If I hadn’t been inspired by other running bloggers I probably wouldn’t be running my second marathon in 10 sleeps. 

If I hadn’t been inspired by other career-driven individuals who enjoy what they do every day I probably wouldn’t be at my current workplace. 

If I hadn’t been inspired by quotes, movies, music, books, art and more I might not be the same person I am today.

If I hadn’t been inspired by a fellow classmate’s blog I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog post right now. 

If I hadn’t been inspired by world travelers I probably wouldn’t have experienced my own world travels and constantly be thinking about and planning the next big trip. 

Inspiration is a funny thing isn’t it? We feel powerful, happy, even on cloud 9 when we’re inspired by something and when we set goals for ourselves that are just out of our reach – at least that’s how I feel when a wave of inspiration hits.

Who Inspires You is a contest sponsored by Tri-Cyclen Lo to help inspire young women across the country. To enter the contest you need to upload a video of five minutes or less to YouTube telling the judges what you aspire to be and how you would use $10,000 to get there. Pretty awesome, right?

Last year’s winner, Daniela, used the money to pursue her dream of making music her career. I can’t wait to see what this years winner aspirations are!

To learn more about the Who Inspires You contest check out their website, twitter and facebook!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Tri-Cyclen Lo. All opinions expressed are my own.

Question of the day: Who or what inspires you? Have various forms of inspiration helped you get to where you are today? 

I’ve been so tired lately but four days off of work with no real plans was just what the doctor ordered. I wouldn’t call the weekend relaxing necessarily as it was very go-go-go, but it was certainly rejuvenating!

Here are a few pictures from my weekend…

I started the long weekend off with my first trail run in ages. I was treated to amazing views coupled with some brutal hill climbing that made me really miss trail running. I can’t wait to get back into it after the marathon! And the beautiful sunshine stuck around every day this weekend. It made me so happy! I even got a bit of a sunburn on my cheeks during my long run on Sunday.

Eric and I (mostly Eric) also got to work on our backyard reno’s. He ripped up our old deck and we purchased all the lumber for a new deck and fence. Eric also painted the new boards last night. All that’s left is actually building the deck and fence! We are just waiting on a waiver from our strata corporation before we start. I can’t wait to have a fully fenced in yard and big new deck for grilling on this summer – we’re going from an 8 x 10 deck to an 11 x 12 one!

Spring cleaning also happened (again mostly by Eric!) Here is Chloe watching him clean out our storage room. She was too lazy to stand there so sat her butt down on the top step of the stairs. Haha.

Sunday morning I got in a killer 18 mile (29 km) run on a GORGEOUS new trail. More on that in tomorrow’s week 14 recap!

My grandparents have been here camping on there way back from spending the winter in Arizona so my grandma made us an amazing Easter feast on Sunday. It consisted of cabbage rolls (veg for me), mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, coleslaw, brussel sprouts and cheese sauce, roasted carrots, fresh buns and lemon meringue, apple pie and ice cream for dessert!

Our freezer is also now full of frozen cabbage rolls so Eric and I will eat well for the next few weeks.

I ended my long weekend by spending yesterday morning in bed reading blogs and doing some wedding research and then in the afternoon I went for a hike with Bronwyn and Chloe, to a hot power yoga class and for coffee with Meghan. When I got home I helped Eric make dinner for my grandparents; handmade pasta with shrimp and prawns in an alfredo sauce. Also to die for delicious.

Oh, and for the first time in weeks there are not piles and piles of clean and dirty laundry. It is all clean, folded and put away.

Yup, a 4-day weekend at home was just what I needed!

How was your weekend? Did anyone else have a long weekend for Easter?

OK, here is the recap of our weekend away when we FINALLY visited our wedding venue and met with our wedding planner almost exactly a year after booking it!!!! This is a wordy post, be warned

Friday

Friday morning we dropped Chloe off at the kennel bright and early at 7:30 AM and got on the road to the coast, which is approximately a four hour drive. We were about 30 minutes out of town when I literally gasped out loud and screamed “the hockey tickets!!!” So back to Kamloops we went… I bought these tickets back in September and paid a pretty penny for them. SO GLAD I remembered before we were further out, or worse, already in Vancouver!

Anyways, since we got an early start we still made our 1:20 PM ferry over to the coast despite the delay. Once we got across the ferry it was about a 45-minute drive up the coast to our venue! A beautiful drive along the ocean I might add:

We started at our wedding planners where we saw a mock set-up of our tables for the reception and met with the bakers who will be doing our cupcakes for the dessert table. Both meetings went great and I am so excited about the decorations we’ll have at the reception and the delicious desserts for our dessert table!

Then it was time for the long awaited venue visit! You guys, it was stunning. Eric and I were both so pleased. It was just as amazing and gorgeous as we’d imagined it would be.

The approximate area where we will be doing our first look:

The view from our upgraded honeymoon cabin that night:

We met with the wedding manager at the resort and talked some logistical things, met with our JP and talked some more logistical things and took a tour of the resort. It felt good to get some decisions solidified and every single person we met was fantastic!

After saying “see you in 3 months” to our wedding planner we headed back to the cabin to freshen up and then up to the resort restaurant for an amazing dinner. Since we are doing a buffet we weren’t able to try the exact things that are going to be on our menu but we did get a chance to see just how delicious the food is there!

We had a few glasses of wine and enjoyed watching the sun set over the exact spot we’ll be getting married in a few short months. It was a fabulous night!

Saturday:

After a very restful sleep in our cabin with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks to lull us to sleep we went up to the resort for breakfast. Again, the food didn’t disappoint! I had eggs benedict with smoked salmon and Eric had crab cakes eggs benedict.

We got a tour of one of their amazing tenthouse suites before getting on the road back to Vancouver. I admit I was a little sad to leave and can’t wait to go back in three months for the wedding!

We checked into our hotel in Vancouver and headed downtown for some shopping before the Canucks game. Unfortunately it was POURING rain and walking around outside was not the most enjoyable thing so we actually ended up at the arena and hour early and enjoyed a few drinks before the game started. And we visited one of the team stores so Eric could purchase some Canucks apparel!

We had so much fun at the game despite the extremely obnoxious and drunk guy beside us who felt the need to repeatedly tell us he was from Washington but had been a Canucks fan his whole life and then would apologize for being soooo drunk every five minutes. After the first period I told him maybe he should eat something and when we came back from getting more drinks and using the washroom he was eating a hot dog and calmed down a lot for the rest of the game. Thank god!

The Canucks won in overtime, by the way! We had SO much fun at the game!

Sunday:

As I mentioned yesterday I woke up tired and a bit hungover on Sunday morning. Luckily Britt was a trooper and met me for a run anyways and I did get to run the gorgeous seawall in Vancouver and preview the last 12ish km of the marathon course which was really fun. Even though I felt like crap it did get me pumped up for the marathon!

After getting back to the hotel on Sunday Eric and I went for breakfast and got on the road just after 11 am. I saw several people posting photos on Facebook of SNOW in Kamloops (Mother Nature’s April Fools joke?) so Eric and I decided to take the back way home from Vancouver. Further and not a freeway, but also a lot lower elevation and better road conditions.

The drive was GORGEOUS and the roads were completely bare but it took us a full 6 hours to get home from Vancouver (it usually takes about 4 – 4.5) so we were home later in the evening than we originally planned. I was exhausted Sunday night and planted myself on the couch where I stayed until Game of Thrones came on and then went straight to bed at 9 PM!

***

And that was our weekend! Insanely busy but also very enjoyable. I love getting away with Eric. We always have so much fun together and I always miss him a little bit that first Monday back to work after we take a vacation together and spend a few full days together.

It was SO great to finally see our wedding venue in person. I can’t wait to be back there saying “I do” in just over three months!!

Question of the day: How was your weekend? What did you do?