10. Do you have a certain song that you always put at the beginning of your playlists?

Not really, but I kind of get addicted to certain songs.  For example – Sean Kingston’s Fire Burnin’ LOVE singing that song. Ha, I memorized all the words to it. 🙂

That body is a masterpiece the order is one in every hundred years but ain’t no doubt I’m takin’ it home, home

Little mama game about to change, She’ll be on covers all over the world 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkyhvCdJ_vM&ob=av2n]

11. Do you think I am crazy for signing up for the Tough Mudder?

Yes, haha, but a good kind of crazy!  Betsy you are awesome and will do GREAT! I feel like I’d hurt myself in that type of a race!

11 Random Things:

1.  I am a fourth Swedish

2.  I went to the same private school here in Dallas as Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl…know who I’m talking about? He was two grades below me and I remember seeing him when I was in 10th grade when I’d go over and take pictures of the middle schoolers for yearbook. Kind of gave you two things there – yes, I worked on the yearbook at my school.  Also, if you’re a dude and don’t know who I am talking about – his sister married Tony Romo.

(source)

3. I hate talking on the phone. Ha.  When I was little I was SOOO shy that my mom would make me call the pizza guy and anyone else like that so that I could get over my dislike for talking on the phone and especially to people I didn’t know.

4.  As a little kid I just didn’t talk much and was reeeeeeally shy up until I was in high school.  My poor youth pastor & his wife took me to lunch when I was 12 years old and I maaybe said 20 words the whole time. Haha, oh how times have changed!

5.  It really isn’t represented enough in our blog, but I’m an Aggie!  WHOOP!! =)

6.  I’ve been to the ER twice in my life and both trips were within 48 hours of each other. *knocks on wood*

7. I LOVE movies!  I have been going to the movie every week with one of my friends for a little over 3 years now.

8.  With that last one said my all time favorite movie is Empire Records!

AJ: What’s with you today?

Lucas: What’s with today, today?  

So many great quotes and songs in that movie!

9. The Laughing Toilet – that’s what my older bro, older sister and two older boy cousins started calling me for a brief period of time when I was little.  Apparently at the time I was sick and if I started laughing I’d start coughing and it was a deep cough so you know that sounds like a laughing toilet?  Toilets laugh? Older siblings & relatives can be so mean! 😉

(source)

10. As a child I LOVED Barbies! I played with them until I was like 10 years old….uh, all my friends had stopped at that point. But not all of my friends had cool Barbie clothes their Grandmom sewed for them like I did!

11.  I got the chicken pox when I was 5 & 6…I say 5 & 6 because I had them on my birthday. 🙂  Neither one of my granddads had ever had the chicken pox so I remember sitting in the front entry way of our house with the door open waving at them and them standing by their cars telling me happy Birthday from there because they weren’t going to get any closer to me.

As an added bonus for the few Colorado peeps that read our blog and because 12 is my favorite number –

12. If I had to tell you one thing my family repeats about something I did as a kid it would be when we were on a family trip to Colorado and I said “Hey, dad, does Ouray have a telephone?”

Seven Things Thursday

Well, Brigid over at Live, Breathe, Huzzah! tagged us in a blog and we loved the idea of sharing with readers 7 things about ourselves so here it goes:

1.  My name is Teal – after the Duck NOT the color – My grandfather insisted that the first girl in the family was to be named Teal because he loved the duck, which has a Teal band around its neck, and my grandmother had given him 4 boys and no girls. I was the first born girl in the Monthley family and thus how I got the name Teal- not because my parents were hippies!

source

2. I have an unhealthy obsession with Goldfish – I can’t stop eating them. If you give me a bag I will eat the entire thing. My students buy me goldfish for treats and I have to hide them in other teacher’s classrooms in an attempt to not eat them all. I cannot buy them and keep them in the house. They are like crack, but for real!

3.  I have only had 1 stitch ever in life – I was riding on the handlebars of my brother’s tricycle at age 5 and fell off hitting a brick. My mother RUSHED me to the hospital where I received 1, count them 1, stitch, leaving a very small star like scar on my forehead. Clearly I am a dare devil.

4.  My animals are named after PHISH music – My cat’s name is Harry Sullivan (although he prefers to be called Mr. Kitties) after the song Harry Hood and Sullivan taken from the song Ginseng Sullivan, and my dog is named Wilson after the song with the same title!

Mr. Kitties

Wilson

5.  Cars hate me – Here is what I have had to deal with… be jealous. 1988 Taurus (gas gauge used to leave me stranded all the time) 1996 Honda civic (timing belt issues, no air) 1978 Cutlass Sierra (stalled when you turned right…that was fun), 2000 Taurus (trunk camo-ducked taped and nailed down to stay closed) Ford Focus (flooded when it rained and broke down 5 times fully returned 1 month later), Ford Escape (driver door wouldn’t open, had to enter from the back seat), Volkswagen Jetta (nothing wrong!), Volkswagen Eos (wrecked !), currently Honda CRV- God help me! I don’t want anymore!

6.  I teach in a 100 year old classroom known as the hippy room – It’s big, but slightly scary, painted hippy wall, the black hole to god knows where, a black that was purple, green and yellow shelf, sponge ceiling and I love it!

7.  When I was 6 and 7 years old I shared a room with my younger brother, Brad. We slept in bunk beds the entire time and to make it better my parents painted my top half of the room pink and the bottom half of the room blue to please us both.

***

1.  My name is Beth, but my family calls me Beeper – I am the youngest of 5 cousins on one side and I have to assume that when my brother, Scott & cousin, Todd would come in from playing and ask “Where’s Beth?” being little kids they probably said Bef.  IT was around this time that the Wendy’s commercial was out where the two old ladies ask “Where’s the Beef?” sooo then they started calling me Beef.  Thanks to my mom she told them they needed to rethink that because what 13 year old girl would want to be called Beef?  It got changed to Beep/Beeper and I am still called that today!  [Please note that this is not an invitation to call me Bef because a 28 year old female doesn’t want to be called that either :)]

source

2.  My hair use to be straight – That’s right my hair was straight until I hit puberty 🙂 and it got curly.  Well, except for the year I didn’t know it was becoming curly and I’d still try and straighten it but then half way through I’d get tired of that because it was so long that it was just a big fro and awkward. (I am reeeeally sad I don’t have a picture to show you on this one, but if I find one soon I’ll put it up!)

3.  I homeschooled for 1.5 years – Again, I was the youngest of 5 cousins on one side and we all went to the same private school here in Dallas.  My aunt even taught there and I (as well as my two siblings) had her as our 8th grade History/English teacher.  After my sophomore year of high school I needed a change so I home schooled by watching videos through a program in Florida and ended up squeezing my senior year into 7 months to graduate in December 2000.  I might have graduated early, but I then took an eternity in college. 🙂

4.  I once went bobsledding – Ok, fine it wasn’t REAL bobsledding, but one of my all-time favorite college memories was when my roommates and I decided to go bobsled down the stairs in our duplex.  Then two of us when together needless to say I got a bump on my head and she somehow got a scratched leg.

The only pic I have of me in the "bobsled" after I'd gone down the stairs and run into the front door 🙂

5.  My first job was at a toy store – when I started homeschooling I got a job at Noodle Kidoodle which was then bought out and became Zany Brainy.  Loved that job and worked there for 3  years.  It eventually closed. 🙁

6.  I love Children’s books – It was probably working at the toy store that gave me my love for teaching children & children’s books in general.  I use to lead story time at the store and was in charge of book club for 4-5 year olds for two summers.  I even dressed up as the mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  It’s a dream of mine to actually write my own Children’s Book!

7. I love to sing! – I was in choir growing up.  I use to sing on the Praise & Worship team at my church.  I took vocal lessons, but now you can find me jamming out to songs in my car OR occasionally singing my go to Karaoke song – Give Me One Reason by Tracy Chapman

Singing at my dad's 4th of July party

And there you have it – 7 things about each of us! 🙂

We’d like to extend the opportunity for some of our fellow bloggers to do the same, so get busy!

1. Heidi over at The Unpredictable Journey

2. Alex over at  Thoughts on the Run

3. Aimee over at Running from the Couch

4. Courtney over at C is for Courtney

5. Bear Runner over at, well,  Bear Runner 🙂

6. Jenny over at We Wander and Ponder

7. Gina over at The Naughty Spots