Tasty Weekend

John and I have been laying low the last couple weeks (Actually, I have. John is always working like crazy.) getting ready for a pretty busy May. My two best friends are coming to Charleston next month and I couldn't be more excited! I'm sure I'll have plenty of adventures to fill you in on after their stay.

In the meantime, we had ourselves a nice little weekend eating some new yummy things around Charleston. First up: really freakin' good pizza.

Our friends Nate and Alexandra introduced us to D'Allesandro's Pizza on Friday night. The place is very low key, you might say hole in the wall, and was full of college students the night we were there. I liked that you could see the cooks preparing the pizza and sliding 'em in the brick ovens right behind the bar. Tossing pizza dough in the air = awesome.

We ordered the wings to start, seemed to be a hit among the wing-eaters, but the pizza was by far the stand out. John got the meat lovers as usual, while the rest of us split the Luau--- mozzarella, feta, bacon, onion, pineapple and a drizzle of BBQ sauce. I love me some pineapple pizza and this may the best I've ever had.

John lovin' him some pizza

I can see why the college students love it, too, since it was very reasonably priced. We'll definitely be going back again. 

And then for a complete 360, after D'Allesandro's, we decided to go to Peninsula Grill for drinks and dessert. Peninsula Grill is a pretty posh fine dining restaurant right by the City Market. You know it's fancy when they have individual real towels in the bathroom instead of paper towels. Nice!

We couldn't really afford much on the menu, but that's okay because we were there for just one thing. The coconut cake. Peninsula Grill is world famous for this cake. In fact, you can order a whole cake online for $100. Before our $10 slice arrived at our seats at the bar, we were all joking about how ridiculous it is to order a $100 cake. After that first bite... I'd pay $200. It was absolutely amazing. 

Sorry for the blurry shot. I didn't have time to focus, because I had to fight John for every bite of this  slice we shared. Actually, he was very gracious. Even let me have the last bite. Now that's love. 

I'm not a huge fan of coconut on most days, however I do enjoy a good samoa, but luckily this cake's coconut flavor wasn't overpowering. And you can tell the coconut used is the real deal, not the overly sweet fake stuff. So creamy, so delicious... I'm going to be dreaming about this for weeks. 

Saturday was another fun day of good food and time with friends. John worked all day, so Ali and I declared it a girls day and started the morning off with manicures and pedicures. We had planned to go to the beach, but the rain clouds had other plans. Luckily after our appointments at the nail salon, the sun came out long enough for lunch at the farmers market. 

Have I told you how much I love the Marion Square farmers market? Pretty amazing. And the crepes (upper left corner) are the best.

That night, we stayed in and had a chick flick movie marathon ("Steel Magnolias" and "Ghost".) And of course, no girls night is complete without chocolate....

Our new favorite-- Sweeteeth chocolate, made locally. I had Peanut Butter and Chocolate and Chocolate Carmel Seasalt.

My peanut butter chocolate bar. That seasalt on top really makes all the difference. So yum!

I hope your weekend was just as tasty!

We Got Over It

Well we did it! Me, my mom, Larry and our friend Julie all ran in the Cooper River Bridge Run (10K) this weekend and lived to tell about (barely). I've been training for the race for several months now and it feels great to have accomplished one of my goals and to check another thing off my Charleston Bucket List. 

Although I didn't get my best time (more to come on that later), it was amazing just to be part of a race that big. Did I mention we ran this race with 43,000 people? 43,000!! I still can't wrap my brain around that.  

So here's how the race went:

The morning started off early, waking up at 5am, eating a quick pre-race breakfast and heading out the door by 5:30. Did I mention how much I loved having my Mom and Larry in town? I love it when they come stay with us!

The team all ready to go 

There was all kinds of road closures and traffic due to the 43,000 people converging on little downtown Charleston. So we opted to have John drive us from James Island to downtown and catch one of the race shuttle busses over the bridge. In hind sight, this may have been a mistake. We read online to be in line for the shuttle bus at 6 am. When we got there, the line already extended four blocks long! We ended up standing in that line longer than we actually ran in the race!

Still dark out and we're standing in the shuttle line on King Street wondering if we'll ever get to Mount Pleasant before the start of the race.

About an hour and a half later, we're finally on the shuttle bus as the minutes tick down to race start time. Will we make it?

Glad Julie was there to calm me down. Otherwise I would have been a nervous wreck about  arriving so late to the starting line.

 We were dropped off in Mount Pleasant about 7:55 (the race was supposed to start at 8am.) Luckily, through a little Twitter search, I found out the race start had been delayed. But, we never knew how long they would delay it. The race operated on a wave start, so all the runners/walkers were separated into corrals based on their estimated completion time. Once off the bus, we set off to find our corral.

An ariel photo from The Post and Courier shows all the runners in the corrals. This only shows a fraction of the groups. This continued way down the street. 

To my relief, we made it to our corral with plenty of time. Julie and I may or may not have snuck into the corral ahead of the one we were assigned to :) Mom and Larry were in C, and we were assigned D. We couldn't let them fly half way across the country to line up alone!

Finally at the start line in our corral. After some more waiting around, the start gun finally went off and we were on our way. 

We crossed the starting line at 9:06 and we were off. Here's the play by play on how the running went for our team:

Katie: My goal was to finish in 50 minutes. While training, I ran several 6.2-runs in 49 minutes, so I beat my race goal in training. But add in 43,000 people and I had a lot of dodging to do! I pushed myself the whole way, surpassing several people in the time group ahead of mine, and really started feeling tired between mile 4 and 5. But I kept at it and sprinted across the finish line for a time of 51:56. My average pace was 8:20. Not my best, but I'm still pretty proud!

Julie: Julie's goal was to keep up with me. Yeah right, she's faster than I am most the time. We did stick together for almost 6 miles of the race. I was glad to have her with me, because she motivated me to keep pushing myself when there were times I really wanted to just ease off the gas and trot along at an easy breazy pace. We were also a great team when it came to finding holes between the masses of people to dart through. Julie finished in 52:04.

John managed to get this blurry shot of me and Julie running together down King Street. 

Mom: Mom's knee had been hurting her in the few weeks of training prior to the race, but thankfully didn't bother her come race time. She was proud to say she ran the entire way without having to walk, including on the long uphill stretch to the top of the bridge (go Mom!) Mom finished in 1:02:22

Larry: Unfortunately, Larry's chip didn't work! So we don't have any stats on his time, but he finished a few minutes after Mom. 

On the spectator side of things, John kept track of us on the nifty Cooper River Bridge Run app. He used it to track where we were on the run, so he could try to get a picture of us as we ran by his spot on King Street. It also gave him our split time and estimated finished time. Pretty cool!

Got to love technology!

John also caught one of these shirts they were throwing to spectators on the side of the road. He calls it his spectator shirt. 

Glad to have a big kiss from my biggest fan after finishing!

We all met at our designated meeting spot after the race and headed to the finish festival for what else...food

Unfortunately, there wasn't any beer at the finish festival (lame), so we stopped by Monza on King for a celebratory drink on the patio.

Exhausted. And immediately following this picture, my temperature sky rocketed, I got body aches and chills all over and so began my post-race strep throat that kept me bed ridden for the rest of the weekend. C'est la vie! 

Luck o' the Irish

I love Saint Patrick's Day simply because it's the one day of the year when the whole country collaborates. Not to end hunger or create world peace, have you, but to all wear the same color in order to avoid being pinched. Seriously, whoever came up with this "wear green or you'll get pinched" deal is a genius. Nothing like peer pressure and a little physical punishment to enforce random holiday cheer. So every time I see someone wearing green on St. Paddy's Day, it makes me pretty darn happy that we can all be that organized. 

For our St. Paddy's Day hoopla, we headed downtown to meet up with the residents for a night of debauchery. Loved the night out with friends and, of course, seeing everyone's greens.

On our walk to the restaurant, we spotted this beauty chillin' on the cobblestone streets.

We match :) 

Both decked out in green and pinch-free.

The other highlight of our Saint Patrick's Day was the arrival of our friends Daniel and Connie's baby girl. Kenna Lee Cornett was born at 3:50 pm on March 17th and is healthy and adorable!

Meeting the new little leprechaun at the hospital on Sunday. Congrats Daniel and Connie!

Fun in Salt Lake City

This past weekend John and I went on an adventure to the great state of Utah. Salt Lake City precisely. John was interviewing for a job at a hospital there and I went along for the ride and to assure myself that I could actually enjoy living there. We definitely have some important decisions to make in the near future, but for the weekend, I was just glad to be off work, spending time with my husband and exploring a fun new city. 

Wouldn't you know, the rental car we got was a Sentra! It was almost like driving good old Al around again.

Our hotel was called Little America and along with the big room and marble tub, we also got chocolates on our pillow every night. Fancy!

The view of Salt Lake City from our hotel room window.

The mountain views were definitely the best part of the trip. So beautiful! 

We enjoyed a beautiful mountain sunrise on our ride up to Park City Sunday morning. 

We had some fun exploring Park City's Main Street.

Then we got to ride a ski lift/gondola from the parking lot the base of the mountain at Canyons ski resort. 

Where we were pleasantly surprised to find our favorite Oklahoma beer, Boulevard Wheat, on tap. Love John's glasses? Those are his "I-forgot-my-sunglasses-at-the-hotel" last minute replacement pair. 

Back in Salt Lake, we saw the site of the Olympic torch on our tour of the city. 

And just when this city was winning me over, I found a spot that felt even more like home---good old TCBY! A self-serve TCBY, actually. Fancy!

Just Keep Running

It's that day again, Sunday Run-day! Or at least that's what day it is for me. And this (above) is the bad boy I've been tackling every Sunday for the past 12 weeks or so. It's the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, AKA the Cooper River Bridge. Me, my mom and Larry signed up for Charleston's Cooper River Bridge Run back before Christmas and we've been training ever since. 

The race is a 10K and it's Charleston's biggest race every year (kind of like the Tulsa Run for you Okies). It's actually the third largest 10K in the U.S. and about 40,000 people race in it every year--wowza! The race is on March 31st, so we've officially passed the one-month-out mark now and I couldn't be more excited. I'm excited to accomplish a goal I've been working towards and I'm excited my mom and Larry are flying into town to complete it with me!

Race poster for this year

Since December, I've been running the bridge every Sunday. If you park on one end and run over and back it's just over 5 miles. The tough part is definitely the first leg, which is a pretty tough incline. Running hills took some getting used to! Luckily, the weather in Charleston is nice enough year-round that training outside hasn't been a problem for me. I'm proud to say I've never had to run on the treadmill! Thank goodness! I hate that thing.

I usually run two or three other days of the week, too, keeping up a distance of 5 or 6 miles. If you're coming to Charleston, here's a list of my favorite places to run outside. There are lots of options! I'll also share some of the songs on the pretty awesome run playlist I've been jamming to.

Where to Run in Charleston:

Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge--- As mentioned before, it's about 5 miles

James Island County Park--- If you loop all three trails, it's about 3 miles. Do 2 loops to make it 6.

Folly Beach--- Beach running is my new favorite! You just can't beat the scenery! At Folly, I can easily start at one end of the beach, run down and back to get 6 miles. 

West Ashely Greenway-- this trail is 10.5 miles total and runs through town where an old railroad track used to be. It's nice because it's long and flat, but it runs through what I consider to be some shadier parts of town, so bring a run buddy!

Downtown---Running on the peninsula is beautiful also! I like to run through the historic neighborhoods South of Broad, loop around the Battery, Waterfront Park and Colonial Lake. Here's the route I take for a 4 mile run. It does cross over some roads and intersections so watch for traffic!

Some of My Favorite Run Songs:

(some are explicit, but you can download the clean version)

"Move (If You Wanna)" by MMS

"Riot" by Tedashi

"Dum Dum" by Tedashi----- this guy's a Christian rapper and pretty awesome!

"T.H.E" by Will.i.am

"Git It" by Ying Yang Twins

"Diva" by Beyonce

"Wobble" by V.I.C

"Lose Control" by Missy Elliot

"Run The World" by Beyonce

"Work Out" by J.Cole

"Imma Be" by The Black Eyed Peas

"Go Girl" by Baby Bash

"Gimme That" by Ciara

"Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" by Kelly Clarkson

"Starships" by Nicki Minaj

"Good Feeling" by Flo Rida

"Lose Yourself" by Eminem----this has to be my favorite running song ever. Just turn this one on when you want to quit!

What songs are on your workout playlist?

Our First Baby...Shower

This weekend we celebrated the upcoming arrival of a new little bundle of joy in the MUSC resident family! John and I hosted a resident baby shower at our house for our good friends Connie and Daniel, who will be having a baby girl in the end of March.

I started planning this shower pretty much when Connie first told me she was pregnant last summer. I'd never thrown a shower before and was excited to put it together! Especially when they found out they were having a girl and I knew I could do everything in pink!

The dining room set up before the food was put out. 

Connie and Daniel are keeping the baby's name a secret until she arrives, so for now we just call her baby Cornett.

Since Daniel is the actual MUSC resident, Connie is a pharmacy groupie like myself, we decided to make it a co-ed shower, inviting all the residents and their significant others. The girls in the group helped me provide all the yummy food and while we opened presents and played baby shower games, the guys played in a diaper poker tournament. To buy in, they had to bring two packs of diapers and $5. Daniel got to take home all the diapers, and the cash went to the winner of the tournament. 

The guys enjoying the food. Thanks ladies for all the yummy dishes you shared!

While the girls chatted and opened gifts in the living room...

John hosted a poker tournament for the guys in the spare room/ man cave.

Daddy and Mommy to be laughing during one of the baby shower games

Me and the baby mama!

All the girls at the shower

Gettin' Wild

This weekend we had our first experience with one of Charleston's biggest annual events, the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition ( or as the locals call it, SEWE.) It's been a little hard for me to explain this event to my Oklahoman friends, so here's the best I've got: Imagine a large city-wide outdoor festival with a wildlife/nature/conservation theme. That pretty much sums it up!

The event lasted all weekend and included things like art shows (nature themed,) wild game cooking classes, animal exhibits and demonstrations, etc. etc. Mainly I think everyone likes it so much because of all the beer!

We checked it all out on Saturday with my friend Ali and her boyfriend Ryan. Ali was an Alpha Chi with me at OU (love the lyre!) and just moved to Charleston last week! I'm so glad to have an Oklahoma friend in Charleston and I'm excited to explore even more of the city with her. 

Me and Ali enjoying the festivities of SEWE

                                          

Ali and Ryan. Glad to have a new couple friend we can double date with!

Seeing the animals was definitely my favorite part of SEWE. John and I caught the Jack Hanna animal show where we saw a live cheetah, lynx, bobcat and lots of other fun animals. The wildlife art was pretty impressive too, but by far my favorite part of the day was hanging out with this guy....

Don't worry Mom, he's harmless.

My new friend

Unfortunately, it rained almost all day Sunday, so we missed out on the SEWE animal demonstrations planned for that day, including the dogs' dock diving competition. Maybe next year!