On Monday, I fired up the stove in our new kitchen here in our DC area apartment for the first time! Since I was gone all last week in NYC at the Fitness Magazine Blogger Meet & Tweet and then Boston for the Reebok blogger event (recap 1 & recap 2), then had a friend in town over the weekend, Matt and I were well overdue for having our first home cooked meal and popping open a bottle of wine to celebrate our new apartment.

Loving Instagram lately – if you’re on it, follow me! My username is fannetasticfood.

I decided to whip up a variation of one of my favorite recipes here on the blog – my Sweet Potato & Black Bean Veggie Enchiladas (click for recipe).

I changed the recipe up a little bit based on what I had on hand. I left out the enchilada sauce and instead just added a lot more salsa, I added avocado, and I just did two layers of tortillas (Ezekiel brand – a few tortillas on the bottom of the pan, and a few on top to cover it all, with just a mass of the ingredients in between) instead of wrapping them like burritos, because the tortillas made the trip from Chapel Hill with us and were kind of falling apart.

This was seriously AMAZING – we both were “mmmm”-ing the whole time while eating it. It was especially good with a little Cholula chili garlic hot sauce on top!

I also whipped up a batch of my Vegan & Gluten Free Granola Bars for the week. Yum!

Time to finish up my last worksheet module, make a visit to my clinical internship hospital to get a health clearance, and then start packing – I leave tomorrow morning for the Reach the Beach Relay!

Have a great day!

As I’ve mentioned, later this week I will be participating in the Massachusetts Reach the Beach Relay with 11 fellow bloggers (and friends). Over 24 hours we will run 200 miles between the 12 of us! The race starts on Friday morning; I’ll be flying up to Boston on Thursday.

Our team name is “Off Balance” in honor of our awesome sponsor, New Balance. They sent us some fun branded gear yesterday to get us pumped up!

During the race, my teammates and I will be separated into two vans of 6 people. I’m runner #11, so I’ll be in van 2. Each runner runs three legs of varying distance and difficulty; I’ll be doing a total of 16.03 miles during the race.

Here are my legs:

• Leg 1: 4.4 miles – HARD (this means it is crazy hilly – good thing I trained in Chapel HILL!)
• Leg 2: 4.34 miles – EASY (yay!)
• Leg 3: 7.29 miles – MODERATE

Since I trained for the Tobacco Road Half Marathon a couple months ago and then did the Tarheel 10 Miler in Chapel Hill last month, I basically used those races and their training as my training for this race. Since the Tarheel 10 Miler, I’ve just been working on keeping my mileage up to make sure that I’ll still be good to go come this weekend.

On Sunday morning, I met up with friends Ashley and Sokphal for an 8 miler – my last longer run before the race.

It was beautiful out there! We hit the C&O Canal, my fave.

Everything has gotten very lush and green since I last ran on this trail in March over spring break!

It was a hot morning and I was a bit tired from my busy week last week and a fun weekend (I had college friends in town visiting for our friend’s baby shower), but we ended up having a good run – having company and chatting away the whole time always makes runs fly by.

Done and done!

Splits:

• Mile 1: 9:03
• Mile 2: 8:58
• Mile 3: 9:08
• Mile 4: 9:07
• Mile 5: 9:00
• Mile 6: 9:09
• Mile 7: 9:11
• Mile 8: 8:56

Total time: 1 hour, 12 minutes. Average overall pace: 9:04. Thanks for the run, ladies!

Time to get some serious work done – I start my clinical hospital internship here in DC next week and I have a bunch of online training and some module worksheets to complete before then. Have a happy Tuesday, friends!

After our workout, we headed back in to the main Reebok headquarters.

Back inside, we settled in for a little info session about some of Reebok’s products. I loved the table decorations.

In addition to learning more about their current shoes, we got a sneak peak of some of their upcoming summer and fall lines and let me tell you – they are awesome. In addition to the RealFlex Transition shoes we wore throughout the day for our workouts (and I wore to travel all week – SO comfy), we were also given a pair of their ZigNano Fly II shoes, which are part of their running line. 

Aren’t they cute? I love the colors and the fun squiggly bottom – they have a minimalist type lower profile construction but with a supportive frame, and are very lightweight, flexible, and soft. I’m really excited to try them out and will report back soon with my thoughts.

After the product session, it was lunch time! They had a great spread for us – lots of healthy options, which I appreciated.

I ended up with a big salad with all sorts of veggies plus a little roast beef, and a turkey sandwich on delicious hearty bread. Hit the spot!

After lunch, we headed to another area of the Reebok Headquarters to learn about how their shoes are created! We first met with Bill McInnis, who is head of Reebok Advanced Innovations – he literally used to be a rocket scientist (he worked for NASA previously) so I’m pretty confident in his shoe designing abilities.

He gave a really cool presentation showing all the different iterations it takes one line of shoes before they become the shoes that we see in stores. They have groups of testers that try the shoes for a certain amount of time, give feedback, and then they change the shoes and do it all over again until the majority of people are happy, both with the short term AND long term performance of the shoes. Quite the process!

We also saw some of their cool software for designing shoes.

And got a chance to see their 3D printer in action – with 3D printing, you literally make 3D solid objects from a digital file by printing successive layers of very thin material over and over again until a shape eventually starts to form! Apparently the technology was developed by MIT – no surprise there. The copy of the guy’s head in the photo below was created by the printer – how cool is that?! It was SO realistic!

We also learned about Reebok’s new “U-Form” technology, which is a heat activated custom-fit technology built into the lining of some of their newer shoes. With U-Form, consumers use a hair dryer to heat their shoes for two minutes, which causes the shoes to soften; you then put on the shoes and wait a few minutes for them to harden perfectly molded to your feet! Cool, huh?

After our educational sessions, it was time for another workout! This time we did a cardio dance workout led by Ilyse Baker, who flew in from California just to teach the class. She’s got some serious moves – no surprise, since she’s worked with Rihanna, Access Hollywood, and a ton of other celebs/big media outlets.

I’m not usually into dance workouts because I don’t like having to think and remember sequences when I work out, so I wasn’t expecting to like this class, but Ilyse is a pro and did an awesome job making it fun for us. Great music, too! We were ready for the club.

I was surprisingly sweaty afterward, too! Here we are breaking it down:

And you can also check out this video, courtesy of Bex, of us dancing! You can’t see me in the video, which is probably for the best.

But you CAN see me in this cool video that Kelly took of us all during the CrossFit workout earlier in the day! Right at the beginning you can see me and Tina busting out some pull ups with our backs to the camera. See us? Until the video zooms out you can’t tell we’re using bands to assist us with the pull-ups – we just look hardcore.

This video of us all doing the 200m run portion of the CrossFit workout is fun, too! What a blast. You can see me running in the second group!

I left for the airport on Friday exhausted but happy. What a wonderful day – thank you again to Reebok and FitFluential for this great opportunity!

It was an awesome day and a great look into Reebok as a brand, as well as an introduction to CrossFit, which Reebok has partnered with. First up was an introduction to the brand.

I was really impressed by the company as a whole – their goal has been to make fitness into more of a FUN experience, hence the CrossFit partnership. Being healthy doesn’t mean being at the gym bored by yourself – they are all about building community and having a good time while exercising. Apparently Reebok has done such a great job instilling this sense of fitness as fun in their 1,100 employees that the Reebok community has lost over 4,000 lb total over the last year! Amazing, huh? I love their “fitness as fun” approach – very much one that I preach, as well!

Their headquarters is fitness central. There is a track that runs around the building:

A multi-level gym with all sorts of equipment and playing courts, and they also have their very own CrossFit box (e.g. gym – CrossFit gyms are called “boxes”), called CrossFit ONE.

This box is unique in that it’s only for Reebok employees, and they really take advantage – apparently 450 (nearly 50%) of their employees belong to the box!

After our introduction to the brand in the morning, we headed over to the Reebok CrossFit ONE box to check it out for ourselves and get in a workout, all decked out in Reebok gear (that they sent to us before the event). Cool that they have a line of apparel dedicated to CrossFit! I especially loved the CrossFit Performance Capri that they sent us – SO comfortable and I’ll be wearing these all the time. We were wearing the RealFlex Transition shoes, which I also really loved and will be getting a lot of use out of – not really for running (well, maybe short runs), but for cross training.

I was really excited to see what CrossFit is all about – I’ve heard so much about it!

The gym was HUGE!

Before starting, we got an introduction to CrossFit from our trainers for the day: Caleb Diebolt, and Austin Malleolo, pictured below, who was a top finisher in the CrossFit Games in both 2010 and 2011. He’s also the head coach of Reebok CrossFit ONE. Pretty cool to have him teaching us!

We also got a tutorial on proper squatting form, and how to properly do the kettle bell swings and pull ups that would be part of our workout.

And then, it was time for our workout. Exciting! “WOD” stands for Workout of the Day:

Everyone paired up in teams and got ready to rock. My partner: Tina!

Team handstands? Obviously.

Here we are all lined up to start the first relay run. One partner went first, then tagged the other person to go.

Run, run!

Once both Tina and I had run the 200 meters, we raced over to the kettle bells and got started – the 45 kettle bell swings were combined, so she would do 10, then I would do 10, etc. until we reached a collective 45.

We finished with 24 pull ups (12 each) – we were instructed how to use stretchy bands to make them more manageable. Tina is hardcore and used a thinner band (and also used a much heavier kettle bell – she’s been doing CrossFit for awhile now!), which made it harder!

And then… repeat a second time, and a third time! Tina and I came in 2nd place – just barely beat out by team Julie & Courtney. Awesome job, ladies!

What a FUN workout! I loved CrossFit; I’m all for workouts that are more team/group based. So much more fun and motivating!

Stay tuned for part 2 of our adventures at Reebok – this post is getting a biiit too long!

Are you a CrossFit-er? I’m going to look into some of the boxes around here!

–

Man, I love New England and Boston, too. It’s nice to be back for a visit!

As I mentioned, I’m here in town for a blogger event with Reebok today. Bloggers are coming in from all over, but there was a group of us that came up straight from the Fitness Magazine event yesterday in NYC. We traveled on the train together, arrived in Boston around 2 p.m. and set out immediately to explore! Sarah lives in the city and was an awesome tour guide.

From left – me, Sarah, Julie, Maria, Courtney 

We had a blast playing in the city all day – the weather cleared up for us eventually, too!

Oh, Boston. I heart thee. So clean and quaint! I’ve always said I’d love to live here… if it weren’t so darn cold in the winter!

We hit up Berry Line for frozen yogurt…

Yum.

And then wandered around some of the shops on Newbury Street, making our way to the park.

So beautiful!

Traveling with other bloggers is always fun because they love photos as much as you do.

We met up with Tina (who had gone home to change and drop off her stuff after the train ride) in the park and then continued our walking tour by heading towards the Charles River.

I love cities that have rivers running through them!

We headed to dinner at a place called Red Lantern after our walking adventures.

I loved the décor!

Cheers!

We all shared a bunch of appetizers and main dishes – so this happened every time any food arrived. Food paparazzi!

So funny.

Tuna tartar:

Chicken and beef skewers with cilantro sauce – these were AMAZING:

This next one was essentially orange chicken – we ordered this thinking it wasn’t fried and would include more veggies – fail. Oh well, it was still delicious, as fried food unfortunately is.

Sea Bass with eggplant – major yum:

Plus a noodle dish – also tasty.

Fun dinner – the food was good, but the company was the real pleasure. Tina, Julie, Courtney, Sarah, Maria, and I had a blast laughing it up and chatting. Great group of girls.

Off to get ready for the day with Reebok! If you’d like to follow along on Twitter, the hash tag we’ll be using is #RBKfitblog. I’m excited because a CrossFit class is on the agenda for this morning – I’ve never tried it before!

Happy Friday!

The Fitness Magazine Blogger Meet & Tweet in NYC yesterday was great – I’m so glad I was able to come up for it.

The day consisted of a series of informational sessions, as well as the opportunity to talk with a number of vendors that were sponsoring the event, including Reebok, Oakley, and about 10 others.

I was really excited about the Oakley booth because I’ve been wanting to get some workout sunglasses for awhile now. My dad gave me a pair recently that he wasn’t using, but Matt wanted to steal them, so I was looking for some new ones. Perfect timing! We were given a pair to test out so I’ll let you know my thoughts – I love that they look like stylish sunglasses, but made for working out!

I got a lot of comments on my “Will Run for Bacon” shirt – it’s from my t-shirt shop!

Besides perusing the vendors, one of the big highlights of the morning was meeting Mia Hamm!

I think women of all ages know her name – especially those of us that grew up looking up to her in the 1990’s. I was honored to meet such a strong and amazing role model for female athletes everywhere.

She was signing little soccer balls for everyone, and since Matt is a big soccer player, I had her sign it for him.

So cool! I texted Matt that I got Mia Hamm to sign a soccer ball for him and he was like “Whaaaaat?! No way!”

I also attended a nutrition-related session talking about some myths related to carbs, cleanses, and caffeine, hosted by Fitness’s Nutrition Editor Juno DeMelo, along with local NYC RD’s Keri Gans and Tanya Zuckerbrot.

The info was much more basic than I was hoping for (and all stuff I already knew), but I guess with the broad audience that makes sense – obviously not everyone has just taken advanced nutritional biochemistry like me. Bottom line from what they said:

• Carbs are good for you when they are un-refined and whole grain (or in vegetable/fruit form)
• Cleanses aren’t necessary as the body is perfectly efficient at cleansing itself – it’s more important to just focus on good nutrition (and fiber) to keep things running smoothly
• And, awesome news: caffeine may help your performance if you have some right before exercising. Yay!

After the session, it was time for lunch! I was impressed with it – I guess it makes sense that a fitness-related conference would have healthier food options for lunch than most, though.

I had a bit of everything – some delicious salad, fruit, a grain salad, plus some salmon. Yum! They also had freshly made lemonade, complete with mint. Fancy!

There were also great snacks available throughout the day, which I appreciated – Go With the Grains had a table of various breads, nut/seed butters, and some unpictured hummus and guacamole out for most of the day – their raisin bread was AMAZING.

And there was also an afternoon snack break of some cute veggie cups and mini cookies!

A good bit of the event also involved networking and socializing! It was fun to see old friends and meet some new ones, too. Here I am with Theodora, Sarah, Ashley, Julie, Courtney, and Tina.

And again below with Julie, Courtney, and Tina! Everyone got the blue memo, apparently.

In the afternoon, there was a session about “How to Turn Your Blog Into a Business” with Kelly Olexa (founder of FitFluential) and Carla (miss Mizfit)!

As well as my friends Julie and Tina!

Proud of them. Bottom line: work hard, put yourself out there by pitching yourself to companies and media outlets frequently, utilize all forms of social media as much as you can to increase visibility, and don’t be scared to hear “no” when you ask for something. Try, try again!

The day ended with a fitness session courtesy of Kiwi Sweat!

The session was led by a woman named Reign Hudson, who was awesome. Very fun, high energy, and motivating! Hilarious, too. The class was 45 minutes and called Tabura, which Reign described as a mix between African dance and kickboxing. Interesting combo, right? Fun drum music, too.

We were all expecting this workout to be pretty low key since it was at a conference and for a big group (hence us doing the morning boot camp before the day began) – well, we were very wrong! Within minutes, Reign had us sweating bullets, jumping all over the place, punching and kicking and dancing like crazy. What a blast – and a great workout, too!

I had to get a photo with the instructor after, of course.

The rest of the evening was spent with a big group of bloggers at a fun Mexican place in the meat packing district called Tortilla Flats. I didn’t get any photos except for this one of the cool ceiling decorations since it was really dark, but I shared a platter of chicken fajitas with Theodora and they were delicious. Great chips and salsa, too!

A bunch of us ended up at a cool beer garden nearby for a nightcap drink after dinner. Fun night!

This morning, Theodora, Tina, and I all dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 a.m. to go for a run. We were all really tired and debated bailing, but I knew that once we got out there we’d be glad we did. I never regret a workout – I just regret skipping them.

Plus, I wanted to check out this beautiful route along the water that Theodora always blogs about! It was even more gorgeous in person.

We ended up running for 45 minutes total – we’re thinking we covered a little over 5 miles. It felt good to get out there, especially with these views!

And what would an early morning run be without an awkward early morning half asleep photo?

Thanks for the great start to the day, ladies!

Time to get some work done before we arrive in Boston. Have a great Thursday, everyone!

As I mentioned, I’m here for a blogger event with Fitness Magazine today (if you are on Twitter, you can follow along at the hashtag #fitblognyc) via FitFluential. I took the bus up yesterday from DC – gotta love the Bolt Bus – my ticket was $12 and we got free internet! Pretty sweet. I traveled up with fellow blogger Maria, who was also coming up for the Fitness Magazine event – she was a fun travel companion and we had a great time chatting, although I had to spend some time on the bus doing training modules online for my upcoming hospital internship, which was less fun.

Upon arrival in the city, I dropped my stuff off at the lovely Theodora’s (and said hi to her adorable dog, Bailey), and then met up with one of my childhood best friends, Stephanie, for dinner! Steph and I have been friends ever since we went to camp together when we were 12. She lives in Brooklyn so I don’t see her nearly enough; it was great to catch up with her.

We went to a place called Cafeteria for dinner and it was delish!

We started by sharing the kale salad – yum.

For my entrée, I had a delicious white fish with truffle oil, radicchio, and artichokes. It was amazing!

After catching up with Steph, I headed to a bar nearby to meet up with my blogger buddies Theodora, Tina, and Ashley for a nightcap glass of Prosecco.

Cheers!

This morning, Theodora, Tina, and I were up bright and early for a boot camp class!

Theodora has been going to the morning indoor boot camp classes at Pace for Success, and she told Tina and I that we would love the class, too. Pace for Success is owned by Jasmine Graham, who is a marathon runner, certified RRCA coach, trainer and motivational speaker. She was nice enough to let Tina and I come check out the 7 a.m. “Xtreme Core” class this morning on her, and it was AWESOME.

I can’t say enough good things about Jasmine’s class – I so wish that she were in DC! The class was HARD but really fun (we used gliders, kettlebells, small bouncy balls, etc.) and Jasmine was my favorite kind of instructor – motivating and pushed you, but also nice and fun. Great music playing the whole time, too! I have a feeling I’m going to be sore tomorrow. If you live in NYC, I would really recommend checking out Jasmine’s boot camps!

Time to shower and get ready for the conference – happy Wednesday, friends!

I had a fabulous 6 mile trail run with my friend Ashley this morning!

When we had dinner on Sunday night, Ashley was telling me about this cool trail she found that branches off from the W&OD trail in Vienna, near where she lives. I was excited to check it out and we made plans to meet there this morning. It was a bit of a debacle for me trying to find the place (I got totally lost), but once I did, it was well worth it.

As you all know, I’m doing the Reach the Beach Relay in a week and a half, so I’ve been trying to keep my mileage up to train for that. This was the perfect training run – hilly and rocky, so the 6 miles were a lot harder than 6 miles on pavement would have been!

We had a lovely run – the trail was beautiful and we had fun chatting and enjoying the fresh air.

As you saw on my watch above, we ran the 6 miles in 56:47, for an average pace of 9:27 minute/miles. We had to go a bit more slowly than usual in some parts because of all the rocks/roots and little hills – didn’t want to face plant or twist an ankle!

Splits:

• Mile 1: 9:57
• Mile 2: 9:52
• Mile 3: 9:20
• Mile 4: 8:54
• Mile 5: 9:40
• Mile 6: 8:59

Great run! My legs feel like they really got a great workout from all those small hills and the extra effort it took to keep me stable on the rocky trail. I always find trail running to be so fun and challenging – great to mix it up from the road.

And now, I’m packing a few last things, eating a quick lunch, and racing out the door! I’m taking the bus up to NYC today for a Fitness Magazine blog event tomorrow. From there, I’ll head up to Boston for a Reebok blog event. It should be a busy but really fun week. Stay tuned!

Are you a trail running fan? I’m thinking of signing up for my first trail race (a 10k that Ashley is doing near Richmond) just for fun – I’ve never done one before!

It’s official – Matt and I are 100% unpacked and set up in our new apartment here in the DC area. Hooray! It’s so nice to have that done. Want the tour?

We went from a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom in NC to a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom here in DC so we were a little worried about everything fitting, but between donating a lot of stuff to Goodwill, storing a few things at my parent’s place, and getting creative with the space, we made it work.

Above you see our living room! I LOVE the built in bookcases and cabinets – that’s what really sold us on this apartment vs. other ones we saw, because it really helped with making up for losing the second bedroom and closet storage space we had in NC. I also love how light and bright it is because of the huge glass wall where the balcony is!

It’s a little awkward since you are basically starting across at the other apartments when out on the balcony… but oh well.

Here is our dining room/office – connected to the living room. Our dining room table is a liiiiitle bit too big for the space, but by smushing it against the breakfast bar it works. Good enough. Please also note Matt’s guitars hung up in the background – this was literally the first thing he did when we moved in. Boys are funny.

Here’s the view from the living room:

As you can see, I have turned the breakfast bar into my “perch” again! It’s actually a tiny bit too high for me, but considering I won’t be spending hours at it anymore writing papers and researching and studying all day, it’ll work just fine.

Next up – the kitchen!

I actually like this kitchen better than our old one – it’s more open and a lot brighter. BUT… it has less cabinet space and we don’t have a pantry, which kind of sucks. Oh well – give and take!

Obviously, the Keurig was basically the first thing we set up in the kitchen, per Matt’s request.

Starbucks sent us over some more K-Cups to check out a couple weeks ago, and Matt has been loving this medium blend Pike Place Roast – it’s his new favorite!

On to the bedroom!

Cozy and nice and bright with the big window.

From our bedroom there is a hallway with our closets…

Which leads into the bathroom, which also has another door that opens right by the front door. Nice so guests can go straight in without having to go through our bedroom first!

So there you have it! I’m really excited we got ourselves set up so quickly. It was a lot of work but VERY worth it!

Yesterday, Matt and I took a break from unpacking mid-morning to head out for our first run in our new neighborhood!

I was also excited because Under Armour sent me a new sports bra to test out – the Armour Bra! Doesn’t that sound awesomely intense?

This is a seriously nice sports bra – you order it in your actual cup/band size instead of just XS/S/M/L, so it’s perfectly tailored to you. Cute, too!

I loved the sports bra – comfy and very supportive, with no chaffing or rubbing. I would definitely recommend it! You can find more info on their website if you’re interested. Thanks to UnderArmour for letting me test it out!

Oh, and even more awesome? The plastic box they sent it in was PERFECT for me to repurpose as a way to store some of my desk items, since we no longer have a desk with a drawer. Sweet!

Anyway! Matt and I had a great run – we started out with the plan to just run around some of the trails near us…

But then once we were going we decided to randomly run all the way to my parents house and surprise them! I think it was about 4 or so miles? VERY hilly though so it felt longer! My parents enjoyed the surprise. We finished our workout with some weights and lunges/squats/abs/etc. at their place:

And then, since it was conveniently lunch time, my mom made us all lunch before driving us back to our place so she could see our new apartment! Total win.

On the menu for lunch was egg salad sandwiches:

With side salads. It was delicious. I’m pretty sure it’s a proven fact that sandwiches always taste better when your mom makes them.

The rest of the day involved finishing up unpacking and then I headed out to meet my friend Ashley for dinner. So good to see her. We have plans to go running tomorrow morning as well – yay!

Time to run a few errands, drop some more stuff at Goodwill, and then do some online training I need to get done before starting my hospital internship in 2 weeks. Plus, packing – I head to NYC tomorrow for a fun blog event!

Happy Monday, friends!

Matt and I made it here safe and sound from North Carolina and have been busy settling in to our new apartment. It has been quite the exhausting whirlwind but things are finally starting to come together! For the move, we rented a U-Haul and did our own packing/moving to save money. A BIG thank you to Matt’s brother Chris who came over to our place in Chapel Hill on Wednesday night and helped Matt load a bunch of our bigger/heavier furniture items onto the U-Haul!

Thursday was spent packing alllll day long in Chapel Hill. You know how you think you’re almost ready to go and should be pushing off within an hour? And then it takes 6 more hours instead? That was our Thursday. We spent the morning packing, got some help from Elle and her fiance Rob loading a few more of the heavier items onto the truck, and then took a break for one last lunch in Chapel Hill.

Obviously we went to Sandwhich.

A delicious last lunch, if I do say so myself. Egg BLT = my fave. I also love these cute little notes they put on your trays.

And after lunch, we decided we needed one last trip to Maple View Farm for ice cream, too. I couldn’t leave Chapel Hill without saying goodbye to my favorite spot, after all!

I was so jealous of that biker… love biking that area. But eating ice cream while watching the bikers was pretty sweet, too. It was SO hot in Chapel Hill on Wednesday and Thursday while we were trying to move – 95 degrees and very humid/sunny. Not exactly ideal moving weather, but definitely ideal ice cream weather.

When we got back from lunch we seriously thought we were almost done and should be heading out of Chapel Hill by around 3 or 4… but packing always takes way longer than you think it will. We ran out of boxes and ended up having to put a bunch of the last random items into bags, so that meant a ton of trips back and forth to the U-Haul, and then we totally forgot to pack the front coat closet until the last minute… and then of course we had to clean the place once it was empty. Whew! Finally – ready to go.

We said goodbye to our Chapel Hill home and finally hit the road around 6:30 p.m., exhausted. I drove my car and Matt drove the U-Haul with his car hitched onto the back – he hooked it up himself, too!

We were both terrified he would start moving and the car would fall off, or that he would take out a million other cars since the U-Haul plus the towed car was so large (and you couldn’t reverse at all or the car would jack knife, so rest stops involved finding massive spots to park in that didn’t involve backing up), but it worked. He did an awesome job with it.

The drive was pretty uneventful except for about half way through when one of the chains under Matt’s car came a little loose and sparks started flying from under it. Um, yeah. I called Matt (I was driving right behind him the whole way) and was like “we need to pull over ASAP!”

The drive took ages since we had to go slower due to the U-Haul/car hitch situation, so we didn’t end up rolling into DC and arriving at my parent’s house (where we stayed that night) until about 1 a.m. on Friday. We were SO tired, as you can imagine.

Friday morning at 7 a.m. we were up and going again – we offloaded a couple things at my parent’s house and then headed over to our new place to start unloading! A big thank you to our friend Shane who came to help us move – total lifesaver. Getting everything off the truck was way easier than it was getting everything on in Chapel Hill. On this end, we had the use of an elevator instead of dealing with stairs, and we also had a random shopping cart that was in the apartment loading dock area that was perfect for a bunch of our smaller random items – that saved us a million trips. By noon, we had everything inside!

We treated Shane to lunch and then went back to my parent’s house to offload two more big furniture items, put the hitch back on the now empty U-Haul, and take it to the store to return it. We got back to my parent’s house to pick up Matt’s car around 4 p.m. and we were so exhausted that Matt and I fell asleep on my parents couch by accident… 45 minutes later we woke up to the doorbell, thoroughly confused. I think if that person hadn’t come to deliver a package we might still have been there sleeping when my mom got home from work at 6!

The rest of Friday and Saturday were spent unpacking as quickly as we could!

Lol I love Matt’s sad face in this picture

Matt and I were a good team – he worked on getting all the furniture put together and in place and then started unpacking the living room and all of our knick knacks/books/office stuff, while I worked on the bathroom and getting our bedroom/my closet under control. Yesterday’s efforts were Matt’s closet (for him) and the kitchen (for me). We also hung a bunch of pictures just to get them out of the way. Things are looking a lot better over here!

Time to get back after it – we need to finish organizing/unpacking the living room/dining room/office area (which is all one space). I’ll be back tomorrow to share some photos of our new place!

Happy Sunday, friends!