My 10th Veg-iversary

My next few posts might be a little out of order, time-wise, but this is the order I feel like writing about things in, so hopefully you'll bear with me.

This past weekend I marked the 10th anniversary of my becoming a vegetarian by having a vegetarian potluck picnic out in a plaza by our apartment.  Here are the stars of the show:

Israeli salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley).

Fruit salad (kiwis, pineapple, grapes, and nectarines).

Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, drizzled with balsamic glaze).

 Guacamole.

Banana bread.

Zucchini cakes.

Key lime cookies.

Pasta salad number 1.

Quinoa salad with tomatoes.

French bread and cheese.

Bruschetta ingredients.

Pasta salad number 2.

Peanut butter chocolate ice cream.

It was great to have my friends celebrate with me and eat so much delicious food.  It made me want to have a veg-iversary every year!

Half marathon training is going well.  Yesterday my best friend and I ran 11.5 miles, which was a distance record for both of us.  We won't run that much again until the actual half marathon, which is in less than 2 weeks!  I got a blister on my toe, but other than that the run was really successful.  We ran along the Emerald Necklace, which is a string of pretty green areas with nice trails to run on.  We ran all the way from the beginning to Jamaica Pond and back.  The weather was perfect for running, and we were really proud of ourselves.  I'm excited for the half marathon!

Classes have started again, and so far, mostly so good.  I'm really excited about a couple of them, and I think I'm going to learn a lot of new things.  This is the first time I've ever taken any sort of economics, and the class I'm taking is not introductory level.  It should be a good challenge!

I'm going to go do laundry now.  I really need to get more running shorts.  Actually, I guess sooner than I'd like it will be pants season :(

Continuing with the updates

I left off with my family vacation in Maine at the beginning of August.  This post has a lot of pictures, since I really enjoy taking pictures in Maine.  This is the house we were staying in:

We've gone to Maine every year, but this was the first time we'd stayed in this cottage.  It was nice, and it had a great view.  My dad really liked how the trees framed the view from the front porch:

Check out that sunset!  Also, check out this delicious pizza, with Maine blueberries, gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts on the side.  Probably this is the most delicious pizza in the world:

We got this pizza for me and my fiance, and we went with my parents to a lobster place so that they could get lobster.  We ate our food in the lobster dining area, and it had this beautiful view:

Also, my dad and I did our annual kayak race.  Here's a picture of us practicing for it earlier in the week:

Don't we look cool?  The race went well.  We got 18th place out of more than 30 boats, with no serious mishaps.  Overall, Maine was great.  My parents, brother, and I were there for the first part of the week, then our family friend came up from Boston for a day, and then my brother went home and my fiance came up for the weekend.  We had a lot of ice cream, went to a movie, took some relaxing naps, and read books on the porch.

I'm still very excited about my new bike.  And now I'm going to babysit, so I'll continue with this later.  Have a good day!