Secret Santa Get Together

I can not tell you how good it feels to be on Christmas vacation! Friday couldn’t have arrived soon enough! Now Neal and I have two days to enjoy here at home before heading to see my family for Christmas.

Yesterday after work I ran a few errands and was finally able to pick up the January 2013 issue of Runner’s World.

Back in October I ran a 10K at Runner’s World’s first half marathon and festival.

Well look who’s on page 100 of Runner’s World?  It’s a small photo (I’m in the red shorts), but myself and a group of bloggers are pictured after running barefoot for Altra Zero Drop.  It is a small thing but incredibly special!

Today I met up with 4 beautiful bloggers for a Secret Santa Get Together at Rustico in Alexandria, VA.

Kelly, Dawn, Hilary, Lauren, and I met at Fitbloggin back in September of this year.  The 5 of us instantly clicked so when Kelly said she’d be in town for the holidays we all knew we had to have a reunion.

Each one of us has a story, a beautiful story, and I love that our blogs brought us together.  We each are on a different path but have the same goal of reaching a happy and healthy weight.

It was great being able to talk about each of our journeys and to realize how different they are, how challenging it is to lose weight, but to hear the drive each of us has to lose weight.

I appreciate these women more than they know and hope to support them as much as I can.

To start lunch we ordered carrot hummus and a few other appetizers.

For lunch I ordered the mussels and ate about half of them.  They weren’t as good as the first time I had them, but it was still a tasty lunch.

After lunch we revealed our Secret Santas!

• Hilary had Dawn
• Dawn had Kelly
• Kelly had Lauren
• Lauren had me
• and I had Hilary

Lauren got me an amazing basket of goodies including Candy Cane Lane tea, Baltimore Coffee, an adorable Christmas ornament, Jason cocoa butter, and a number of other goodies.  I was truly spoiled by my Secret Santa!

It was a wonderful Saturday and the perfect first day of vacation.  Now I’m snuggled up on the couch with Neal and Theo and am ready to watch It’s a Wonderful Life.

It really is a wonderful life isn’t it…

Tagged with: Eating Out • Runner's World • Secret Santa

Filed under: Eating Out • Holidays • Races • Running

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