What a workout!

Today was pretty good. I went to a closing at 10,then went to lunch with Daniel at a mexican place. We then made our way to the farmers market where I acted like a child due to the fact that I got a pumpkin that I can carve. Yeah!! I had the biggest smile on my face and the best part is that im going to bake the pumpkin seeds! What a great healthy snack. We got home and I took a nice afternoon nap which I now really appreciate. I got up and went to the gym. I ended up staying way longer than I expected but o well. I did some weights then met Alex for an amazing spin class and after that I was supposed to meet Daniel to do intervals on the dreadmill. I couldnt find him so I got on and just ran for a bit. After I had decided to go I got off and there Daniel was. Soo.... we ended up doing intervals and leaving late. Tomorrow I have so many errands to run since its my day off and im meeting Alex for a 6 mile run. I am going to get a few miles in before I meet her so I can get my miles up for the week.

O and the reason I didnt see Daniel at the gym is because he got there late. He cooked homemade maranara sauce and we just had fish, chicken, veggies, brown rice, and biscuits for dinner... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

My friday on a tuesday

So today was not too productive at work. I had an appt but it didnt keep because of the weather. It rained all day! Yuck! Anyways after work I went to this girls night in type thing at a running store. It was fun. I saw Val, Caitlyn and Alex there. We all hung out together for the most part. It definitly was not as busy as last time but o well. We all got these really nice waterbottles and I won this juice stuff that tastes like flinstone vitamins! So after the event, I went and got Daniel some collards and milk at the store and went home. So Daniel cooked some collards earlier in the week and heated up the "pot liquor" and Country Biscuit DRANK it!! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyways now off to watch the biggest looser!

week one back

This past week was the first full week of being back in gboro. It has been really hard to get back into the groove of things at the gym. I had a slow week away and now my body is like.. noooo! I know i have had enough rest and im back on my a game with not eatting junk food 24/7. Today was a double at the gym. I went early and then again in the evening with Daniel. I ended up spinning by myself because it was packed everywhere. I think solo spinning has become one of my new favorite things. Its a whole big room that is super chilly and your own fan and my own music. Call me a loaner or whatnot but it has been fun. Today was the third that I have done this recently. I went for about 40 min this evening.
I am also on the hunt for some good winter running gear. Jean has been very helpful in giving me advice and Im on the lookout for some gloves so my hands dont freeze off. I think I have decided to do a half marathon in December by myself. I have to get back on the bandwagon and start training longer now. Thursday is a 6 mile run and that will be the last sort of halfway long run with Alex until her half in less than 2 weeks. From here on out its all on me to get my training in and the hours logged.

Back to reality

So after the not so wonderful end to the last night in SXM, I woke up that following morning determined to make it to the gym for just a bit due to the inactivity of the day ahead of us. I made it all of 20 minutes on the treadmill walking slower than slow when I called it quits. My body was so achy. Anyways I got back up took so advil and then we headed to the beach for one last time. We only stayed for about 2 hours but it was nice and I was able to finish my book there on the beach and get in the water one last time. Of course afterwards we had to pack it all up and head on out. We dropped off the rental car and got to the airport to check in. The people said to be there early and we were just waiting around twittling our thumbs. I decided to nap for the last little bit until our flight boarded. Sandi and Pete met up with us for one last picture and then they had to leave for thier flight. Our flight boarded 15 minutes late but we ended up getting to Miami on time. I of course slept most of the way there. Daniel watched a movie on the plane. After we landed it was like going through military opperation. We were checked about 5 times before we could go to our gate. Customs, passport, security, etc. We ended up getting Nathan's hotdogs for dinner... with NO YELLOW mustard! WHAT??! I dont understand how a hotdog stand can opperate without yellow mustard! Anyways we hung out til our flight was ready to board there to Charlotte. Daniel and I ended up being split up for this flight. I was the lucky winner who got to sit next to the lady who gets sick in almost every flight. The first thing she did when we sat down was take out the barf bag! All I could think was please o please dont do anything... Thankfully she didnt.. phew it was close. Also when we were boarding, titanic music was playing. I was thinking to myself.. we are flying over the water and they are playing titanic music? Wouldn't there be a better choice? Anything! Even Kenny G would do! But Titanic? I was able to catch another hour of sleep on that plane trip thankfully. My parents picked us up at the airport in Charlotte with our car so we just were able to drive home fast. By the time we got it it was about 2am and the cats were very curious as to where we had been. It took me about an hour to actually fall asleep at 330 because A. cats were meowing for me to come out and play. B. it was crazy crazy cold in the house compaired to SXM C. Still didnt feel good at all. Finally I was able to catch some sleep only to wake up a bit early of my alarm (thankfully) because I came to realize that the breaker busted and there was no light anywhere. I had to wake Daniel for him to help me fix it because with no power means no water... means I would have had to go to vals for everything! We got that all situated and I headed to Val's for the garage sale. It was a smash hit again. I had to go to work at 10 but they stayed open til 12. (Val and Caitlyn) So today I still havn't been myself... I am thinking it is one of a few things... A. dehydration , B. travelers sickness, C. just a body achy, etc cold that im trying to fight off. So Im about to go out to Riteaid for a few deals that I am about to miss and then off to bed for me. Im not tierd but my body is for sure.

dinner.... not what I expected

So we just got back from dinner and all I have to say is that it was a bust. I got sick at dinner! YES SICK! I was totally light headed and had to go lay down twice. I was so embarrased and on top of that there was no reason for me to feel that way. I have never been so light headed when eatting. Its aways when I get a shot, see blood, etc. But this was something new. Maybe I got way too much sun for the day and didnt realize it at all or maybe it was from Daniel cracking the duck in front of me. Anyways, my body achs... maybe its swine flu! EK! Hopefully not though. Im headed to bed in just a few and hope to feel better tomorrow. Besides being sick we did have fun at Sandi's and Pete's place and we talked to them at the resturant for a bit too. We should see them tomorrow at the airport since thier flight is just before ours. Anyways for dinner we had cucumber soup, then duck with potatos, carrots, olives, garlic, and some fried stuffing. For dinner was teramasu... we didnt like it at all. I guess we are jello people. (from my best friends wedding movie) Tomorrow will be an adventure for sure so we will see how much posting, if any I get done.

second day at oriant bay

Today started off pretty junky. It was raining and the thunder and lightning woke me up at about 7 or so. I tossed and turned then went to the gym an hour later just for a bit. I didnt do much, just like all the other days here but it still felt good to feel like I accomplished something besides sunbathing all day long. We got ready to go and just headed out even though it was still raining. We took a bunch of pictures once we got to the beach and no one was there because of the weather. We were the second people out there. We even got video of the beach. Its our fav! After being there for a while, our friends from the other day came by too. Sandi and Pete hung out with us for the whole day. We chatted and had a good time. We then got stuck in a traffic jam on our way back from the beach. We were there til 515. Now we are getting ready to go to our friends room to hang out for a bit unitl we all go out to dinner. Our dinner tonight is at Mary's Boon. We are really really excited about it.. more to come later... I have to get ready to go.

marigot

Hmmm the last time I wrote Im trying to remeber what we did or were doing. O yes.. we went to Sopranos for dinner yesterday and Daniel got the tomato pizza and I had meatballs. MMM it was good. We then went over to thier piano bar which there was not a piano playing so we left after a few minutes... plus we were the only ones there. O well... it was worth checking it out. We then headed to a casino to see what it was like. I never had been in a big casino before and was wondering what it was like.... I really wasnt that impressed. It smelled like cigar smoke and people were trying to get Daniel to play. We won but not spending any money so we didnt loose any. :) After that we came back and called it a night. Today we were woken up by some construction at like 7am or something crazy like that. I couldnt really sleep so I got up and headed to the gym. I was there by myself until this couple came in and changed my tv channel and the volume. I was super mad but I told myself as long as the ac isnt changed, I didnt care. So I stayed on the treadmill until I knew it was time to get upstairs to get ready for the market. We did some research on how to get there and then drove to the market. It wasn't as big as I had expected it to be but thats ok. The view was of course spectacular since it was right on the water. I really wanted to get a pastry at a french place so we had lemon cheesecake and an apricot danish for breakfast... how healthy! Daniel got himself a ring and I got nothing... I didnt see anything worth spending $ on so I just didn't. We then went to Fort Louis. It was up a huge hill... i mean HUGE! I was hating myself for doing lower body yesterday considering I was sore. Once we got up there it was worth it. We took a lot of pictures and a video. In the video Daniel is describing a battle with of course machine guns. Some really nice couple took our picture together. We then went back down to find this place called Lolo's for lunch. By that time it was past 1pm and we were hungry. We found it pretty easy considering it was a hole in the wall in a small town called Grand Case. The food there was the best we have had on the island and we might just go back again tomorrow on our way back to the beach. We left after a while and drove back to simpson bay where we are staying. We stopped by Mary's Boon and made a reservation for tomorrow night.... We are both so excited about it. We might see our friends there that we made yesterday at the beach at dinner. They were just so nice! So duck is on the menu for tomorrows dinner. mmmmm. Daniels is relaxing and watching Aladin the movie and Im about to go to the beach to relax with a book and the sun. Yippie!

Orient Bay

Today was by far the most beautiful day here. I got up and headed to the gym for a quite bit and got back and got ready for the day. We went and ate at Zee best Resturant for breakfast/lunch. We then headed to Orient Bay. We were told yesterday that it was the best/most beautiful beach ever. These people who we went on the Rhino ride with said that they have been to St Maarten for the past 25 years and love that beach. Lets just say it didnt disapoint at all! The ride there was great. We saw a lot of goats and cows everywhere. And on the way back I got a pic of some goats crossing the road. The water is the most beautiful blue and there are fish everywhere in the water. We saw this man with a bag full of bread walking through the water and the fish were following him. If course he was feeding them his bread. There were these fish that were big and clear and had cool fins and others that were black and white striped. We met this really nice couple there who are from up north. They have been coming for the past 10 years and are staying close to us. We chatted about what we plan to do and go eat etc. We might see them tomorrow at the open air market or the following night at this resturant that serves just one dish each night. Thursday night is the duck. Tonight is shirmp.. (bleck) So tonight we plan to go to Sopranos piano bar for dinner.
On another note.. I havnt talked about the butterflies that are here.... I think its the land of the butterflies. They are everywhere! Sometimes its like its snowing butterflies outside.

what a time!!thin

First off... this is our car................ CAN YOU SEE HOW SMALL IT IS?!!?!! Can you imagin us getting lost in the middle of nowhere and driving like crazy people last night? Crazy!! to say the least!

So I cant remember what I last talked about in my blog.... I think it was dinner last night.. we went to espn sports bar thing.. espn standed for something different and we had some appitizers and saw the water. After that we went to a local market and walk around and then came back and watched greys annatamy from this past week and from years ago. Today we went to this thing called the rhino rides... it was sooo much fun!!!!!!!!!!!! We went to the doc where the espn place was and got on the rhino with 2 other couples and our tour guide. We drov in our rhino which is like a jet ski/ bumber car up SXM and to this chrole rock and went snorkeling... yes I was terrified out of my mind and got sea sick but thats beside the point. We had so much fun and the view was undescribible. The water was the most perfect blue color I have ever seen. Its not quite a teal but close to it. Just amazing!! We saw a lot of fish everywhere and some sea urchents too. There was some coral as well. So after about 40 min of snorkeling I totally felt lik I was going to loose it... told Daniel and we swam back to the Rhino thing. Got in the boat and just about lost it... the closest I have been in i cant tell you how long. I got my act together and we chatted with the tour guide for a while before we went back to our starting point. We learned a lot about the Island and are sure to go to this one beach... hopefully tomorrow if the weather is good. So we got back and went to Philipsburg which was an adventure for sure. There are like 10 jewlery shops per every block! How does one know when a good deal is around?? And the clothing is soooo expensive here!! There are no clearence racks anywhere... which means i didnt get any clothing.. I want a deal people! Daniel found a shirt there for 5 bucks which looks good. We went to this food place called Barefoots which serves local food. I had saltfish with rebeans and rice and veggies and daniel had some jerk chicken and ribs with rice and slaw. We then went to a homemade icecream place where I could totally get fat over because thier swiss chocolate icecream was AMAZING!! Daniel got Mango which was also soooo good. We took a lot of pictures and a video which is so funny of us driving. Daniel described the driving like on starwars eps one with the pod racing.... so true. We got back and ended up going to another local place for dinner and then got back a while ago and went to the pool.... currently the football game is on.

rainy day

So today at the beach it rained... pretty much the whole time. I went into the water one time and it was a lot more murkey than the day before. We stayed out until about 2 and then came in. Daniel went out to the sports bar to watch all the games while I took a nice sunday nap.... that hasnt happened in I cant tell you how long. Then I headed to the gym. Currently Daniel is downstairs trying to jimmy the lock of the car because he locked the keys in the car.. I am waiting on him to get back so we can go eat some dinner somewhere.

Recap from last night.... Ok, so I talked a little about the roads last night. Here is more of a recap. So the roads are not that wide at all and if there are any dividers (white lines) they are faint. Then you are hugging the side of the cliff all the time and you dont even know what is on the other side because its so dark. I think I got some gray hairs from it all to say the least. The island is so flat on the outskirts but on the insided there are nothing but mountains everywhere. Daniel said that he was glad that we drove at night but wouldnt do it again and get lost. Also there are crazy drivers out here. IF they dont like how you are driving then they will totally pass you very very fast and just hope that there are no cars on the other side coming at you!! AH!

from yesterday to now

So the trip from Charlotte to SXM was not too bad. I slept the whole way (go figure) and Daniel did some reading about the island while I took a 3 plus hour nap. So when we landed on the ground it was a very short runway which I had been warned about... thank goodness. Daniel said when we landed with his head turned sort of side ways.... "how you doin" I was like fine.....
We found our rental car people easy and got our bags too. We headed out to the hotel and were able to check in early. We then had to go get something to eat because if not, I would have been super cranky... no food means upset Shannon.... especially because I hadnt really had anything since 630am and it was 3pm! I had a granola bar but thats not lunch. We found this place right on the beach very close to where we are staying and had some ribs and a sandwich. Now... the food down here can be hit or miss. The ribs were sooo good but tiny compaired to what we get in the states. But then when we at late last night i got a meal and it was HUGE! So we have leftovers from that. I really wanted to go and see how clear the water was so after eatting we went to the water. I was really nervous at first because when you have the ocean there are things like sharks and big fish, and jelly fish, etc. We only saw some tiny fish that were clear and of course the scariest thing was a starfish which was really really pretty. (and cool) We got back at around sunset to go and figure out what to do for the night/rest of the week. We decided to go out and look around at night last night which could have been bad. We didnt take the map with us(I dont think it would have done us any good anyways) and got lost on the dutch side somewhere. The dutch side of the island doesnt have the best roads at all and if you just saw our car you would think "scary situation" if getting stuck somewhere. Anyways we did go into the french side by accident twice and let me tell you... thier road are so soft and smooth. So back onthe dutch side we went to the grocery to get a few things like pb, bread, WATER, and pringles... you know all the essentials. :) After getting lost again for quite some time we got some grub at this local place that was really good. We got chicken kabobs and a lamb sandwich. We did go check out this sports bar/ casino thing that Daniel wants to go to later today for the games.. I dont think I will.... anyways we finally made it home (being the hotel) but not before our car didnt want to crank 2 times! So that is where Daniel is now exchanging for a new one because I dont want to have to call a cab in the middle of no where but I wouldnt be able to because cell phone minutes cost 3 bucks a minute. The nap I took yesterday didnt help because I slept for 11 hours last night! Anyways .... im off to the sunny beach now.... until next time

t minus less than 14 hours

We will be in sunny St Martin in less than a day!! Yippie! I will have plenty of pics to come!

productive in a different way

So today started off with a swim then a run. After I got home I recieved a phone call to have me come into work. My assistant was in a really bad car accident on her way to the office. So after taking my sister to the airport, I went to work. On my way there I got a call from some people wanting to look around. I felt like I couldnt catch a break and grab a bite to eat. Anyways, they want to buy a house!! So we are meeting tomorrow to do so. I also happened to lock myself out of my office because I gave my key to the appraisor and didnt put the key back on my ring! O me! So to end the day I went for a little run (2 miles) and cooked some fish and french fries. Now a little L&O and off to bed! Ill be dreaming of white sandy beaches and lots of sun. :)

change of plans

So Alex and I went on a long run today. We were to meet Jo to go with us. We had planned to go 12 miles but when Jo didnt show we just were like.. ok lets just go 5. Well Jo drove to us and started bolting to get to us. We told her after about a minute of running that we decided to just do 5. You could feel the disapointment in the air. We were getting close to where Alex and I were to turn around and we were giving Jo directions for the remainder and we just decided to go a bit more to make sure she knew where she was going. When we got there we were feeling good so we just decided to go to 12. After stopping a little over half way to get more water at Alex's house, we booked it back. Once we got back to where we started, Jo had to get back to her car so we ran her back and then went a bit more.... whats the point in not doing a half marathon when you are so close! I will have to say that my legs are feeling it today. Over the past 8 days I have run 53.5 miles. Im ready for a good night sleep!

long run

Today Alex and I went for a 10 miler. It was good to get out and go again for a long while. It was kind of brisk today but it was nice weather to run.. no rain! So a few funny things that happend on the run was that alex lost her hat... well it flew off when a huge gust of wind came by from a car or truck or something like that. They we were running in the country so we saw a lot of wildlife. There were these horses that kept staring at us. Alex just kept saying nehhhh. I think they were a bit confussed. Also the drivers today were totally inconsiderate. One guy yelled at us.. i have no comment for what alex did. :) Anyways another person asked us if we were the girls running. This was after we had finished. We went to a coffee place and everyone was super friendly there. Also there is a mexican resturant that is there that I think i will check out one day. (if i have a coupon) Later today we went to Alex's parents house which is always sooo much fun. You just cant have a bad time there ever. Alex's aunt was there too and she cooked and ate and just chatted about life. Now im home for must see tv and going to call it a sort of early night to get up and swim at 630 then weights then work................