A lifestyle blog through the eyes of a military wife, mom, & fitness/food fanatic. How a normal life can be a great adventure. Or something like that. ;)
Living in Florida, you would think that we would have had Sophi to the beach a hundred times by now, right? Wrong. We may live in Florida, where we are surrounded by many beaches, but the closest one is about a 45 minute drive, and our favorite one {the one we can drive on and has jetties and cool little tide pools} is even farther than that. So, we have never taken her.
We decided last Saturday, that it was time. We got up early and started loading up the truck with coolers, food, drinks, chairs, camping grill, sand toys, etc, etc. We decided to wait until after nap time to head out, since low tide was at 4:00ish pm and you do not want to get stuck on the beach in high tide! Oh no!
Anyway, we get there and start to drive out on the beach and Sophi excitedly proclaims, "Wow! Yook {look} MOMMY! It's a REALLY BIG SANDBOX!!". Seriously. She kills me dead. That whole kids say the darndest things? That's my kid, every day. So much fun!
So, we get out of the truck and meet up with our group of friends/family, I took Sophi to check out the tide pools, she sees a live crab, some sea shells, some barnacles on the jetties, she loved jumping around in the waves and making big splashes, but her favorite part of the whoooole day....chasing the "buwds"...the seagulls. We ran up and down that beach chasing those birds for hours. She just screeched and giggled like a crazy {happy} baby toddler!
Some other highlights?
Building in the really big sandbox
Sucking down the yummy ice cream that Aunt Lacey bought for her
Getting a silly moment in with my babe...please excuse the whiteness...it's our first beach trip in years! ;)
Oh yeah, remember how I mentioned above that getting stuck at beach at high tide is not such a good idea? As the tide started to come in, we all moved our trucks closer up to the dunes, as did everyone else....except this guy...
All we could do was sit and watch {Mitch even set up his Go Pro...he's so bad} as the tide came in on this car...the owner was nowhere to be found. We watched as the water got so high that the waves were crashing up onto the hood of the car. Then, all of a sudden, the dude comes running from out of nowhere, freaking out! Thankfully, a whole gang of people pushed the front of the car and he was able to get it started and back it up!
Dude's car was full of water, so my girlfriend, Kim, took one of Sophi's buckets over to let him use it to bail some water out. My sweet Sophi ran over to check the situation out, and then starts running back to her sand toys saying "I get anudder {another} one my bucket, too!" She wanted to help. I love her heart so much!!
Needless to say, it was an eventful and fun afternoon! I'm so glad that Sophi loved the beach so much and we will surely be going back again a bunch more this summer!
Also, I just want to put out there that I have started a new blog for reviewing all of the great goodies that I get for free {like the bathing suit in the above picture, from Old Navy} from websites like crowdtap.com, influenster.com, and bzzagent.com. I made the decision that, while I think getting a bunch of free stuff in exchange for a blog review is cool, I don't want to be clogging up this blog with it. Soooo...if you want to check me out over there and follow all of my reviews, just click here and you will magically teleport over to the other blog. Ok, not really...but it sounded cool, right? ;)
This May is a big month for me! My birthday is in less than two weeks and I'll be hitting the big 3-0! Yep, thirty has arrived. If you had asked me earlier this year about how I feel on turning thirty, I would have told you {as I told many} that I feel better than I ever have. That I am in the best shape of my life and nothing was going to stop me. I am beautiful, confident, and strong. But now....I don't feel those things so much.
See, I worked my tail off while Mitch was away on this last deployment. I lost 20 pounds and my body started to be toned and tan and I felt really pretty. Now, I have gained back 10 of those pounds, my new wardrobe hardly fits and my arms have turned back to flab. This is unacceptable. I have to change. I'm turning 30 this month and I WANT, I NEED to feel like that confident and strong woman again. And I will.
So, here's my plan for May. Many of you have probably seen the 30 day fit challenges that float around Facebook and Pinterest. This month I decided to do 2 of them. Also, I'm going to focus on my running and try a short workout video for my arms. Here's my lineup:
30 Day Squat Challenge:
Ok, let's be honest. This challenge looks like two things for me. {1}Terrifying and {2} Boring. Terrifying because I can't imagine doing 250 squats at one time, and boring because I can't imagine doing 250 squats at one time! No, that wasn't a typo. Seriously. Think about the amount of time that it will take to do 250 squats. Like...a long time. Up down up down up down...well, you get the point. BUT! I'm going to try to stick with it. Maybe do 75 squats every hour...or something. I'll figure it out.
Plank Challenge:
Maybe I'm crazy but I got a little giddy when I saw this challenge! I love me a good old fashion plank! I remember the first time I saw a plank. It was when Mitch and I got our Wii system back in 2007. We were looking at the fitness stuff and I was all, "that looks easy" and he was all, "not really". Then I tried it. He won. That crap is HARD! But it's oooooh so good! I am PUMPED for this challenge. Planks in between squats, anyone? Anyone? Bueller???
Getting rid of arm flab!
I saw this video on a friend's Facebook page and immediately thought, "yep. That's going to hurt like a dirty whore". And that's why I must do it! It's perfect for the mom in me. No weights and it is only 8 minutes long! Aside from the fact that my two year old won't understand why mommy can't pick her up for a month, we're good to go. LoL So, since this one didn't come with a fancy shmancy chart for which days to do it and which days to rest, I figure that I'll just follow along with the other two schedules, to make things easy to keep up with. I did NOT do this today. I have no excuse. But, I'll do it tomorrow. I pinky promise. :)
Running. I also don't have a fancy chart for this. Nor do I have a pretty picture. I'm just not talented enough to take a picture of myself while running, holding a leash, and pushing a stroller. How about this one from last summer, right after we arrived back home and I thought I would die?
Whew! It gets crazy hot here in the summer! What was I talking about again? Oh yes, running. Last summer, I ran every day. Every.Single.Day. Mitch was deployed and it was a great outlet for me. I stopped just before he came home. Then I didn't run for months. Then one day, I thought, "Hey! I think I'll go run a 5k today!" Nope. I realized that I had lost my running mojo and I needed to find a way to get it back. I started listening to the C25K podcast again, but it didn't help. I was starting to get really discouraged. Then one day, my little brother told me about this AMAZING running app called "Run Keeper". I'm not a huge fan of change, so I downloaded it to appease him and then didn't mess with it for a couple of weeks. The day that I decided to use it, was the day I stopped listening to that worn out podcast. I love the app. It has been wonderful for me. And while I'm not back up to running a 5k again in one shot, I am doing around 2.5 miles with a pace between 11.41-12.00 mile. I'm so happy. But, it's not good enough yet. This month, I want to be able to get back to my 11 minute mile and run 4 miles in one shot. I can do it. I know I'm capable. I want to be that strong, sexy, confident woman again and I want it to spill over onto everyone around me. Especially my daughter.
So here's my rundown:
Squat Challenge, Plank Challenge, Arms. All are work three days, rest one.
Run at least 5 days a week with a goal of 4 consecutive miles by the end of May.
Fitness Apps I love: My Fitness Pal is my all time favorite app for tracking my progress. I love that I can so easily count my calories and add my workouts. Also, I love that I am held accountable by my friends, who can see my daily food diary. It's the app that I used last summer and I believe that it had a large part in helping me lose the weight. Want to follow my progress? Check me out, here:
Run Keeper is my new favorite running app. You can sign up for different training programs within the app, or just do your own thing. It plays the music from your playlist, keeps track of how far you've gone, your average time, calories burned, and it updates you every 5 minutes. I love it. I don't know how I ever lived without it. You can love it, too. Friend me, if you're up for it. I love a good competition motivation. ;)
Body Tracker is a very simple app. It's the one pictures above with my measuring points. It's simply a way for me to keep track of my measurements on a month to month {or however often you choose} basis. I can't remember, but I think I might have paid $.99 for this one. It was worth it to not have to remember where I wrote down all of my measurements from last month.
So, that's it! I hope that you will follow me this month and see what comes of these goals. Do you have any fitness goals set for the month of May? I would love to hear them!
