The Year in Review.

Since I am now 31, I thought you might all want an update on how my year went. Overall I think it went well.



1. Run 30 miles each month. Definitely did this one. In fact, depending on the month I may have run 90-100 miles in some months.

2. Run another 10K at a faster pace than my last one. I ran 2 -10Ks faster than my last one. I ran a lot this year!

3. Run a half marathon. I did 2 and will do another one in December and maybe October if I am feeling ambitious.

4. Lose 30 pounds. Well, I don't think I lost 30 pounds, but I lost a lot of inches and gained a lot of muscle because of my running.

5. Climb a 14er. This one didn't happen, which I was bummed about, but it is something I have to find someone to do with me. Maybe next year...

6. Read 30 books. I read 34 books. A lot of them were from this summer, 11 I think.

7. Watch 30 minutes less of TV every week. I didn't really have a way to figure this one out for sure, but I know that there are many days that I don't even turn on my TV, which is a big change.

8. Pay off one of my student loans. Didn't get this one finished either, but I made some great progress and hopefully it will be paid off in the next couple of months.

9. Save $50/month. I did this, but then I of course had some car problems and had to dip into the money, but it was nice to have.

10. Call one of my friends that I don't live close to each month. Definitely did this and enjoyed talking to many people that I hadn't talked to in a long time.

Staycation

I got to do go on a staycation with a few friends last weekend. It was so nice to get out of town and just enjoy a part of Colorado I've never been to before. Our original plan was go just go to the Sand Dunes, but we actually saw a lot of things besides that. We left on Sunday afternoon and drove down to the Sand Dunes. We planned on staying right by the Sand Dunes, but we couldn't get a reservation so we ended up staying about 30 minutes away and we loved the place and the lady that ran it. She was hilarious!

On Monday morning we woke up and drove to Zapata Falls for a short hike. It was beautiful and I would have never known that there was a waterfall back in there if there hadn't been a sign for it.

Then we went on to the Sand Dunes. It truly is amazing that there are huge Sand Dunes right in the middle of Colorado. I would look at them and forget for a second that I was still in Colorado and then I'd turn around and see the mountains. If you've never been I recommend going just to see it.

Our next stop was the Alligator Farm. I was really nervous because it has 450 gators and a lot of snakes and reptiles too. It was really fun, but I was pretty jumpy the whole time. We even got to hold an alligator at the beginning. I was nervous, but I was fine and I'm glad to be able to say that I held and alligator.

Then we were off in search of lunch. The closest place was Salida, so we drove over there and ate. On the way back we decided to stop at the Royal Gorge Bridge. We got poured on, but we made sure we all got our picture taken by our state flag.

It was a whirlwind of a couple days but I had a great time!