The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

This weekend was a quintessential summer in New England kind of weekend. Fun you can only find when you live in an amazing city with all the things to do for kiddos and yet are just a quick drive to some of the most beautiful beaches on the East Coast.beach. Add in good morning run weather, BBQ with friends, and you've got all the good things. The girls and I visited the Kite Festival at Ronan Park Saturday, which I cannot believe we were at with a tiny new Annie just last year . Maddie flew her kite like a champ after some help from the kite expert/volunteer who was gracious and led me back from a crisis when I could not figure out how to get the kite in the air. Maddie got that kite allllll the way up until the string ran out. We slid down the grassy hill on potato sacks, had a hot dog care of our local police station and indulged in a little self-face painting with Dot Art . We are already looking forward to next year's! Sunday morning we set our alarm for ...

...sun kissed cheeks staying up just a little later so we can have one more trip down the slide every other night tubbies setting the alarm on weekends to beat the Cape traffic  picking up things to throw on the grill instead of takeout two weekend days for two different beaches sand at the bottom of our all our bags frozen yogurt before dinner soaking it all up because she will only be two and a half one summer....

Hey y'all, sorry it has been a week since I have visited this little corner of the internet; life has been BUSY. This weekend we were down the Cape for a few days for the Hyannis Half Marathon and gone are the days where we can be gone for the weekend and just wing it for the week. Sunday evening was all about laundry and food prep and foam rolling and vacuuming the new layer of salt from this terrible winter we have been having and then all the sudden I woke up and it was Wednesday. But, I digress. It was a lovely weekend and one that I was more than happy to scramble around to make up for just to have the sunshine on my face and quality time with my favorite people for a few days. My half marathon was...ok. I used my Garmin watch for the first time in a race and enjoyed being able to keep an eye on my pace as I started out. I wanted to go fast but not too fast in order to avoid a burn out, so I tried to stay between 9:20 and 9:35, which I did for the first five miles. A...

Whoa, last week was a doozy, and this week is going to be pretty crazy too. I have a lot going on at work and am getting prepared to run the Hyannis Half Marathon on Sunday by eating as clean as possible, sticking to my training plan and trying to get a lot of sleep and kick this lingering congestion. Here's hoping I can make it happen!  There is so much going on but I wanted to put up a quick post with some of the cute pictures I took of Maddie over the weekend and let everyone know that I still hate winter, especially after spending three hours running outside in it yesterday. All of us had a three day weekend that made me wish all weekends were three days; it is just amazing what I can get done with just one extra day, and getting to spend extra time with my little family was pretty great. Highlights included: longs runs on separate days (yay for  not eating up a whole day!), Nutella pudding (by me) and banana bread (by Matty), Maddie's first time with  paints an...

I am not sure where to start with this post, what witty or cute thing to say, so I am just going to skip that and let this picture do the talking: I ran a marathon! Yep, twenty six point two miles later, I am a marathon finisher and I am feeling pretty darn good about it. The bottoms of my feet are sore, but the rest of my body feels totally great, which means I trained well and didn't push myself too hard on race day. It also means that I need new running shoes, apparently about 800 miles was my limit on my trusty Brooks . The race was pretty amazing for a number of reasons The weather was perfect - cool and sunny with some splashes of cloud breaks to keep from being too bright or hot. The views were beautiful and varied - the Newport mansions, the ocean and lots of greenery - oh New England, you beautiful thing  you. The spectators were awesome - there was a group at mile twenty banging on pots and pans and waving a flag and cheering their hearts out who could not h...