Fashion Friday #6

Hello there! When we last left off, I had just finished telling you all about my first day in Punta Cana. Let’s pick right up from there, shall we? #warningitslong #photodump

Friday

Friday morning I woke up bright and early before the rest of my friends to get a run in. I think they all thought I was crazy, and I was definitely the only person to bring sneakers, but I didn’t want to totally mess up my half marathon training by skipping my runs for five days.

After looking at the map of the resort and trying to plan a route, I decided simply to run along the beach. I was supposed to run four miles, so I figured that if I ran for about 35-40 minutes it would be close enough.

Once I made it to the beach, I ran along the wet sand which was a bit easier to handle than the dry powdery sand. I ran for 20 minutes in one direction, and then turned back.

It was a beautiful day and I absolutely loved running along the beach. I wish every four mile run could be this good!

So pretty!

After my run, I headed back to the hotel room to take a quick shower and wait for everyone else to wake up. At around 9:30, we all headed down to breakfast (if you want to see what I ate for breakfast – and every other meal- while on vacation, check out my What I Ate Wednesday in Punta Cana post).

After breakfast we made our way to the beach, but found it way too windy. The sand was blowing up into our eyes like crazy! Even with sunglasses on, it was pretty unbearable, so we moved over to the pool.

We spent a fun day lounging by the pool and enjoying each other’s company.

My favorite part about this trip was just being able to sit back and relax with my friends. Senior year in college, we all lived with each other. We knew everything that was going on in everyone’s life and were so incredibly close. We knew when someone had a bad day, when someone was fighting with their boyfriend, and what everyone ate for dinner (as silly as that sounds).

The best part about this trip was just being able to reunite with everyone again and get completely caught up in what was going on in their lives. We were able to talk about serious things like family issues and jobs, but also fun and silly things like awkward dating experiences. It was a blast just to be able to spend five whole days catching up with my best girlfriends.

After a fun day by the pool, we headed back to the room to get changed for dinner. Dinner on Friday night was at the Mexican restaurant!

The food was great and of course we had a fabulous time.

They even had a Dominican band come play the drums at our table!

It was a really fun experience

After dinner we headed outside of the restaurant where a DJ was guest performing at one of the bars. The hotel had hired some entertainers/dancers to get the guests involved with the DJ, and we had a lot of fun dancing and people watching.

This guy got gold glitter on us everywhere!!

It was a really fun night!!

Saturday/Sunday

The next two days were pretty similar to Friday, with the exception that the wind died down and we were able to sit on the beach (thank God!)

On Saturday I was supposed to run 10 miles, but after all the fun from Friday night I decided another four mile run was good enough.

Four miles is better than zero! It was beautiful, once again!

I even saw a pelican.

I wish I had been able to see him catch a fish!

After my run I went back to our room to shower, and then headed to breakfast with everyone else, just like on Friday.

On Saturday and Sunday, we were finally able to sit on the beach, which was absolutely stunning.

It was so beautiful; I could have sat there forever.

Of course, we didn’t ignore the pool either!

Ahhh so beautiful.

One of the days we took a water aerobics class in the pool, which was hysterical. The instructors were hilarious and made the most absurd facial expressions. We were dying of laughter the entire time and were actually able to get a pretty good workout it. Those classes are no joke!

After spending all day by the pool and beach, we would go back to the rooms, get ready for dinner, and head to the lobby for some pre-dinner drinks. This was easily one of my favorite times of the evening.

Drinks/Dinner Pictures From Saturday

Drinks/Dinner Pictures From Sunday

Since Sunday was our last night, we had an extra fun time and took a ton of silly pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

Haha I hope you enjoyed those as much as I do!!

Monday

Monday morning eventually came and we had to pack up our stuff and leave the beautiful Dominican Republic. Our shuttle came at 10:00 am so we had just enough time for a final breakfast at the hotel before heading to the airport.

Our flight was a bit delayed (about 45 minutes) but we still arrived back in Baltimore by around 6:00 pm. I made it home at around 7:45 and had a very happy puppy and boyfriend to greet me

It was such a great trip and I am so grateful that I got to travel to such a beautiful place with so many of my best friends. Now I just need to plan our next vacation…

Question of the day: Where do you travel with your friends?

Hey everyone! Happy Memorial Day to you all! I hope everyone had a great weekend; mine was awesome and I truly had a blast, but I’m so happy to be home. There were definitely a ton of unhealthy decisions this weekend (lots of booze-drinking and fried-food-eating) and I can’t wait to get back on track.

Friday morning I headed over to Britt’s house and we hit the road at about 8 am. Traffic wasn’t too bad so we made it to the beach by around noon. Luckily our rooms were ready so we were able to get right in and unpack our stuff. Our hotel was on the bay side and we had a nice little walk-out porch. Check out the view!

Our New York friends got there before us so we quickly got changed and headed to the beach!

Hi Britt! Hi Vic!

After a few hours at the beach, we relocated to a bar called Bottle & Cork which had a really great band playing 90’s music. We ran into a ton of our friends from college at the bar and had a really great time dancing.

Later that night, my friends headed to another bar called the Rusty Rudder, where apparently my dad used to hang out in college, but Britt was feeling so hot so we stayed in. It wound up being a great decision since we had already had such a long day and still had the whole weekend ahead of us. We needed the sleep!

The next day we planned to take a bus to Seacrets with all of our friends from college! Our buses embarked for Ocean City around 10:30 am and we quickly arrived.

When we got inside it was packed and there were literally thousands of people there. I saw friends I knew from college, high school, and work. It was crazy! Seacrets is a really fun bar because it’s on the beach and there are tables in the water. It was definitely a fun day. When we got home around 6 we “napped” which turned into us all waking up at midnight and being unable to fall back asleep. This wound up being one of my favorite parts of the weekend because we just sat around chatting and watching crappy late-night TV and ordering a pizza. It was great to just be able to sit and catch up with the girls!

The next day we went to another bar on the beach and saw more friends from college. I wound up seeing these three Labradors swimming in the water near the bar, so what did I decide to? I jumped in the bay and swam with them. Like, literally, they swam to me and I was hugging them in the water. This was obviously an alcohol-induced decision and later on I realized how silly I must have looked swimming around with the dogs. Ha! Oops.

There was also a photo shoot with the Megans:

And one with me and Lauren (pre-bay frolicking):

It sure was a fun day!

This morning Megan, Lauren, and I left the beach pretty early because Megan had to work this evening. It was hard leaving the beach when the rest of my friends were staying for the day, but it was totally worth it to be able to come home and get everything organized. This afternoon I was able to clean the apartment, unpack, and do some laundry. Now I am ready to tackle the week ahead!

So, how was everyone else’s weekend? Mine was fun but definitely not relaxing at all. I need a vacation from my vacation haha!

Update on 6/1/12: My friend Catrina sent me this beautiful group picture of all of us from Sunday. Here’s the whole crew!

Bottom row from left to right: Britt, Catrina, and Emily

Middle row from left to right: Megan M, Kristen, Jess, and me

Top row from left to right: Megan C, Lauren, and Vic

Love you all!

Workout

Today’s workout was another good one, and I woke up early to run with Jack and do Insanity. Since I’m heading to the beach tomorrow (or today, by the time you read this) I tried to burn a few extra calories during the day and found myself squatting randomly when I had to pick up something heavy and contracting my core more than usual. I guess you could say I am just getting really excited? Haha I felt like such a nerd but I’m sure it had to help a little, right? Every muscle-contraction helps?

Dinner

Tonight’s dinner wasn’t really a recipe, so I won’t bother going into too many details, but I had a huge veggie omelet with (burned- oops) turkey bacon and an English muffin.

Can you tell Fabio bought the English muffins? I would never buy the plain white ones (I always get whole wheat with high fiber), but I forgot to specify when I asked him to pick some up the other day. Oh well!

My omelet featured two eggs, chopped onions, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, and sharp cheddar cheese. It was so good! Breakfast for dinner has always been one of my favorites Smile

After dinner I had to hurry up and pack everything for my trip. Jack was helping.

Everything was pretty neat and organized, however you should have seen the mess I made trying to figure out what to bring. It looked a little something like this…

Oops! Haha. In the end I found what I needed, packed everything up, and now I am all set for the morning! I can’t wait!

While I’m gone, Stephanie from My Freckled Life will be guest posting, so don’t forget to drop in to see what she has to say! She’s great and I know you all will love her.

See you when I get back!