fat, fun, + running

Looking back at old pictures of myself from college I realized something: Yes, I let myself get fat... but wow did I have fun getting there! My reasoning behind this revelation came from the many college pictures I was looking at - house parties, date parties, drinks from The Barn , late night snacking in the Theta house, 21st birthday parties with friends, going out every night with Sean when we first started dating, bachelorette parties, destination weddings, grad school, internships, jobs...

Wish me luck!

...add this up with no time for the gym or trying to eat normally and you get one chubby Caroline. My road to gaining over 30 pounds in college was from having a TON of fun and not really stressing about what I looked like! Now that I have dropped all of that weight from college I can take a look back now and not feel so down on myself like I use to. I was never really unhappy and I still have all of my best friends, and Sean met me when I was at my biggest and he still loved me at that size anyways! Lucky me, right!?

Now that I can fit into my skinny jeans from freshman year, my new goal for this year is to become a runner. I started this training program called Couch to 10k on my iPhone! I have so much more energy now and my best friend Amber (read her blog here, DayEndReview) has really motivated me to start running. She has ran a ton of 5ks all around Oklahoma and now she is signed up to run a half marathon!  Plus, Sean is an amazing runner and I want to keep up with him when we start to run Lake Michigan this summer!

john jewell holiday

My dad came into town a few weekends ago and we had a chance to take him around Chicago AND go to a Notre Dame game in South Bend, IN! The first night he arrived we took him to one of our favorite spots in Lincoln Square - The Chicago Brauhaus! Lucky for us this German restaurant was celebrating the end of Oktoberfest and had their house band playing all night long, including the famous Gody! You can see him behind my dad in the picture below! Those beers were really, really heavy too!

The next morning we drove out to Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery to find the famous grave of Al Capone. We drove around for about 45 minutes before finding the gangster's final resting place. The cemetery was beautiful and full of Italian mausoleums, but also kinda creepy being so close to Halloween...

Bright and early on Saturday morning we took a bus over to South Bend to the famous Notre Dame campus and you can tell from the pictures below that it was a perfect fall day for a football game! Believe it or not this was our first football game together as a couple! Sean and I thought that was really funny!

Below we have a picture of my two favorite guys! And one of "Touchdown Jesus," which I thought was hilarious (and awesome). The dome picture is in one of the Notre Dame halls, my dad got down on the ground to take the picture, supposedly it is a Notre Dame tradition! It was a very fun weekend with Mr. Jewell in town!

whip It! tunes

I recently watched a movie that I just thought was inspiring, punchy, girly and just plain awesome! (Even Sean liked it after I made him watch it with me) And of course the soundtrack is very impressive and I had to buy it immediately. Whip It! is about a young girl (Ellen Page) who is thrown into the world of beauty pageants, but obviously is not a beauty queen. Alas she discovers ROLLER DERBY! And then the tough love begins....

This movie rocks for many reasons. The team is called the Hurl Scouts and they wear Girl Scout uniforms. Now I was a Daisy, Brownie and a Junior Girl Scout (yes, I went far in Girl Scouts and I'm proud of it!) when I was a little girl. Loved the costumes/uniforms in this film.

The girls - Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkatt, Juliette Lewis...Oh and Andrew Wilson (Luke and Ben's bro) is not a girl, but is hilarious as the coach. At last there is the music...mainly underground artists featuring Little Joy, Jens Lekman (heart him), Tilly and the Wall, The Ettes, and many more. The soundtrack is a mix of perfectly rebellious songs for this sweet, rabble-rouser of a movie.