hip hop and ya don’t stop

Happy Monday- and August! It actually is an incredibly happy Monday over here. I’m racing around like a nut- writing, editing, and cleaning (aka washing nine pounds of smelly UPS clothing I’ve found hidden in random spots around our room, thanks D$)..because Court will get here on WEDNESDAY! AH.

I am also still riding a wave of excitement from the best concert of my LIFE. On Saturday night I took my little bro to his first concert ever.

siblings

I honestly feel bad for him. I have been t0 many concerts and shows, and THIS one was my favorite. How the heck can his first concert ever also be the best one I’ve ever been to? Nothing will compare and he will face a lifetime of musical disappointment.

So.. who’d we see? My new boyfriend.

thas right

Maybe Lil Wayne doesn’t leave bad smelling socks under the bed, and dirty UPS shorts in his drawers…P.S. boy is JACKED.

I didn’t stop moving the entire time. As I’ve mentioned before, I really enjoy dancing wildly in public. Once again, my poor little brother.

After the concert I couldn’t handle listening to anything but Lil Wayne, so I created a new rap infused play list that pumped me through a run yesterday:

 

It worked amazingly well. If you haven’t downloaded “Power” by Kanye for your workouts you are missing out! Rap and hip-hop is my favorite type of music to workout to, because I just pretend I’m dancing while I’m running and lunging. I also put on this play list pretty loud while following along with this video using some 5 lb dumb bells at home:

Highly recommended for a quick, effective arm workout.

P.S. Today is the first official day of Kick the Habit! If you’re participating feel free to read about my goal to quit counting calories. I am actually PUMPED and ready to knock it off.

bff: why to date a danny

HAPPY FRIDAY! Welcome to our second installment of BFF= Best Friends Friday! If ya’ll missed it last week, BFF is when we combine our forces and post together on the same topic! Because, like we said week.. we wanted to write this blog together.

partyin' partyin' YEAH

Maybe you haven’t noticed, maybe you have, or maybe you thought we shared a boyfriend…(we do not) us girls here at Cupcake Dynamite both date Dannys. Originally a Daniel for each, they are both known by friends and family as Danny.. or as we like to say: D or D$.

Courtney's DJ D$

jamie's fisherman D$

And they’re both perfect. GAG. Kidding, they aren’t perfect but they make us perfectly happy, for some of the following reasons. And I present:

Why To Date A Danny:

1. Dannys will bring you water in the middle of the night. Whether you’ve worked out too hard, or you’ve had one too many cocktails at night, everyone has had the experience of waking up at 3 AM with a mouth as dry as the.. Arizona desert. It doesn’t matter if your Danny is passed out completely and you have been awake staring at the wall thinking about juice boxes for the past hour, D$s will be happy to wake up, jump out of bed, grab you a glass of water (ice for me) and allow you to drink 1 sip before falling back to sleep. Even if they don’t pop out of bed and fill your glass immediately… you will always be able to convince them to do it.

"not pushing him down because he appropriately filled my glass"

2. Dannys like blogs. Or they at least pretend to. Even though they out us (Like asking how Jamie’s 3AM cheesesteak in Philly is real healthy living..) They deal with our desire to snap photos of every meal and even make plans to create their own blog to combat against us in becoming successful fitness/food/fun bloggers. These days Dannys get jealous when we snap pictures of our own meals and not theirs. “Why isn’t MY meal blogworthy??” Danny Dynamites? Cheesesteaks, bacon, and beer?

danny dynamite, professional cheesesteak blogger

danny dynamite, professional beer blogger

3. Dannys grow accustomed to healthy living. Jamie’s D$ recently ordered a VEGGIE GYRO at lunch, at Courtney’s D$ is running with her through the streets of NYC. Who are these healthy living inspired men? Not the boys we first started dating. What’s next Dannys, yoga on the beach? Would you like your UPS lunch to be packed with temph? We’ll oblige.

...but after we scarf down this mac&cheese.. of course..

4. The side kicks. Dannys have incredible sidekicks. They will take you under their wing and allow you to be their great friend as well, making for one big happy family..aka the “my boyfriend’s boyfriend” syndrome. But that’s alright. We like that our Dannys have some pretty solid BFFS (because after all, so do we.. ) even if sometimes we question who is actually dating our D dollar signs. Their sidekicks are super fun to hang out with and it has been so gracious of them to allow us to steal their boyfriends away.

sillys

Sometimes Danny’s BFF even lets Courtney and her friends borrow his glasses for pictures. (They’ve definitely been seen on the bloggie before…)

it's fun having someone's glasses to steal

o captain my captain, where is your mom?

First of all- FIVE DAYS. The amount of time my legs have taken to recoup from a Tababat TNT class I took last Thursday. Seriously? Similar to Alyssa, my pregaming Friday night including not only some power hour but some quality foam rolling.

foam party

I can’t even remember the last time my legs have been this sore. I know it’s a GOOD thing because I’ve worked muscles that have obviously been chillin hard for months..but honestly it felt like more of a set back than anything else…probably not worth it as I would have rather felt good enough to run and probably won’t Tababat for awhile anyway. OOPS. At least I got a good class in, and I got to meet this cutie:

photo swiped off http://www.lifeofblyss.com in a sneaky manner

I looked extra pretty waddling and limping all weekend. Danny kept asking “ARE YOU 24 OR 84!?” To which I would respond NEITHER..because I am actually 23. Rude.

My cousin Tarrah came in to town which I was super psyched about! Danny, his brother, and I thought it would be an awesome idea to get into his parents john boat and take it through the bay and out to Baja in Sandbridge. Baja is one of my most favorite bars EVER. It’s a big deck on the bay but also has a great outdoor space with cornhole and there is almost always a live band playing, so boat mission it was!

faithful captains

The ride over was a little nuts- it turns out when the water is so high in the bay you have to duck wildly to make it under three bridges. I pretended I was on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney, but Tarrah was scared.

this is when she began to question my judgement

After 45 minutes of boating, including some Zoolander style photos:

smashing

..and one instance where we had to climb out of the boat, run across a busy highway, then jump back in with the boys at the other side.. we had reached our destination.

tarrah just happy we are alive

While I was having a blast drunkenly happily planning my future with Danny, Tarrah was already worried about the trip home.

"JUST TRUST ME"

And maybe she worried with good reason. After endless drinks and a good amount of chicken dancing as if we were at the third grade skating rink (I didn’t get it either) it was time to hop in the boat to go home. Sadly, we got about 30 minutes out into the bay when Dannys little bro told us he really had no idea where we were or where we were going.

I tried to calm Tarrah by saying that worst case scenario we turn around and go back to Baja. Danny ruined this by saying “WELLLL ACTUALLY.. that’s NOT the worst case scenario…”

We turned around..reached an entirely closed baja at 4am, and called Danny’s mom for a pick up. Really. She scooped us in that faithful mini van and hysterically laughed at Tarrah when she told her she cried on the boat.

don't let the cuteness fool you, these boys are terrible captains.

So Court, wanna go for a boat ride when you visit?

here i am, dun dunn

Oy. I’ve been seriously slackin’ on the postage lately. Here I am, back again! It feels good. I worked extra long and hard today (normal internet market job + a freelance project I picked up) + also got in a sweet workout with Alyssa (I ran three miles, ellipticalled for 15 mins, biked for 15 mins, and worked my abs) so when 8pm hit I was seriously craving a nice glass of pinot grigio.
(The first describes my feelings…the second..my day.)

Ask and ye shall receive..Danny came home from a 12 hour UPS day with a bottle of wine. I’m telling you, these southern boys really know how to do it right. Once a cook at my old job here said to me “You know these southern boys..they care about their women more than they care about themselves. That’s why you like your man so much.”

Hmm. I made D$ (Dannys new nickname as of late) a giant omelet& got the urge to bake for our friend Taylor since he was coming over to hang. I stalked PBF for Julie’s recipe for the easiest cookies in existence- PB cookies that require only 1 egg, 1 cup sugar (I used brown), and 1cup pb. Holler! When you don’t want to dirty your mixing bowl..you improvise.

do i always bake in the dark?

And of course I needed to sample the batter.

we don't do cardio for nothin'

Perfection. Tomorrow I can say “tomorrow I’ll be in Boston!” My plane takes off Friday AM…I’m so excited to see the city!

if you can’t stand the heat

Danny and I have this game. It’s called Danny says the names of two sports teams at the beginning of any playoff/final series (any sport…college OR pro) and I pick the team that I think will win.

I’m not allowed to research, I just pick within one minute based on whatever name sounds like more of a winner to me.

Out of roughly 18 rounds of this…I’ve guessed the correct winner around 16 times. I am incredible. I might be some type of fortune teller. Danny says I am filling out all of his brackets for the rest of my life.

The fun part of this game is that I get REALLY into “MY” team. I found myself covering my eyes last night and screaming at Miami because I want them to win the finals BAD. BAD- for no reason other than the fact that they are now mine.

heat, son

I feel as though I am allowed to make the following possibly sexist remark, because I was a Women’s Studies minor in college. If you have a boyfriend, husband, fiance, or hey- a female sports OBSESSED best friend (I’m talking glued to SportsCenter).. PLAY THIS GAME. Not only will it make hanging with your sports fiend lover more enjoyable to you, but you’ll wind up doing this like this:

Could you imagine if I got a RT? I’d faint. Speaking of heat- it’s getting HOT out there. I am now BFFs with the treadmill.  I’ve also made a commitment to myself to really amp up my mileage. I used to run 20-30 miles a week, and I loved how it felt…AND looked. I’ve been working out consistently but have severely cut down my miles. Time to kick it up a notch!

the beginning of my running days

So far this week it’s been:

Monday: 5 miles+ abs
Tuesday: 3 miles, 15 min elliptical +abs
Wednesday: To be decided. My stomach hurts. Most likely from living off tortilla chips and oatmeal in attempt to save money for my trip to Boston next weekend! Just kidding. Sort of.

Happy hump day!

things i find hysterical: a weekend review

1. Photobombs. This past weekend consisted of lots of family time, which is AMAZING. I have the best cousins ever- they are hysterical and I love living close enough to hang with them on the weekends. My cousin’s wife Emily and I were pumped to attend a Norfolk Tides game Sunday, one full of beers, sun, and young girls wanting to be our friend.

can't hate on an angel

2. Embarrassing others, or attempting to. Danny has “no shame”, which he’s mentioned 2343 times before, so making him feel embarrassed to be with me is hard. On Saturday night we joined my cousins at a “truck and tractor pull” in North Carolina. We go to these things to people watch, wear cowboy boots, and again…to drink beer. Coozies are necessary, so I managed to find an awesome set for me and D$. Sadly..he was pumped to sport a coozie that made him reminiscent of his Halloween costume.

jersey style

3. “Rednecks”. I love them. Sometimes I want to be one. First Nascar, now trucks pulling tractors. I am an northerner with a secret obsession surrounding all things Southern. If you’re interested in people watching, I suggest you hit the dirty South for some real entertainment.

ain't no pullin in jersey

And FYI- If you’re like me and enjoy embarrassing others, expect to be embarrassed in return. Last night I took a fitness class similar to Body Pump. The regular instructor was out, and a Drill Sargent (really, an actual hard-bodied tough ass Sargent of some sort) taught the class. She had lots of fun at my expense, and I think if I didn’t love my “blond bimbo” (me?? my hair is brown..) self enough I would have run out crying. That’s karma for ya!