Celebrating Our 15th Wedding Anniversary (with Less COVID Restrictions)

 On June 26, marked me and my hubby celebrated our 15 year wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe that we've been married for fifteen years and together as a couple for 23 years! Here's a collage of photos from various times in our relationship. 

Since we're both practical people, the anniversary gifts we exchanged were items we could used or items we could both enjoy together. Having said this, I received a new vegan wallet made of wax leather and hubby received an Amazon fire stick.

To celebrate our anniversary, we decided to keep things simple and treated ourselves to seeing the new Fast & Furious 9 aka F9 in an actual movie theater. It was great going to a movie theater in person again and the new COVID-19 rules in place are that in you're fully vaccinated (which we both are) you don't have to wear masks inside most buildings anymore. After watching the movie, we went to cinnaholic for a vegan cinnamon roll and vegan banana bread. 

After seeing the movie and enjoying desserts from Cinnaholic, we ended our anniversary day by completing a tropical painting provided by my job for our adult summer reading club. Here are photos of the blank canvas followed by the completed painting by me and hubby. 

Overall, our anniversary was a great day and a wonderful celebration of our life as a couple. 

Sometimes it's not about the PR

As someone who's been consistently running since 2012, sometimes I get so caught up in getting a small finish time, I forget the very reason why I run which is to celebrate being able to move my body regardless of what size it is. Last year while out at dinner with my librarian friends, my friend Nichole said that she'd like to run a race with me. I'll admit, I initially didn't think she'd follow through with it considering I've had friends before who've said the same thing the eventually flake out on me. 

A few weeks later, I contacted her on Facebook to with a link to a race we could do together, the Kaiser Permanente San Franciso Half Marathon & 5K on February 4, 2018 in Golden Gate Park. Nichole shared with me that she had not gone running in 10 years due to health issues and being a busy single mom to three boys (two with special needs.)  After we decided to do the 5K, she started training for the race and despite her being in a car accident and totaling her car, she still stuck with her training and we completed the 5K in 1:05:23. I am proud that she decided to do the event and listened to her body in reference to taking stretch breaks and keeping a brisk pace. By helping her complete this goal, this taught me that I don't have to achieve a PR with every race I do, sometimes I need to just stop and enjoy the race course and having a conversation with a friend. Below are some photos from race day.

Pre-race selfie

               

Me & Nichole pre-race

And we're off!

Nichole at mile 1

Nichole at mile 2

Nichole & me rocking our medals post-race

After the race, I was really hungry so we decided to drive over to Berkeley for sandwiches from Ike's Love & Sandwiches followed by a vegan cinnamon roll from Cinnaholic. The sandwiches were delicious and the cinnamon roll was the perfect treat after the race. 
 

Chester Cheetah sandwich (aka vegan grilled cheese)

Chocolate topped cinnamon roll