our first tent camping trip....success!

We recently had our first tent camping trip with the girls.  Brian and I have loved camping since we were kids and we couldn't wait to share all the fun that comes with camping with our girls.  We decided to try a one nighter first since it would be less intimidating, we also chose a camp ground that was relatively close to our house.  The campground that we chose was Manchester State Park in Port Orchard, WA.  It is a beautiful park with really nice sites and a great rocky beach for some fun exploring, more on that later.  We brought Kelti's bike and Ashlyn's scooter so they could ride them around which is a favorite activity of theirs.  It was really fun for Brian and I to see how much improvement they had have on them in just the few weeks that they have had them.  Ashlyn's bike wouldn't fit with everything else we packed...looks like a bike rack is in order for us.

 breakin the law!

Checking out the seaweed!

We took a drive into Port Orchard to explore the town and then decided to head on over to Bremerton where Brian lived for a short while in elementary school.  He was able to drive us to both houses that he lived in, it was fun to see where he lived and hear some of the stories from him growing up.

We roasted smores with cinnamon bun and coconut marshmallows, yummy!!  `Both girls got to stay up late, which I don't think they appreciated one bit!  Ashlyn was asking to go to bed...too much fun for one day I guess.

A little lesson on being safe around knives and sharp sticks.  Brian was a great teacher and the girls were listening with rapt attention!

Roasting cinnamon bun marshmallows on the new campfire sticks daddy made them :) 

love these two!

We all slept in our new tent, that just happens to be Coug colors! :)  I think the girls really liked the tent, minus there not being a nightlight...  Before we got any of our gear in the tent they were having a great time racing back and forth inside the tent.

Of course we forgot some key things that would have made the trip even better, one of which was a diaper for Kelti to sleep in at night, bad job on mommy's part. :/  We tried to help with this by having both girls go potty before we went to bed, but it was a no go.  So Kelti and Ashlyn had accidents during the night...not fun to clean up two peed children, change them and find a good place for them to sleep. Of course they peed at different times during the night so I got to wake up twice! Thank goodness I packed enough extra clothes even though we were only there for one night!

We had a yummy camp breakfast, is it just me or does food really seem to taste better when camping...something about it sure is special.

We went for one more bike ride down to the beach before packing up and we had a great time exploring.  We flipped over big rocks and found crabs, anemones and other sea creatures underneath.  All four of us had such a great time exploring the beach and seeing who could catch the biggest crab.  Ashlyn was fearless grabbing the crabs and other sea stuff!  Sadly I forgot to bring a camera to the beach exploring so no pics of all that cuteness.

Right as we were leaving Ashlyn commented that she wanted to stay forever, glad that camping was such a memorable experience for her and the rest of us as well!

Here is one really odd thing that we found on our trip....

A little birthday awesomeness for my littlest sister

My youngest sister just celebrated a birthday and I wanted to make her something special and I was trying to figure out something that she would actually use....hmm, what to do....Oh yes every girl loves jewelry! :)  I decided to spray paint some glass ware that I found at Goodwill and attach them to glass candle sticks so she could display her jewelry.  I LOVE the way they turned out and seriously wish I had found two of each so I could have them too!  I think she really liked them too, either that or she is a really good actress!

 Before yellow paint was added

 Okay so you can see that I did find two of this little beauty SCORE!!  One for sis and one for me!

 All painted up and beautiful!! I also added some orange lentils for the blue bowl to nest rings and such in...which is what I also did with my blue bowl! 

I also got her these pretty little earrings :)  Man and I a good sister or what ;)

63 Days of INSANITY!!!! DONE

I completed 63 days of INSANITY!  I am so happy that I decided to go on this insane journey and I am so pleased with my results.

While the workouts continued to be grueling through the last day I was happy to see improvement within myself.  I was by no means prefect at every move but I continued to do my best and get better each day.

Some measurable changes were within the fitness test.  During Insanity you complete a fitness test every 15 days or so, you end up doing it 5 times and keep track of your results each time.  I am going to share my first and last day results so you can see how much improvement I had from day 1 to day 63, I did improve a little every week, but I think that the two results will show you enough.  The fit test is a warm up with 8 workouts that you perform for a minute each, then you have a rest period to catch your breath, write down your reps and get back to it. The only workout that I didn't improve is the first one and the reason is that I went absolutely crazy the first time and wiped myself out (I had to take a huge pause break in the workout to catch my breath and continue, I therefore learned to do my best but not be crazy about it!:))

1. Switch kicks: start 150  end 139
2. power jacks start 38     end 55
3. power knees start 86    end 112
4. power jumps start 30    end 65
5. globe jumps  start 10    end 14
6. suicide jumps start 12   end 20
7. push-up jacks start 14  end 30
8. low plank oblique  start 44 end 72

I have noticed so many changes that I think are only noticeable to me, I can feel my muscles all over my body in everything that I do. I can also see them so much clearer than before, and I love it...I love knowing that I am stronger and in better shape and health.  Brian did comment on how awesome and muscled he thought my legs look as we were sitting around the fire. It is nice to hear that someone else can see a difference too!

I love running and that is pretty much all I was doing before, because frankly I was lazy and running comes SO ridiculously easy to me.  I will continue to run (which is what I did on our recent trip to the beach lots and lots of hills! I could really feel it in my quads :))  but I will also work in some other stuff to keep myself out of a rut.

I am going to continue with the Elite Nutrition that came with our purchase of insanity, I really enjoy the meals and eating clean so I am not going to mess with a good thing, I might do a little modifying and I am going to try and change it up a bit so I am not having the same meals over and over!

My workout plan now will be to complete the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 five days a week, kickboxing class 2 days a week and running 2 days a week.  So you may be thinking that is more than 7 days!  You are right.  I am planning to do doubles for the next month and have a day or two off to rest.  Especially since I just did the first day of Ripped in 30 this morning and while it did raise my heart and get a slight sweat going it just isn't enough of a workout for me right now.  After I finish this month I will then start INSANITY again!!!   So my next 3ish months are planned out.

I will continue to do weekly updates for those of you who are interested. I am really looking forward to doing INSANITY a second time to see how my body changes!

If you have any questions please let me know.  Oh, and sorry this is late I did finish on schedule, but I didn't have time to post before heading out of town so that is why this is a week overdue!

8 weeks of INSANITY

I am now through eight weeks of Insanity.  One week left, but since this is late that means in a few 3 days I will be finished!  I have also decided what I am going to once I am finished...check back next week to find out just what my plans are!

So the eighth week went well.  I stuck to all the workouts just like always, I did notice that I am significantly better at some moves than I was in previous weeks.  One example is side suicide jumps, these are hard ridiculously hard, but I am now able to do them with some accuracy! :)  

As for food, I did pretty good, but I think that I fell into a bit of a rut.  I am still eating from the elite nutrition book, but I have found the recipes that I like and I have been sticking to them...I think I need more variety in my diet.  I also have had a REALLY hard time upping my calorie intake.  For the past three weeks I was supposed to be consuming 250-300 more calories a day because of the increase in workouts...this has been so difficult for me, I am just not hungry enough to eat more food. This last week I am trying to make more of an effort, but it is sooo hard!

I did however lose another 1/2 pound!  

INSANITY! week 2 of month 2

With one more week complete we are looking at two remaining weeks of INSANITY!  We are at the point where we need to decide what we are going to do after we complete INSANITY!  We have a few ideas on what we will do, so more on those later.  This last week was good for the workouts, but I did not do great at following the elite nutrition.  My little brother was in town for a visit and we decided to take him all over Seattle and show him what a great city it is!  Needless to say this involved eating and drink lots of delicious food and drinks.  Also needless to say this stuff would not have been on our elite nutrition plan, especially the drinks... :)  So with a little straying in the food department over the weekend I am ready to get back on track this week!  

Oh, I almost forgot one more piece of news :)  I lost one more pound over the week.  I guess that just goes to show how hard work really does pay off!  

Ashlyn's last day of Preschool

So this is a little overdue, but I was having trouble getting everything working while out-of-town.

A few weeks ago Ashlyn finished her first year of preschool.  It was an amazing year and we loved the school where she went. We are hoping that she will be able to there next year as well.  My job situation along with Kelti's daycare has changed and I really want them at the same place...More on that later!

 Big smiles for the last day of school, field day with a bouncy house!  What fun!

 My big 4 year old!

 nice sunny day for their field day!

 Ashlyn and Mrs. Gopen

 Ashlyn and Mrs. DeMaris

Ashlyn and all her friends. 

I can't believe how much she grew during the year, so much changes from this day when I dropped her off for the first day of preschool!  I couldn't be prouder of my Ashlyn and all that she accomplished during her first year of preschool!  Love you Ash!!

INSANITY week 1 of month 2

We are now through week one of month 2!  

This was especially hard since we were out of town celebrating 8 years of married life!  A few of the struggles of the week were: 

completing the workout in the hotel room each day.  That means for me I waited for Brian to leave the room in the morning and then I left in the afternoon so Brian could do his.  There was absolutely no way for us to both do them at the same time even if we wanted to...which we didn't.  

Also food was an issue though not a big one.  I am really glad that our trip fell in the second month of the program because I know a lot more about the types of food I should be eating and what to avoid.  I thought it would be a lot harder to stick to eating somewhat healthy, but I think we did a great job.  One example is that over the years we have enjoyed lots of junk food while driving to a destination.  I really liked to munch on the giant box of milk duds and whoppers while driving, hot tamales too, oh who am I kidding I also eat sour gummy worms by the bagful, or at least used to! :) This trip we didn't have anything until we were almost to our destination.  I chose a dove dark chocolate bar that I decided to break into thirds.  I had one third of it during the last part of our drive and Brian had one sixth of it. The half bar that is left is still in my bag, UNFINISHED!!  I also enjoyed some delicious drinks on the trip and don't feel bad about them one bit! :)

One thing that I was worried about was gaining some weight back on the trip, I am happy to say that I didn't gain any weight during our week of indulgence. I think that shows that all the hard work is paying off.

While the trip was amazing I am happy to be home to workout in our own space that is comfortable and set up for us to complete each workout successfully!

I am looking forward to the changes that my body will be making during this MAX month even if I am not enjoying the workouts quite as much...they are longer and in some instances just ridiculous...pretty sure a couple of the moves are not really possible!

five weeks of INSANITY!!!

We finished the recovery week of INSANTIY!  Now onto the Max week.  I am not really looking forward to the max week, which is a lie; I am not looking forward to it at all. J The recovery week went really well.  While the workouts were not super vigorous they were still heart raisers and boy did we work up a sweat, it is amazing to me how much you can sweat just by holding a pose. 

I think that we are coming to the point where we are craving a little bit of bad for us food.  I went out with my coworkers to celebrate the end of the school year and after two glasses of wine I was ready to eat some Chinese food.  I tried to keep away from the temptation by not walking in the door, but once I got home with the girls Brian was also craving Chinese so off to get the food I went…Let me tell you it was good delicious and sooo worth it. 

At the end of the recovery week we headed off to Sun River to celebrate 8 wonderful years of marriage.  I completed my last workout of the week before we headed out! Yay!  So our vacation started off with a day off from a scheduled workout.  We did however go on a 6 mile kayaking trip which was really fun and I did try and do some vigorous paddling to get a nice arm workout in too!  Next week we start the Max Month and our first week will be done in the hotel so that will be an interesting adventure, tune in next week to see how we handle hotel room workouts and eating out for over a week.

Keeping up the INSANITY!!

INSANITY, month one done!

We finished the first month of INSANITY! :)  So happy that we have completed one whole month and in my opinion was not that hard to do.  There are definitely parts of the workouts that I really don't look forward to because of the intensity and overall hardness of them, but I just push through and do my best.  Again the food has been easier for me to adjust to, I really like eating clean and don't feel much desire to stray, but I know that if I do it is not the end of the world.

To date I have lost 5 lbs! So happy to see this unwanted weight drop off with hard work and clean eating.  Wish I had never had to take the pills that caused the weight gain, but at least things are moving in the right direction.

Starting today we are starting the Core, Balance and Recovery week, then next week we will begin month two.  I am a little scared to do month two since everything is MAX this or MAX that...weren't we already doing our max???  Oh boy, stay tuned to see how this recovery week and the MAX month goes!

Ocean Shores beach trip

A few weekends ago we had the opportunity to go to Ocean Shores with Brian's parents and his brother and his family.  We all stayed in a friend of the families lovely beach house and when I say beach house I mean right on the beach, gorgeous views throughout the day.  We had a fabulous time and made many memories to cherish.  We took our girls out to a family lunch, then to the Fun Center and they got to do all the little rides and we even rode on the bumper cars together.  After lunch we combed the beach (a favorite for our girls) and ended the outing with some ice cream.  Papa Dennis took all the grown-up kids and Ashlyn back to the fun center to ride on the go-carts.  So much fun, Ashlyn got to ride once with Mom on the race track and once with Dada on the wet track.  We all stopped for some more ice cream!  A first for Brian and I was finding whole sand dollars on the beach.  This is something that we have both looked for throughout our lives but just never came across one.  We ended up bringing home around 15 perfectly whole sand dollars! :) (I have them all cleaned up and just waiting to be used in some sort of summery beachy decorating) In the midst of all the beach fun we were able to get in our daily INSANITY workouts and eat pretty clean, thanks to planning and packing on my part.  We are looking forward to the other beach trips that we have planned throughout the summer!

Some snap shots from the weekend!

 Inside the shark at Sharky's

 Daddy and his girls taking a break from combing the beach

 Mommy and her girls

 Look what Kelti found!

 Ashlyn having fun playing some games back at the house

Almost everyone had a Columbia jacket, trying to get a pic of Kyan and Ashlyn in theirs but he wasn't cooperating :) 

 Brian out on the jetty, which was so beautiful and peaceful

 Deer, they were everywhere and not skittish at all

 Kelti on the mini Ferris Wheel

 getting ready to do bumper cars

 We even got a few super sunny days! :)

 Playing a game in the sand

 Almost getting blown away with the kite!

 cheese

 Yay for Go-Cart racing!  What fun!!!

 Wet track with Daddy

 Blue ice cream, yummy

 Family pic right before we left!

Grammy and Papa pic with the two girls!  

Thank you for such a lovely weekend!  Can't wait to do it again!  Love you!

Week 2 and 3 of Insanity!!

So Brian and I have finished weeks two and three of insanity.  I can for sure see changes in our fitness after three weeks and moving into week 4.  The hardest part of sicking to Insanity so far has been the weekend that we spent with Brian's family at the beach...lots of nummy, but not good for us stuff hanging around.   We did relatively well, all things considered. :)  I strayed a tiny bit having a few milk duds, whoppers and a few gin and tonics.  While I am really enjoying the elite nutrition and plan to keep eating clean forever, I am under no delusion that I will never have sweets or a drink!  Otherwise what is the point of living if you can enjoy things once in a while?  We did however stick to the workout plan each day!  Yay for us!  While the workouts are extremely grueling they are so worth it to me.  I love the feeling of being completely wiped out and seeing the improvements each workout!

Week three started with a fitness test which was a repeat of the fitness test that we completed the first day.  Since you keep track of how many reps you complete we were able to clearly see how much improvement we had and another huge improvement in my opinion is the fact that we both had to pause the fitness test dvd the first day, but neither of us paused on day 15!  Yay for improved fitness.

I can also see a difference in almost all areas of my body...muscles are more defined and I am feeling great! 24 days into a 63 day program!  Can't wait to see where we are on day 63!

INSANITY!

Brian recently bought the Insanity workout and nutrition program.  I was skeptical about deviating from my loved workout of running.  When it arrived I read through all the info and decided that I would like to try it with him.  :)  We first used the formula they provide to figure out how many calories we should be consuming while doing the workout.  I then chose which meals we would be eating during the first week, made a shopping list for the week based on the meals in the nutrition guide, and bought ONLY the items on the list.  


We are now into the second week of workouts and eating...the workouts are killer and the food is surprisingly good. I am proud to say that I have not really felt much of an urge to eat other foods, this may not sound like a huge deal to you, but let me tell you that I am the girl who can eat tons of candy without really even realizing it.  It used to be that I could consume all this candy without any weight gain (probably from all the running and my loathing of certain disgusting and fatty foods! :)) and while I knew it wouldn't last forever I wasn't really motivated to stop.  


Recently I decided to try and stop eating so much crap and eat more healthy balanced meals.  At the same time I was running 5-10 miles 5 days a week....no change in weight no matter what I did.  Three weeks ago
I found out that the migraine medication I was taking was the cause of some weight gain and keeping me from losing, I was not a happy camper.  I immediately stopped taking the evil pills and then proceeded to wait two weeks to call my dr.  (Can you tell that I am a procrastinator??)  I then waited to pick up the pills and start taking them, more procrastination.  Now I have only been taking them for two days so hopefully they will help with the chronic headaches and migraines, which returned with a vengeance this weekend, I guess I know when the other meds totally left my system.  The pharmacist assured me there would be NO gaining with these pills, YAY!!  


So after one week of eating right and workout to the Insanity program I have lost 2 lbs. I think that part of it is the EVIL pills leaving my system and the other is the intense workouts and eating so healthy.  


My goal is to try and post weekly updates on how it is going.  I will not be posting my before pictures...not pretty, but I will post an after pic and then and only then will I think about posting the befores...they really are not pretty...


Have you done Insanity or any of the other BeachBody programs?  What did you think?

My sweet Ashlyn turns 4!!

My sweet little girl turned four today.  It is so weird to have your child grow and change so much so fast.  I know every parent must feel this, but it is so surreal.  Ashlyn is an amazing little girl and we have so enjoyed watching her learn and grow into the amazing person she is.  I can't wait to see how she changes over the years!

Birth May 2008

 I am so in love with this little girl, it is amazing how much you can love someone!!!

Not even a week old and already our world as tilted to revolve around you in the best way possible!!!

1st Birthday May 2009

 You are such a character!  I love you babe! Your shirt says "It's Fun To Be One!"  and it sure was a fun year!

 You and your sweet friend Lila (see below for another pic of Lila and Ash! :))

 Such a sweet beautiful girl!

 I am not sure you quite knew what to do with this large cupcake in front of you, especially since there is a flaming candle on it

  Okay you decided the cake was awesome! Way to dig into it babe!

Ashlyn in the dress that my grandpa bought for my mom on her first birthday, every girl in the family has worn it for their first birthday pics.  So glad that my sweet girl was part of this tradition! :)

2nd Birthday May 2010

 Ashlyn sporting her new cute haircut! Such a sweet girl!!

Such a funny birthday moment!  Auntie Tracie said now that you have big girl panties you can get a boyfriend and this was the response from Ashlyn!

3rd Birthday May 2011

 Smiles for park time!

 Love this 3year old beauty!!

Love this pic and how excited Ash is for her butterfly cupcakes!

4th Birthday May 2012

 Such a big girl now that you are 4!

 Ashlyn and Grammie Pam ready to party

 Ashlyn and her Papa Bob

 Sarah and Ashlyn! They will go from preschool through high school together!

 The birthday girl and her mamma, love this girl so much

 Ashlyn and Soraya!  Such cuties!

Lila and Ash, friends since birth! 

I love this picture so much! Such a beauty!

 me and my big girl :)

 Daddy got her a tee-ball thingy, they have already been having a great time with it!

 Happy Birthday Sweetie

 Love this one!

Yummy pink lemonade cupcakes for her garden party!

 Daddy and the birthday girl! Getting ready to do the last birthday present!

 wondering what all this gear is for! She guessed a scooter....

 I think she likes it!

Yay!  A scooter! What a good guess Ash!

 Ashlyn is really such an amazing girl, there isn't much that she can't do.  

Ashlyn here are some of the things that have mastered by four.  

• Numbers up to 14 (you mix sixteen and fifteen, then you could go on for ever because you have the pattern of counting down)
• You are adding and subtracting single digit numbers
• letters (you have known them since 21 months old)
• almost all letter sounds
• You are starting to read a few words
• When we work together you can sounds out words and read them, you do seem to have a perfectionist attitude about this and get really frustrated when it doesn't come automatically
• I know you wish you could read everything already, you are measuring what people can do by if they are readers or non readers
• You can cut out shapes really well
• You are a master artist, staying in the lines and free drawing all sorts of things.  your people are amazing and you have drawn a helicopter that was so spot on I was shocked, you also drew daddy riding his bike and we thought that was pretty awesome too!
• You are a skilled linguist and put your skill to use throughout the day :)
• You love playing word games like opposites and rhyming
• You are a puzzle expert
• tee-ball, soccer, riding your tricycle and scooter...Took you about four minutes to become a scooter pro!  
• There are a million more things that you do so well and to be honest I think my perception is off since you do so many things so early.  I have to really pay attention to comments others make "like she can ____ already, Wow!" then I know this is not what other kiddos your age are doing.