Pleased to Greet You, 2011!

Happy New Year, friends!

I hope your celebrations were fun, safe and filled with lots of laughs.

As for my New Year’s Eve…

So much fun.

ABS and I went to Long Island for the same party we went to last year, actually. His two high school friends are recently engaged and living together, and they throw one heck of a fiesta.

This year, the theme was “Minute to Win It.”

Inspired by the TV show, of course.

So what makes the perfect game show party outfit?

Too fancy. The skirt wouldn’t be kind if (when!) I had to get down and dirty to win the games.

Just right!

You can’t really tell, but I basically swapped out the skirt for jeans and added a whole lotta wrist and ear bling. I like my sparkle.

The hosts took the “Minute to Win It” challenge pretty seriously. I was even given the task — OK, I volunteered — of creating the brackets.

ABS and I were partners and got eliminated pretty quickly. He had to do the “Gingerbread Man” challenge (balance a gingerbread cookie on your forehead and use your face muscles to get it into your mouth) and then we both had to do the card-blowing challenge together (you have to get a greeting card to hang on the edge of a table by blowing it from one end to the other).

Everyone was having so much fun that we almost missed the midnight countdown.

Though I think the whole “Kiss at Midnight” tradition is a little cheesy, I couldn’t have been happier to ring in the new year with ABS.

And can you believe we stayed up until 5 am?!

I haven’t done that in a very looooong time.

After getting just a few hours of sleep, ABS and I boarded a train back to NYC.

Can you believe how gorgeous the weather is today?!

Naturally the first thing I did after we got back to our apartment was throw on my running gear.

I forgot how amazing it is to run in just one layer. I’ve been so bundled up lately and it’s definitely been slowing me down. I loved just wearing capris and a long-sleeved shirt for my run.

I ran about 5.3 miles and took it pretty easy. The warm weather we got today — it was 45ish degrees when I ran — has melted all the snow.

No snow mounds = yay!

Melted snow everywhere = wet.

I was dodging puddles during the entire run, which made it fun. I definitely jumped hard into a few puddles and I was soaked from my knees down.

Also, because my running path is right next to a major NYC highway (also very wet), this happened:

No, that’s not sweat. A speeding car hit a huge puddle, and I was there. A perfect target.

I actually laughed it off. I wonder if any cars driving by saw me get nailed with all that dirty city water. Hehe.

2011, you have a great sense of humor.

Now I’m back at the apartment, showered and wearing my new “happy robe.”

ABS has been playing Wii by himself for more than an hour at this point, so I’m off to join him.

In the meantime, I’m debating making 2011 resolutions. Normally I’m big on these types of things, but lately I’m feeling really happy and I’m not sure what I want to resolve for in the new year. Stay tuned. That post is on the way.

TELL ME: How did you ring in 2011?