Beau & Jen, Charleston, Litchfield2016

Three Fridays ago I tricked Kelsey into getting on a plane again and we flew to Palm Beach.  The humidity was such that my glasses would fog up, blinding me, every time I took a step outside. It was for a good cause, though, because Beau and Jen got married!

And I got to give Beau away. That's how this works, right?

It rained a bit before the wedding, but then cleared up and was a perfect (super humid) night.

And the Flagler Museum made the reception very classy.

Kels and I clean up alright, too.

Beau and I have known each other for fifteen years as this September, and I was delighted and terrified to serve as his best man.  I had a lot of good memories to mine for my speech, some of which I am sure were corrupted by time and had nothing to do with anything that actually happened. 

The next morning, I tricked Kels again and we got on another plane to Charleston. We wandered around for hours, Kels bought a hat, we ate oysters three different ways, and found an ice-cream sandwich shop staffed by a classically trained trumpet player (who also makes surprisingly good ice cream sandwiches). 

Then we watched Hamilton win all the awards.

On Monday we drove up to Litchfield, where I had a special surprise for some folks at the beach...

Ben! All the way from Japan!

After I found out that Ben could come, we went to extreme lengths to make sure that no one else would find out.  

**BREAK**

At this point in the blog, Kelsey is taking over due to Mike recovering from his eye surgery. He's doing well, he just can't look at computer screens:) Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah....I can't believe Mike kept the secret of Ben joining us for several months. Apparently this is something he was working out while we were on our Europe trip. I'm so grateful Ben was able to the beach (this gives us hope for next year too!) and the quality of our hangout time and cocktails benefited from his presence.

Our first night, Ween and Roberta were visiting for an evening and took everyone out for a seafood dinner! Glad we ended up getting a picture of the whole group:) Jen, Ross, and Brian had yet to arrive at the beach. They would join on Thursday after I was already gone.

Our waitress had great picture-taking skills.

And I made Mike practice his photography skills with our fancy camera. Here's an example.

Ben making cocktails back at the house on our first night. He should be on a cocktail edition of Top Chef.

The group waiting for dinner at one of the traditional spots: The Fish House.

I was no longer at the beach when this photo was taken, but I definitely cried when I saw it. Apparently where the future Paljug child is expected to swing.  (Mike edit: this picture was 100% calculated to make Kelsey cry.  There was no other reason for it.)

Sunset on the first evening

Great picture of pregnant Kay

**BREAK**

At this point it has been five days since Mike's eye surgery and so I (Mike) am taking back over to finish this blog.  Everything is very blurry, but I can sort of/kind of see.  Any errors on the blog for the next several months will be blamed on my PRK procedure and the slow process of the top layer of my eye growing back and smoothing itself out.  

VA & NC & Marathon Training

Summer travel season is in full swing! In the past few weeks, Mike and I have visited my family in VA, Mike's family in NC, attended a wedding for Beau and Jen in Florida, had a brief stay in Charleston, and spent some time at our favorite beach in South Carolina. Since I'm currently at the beach in South Carolina listening to the boys play board games in the background (I'm very particular about my board games), we'll save the recap from that trip for another blog.

Memorial Day in VA:

We were blessed to be able to have some extra time off over the weekend to see friends and family and remember the ultimate sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. Highlights of the weekend included getting to babysit Ashton, a wonderful snack spread of smoked salmon from Wegmans and other goodies, and getting to spend time with family even though it was short.

A Memorial Day ceremony I attended at GW where we had an amazing speaker and a jazz saxophonist playing the National Anthem.

Our neighbors never miss a holiday.

Courtney and Ashton at the pool at my mom's house during Memorial Day Weekend.

Rick let Ashton sit on the tractor.

I brought Ashton a special marshmallow treat of one of his favorite TV show characters.

Too cute!

Weekend in NC:

We spent the weekend after that traveling down to NC where we spent some time with Mike's family. We don't have any pictures that I know of besides this one on a cloudy day walk in Burlington, but that's because we were bring good and trying to minimize time on our phones:) I'll have to get Mike to pack his nice camera next time! Highlights of the trip included Ween's cooking (as usual), seeing Rachel who is back from France for good!, taking a yoga class with Leslie (Mike declined), and just getting to see everyone even though it was a short trip.

Probably not a good idea:

So, Mike and I are both officially signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of October. Mike is running with some Navy friends, and I am running with GW to raise money and awareness for cancer research. I was so nervous about signing up for this race, but I am inspired by stories of those who run and why they run/the causes that they run for. Below are two instructors from Mike and I's spinning classes who inspired me to sign up for the race.

Nicole was signed up to run IronMan France which is a triathalon that includes a full marathon for the running portion. Unfortunately, she got in a bike accident right before the race and has to be off the bike for a while, but she has already made plans to try again next year and has shown grace and positivity throughout the entire thing!

Robin ran a 100-mile ultra-marathon a month or so ago! She is a former lawyer who left her job to inspire others through fitness. She has a great story and a book coming out soon!

SO I guess we're going for it then. Training for me starts on June 26th and for Mike it starts a week after. We've been getting a couple of runs in at the beach to make sure we're good to go. You know we'll be providing you all with training updates along the way!