Tag: mom life

Longest road trip/vacation ever

by Ariana Peters, posted in travel

My niece graduated high school 2 weeks ago so my mom, my kids and I road tripped down to Southern California to celebrate and be with family. If you have, or had, small children you know a long time in the car is a challenge. We have done a few road trips with my kids and when we are able we break it up as much as possible. We try not to drive more than 6 hours a day.

We were lucky enough to be able to take 3 nights and 4 days to drive each way. Then we spent 10 nights there for a total of 17 nights and 18 days!!!!! It was fun but we all came home exhausted.

We tried to pack lunch every day to limit the fast food.
We got to see family along the way.
Fast food still happened. And soooo many bathroom breaks.
The kids LOVED staying in hotels.
Complimentary breakfast every morning
Toni boxes for the win!!
Railroad museum stop in Sacramento
This place was huge and very cool.
We learned a lot.

In California we enjoyed lots of family time and time with friends and a trip to the Discovery cube museum with my best friend.

Cousins!
First and second generation cousins!

We spent a day at the Aquarium of the Pacific with my mom, aunt and sister.

They had 3 different areas the kids could do some hands on learning

AND we managed a day at Disneyland! (Kids tickets were on sale for $50 so I jumped)

It was a long but great day.

Then we started the long journey home. We left late Sunday night, drove for 2.5 hours and made it to Mojave while the kids slept and pulled into the driveway about 2:30pm on Wednesday. Lots of leg stretching stops, snacks and saying we are so close to being done! We did one museum stop but really just wanted to get home because we missed daddy so much!

Popsicle break in the heat
Hot but beautiful views in Bridgeport, Ca
Got to see a good friend!
Last hotel breakfast
Last park stop
Leg stretching.

Overall the trip was great but so long. We were all done by the end.

Traveling for a death in the family

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, travel

Boy oh boy has it been a crazy few weeks.

Currently I am sitting in a rental car outside my aunt’s house while the kids catch a quick nap in between the funeral of my grandmother and the open house after. But let’s start back at the beginning.

A few weeks ago my little man stayed the night at his Grammy and Papa’s house for some one on one time, before going to pick him up I got the call that my stepdad died suddenly. Then comes the flurry of activities to try and figure out a last minute trip for the funeral.

At the last minute my son got an ear infection so we didn’t go……days later, very few days later my grandma went on hospice and went downhill FAST!

This was just 6 months ago

Enter another flurry of plans to try to get down and see her before she passes…….I booked plane tickets for a 2.5 week trip to hopefully spend time with her and also make the funeral that was probably soon to happen. I booked the tickets and 20 minutes later got the phone call that she died.

We are 2 weeks into the trip, just finished the funeral and fly home midweek……I cannot wait to go home. 2 weeks is a long trip with kids when we don’t have a schedule and have moved houses twice.

We have spent a lot of time outside looking at nature, have done a little bit of workbook stuff and spent lots of time with family

Did I also mention I am solo parenting this trip? Lol. This mama is TIRED!

On the plus side we are going to Disneyland before we leave….had to throw some fun in.

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, life, training

Sunday – 1.5 miles run . 1 mile time 13:28, 2 sprints in the half mile.

Monday – 7000 steps

Tuesday – leg workout and 7000 steps

Wednesday – 7000 steps

Thursday – 7000 steps

Friday – 7000 steps

Saturday – 7000 steps

Well instead of going up in workouts I went down hahahaha. My husband was traveling for work this week and even though my mom was here to help me I was exhausted most days.

Here’s to next week!

I was a selfish idiot

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, kids, life, running, training

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?

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in life, training

The best laid plans..as they say.

I ran 3 miles on Tuesday and walked an additional 1.5 while the kids napped.

I was hoping to keep increasing my workouts and getting back to normal and guess what? Now I have an ear infection. It took 2 weeks of off and on pain getting worse for me to make a Dr appt. With 2 littles I just don’t have time to make superfluous Dr appointments, you know?

But when I couldn’t ignore the pain anymore I caved and yep! There’s an infection in my ear. So now after the colds we all had a few weeks ago, 3 out of the 4 in my little family have gotten ear infections, tell me they are not contagious again? Actually I am thinking whatever strain that cold was must really open you up to an ear infection. I’ve been on antibiotics for 48 hours and am just now starting to feel a reduction in ear pain. We will see how I feel come Monday for workouts. I’m also super tired though, don’t know if it’s the infection or the antibiotics or both.

Here’s to next week!!

How have your workouts been?

Book review: Hunt, Gather, Parent

by Ariana Peters, posted in books, kids

I thought this book was so interesting. The author spent a significant amount of time with three different cultures in three different parts of the world and really looked at how they parented day to day, week to week, and month to month and how it affected their children. And the differences between what they do and what western societies do. It was very eye-opening and made so much sense. We as a western society have come up with all of these rules and guidelines just in the last 100 plus years as opposed to other societies that have been raising kids the same way for thousands of years.

I don’t want to give away too much about the book in case you want to read it, but I love that it wasn’t dry. She talked about her own experiences with her daughter Rosie, who she describes as a wild child.

She’s very candid about how much her and her daughter buttheads and how much they end their days in tears and yelling and the fighting. So she really was coming at this not just as an author or a journalist or reporter but as a mother looking for better solutions for her family.

All in all, I highly recommend this book.

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, life, training

I’m back!!!!

Ugh it feels like we had the cold that never ended. The kids got slight colds coming back from California, no surprise. They were starting to get better so we went out to some indoor play places, like those indoor playgrounds and we ALL got sick, worse this time. And then once the colds started to clear both kids got double ear infections. Yep, double ear infections.

Then for about a week after I stopped coughing up enough stuff that I would have been comfortable working out. I was still so exhausted from recovering from being sick and taking care of two little kids while being sick that I just had no energy to work out. My goal this week was three workouts and I hit it.

Tuesday – upper body burn from mbf on beachbody

Thursday – full body burn from mbf on beachbody

Friday – Lower body burn from mbf on beachbody

It looks like next week should be mostly dry for us so my goal will be 3 strength workouts and 1 run.

Weekly Workouts – Plague edition

by Ariana Peters, posted in kids, life

Sunday -OFF

Monday – Lower body workout

Tuesday – 4 miles

Wednesday – Saturday – Nothing…..

The whole house has been hit by a heavy cold. We are doing a lot of relaxing and movie watching……and a lot of interrupted sleep at night.

The crazy thing about kids is they are sick then fine for a few minutes then sick and back and forth