We had a lot of fun and already can’t wait to go back next year.
Mamas was tired after though!!!!
Cabin camping
Tag: happy life
Weekly Workouts
Monday- ran 1.5 miles (1 mile for time, .5 of walk run intervals)
Tuesday – off but hit 7000 steps
Wednesday – 1 set of strength workout for legs and walked on the treadmill for 20 min
Thursday – ran 1 mile for time
Friday- off but hit 7000 steps
Saturday – 1 set of strength workout for arms (gotta get my stamina back after this sickness. I am still coughing up phlegm)
Still easing back in but finally feel like I’m starting to get back to it.
Stay healthy! The colds and flus this year are no joke!
Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024
And somehow another year is coming to an end. So many great memories:
I ran 351.6 miles this year, my highest mileage ever. I am very proud of that. Marathon/half Marathon training was a BIG contributor to that so as much as I would love to say I want to strive for even more in 2024 I don’t know that that is realistic. We shall see. We will call that a thought to keep in my head rather than a goal.
Unfortunately with all that running I did not lose a single pound. I will take a saying from a podcast I have been listening to called ‘Homeschool Together’ when they talked about their fitness and weight loss journey is “you cannot outrun your fork” And I literally did not outrun my fork.
I have two major problems that are probably tied for first place. 1) portion size 2) eating out.
My biggest not resolution or even necessarily goal, but lifestyle change for 2024 and onward is to really tackle those two issues. My portion control and to stop eating out, especially fast food.
My 3-year-old has discovered he loves fried rice from Panda Express and both my kids like most children love nuggets and fries from McDonald’s. So they are constantly asking for this. Well, my three-year-old is constantly asking for this. I say no a lot but even once a week adds up very fast. There is hardly a week where we don’t drive through someplace at least once.
My two big tools to help with these changes are my daily step goal and calorie tracking.
It is amazing how many days I don’t get over three or four thousand steps a day even chasing after two kids. So it’s time for me to start being really intentional with my steps and my movement. I started this about a week ago and I missed one day which was yesterday when I felt like death. Because yes we are all sick AGAIN. And both kids have ear infections AGAIN!
I’m not sure anybody enjoys calorie counting. It can be tedious, but honestly calories in calories out is how you lose weight especially in the beginning. As my weight goes down, I may focus a little more on macros and the amount of protein I take in and things like that, but it’s time to just put on my big girl panties and countless calories. I’m not going to be incredibly tedious about counting my calories. Like every single bite that goes in my mouth will probably not be tracked perfectly. But big picture tracking is what I’m going for so that it’s sustainable and honest.
I do have fitness goals like most people. It’s not so much about the new year’s resolution, it’s just the next phase in my life. Currently I have Beachbody on demand. I’m going to be canceling that before it renews I think in April because it’s just not working for me right now. 30 minute workout videos are difficult for me to get through with the kids. They are running around jumping on me which is fun and funny but makes it difficult to get a true workout in and 30 minutes is a long time to ask them to let me be at this age unless I get up before them. But at least one of my kids is usually up by 6:30 in the morning so getting a workout in and showering before they get up is probably not sustainable. I am going to try and look for like a 15 minute weight workout that I can do. I think that’s a much more realistic time frame for me. And I’m going to continue running with kids and without them. My current goal is going to be to get my mile time down and then increase the amount of miles that I can do at that time frame.
Because my running has been so stop and start since the half marathon between coming home and resting a little bit and ALL the sickness that we have had my current mile time with the double stroller, because I’m doing run walk intervals, is 17 minutes and without the double stroller the last time I clocked a mile I think I was around 12:40. I would love to get down to at least a 10 minute mile and be able to sustain that for about 3 miles and then eventually continue to decrease that. If I can get down to like a 9 minute mile that would be freaking amazing but I have to be realistic with myself too and see how it goes.
I will NOT be staying up until midnight tonight to watch the ball drop so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
I was a selfish idiot
It has taken some time and reflection to realize how selfish it was for me to sign up for a marathon at this point in my life without fully thinking through the repercussions for my family.
I am not saying running races is selfish, or being a wife and running marathons is selfish or even being a mom and running marathons is selfish. Simply that for me, at this time in my life, it was.
I didn’t really discuss it with my husband before I signed up….oops, I’ve been married for 5 years and sometimes still forget I’m in a partnership now.
Running a marathon is a HUGE time commitment and can be a large financial one as well. Both of these were/are true for me. Currently I am a slow runner so my long runs took a LONG time. Meaning, we lost most of our Saturdays (during my training) to my long run, especially when you add in that my youngest (and sometimes my oldest) still needs to nap. This means we had no opportunities to camp or do any overnight trips this last summer.
Financially it was a big commitment as well since I chose a marathon in another state (my home state). I did use this as an opportunity/excuse to spend time with my family there but this meant plane tickets, days of extra food costs, and all those miscellaneous costs that come with traveling.
I am not saying I regret doing it. My husband was pretty gracious about it all. My kids got to see family and we as a family got to do an awesome Disneyland trip and make lots of memories.
Also, doing something for me is not selfish (that is not what I am saying) but doing something that impacted my whole family for a big part of the year…….was pretty selfish…..in MY case.
I love to run and will keep running, I love doing races too, but this isn’t my time for racing. That time will come again. For me and my family, this is the time for healthy fitness for me…..and lots of family fun together.
This coming year I look forward to lots of family camping and fun family weekend trips.
What are you looking forward to in 2024?
Day 4 at California Adventure
California Adventure kind of sucked hahahahaha. There were only a small handful of rides my son was tall enough for and even less for my daughter. So many rides were closed, things didn’t open when the park did. There was just a lot that was disappointing. We did manage to occupy ourselves for the whole day but we were super glad we only went there for 1 day.
And that’s a wrap!!!!
It was long and exhausting but I am so glad we did it. I loved watching their little eyes light up and watching them explore so many new things.
I wish the food was better for the prices they charge. I wish some of the characters were more easily accessible or accessible at all. There were no characters from Encanto which my daughter loves and to see Anna and Elsa you had to wait in a line forever and they were behind doors until you got up there so you couldn’t even wave at them and see them if you didn’t want to wait in line.
I don’t see us going back for a very long time, if ever. It’s just soooooo dang expensive! They really do nickel and dime you…..or should I say like $20 and $50 you.
I was very happy with the time of year we went though. Granted with small kids we didn’t go on some of the most popular rides with the longest waits but with the use of watching the app for wait times and trying to be smart the longest we waited was about 20min for a ride. So, I am incredibly thankful for that because I don’t think they would have tolerated much longer.
All in all I am so glad for the memories but I don’t need to do it again.
Disneyland Day 3
Another long, fun day.
Disneyland Day 2
Star Wars land is freaking cool! Very immersive feeling….but! Only 2 rides and the rest is all shops……seems gimmicky for a whole land….but 100% worth exploring…..if you are there.
Disneyland Day 1
As if I wasn’t crazy enough to sign up for a long race with 2 kids under 3 I then decided that with only 1 day of rest we would spend 4 days at Disneyland.
Don’t know how but we picked a great time to go. During the day, we were almost always able to find a ride that had less than a 20 minute wait. I can tell you anything longer than that and your kids are going to freak out. Even the 20 minutes my daughter would get really fidgety by the end. Snacks are key.
Book review: How to be a Happier Parent
I enjoyed this book. There were some dry moments and I skimmed the parts that didn’t really pertain to me right now…like busy school mornings and homework battles.
It is a lot about how you react to the issues that come up, the attitude you have and setting yourself up for success.
I am by no means perfect so I did learn a lot from this book hahaha. I still have days that are a struggle, I still lose my cool quicker than I want but I am trying and also trying to implement some strategies from this book and I think it’s helpful.
I would recommend all parents read this.
August 2023 homeschooling reflective
I put on some Nat Geo in the morning while we all relaxed and woke up
I read them a book from the construction unit we are doing from playing preschool
We talked about the date, weather, season, the months of the year and the days of the week
We did some stickers in our math sticker book
Then we played outside until daddy got off work
Overall I’d call it a pretty good day.
Trailing the blonde 