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Until next year…

Our vacation in a nutshell was relaxing. We did two nights on Sanibel Island on the gulf coast and then six nights in Fort Lauderdale. I managed to maintain the 11 pound weight loss by not going out of control on vacation and also trying to keep up on my running. Here’s a recap via iPhone photo dump!

Our view from dinner our last night in Florida. The bartender at the hotel next to ours recommended asking for second floor balcony at a restaurant and we lucked out on the seats closest to the ocean!

All in all it was a great vacation and was a perfect relaxing time before grad school starts in a couple of weeks! Now I’m just trying to ease back into things at work and home.

On Tuesday we stopped by Lucas Oil Stadium to tour the stadium and get a glimpse of the floor. Little did we know we were in for so much more!

I love seeing the Butler Bulldogs logo in the same space as the other three teams. Plus, my Dawgs were sent home to play in the Final Four!

Lucas Oil Stadium is supposed to hold over 71,000 people this weekend. You can see how tiny the court is compared to the dome!

The internal banners filter the light from the external windows. They also look really cool and give a total "WOW" effect!

The locker rooms are very generic providing each student-athlete with the same championship experience. I thought it was pretty cool that we were in what was probably Duke's locker room!

Here's the training room. Each locker room had a training room, coaches' room and student-athlete rooms. Pretty swank accomodations!

This banner is pretty powerful - you see it as you come out of the tunnel for the first time. It really hit me that the Dawgs had made it to the final four when I saw that. I'm not going to lie, I had butterflies in my stomach exiting the tunnel to the court!

Here's us taking the stairs to the court for the first time, just like the players will on Saturday! The bank of jumbotrons in the middle was HUGE and you just feel so tiny amongst all the seats!

We actually were able to shoot a few balls on the court, had our picture taken on the logo and were able to investigate the two tone wood court. They actually make a court just for the final four and the school who wins has an opportunity to purchase the court after the championship is over.

Here's a possible logo for the 2015 Final Four - looks a little plain!

Here's the press room before being fully setup. It was kind of neat to see where 1200 media personnel are going to be fighting to get a few words from each of the teams!

Looking back it was a great tour and made me super excited to get our tickets on Friday. I can't wait to find out where we're sitting and to be able to see my Dawgs take on the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday night!

LET’S GO DAWGS!

The Georiga Tech Yellow Jacket or the "Emo Bee" as I kept calling him. Unfortunately Ohio State put away the Yellow Jackets so there was no victory for the emo bee on Sunday.

Xavier takes the floor to warm-up before the second game.

Xavier played a very close game with Pitt and really it looked like it could go either way but in the end the Jesuits pulled out the Win! Go Muskies!

When the Xavier game ended it brought our basketball vacation to a close. I can't wait until next year!

Although I'm really glad that Butler is in the Final Four! GO DAWGS!

I’m really looking forward to the Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis.  The city is already abuzz! 

Rod and I decided on the games in Milwaukee and booked a hotel back in January. After I took the GRE yesterday (and got more than I needed to get into grad school! ) we headed north for basketball. Luckily I got to hear my beloved Butler Bulldogs take on the UTEP Miners in the car on the way up. I consider myself lucky to be born and raised on Xavier University basketball AND that I got to see them dominate the Minnesota Golden Gophers today in Milwaukee. We’ve seen a total of four basketball games in person and we’ve got more on Sunday!

Here's the Bradley Center ready for NCAA Division I Men's Basketball tournament action!

Here's the Muskies and the Golden Gophers warming up before the first game of our two sessions.

Here's the Muskies practicing during the warm-up

Here's the Bradley Center scoreboard. Having all of the advertising covered up in the arena was really nice. It truly put the focus on the student-athlete!

The Xavier and Minnesota tip-off. Our seats are the second row of the upper deck right at midcourt! I also got to see one of my favorite Jesuit priests (Fr. Mike Graham) at the game since he's now the president of XU!

I loved the Georgia Tech Hornet! The costume was decidedly lowtech but I really enjoyed his antics. I can't wait to see Georgia Tech take on Ohio State on Sunday!

Here's tip-off for the Ohio State vs. UC Santa Barbara. UCSB really put together a great game even though they were behind most of the game.

1. Take the GRE and apply to grad school. I’m thinking I want to get my Masters of Education in Student Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI). I’m going to look at taking the GRE this spring and applying shortly afterwards.

2. Run a sub-2:35 half-marathon! I ran my half in 2:38:55 back in November so I’m hoping I can shave off three minutes and fifty-five seconds from my time. I’ve got a half-marathon in May so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do it then.

3. Run a 10k. I have one of these scheduled for March 6th. It’s part of the training series runs for the Mini-Marathon. I’d like to do it in 1:10 to match my split during my half-marathon from November.

4. Run a 15k. I have one of these scheduled for April 10th. I think this will be interesting because it’s SO close to a half-marathon but I have to think of it as just another training length!

5. I’d like to lose one pants size. Currently I’m a size 12 and I’d love to be a solid size 10 again. I’d love to go lower but that’s a reasonable goal for me at this point!

6. Go on two vacations this year. I love to travel and seeing new places with the hubs. He’s great to explore new cities with and it strengthens our relationship to have more special shared experiences.

7. Go to the beach this year. Even if it’s just another trip to the Indiana Dunes I want to take a relaxing day at the beach. It was SO much fun doing that trip and it would be great to make it an annual event.

8. Start my 403-(b) at work! This is an easy one, up to a certain percent they will match and I’m not currently taking advantage of this. We do get also a retirement fund that is equal to a certain amount of my annual salary but it would be nice to also have something that I’ve funded myself.

9. Start tracking my calories better. I’m really good during the day but once I get home at night I tend not to pay attention to portion sizes. It’s not that I’m dieting or restricting myself but I know I am eating more than I really need. I need to be more mindful of my eating and work on making sure I’m actually hungry before standing in front of the pantry/fridge and snacking.

10. Drink more water! I’m really bad about making sure I drink my 64 ounces a day. My skin is better when I get enough water and I feel better overall. Plus I have a flatter belly without all that diet coke!

Some of these goals might not seem like they are that exciting or that impressive but I’m really wanting to push myself not only in big ways but in little ways too. It all adds up to a better Jessica in 2010!

Join me in not making New Year’s resolutions; what are your goals for 2010?

I was excited to hang my two new ornaments from a couple of ornament exchanges I had participated in this month. The first was one from Sunny California!

The other was a couple of foodie related ornaments!

We hung the lights on the outside of the house and decorated with our new Christmas tree that we picked up last year after the season was over. It is SO much bigger than our old tree so it took a lot longer to put up than normal.

The dogs have their stockings and ours are hung. After we got the house decorated we had a frozen pizza for dinner while making hot chocolate to take down to the Circle! We even made peppermint whipped cream to top our decadent dark hot chocolates. Yum!

Each year we bring the dogs as it’s a great opportunity to expose them to crowds and celebrate the season with them. Here I am with Mario waiting for the “tree” to be lighted. We only go for the end of the concert and lighting but it’s always really special to be there when they do the countdown and flip the switch!

I love that Rod and I have our own tradition to kick off the holiday season! It’s only our fourth year of decorating and going to watch the tree lighting but it’s always so much fun. If we ever have kids it will be great to share this with them!