Blog of the Week and MORE vacation (is it possible)

Ellen Barrett Fusion Fitness



 

I am feeling the love this week!  As I said on Monday, the hubs got hit the motivation button and we are a go!  I started with my fav workout by Ellen Barrett, Fat Burning Pilates, it was like welcoming home an old friend.  I was a bit disgusted with how out of shape I have let myself become, but at the same time was flying high afterwards!  Gotta love those endorphins!!  I was "feeling the burn" yesterday when I woke up, but was still so happy I had done it.  I decided to ease myself back in with an every other day schedule, so yesterday it was.  Now Tuesdays in my house are a mess.  My girls come home from school then my oldest has her riding lesson from 5-6 and soccer from 615-8 (we are late to soccer), what this means for mini me is hanging with mom or dad from 5-6 and PLAYGROUND from 615-8.  Well, the hubs has 1 more week before his students come back so he was able to take the big girl to riding leaving me a big open time slot...what to do, what to do????  Mini me needed a snack to refuel after pre-k and get ready for the playground so I got her some water and grapes and asked her if Mommy could workout while she snacked and played on the computer. She was agreeable as long as I added more grapes to her bowl first so it was set. :)  I hit that FBP workout again and was SO happy I did!  Got a workout, a shower then we were off to meet Dadoo and Sissy at soccer (aka playground) and then we sent Dadoo home to workout while I waited for practice to end.  Win-win!! 

 

After everyone was in bed I decided to scan the Ellen Barrett site for more videos...and found her blog.  She is an amazing teacher and I love her DVD's so imagine how excited I was to  find that she has a blog with a good collection of workout vlogs on it!  Yet again win-win!!  If you like working out in the privacy of your own home (as I do most of the time), and are looking for a workout that will trim and tone you without the instructor being too over the top, I highly recommend you check out Ellen's site!

 

This resurgence in motivation ties in well to the second leg of our vacation too.  Mini me loves, I mean LOVES the beach!  So we thought it would be nice to spend a day at the ocean and celebrate in the sand with the girls!  We had found a few nice looking beaches (at least on their websites) not too far from DC.  After researching a bit and talking to friends we decided to take the girls to Bethany Beach in Delaware.  We had SO much fun!  It was perfect weather, about 80 with a nice breeze off the ocean.  It was crowded but not too crowded, we were able to set up our blanket right up towards the edge of the water so we had plenty of sand for castle building and were able to run back and forth to get water.  This gloriously relaxing day at the beach made us stop and consider a beach vacation for next year.  Both the girls had fun, the hubs and I got to just stop and chill, it was so nice.  We are always so busy on our vacations that we need a vacation from vacation by the end.  Since coming home we have debated postponing next year's trip to Disney World a year and maybe renting a place at a beach for a week...we have friends that do it and we could go the same time as them so the kids could all hang together some.  This is our driving force of motivation right now...a week of parading around in our bathing suits...literally, I haven't felt this strongly about a goal since I was engaged.  I don't' needed to be "wedding dress" fit but I could be tighter and toner in areas...this could be a great way to make a life style change (since we have a year to work on it). 

 

OOOHHHH and if you have a chance to go to Bethany, make sure you stop and check out Grotto's for lunch.  YUMMY!!  My finicky 11 year old declared them having the worlds best fries!!  We had pizza, fried, wings and salad...all VERY good!!

 

 

 

Vacation Recap: DC plus BOTW

Okay, so I have been promising to update about vacation for over a week now so I thought I'd give you a little taste of the fun today.  Sadly, the only pics I have access to right now are the ones from my phone...so I apologize now for "graininess". 

For our family vacation this year we decided to visit DC, Bethany Beach, DE and Kennywood Amusement Park (Pittsburgh, PA).  Washington DC because its a short drive and we love it.  It's great for kids with all of the (free) museums, landmarks and overall sense of wonder.  Bethany Beach, because we have never taken our girls to the ocean and with little bear loving the beach so much, it seemed like the right time to do it, and Kennywood because it was on the way home and seriously...who doesn't love a few good roller coasters?!?!

So we began our trip in DC.  I love going to DC.  We always stay in the same hotel which is a short walk to the mall so once we get there we can park our car and just hoof it through the capital.  LOVE that!  We arrived at dinnertime on Friday, so we ate then of course needed to walk off some dinner (awesome buffet at the hotel and bonus...kids eat free!!!)  So after dinner we headed over to the mall.  Took a few pictures (see above).  We were equidistant between the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument.  The monument is still closed for repair due to the earthquake on 8/23/11, so it is lit up but completely surrounded with scaffolding.

 

We decided to head towards the monument because my hubby wanted to see the WWII Memorial at night with all the lights, and let me just say he was dead on with that idea.  The memorial itself is beautiful and impressive, but all lit up at night just made it breathtaking.

The girls LOVED it.  They danced around and we got pics under the Ohio wreath and sat and just enjoyed the beauty if it all for a few.  It's cool to be able to look off into the distance as well and see Mr. Lincoln sitting there in all his glory watching over DC.  We enjoyed the cool evening walk back to the hotel and all quickly crashed for the night.

The next morning we were up and at 'em early.  We had a list of things we wanted to do, which included seeing Mr. Lincoln.  My oldest was set on it.  So we started our trek and our first stop as at the Sculpture Garden, then off to one of our favs the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.  Both my girls love the history museum at home, so this stop was a no brainer.  It's an amazing museum if you haven't been there...GO!

 

 

We then stopped and took pics by the castle which is an impressive site to behold from the outside, but tell a 3 year old little girl that she is about to go inside a castle and, well, if you have ever been you know what a let down it was for her. :)

Our next stop was at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.  This museum is amazing!  So beautiful.  So glad we decided to give it  look-see!  The whole thing is just gorgeous inside and out and they had a fabulous interactive kids area.

Our evening is a whole other post so I will leave you in suspense for that.  I want to make sure I get to this weeks Blog of the Week as well.

Coffee Cake and Cardio

 

There are a few things I look forward to each morning at my desk at work, my cup of coffee and reading the latest installment from Ashley over at Coffee Cake and Cardio. 

Ashley is amazing!  She is a fitness inspiration to me.  It seems she is always on the ball with making sure she gets in some sort of workout daily.  She is the center for the DC Divas, the professional women football team in DC, she is training for a 10K, and she has just revamped her view on food and what she eats.  She actually is one of the key people that got me thinking more about what foods I eat and how they furl my body rather then how many calories are in them. 

Ashley lives in the greater DC area, and while my pics are a bit too pixilated, she just had a great post today Weigh-In Wednesday: A Monumental Run, and she has some great pictures of places I just mentioned above.  Maybe next time I am in the DC area I will be able to meet up with her IRL.  We found a great little place to eat near the Capitol, but that is for another post.  All I can say is YUMMY!!!

Ashley is a blogger extraordinaire and if you haven't yet, you really MUST stop by her page!

Blog of the Week

Isn't it funny that the people you knew and were close to in your childhood tend to be the ones you come back to?  You may not reconnect on the same level, but you still reach out to them and have such high hopes for them and their families.  This weeks Blog of the Week is written by that kind of friend. 

When I was in 10th-11th grade I had a close knit group of friends that were a year ahead of me in school which meant I always had that fear in my hear of "What will I do when they graduate and leave me?"  One of those friends was Kate.  Kate was and is amazing!  A heart so open and sweet that you couldn't help but just love her.  It was the same with her family...I remember sleeping over on yoga mats in their living room and just smiling. 

Kate also opened my eyes to fitness and health on a different level.  I was active with dance, soccer and track...but outside of regular practice times and classes I didn't think much about my own good health.  For me that changed on March 25, 1993 when my Dad had a heart attack on the way to a dinner at our church.  He was (at the time) 46.  He had a triple bypass and is now doing well, but it made me stop and think. 

In the fall of that year I began to really know Kate.  She taught aerobics at the Y and encouraged me to take a class.  I LOVED her step aerobics class.  To this day I credit her for my mad step skills when I bust out the Wii fit and school my family in step. :)    We had so many great times together and when she graduated I was so sad.  As with people of that age...we drifted apart.

Fast forward almost 20 years later (holy cow really...are we THAT old) and welcome to Facebook.  Thanks to social media I have been able to catch up with Kate and see pics of her beautiful family.  And this year, born out of similar circumstances, Kate has started her own blog as well The Well Balanced Family, and has her own facebook page for her blog as well.  Kate is still an inspiration to me, and is on her won crazy journey to find a better, healthier life style for her and her family.  I encourage you wholeheartedly to check out her blog!!