Vlog: Happy Vlogidays 2020 {Week Three} & {Week Four}

Happy Vlogidays 2020 {Week 3}This week we travelled south to Florida for the holidays! We spend a couple days in the car, I run the Dora Double Challenge at the Mount Dora Half Marathon Weekend, and do some final preparations for Christmas!

Happy Vlogidays 2020 {Week 4}In the final installment of Happy Vlogidays 2020, we celebrate Christmas with my family, head back north, I finish up the #RunMA Challenge, and discuss what I hope my 2021 will look like.

Finally Home 🏠 | Blogmas Day 28

Aaaand just like that, we are home from our trip! We left North Carolina at 6AM this morning and finally made it home around 4:45PM. We honestly made great time. I think the thought of actually being HOME made us feel more comfortable skipping out on longer stops so we could just get back to our digs as soon as possible. We made one stop for coffee/breakfast right at the beginning of the trip, a stop in NJ for gas, and one last bathroom break in Connecticut before finally getting home. Overall, not bad!

Snowy developed this habit on the trip home here she wanted to cuddle with me, but because I was driving I obviously couldn't let her get too close. So as a compromise, she just laid her head on my arm and fell asleep. She also settled for resting her chin on my hand. 😂 So cute! I think she was the happiest of the three of us to be home. She shot right out of the car and ran to the backyard, and ran around the apartment with all of her new toys for a while once we went inside. She's now completely passed out in bed with me as I type this!

We came home to a bunch of mail, including a BibRave Pro package! My swag for 2021 arrived and I am so thrilled to be serving as a BRP for a second year. Hopefully this year will bring more opportunities for in-person connections, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'll of course make the most of my time as a Pro, regardless of what 2021 brings us! 🧡

I also got a Secret Santa gift in the mail! I'm part of a couple of Secret Santa exchanges and this one didn't have a receipt or gift message in it, so I'm unsure which on it is for, but I'm pretty sure it's for my BibRave Pro gift exchange. Either way, I absolutely love it! Belle is my girl and I've been seriously eyeing this tshirt for a while. Now I just gotta figure out who it is from and thank them!

Now that I'm home, some serious stay-cationing can begin. Tomorrow we'll get COVID tests (because responsibility) and return the rental car, and then I'm not planning to leave my apartment for a while. I'm in some desparate need of introvert time and I cannot wait to take advantage of the remainder of my vacation to do just that! 😊

On the Road Again 🚘 | Blogmas Day 27

 

Hello from the road yet again! Brett and I began our journey north today, heading back home. We left my parents' house around 6AM and finally got to our hotel around 5:20PM. It was a long day (obviously) but we're all excited to get back to our home so we're happy to be making the journey. We were tempted to try to go a bit further, but ultimately after 11.5 hours of driving we decided to pull off. It'll probably be about the same length of time driving tomorrow, but at the end of the day we'll finally be home!

We had a couple of stops on the way up, of course, but when we finally got to our destination I wanted to make sure Snowy got to walk around a bit (and I also wanted to snag another #RunMA mile!). There aren't a lot of paths that make sense for walking around here and by the time we got here it was already dusk, so I did quite a few loop-de-loops right by where we're staying to get that mile in. 😂 Only 16.61 miles to go!

Murphy actually snuck into bed with us last night. She must have sensed we would be leaving and wanted to get in some last minute snuggles with the three of us. I snapped this photo when we woke up this morning. 😍 I'm sure these girls are going to miss each other and I can't wait for them to reunite!

We're off again early in the AM! Wish us luck on these last few hundred miles! 🤞

Road Trip Day 2 Recap | Blogmas Day 18

We have finally made it to Florida! We woke up before the sun this morning and started our ~10 hour trek south to the Sunshine State. We hit the road around 6:20AM or so, and got into town around 4:15PM. For as long as it was, the trip honestly felt really manageable. Brett and I downloaded some movies so that the passenger could watch while the driver listened along. We made sure that the movie we played was something that the diver had already seen so they wouldn't be missing out too much on the experience. We watched Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. We still have quite a few movies downloaded, so we're prepared for the trip back North!

Snowy continued to be so cuddly throughout the trip, but I think she finally got the hang of the whole road trip thing. She was snoozing easily and acting more like herself in the car instead of a nervous wreck like she was on the first night we left. She was so amazing through the whole trip. I'm sure traveling like this is scary for a dog and we're so lucky with how well she did!

When we arrived into town, we wanted to get our bodies moving! Our AirBnB is right by a lake and a park, so we took Snowy on a little walk down to that area. It was a gorgeous afternoon and I was glad we were able to arrive before the sun went down so we could explore a bit. Snowy was very interested in the lake and especially the new-to-her Florida birds she was seeing by the water. She's going to see a lot of new critters while we're down here!

For dinner we ordered some food from a local Mexican restaurant and it was so delicious after eating road trip food for the last couple of days! We both got chimichangas and shared an order of guacamole and chips. It honestly hit the spot after such long travel days.

The town we're staying in this weekend is honestly so cute and I can't wait to explore it more. I've already made note of multiple spots I'd like to check out after my race tomorrow, because we have a pretty open day after I'm done running. I'll of course be vlogging and blogging my experience, so you'll be seeing it all in a future post, but for now, here's a little glimpse of what we're dealing with:

Road Trip Day 1 (and a half) Recap | Blogmas Day 17

 

Hello from the road! I'm writing to you from somewhere in North Carolina as we make our way south for Christmas. It's been a long day of driving, but I wanted to make sure I updated y'all before heading to bed!

I mentioned a couple of days ago that we were expecting a giant snow storm up north Wednesday into Thursday. Weeellll Brett and I kinda psyched ourselves out and decided to attempt to beat the snow and leave on Wednesday instead early morning Thursday like we originally planned. We got on the road at 6pm and it was all good until about 8:30 when the snow was rapidly accumulating and I could barely see the car in front of me. I told Brett that I really didn't think staying on the road was a good idea at all. The plows hadn't come out yet and we were seeing quite a few people getting stuck in the middle of the highway. We quickly found a hotel in Southern Connecticut, where we waited out the storm for the rest of the night. It was also nice to have the opportunity to get some rest before continuing on!

We left our hotel in CT around 10am this morning for original intended first stop in North Carolina. We only made two stops throughout the day - NJ for gas & lunch, and VA for a quick stretch and bathroom break. With the stops and some traffic, we were able to get to our hotel around 7:20pm. Not super terrible!

Snowy has been doing okay. She's quite the nervouse girl in new situations and unfortunately has had trouble eating/drinking/going to the bathroom. She's also been situating herself on the center console so that she can be close to us, because she's just unsure what's going on! I will say she was more relaxed today than she was last night, though, so hopefully she continues to realize that nothing scary is happening and we will be right by her side the whole trip. Poor nervous Snowy!

We're up and at 'em for the second leg of our trip tomorrow morning. It's going to be a longer bout of driving, but I'm looking forward to finally be in Florida. Stay tuned for updates for day 2 of our trip tomorrow!

Road Trip & Vacation TBR 📚 | Blogmas Day 16

As I've been mentioning, Brett and I are off on our southbound road trip tomorrow morning! I'm going to have a lot of time to read while Brett is taking his turn to drive (we're going to swap off so neither of us is doing ALL of the driving!), and I'll likely have some down time while we're in Florida as well to read, which I'm really looking forward to. Life has been so GOGOGO the last few months that it's felt so difficult to find time to read, so I'm looking forward to having many hours on my hands with literally nothing else to do, haha. Here's what I'll be reading over the next few weeks

Currently Reading

I'm currently in the middle of You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson and In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren, so these two will be my first priority! Having some good light hearted reads are essential for this time of year, and I'm enjoying both of these books so far. I'll also have the added benefit of having my Kindle with me, since In a Holidaze is on my Kindle) so if for whatever reason I finish all of these books (unlikely) or I'm not really in the mood for any of these remaining books (hopefully not likely haha), I will be able to easily obtain something different through the power of the internet!

TBR

The next books I'm bringing along at The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. You may recognize both of these from my 'Tis the Season-a-Thon TBR. I never got around to them during that readathon, but I'm still very interested in getting to these! So I'm bringing them along as well. I've heard so many fantastic things about both of these books so I can't wait to dive in!

And finally, I'm going to bring these two sequels along with me: The Toll by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe, Book #3) and Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (Ready Player One, Book #2). These are actually both books that Brett has gifted to me, so I am extra excited to get to both of them!

Packing Our Bags! 💼 | Blogmas Day 15

I nearly forgot to post for Blogmas today - my bad! 😅 I've been spending a lot of the late afternoon/evening gathering everything and packing up for the road trip we're taking later this week. I'm finding it's much more challenging to pack for a road trip than it is to pack for a flight. There's just so many variables you need to consider, and especially so because Snowy is coming along! I think we're fairly well prepared, though (hopfully I didn't just jinx it!), and we're looking forward to this adventure as a lil family. Hopefully this Winter Storm Gail won't throw too many wrenches into our plan. Of course the day we plan to leave is the day one of the biggest snow storms we've seen in years decided to show up on our doorstep... 🙄 We're still planning on hitting the road Thursday morning, though. Good thing we're not flying!

My mom makes ornaments every year, and her ornament for 2020 arrived in the mail today! It's an adorable sailboat - colored purple (my fave) - and even has a lil Snowy on the bow! The Snowy came unglued in transit, unfortunately, but we can fix that right up. I love the ornament for this year and love this little tradition that my mom has created! 🎄