Weekend Getaway

The month of September has been a busy one for me. Busy in a good way. I have been working on a HUGE freelance project that has been consuming my life for the past few weeks. All the stress and hard work will pay off and I can't wait to share my work with you all on the next post. This post, however, is all about my fun weekend amongst my stressful weeks at work.

The past weekend started out with a Dave Barnes and Nathan Angelo concert with mi amigas, Elyse and Rachel. I am a fan of both and was looking forward to seeing them perform all month. While on my way to the show, I got a text from my friend, Sarah, asking if I could help out with Dave's merch table. Long story short, the original merch girl dropped out at the last minute and they needed someone pronto. Sarah used to work for Dave and she also used to live in Charlotte. His staff put two and two together, asked her if she knew anyone that would help, and voila! You get Asha :) I have to be honest, I was a little nervous but it turned out to be fun! I got to mingle with fans and use a handy dandy credit card iPod swiper. That thing was cool. Might have been the best part, haha.

Merch Rep!

Although I was at the front working, I did get the chance to sneak away and see some of the show which was great as always. You'll always end up laughing at a Dave Barnes show. All the more reason to love him.

Dave Barnes!

I was hoping to meet him after since I helped out but instead I got a free CD. Score! I did want to ask him why he had a t-shirt for sale with The Mount Zion Gospel Choir on it. I kind of wish I bought it just because there was only one left. So Dave, if you happen to read this, explain please! Below is a picture with Nathan Angelo :)

Nathan Angelo!

Next on the weekend agenda was a trip to Boone for some good ol' App football! For the past week, Charlotte has become Seattle because it ALWAYS seems to be raining. It was the same that Saturday morning. It rained on our way up the mountain and it rained on our way down the mountain. The sun came out at the right time and decided to show for the football game! All until the last minutes of the 4th quarter. We walked away with a W and a happy heart since our Mountaineers won!  We ended the day with some good eats alongside Reuben (brother-in-law) and Shannon (friend/girlfriend of Reuben), despite the restaurant running out of their homemade ketchup. I was devastated but managed to finish my meal :)

Photo by Jess Norman

The Rock!

 There you have it folks. A weekend full of great music, friends, and football. Fall is here!

Zuuuuuuuuuuuma!

For the entire month of August, I got to participate in the very popular group exercise class, Zumba!!! Food Lion was offering a weekly class to it's employees to help raise money for The Children's Miracle Network. It seemed like a great idea and ever since I stopped working at The Y, I've missed group exercise classes like crrrrazy. I had never done Zumba before, so I was super excited to see what all the hype was about.

Our instructor, Jennie, was a former temp that used to work at Food Lion. She volunteered to drive to Salisbury and teach classes every Tuesday for the month of August. Jennie was a ball of energy and taught great classes! We did the same routine for the first three weeks but changed it up during the last two. Being a part of these classes made me miss my Group Fitness Instructor Days at App.

It was nice to change up the routine and exercise right after work. I went home energized and feeling great. Plus I got to dance to some of my favorite songs that I run to: "Church" by T Pain, "I Can Transform Ya" by Chris Brown, and "Waka Waka (this time for Africa)" by Shakira. There were some new songs that I came to love too!  I felt silly doing the dance moves at first but I quickly got over it and just had fun with it :)

One afternoon, I had a Zumba song stuck in my head. Whenever this happens, I try to listen to it on iTunes or YouTube so I can get my fix of the song so it will go away. I decided to YouTube the song stuck in my head, "Pause" by Pitbull,  and it turns out there's a specific Zumba video to it! This is the exact routine that we learned! It gave me the giggles and I laughed in my cube the entire length of the video. 

Another good thing that came out of this weekly class was that our team of employees from the Marketing Department won a free lunch to one our of favorite restaurants in Salisbury, LA Murph's. Score!

Happy Zumbaing :)

Are You a Warrior?

Warrior Dash 2011 has come and gone in the Carolinas. Hurricane Irene was a threat earlier in the week but Charlotte didn't even get a drop of rain and we ended up having GREAT weather to conquer the obstacles waiting for us.

P.S. Jeremy likes to pop in with comments on my blogs so be prepared to see what he has to say in the  blue text. I am in purple :D

For those of you who don't know what Warrior Dash is, let me explain. It's what they call "the craziest frickin' day of your life". A 5K filled with 12 challenging obstacles with turkey legs and beer waiting for you at the finish line. Anyone watch The Challenge on MTV? It's one of my favorite shows and I've always dreamed about being a cast member. Warrior Dash is the closest I'll ever get to the reality so I look forward to it every year.

Anywho....let's get to the awesomeness. This year we decided to plan out our costumes. Jeremy had the bright idea that we should become the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We are children of the 90's so we grew up watching the cartoon and movies. It was awesome coming into character. I must say we did it well. Everyone loved our look and at one point we actually felt like celebrities posing for pictures and having our names shouted out by everyone. (We didn't feel like celebrities... we WERE celebrities! We literally posed for 2-3 minutes while groups of people came and took pictures of and with us. Who needs the red carpet when you've got an awesome 5K course?!) We definitely had the best costumes there. Unfortunately we missed the costume contest which we TOTALLY would have won! We got shafted.

TURTLE POWER!!

Once we got checked in, it was time to race! We had no idea what to expect since the course was completely different than last year. I will say that the obstacles were MUCH more challenging this year. If you thought about them too much, they would psych you out. A lot of them towered above the ground with nothing underneath to comfort your fall. Luckily we had Turtle Power and each other to get us through :D Last year it took us 31 minutes to complete the course. This year it took us an hour. Either we're getting old or the course was MUCH harder. (both)

The obstacles are what make this race so much fun. The ones that stick out in my mind the most were the Great Warrior Wall, Blackout, Chaotic Crossover, Horizontal Hike, and the Muddy Mayhem.

The Great Warrior Wall was a tough one. It was definitely the most intimidating. We were faced with a giant wall that had a rope (no knots!) attached. We had to climb up and over using our strength. I was just worried how we would get down once we reached the top. Luckily we all made it.

Great Warrior Wall

Blackout was a surprisingly difficult and rugged obstacle. From the outside all you saw was a very low shelter covered in black tarp that you had to crawl under. The shelter was divided by many sections that seemed to get darker and darker as you passed through each one. I was literally blind, starting out in the middle and ending up all the way over to the right side. This little contraption was also so low to the ground that you were forced to crawl on your hands and knees. A big ol' turtle shell on your back didn't help either, haha. I have some cuts on my knees from this one. The picture below wasn't taken at our course. We didn't snap a picture of this but I think a visual is always nice. Thank goodness for google.

Blackout

Chaotic Crossover was an obstacle where you had to maneuver across tangled nets high above the ground. I found a way to scurry across pretty quickly but Sairy aka Donatello (purrple TMNT) pretty much ate it, falling right into the net and rolling onto her back. It was pretty comical. We all got a pretty good laugh at it :) Again, the picture below isn't from us. We were too busy falling on this obstacle to take a picture.

Chaotic Crossover

Horizontal Hike was Warrior Dash's newest obstacle. They decided to break it in at the Carolina's site. This one was the most daunting for me as far as heights go. It was basically made up of narrow planks of wood but the scary part was that it was up so high! Without question, I took my sweet time to make sure I didn't fall.

Horizontal Hike

Muddy Mayhem. The last and filthiest obstacle of them all. Trying to move fast in mud is just so stinkin' hard. Especially after you've run 3 miles. That mud was THICK. And you had to stay low because you had barbwire above your head. Once again, a littler trickier with a shell on your back. I think I managed to get the most mud on me out of our group.

Playing in the mud has never been this much fun!

Oh yeah. I made a Rookie mistake during this Warrior Dash. This may be TMI (too much information) but I shall share anyway because it's funny. I made the mistake of wearing white underwear. Baaaaad decision. They are now permanently brown from the mud. I insist on keeping them because they are super comfortable! That's why I wore them for the race, duh!

Warrior Dash, we look forward to seeing you in 2012. I wonder what our costumes will be next year... :D

I leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the day.

Conquering the Fire Warrior Roast

Warrior Dash 2011 COMPLETE!

Muddy Hug

Muddy Turtles

That's one way to eat a turkey leg

I'm not sure how Jeremy's shoes managed to stay this white

I'll go for some turkey too :)