Weekend Adventures

Hello everyone – I hope you had a nice weekend!

Thank you for all the support so far with my Hurricane Sandy Relief Auction/Fundraiser! I know that my site was down last night and this morning but it appears the auction should be live and actually working as of this afternoon. Please let me know if you can’t get it to work, and thank you in advance for your support in bidding and spreading the news so we can help those in need!

And now, back to the weekend! On Saturday, I started my day with some yoga:

I decided to check out a new (to me) studio called Edge Yoga; I hit up an hour and 15 minute long power yoga class and LOVED it. Great instructor (Mark), and I loved that it wasn’t just a typical power vinyasa flow type class (I like those, but I’ve been to a lot of them lately). His class was HARD and awesome – lots of challenging poses and fun different moves I hadn’t tried before. I definitely want to go back to his class again!

 

After getting my sweat on, Matt and I headed over to Pho 75 to enjoy some pho with my brother and my mom. My brother was in town visiting this weekend and it was great to see him again!

There was a HUGE line – I guess everyone else had the same idea on such a chilly day – but the pho was well worth the wait.

Here I am with my little brother! :) As many of you already noticed from the photos I’ve shown so far, he was not able to attend our wedding 3 weeks ago. To say we were disappointed that he wasn’t there would be a huge understatement. He was deployed at the time and we were originally told he’d be able to come back for it; we made plans for him to be a groomsmen and all was going well until about a month before the wedding when my brother told us the bad news – his request for leave was denied last minute. I found out he wouldn’t be able to come when I was at one of my internships and more or less burst into tears in front of my boss at the time. Even lamer? He was scheduled to return home and finish out his tour 2 weeks after the wedding.

There was unfortunately nothing we could do about it (and I tried to keep things in perspective – yes, he couldn’t be there, but at least he was still safe – there were obviously far worse scenarios that could have been involved in him not being able to come). We made the best of the situation and my brother was able to record and send a toast for us to play at the reception, which was wonderful. Also, my friend and fellow Verizon Wireless Ambassador Meghann was able to Skype (video chat) my brother in to watch the whole ceremony using our Samsung Galaxy S3 phones that we’re both currently reviewing; a HUGE thank you to her for offering to do that for us (and to Verizon for having a phone fast enough that it actually worked – blows my mind you can do something like that)! Meghann sat near our family and got him on the phone video chat early enough that he was even able to say hello to a few family members before the ceremony started. I remember walking down the aisle and seeing her holding the phone out towards us and knowing that it must have worked. I gave it a little wave. :) We held off on getting my wedding dress cleaned so I could try it on in person for my brother; I tried it on for him yesterday and he loved it – much prettier in person than on a phone, he said. :) It was fun to put it on again one last time!

Anyway! Here are my mom and Matt enjoying their pho:

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around doing some shopping/errands that my brother wanted to get in now that he’s home. I’m happy to report that we stopped by Starbucks and the holiday red cups and seasonal gingerbread lattes – my favorite – are back in action! Life is good. :) Tip: Ask for a regular latte with 1 pump of gingerbread syrup (instead of the regular gingerbread latte which has 3 pumps in the tall size) – still delicious but without the sugar coma!

Sunday morning, I enjoyed the extra hour of daylight savings time sleep (yay for brighter mornings again!) and then headed over to my parent’s house to go for a run with my brother. Finally – the sun came out to play! It’s been a very gray week here weather-wise.

We had a great run and enjoyed chatting and catching up the whole time. I forgot to start my Garmin watch, but we ran for 38 minutes and covered what I think was about 4 or so miles. It was a VERY hilly route but I felt pretty good. My brother is speedy so he kept me motivated!

For lunch, my brother requested Ray’s Hell Burger. Matt is obsessed with this place too and I’d never been. It was as good as everyone says! Great quality meat, delicious toppings, and not super greasy. What I look for in a burger! I had lettuce, grilled onions, tomato, pickles, and BBQ sauce on mine.

My mom and I also shared an order of unpictured sweet potato fries.

We spent the rest of the day walking around and enjoying the nice and sunny weather. Last night, I met up with my college friend Lu who was in town for dinner. We hit up Cava Grill in Tenleytown, which reminded me of a Greek chipotle. You build your own meal and you have a choice of a pita sandwich, two mini pita sandwiches, a rice bowl, or a salad bowl which came with pita on the side. They had all sorts of fun toppings, too!

I loaded mine up with hummus, veggies, and some falafel. Delicious! Great dinner choice and Lu and I had a really nice time catching up. It was great to see her again since we didn’t have a ton of time to talk at the wedding!

I hope you’re all having a great day. See you tomorrow!

—

*Disclosure: As part of the Verizon Wireless Ambassador program I have been provided with a wireless device (the Samsung Galaxy S3) and three months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.