Milestones and mile markers: running with intention

Tomorrow morning I will wake up way too early to run way too many miles.

One year ago I woke up early and walked out the front door of our apartment building to watch the runners of the 2011 Buenos Aires Marathon pass by kilometer 4, only the first 10th of the full marathon. I had watched marathons before and they have always inspired me, but something about our move to Argentina and that rainy morning inspired me to finally go for it: to train for a full marathon like I had thought of on and off for several years since I ran my first 1/2 marathon.

Since the start of my marathon training, I knew I wanted to run it in honor of my parents. They have always encouraged me to be active since I was 5 when I joined my first soccer team in the city's original community soccer league that my dad co-founded. From walking, biking, swimming, hiking, running, playing soccer and basketball to working out with Jane Fonda and The Firm VHS tapes- even our super early morning family trips to the YMCA! -all of their encouragement and leading by example reinforced the importance of daily physical activity. For me being active felt good, kept me healthy, made me stronger, helped give me confidence, and taught me such important life and social skills. I feel so grateful that I learned the importance of being active so early on in my life.
Now that my dad is in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease, I am especially aware that we never know how long our bodies will cooperate and give us their best. So now I push myself physically because I can... and because he can't. I run for my dad and to support his fight with Parkinson's. I run for my mom who supports my dad every single day as a caregiver and cheerleader of me and my efforts. When the going gets tough as the miles add up, I think of them and it helps keep me going.

What we have been up to lately

We've had a fun and busy May. Here's what we have been up to in the Southern Hemisphere...

The primary trainer for Boot Camp BA moved on to Colombia so I was able to pick up all the group classes and some private clients as well. It has been so much fun and such a great learning experience!
A couple of my favorite girls from the group classes stayed after one day to help me take some photos for the Boot Camp website and Facebook page (you should like us if you haven't already!). Hint-hint :)

 Using the TRX suspension straps

 The parks in Puerto Madero are perfect for training. So much cleaner, quieter and organized than the rest of BA. Reminds me of home, sweet home Chicago!

Fer and I recently hired a dishwasher to help us out :) Martin is an excellent dish-washer and laundry folder and gets to make some pocket change to boot!

 Sofi turned 15 at the beginning of May and we hosted some of Fer's family for the week of her party. It was so much fun to have a full apartment with lots of laughing, story-telling, cousin time and... LOTS of Spanish! It was so good for me to practice speaking more.

Martin and Enrique

Augus and Fer at Sofi's party, waiting for the birthday girl to arrive

The beautiful birthday girl!

Please dad, no more pictures!!

Augus and Enrique

 Awww

 Sofi and me

Silly photo of course!

Los Goldenbergs

Raquel, Marisa, Sofi, Martin and Fer

Sofi and her friends

 Cousin sleepover (+ Tia Veronica!)

 Locos :)

 Also in May, My mom came to visit!! Since she had her camera out most of the time, I only had a couple of photos on my camera. Here is one of the two of us before we went to Alevear Palace Hotel for afternoon tea. We had a great time and did lots around the city. Hoping that I can pictures from her and will post more from her visit soon!

Honey-Versary

When Fer and I were married in April 2011 we knew our life and schedule was going to be too busy to take a honeymoon until we were settled here in Argentina. Last month we were able to spend a beautiful week+ in Brazil celebrating our first year of marriage. Here are some photos from our time in Rio and Buzios...
At a beach-side bar our first day in Rio. I am a little foggy-looking from the awful sinus infection and fever that I was dealing with the first few days. Being super sick is a great way to start to a honeymoon! ;)

View from our table

 The landscape of Rio is impressive. Also impressive are the immense number of favelas (shanty-towns) on all the hills such as this one:

 Ipanema beach

 My hubby :)

 A look out point on our way up to Cristo Redentor.

Thankfully no clouds at this point of the tour...

Because this is about all you could see at the top:

Fer enjoying coconut water after we biked around the lagoon

View of Leme/Copacabana a couple of blocks from where we were staying

Some monkeys/lemurs (??) on our hike to the top of the military base at the tip of Leme.

View of Copacabana from the top

For the second part of our trip we stayed in Buzios, a couple of hours north of Rio.
This was the beautiful view from our suite:

Looking the other direction:

During a boat cruise that we took to various beaches around Buzios (there are ~16 beaches in total in Buzios)

We rented a boogie to get around the area and to explore the different beaches.
Here is Fer with our sweet "Babies R Us" boogie ;)

Beautiful view of the sunset from our balcony

One of my favorite spots to relax

The freshly grilled shrimp on the beach was AMAZING!

Celebrating our anniversary on our way back to Buenos Aires. Fer, I love you more and more each day!

March catch-up

One of these days I might actually catch up on this blog... but I am not holding my breath!
Each month our life has been getting busier and busier. Here are highlights from some of the recent happenings:
Fer recently passed his General Medicine Boards AND his Neurocritical Care Boards!! I am incredibly proud of him! Both of the exams came at particularly busy times in his life so he wasn't able to prepare as much as he would have liked for each exam. But he is just that smart and passed with flying colors! :)

A month or so ago I had a group of girls over for "Supper Club"
Fabulous company, fabulous food!

Neither one of us are natural home decorators I am realizing, so we have SLOWLY been taking our time getting our apartment fully adorned. Thankfully Fer's dad came to the rescue with a solution for our TV stand. After seeing how ridiculously TV stands (and furniture in general) were priced, he offered to make one for us! It turns out that Enrique is quite the carpenter. He designed the stand, cut all the pieces, painted it and shipped all of it to us with detailed instructions for assembly (IKEA-style). It even has a cabinet with great rolling drawers!
Here are Fer and Martin putting it together:

 Sofi helped as well ;)

The finished product:

 Thank you so much Enrique!!

Early on in March the kids' cousins from the northern part of Argentina came for a quick visit.
Here are Martin, Pumo, Augus, and Sofi at breakfast:

 Such is life with teenagers these days :)

 Cousin love! It is so much fun when the cousins get together.

I am a lucky girl to have a husband that cooks and cooks well. Although my dad and brothers set the standard pretty high, Fer impresses me regularly with his culinary skills. One night out of the blue, Fer made these adorable veggie creations:

 What a husband! Cute AND healthy!

At the end of March Jennifer, my friend Jessica's sister, paid us a visit. One night she cooked us a delish Mexican meal!

In other news, I recently started covering all the group training sessions for Boot Camp Buenos Aires which has been a fun addition to my work with Buena Onda Yoga (check out my bio that is finally on the webpage!). I am currently working on finishing my personal training certification with ISSA so I am an official trainer. I also wrote another nutrition column on appetite and hunger control for Medios Lentos that should be up soon.
Would love to hear from folks back home- even though life is busy here I get awfully lonely sometimes! Send your love down South :) xo