FAMILY FUNNNN - Days 1 and 2

Back in May, my sister Melissa, my cousins Ross and Haley, and I all got the crazy idea to do a marathon together. I had just finished running the Country Music Marathon and had told them about how much fun I'd had so that got us all excited to do one together! So we get online to find out when the next nearest one would be and we found that there was going to be one over Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach, which actually worked out PERFECT because it's drive-able from Nashville AND my cousin Haley would be moving to D.C. just one week before the marathon! D.C. is only like 3 hours from VA Beach. Haley's going to be an intern for a congressman this semester....how cool is that?! Anyway, we all signed up for the marathon so here we are...almost 4 months later...in Virginia Beach, awaiting our fate on the marathon course. What makes it even MORE fun is that our good friend, Erica Osborn, decided to join us on our little adventure!

So Ross, Melissa, Erica, and I all loaded up in "The White Schrute" (Ross's car...) and left Nashville at about 9 AM yesterday morning. Of course the car ride was an adventure with the four of us...especially considering it's a stinkin' 11-hour car ride to VA Beach! But Ross was quite a trooper and drove the entire 11 hours. We only made 3 super short stops for gas/potty breaks, so we really made good time!

We got to the La Quinta in VA Beach at about 9:30 where we checked in and got settled in our rooms and soon HIT THE SACK!

Day 2:
Melissa and I decided it would be a good idea to get our legs moving this morning and "test the air" in Virginia, so we got up at a decent hour and went for a quick jog/walk...HELLLLLO Humidity!
We all got ready and drove down to the beach where we got to put our feet in the Atlantic and chill (in our jeans...on the beach?) for a while in the hot sand. 

Then we went to the bus stop and picked up Haley who had just gotten in from D.C. To get to VA Beach, she walked to a subway that took her to a train that took her to a bus and brought her to our car. Yeah, she's having to use all kinds of crazy transportation now.

We went to the convention center, checked in, got our numbers...

bought some fanny packs for the race...

HA! and partook in free samples of random foods and energy bars.
Then we decided it would be wise to get off our feet so we hung for a while in Starbucks until it was time for dinner. We ate at an italian food place right on the beach so we could do some carbo-loading! 

And then, we consumed the hands-down best thing you could consume the night before a marathon...

that's right...ice cream. man I hope that doesn't come back to hurt us tomorrow...

We then all headed on back to the hotel (yes, we had 5 people in one hotel room...), got our iPod playlists together for the marathon, and TRIED to turn it in early because we have an EARRRRLY start tomorrow!