Weekend Snapshots | Jellystone Park

Hello everyone and welcome to the 4^th week of school! Hallelujah we made it! I know I’ve been a little MIA but the beginning of school is always a rough time for me at work, to add on to it we’ve had family member in the hospital and time has been scarce. Thankfully we’ve made it through, my family is at home recovering and the roughest time of year is settling down – YAY!

So of course we should totally go camping right? I know, maybe not the best time, but we did it anyway! Actually we had booked this little trip back in June but it was rained out and moved to this past weekend. So we packed up and headed out and let me tell you it was a welcomed chaos, to completely detach and worry about packing, food, supplies, and clothes and camping gear, was a total de-stressor!

We didn’t head far just an hour or so away to Waller, TX to Jellystone Park, the perfect place to go if #1 you don’t like camping and #2 if you have kids (or you’re a big kid yourself!). Why is it the perfect place to go camping if you don’t like camping? You can rent a cabin! A cabin with a bathroom, bed, kitchen, couch and a TV! See easy-peasy, we decided to use our tent so we booked a tent camping spot, minus some of the luxuries of the cabin the “tent camping” includes water, electrical outlet, one picnic table and a fire ring. Bathrooms and Showers are not far away and super clean, believe me I have been camping all my life and I’ve seen some bathrooms and showers that make you want to pee outside and you feel perfectly fine being stinky so this is a major plus!

At Jellystone there is something for your kids to do all day long, they have the swimming pool area, with kid’s slides and they have a few grown up slides too, they have a lazy river and a splash pad. Out of the water they have miniature golf, a playground, human fooseball, giant tetherball, a craft center and a stocked lake for fishing. The park organizes something to do all day, like free craft time and a train ride twice a day. You can take the kids to meet Yogi Bear (although Hailey really didn’t know who he was!!) and they throw in things like a Foam Party and a Fire Truck that comes out to spray the kids down! Really you will not be bored, they also plan events all year round for Halloween, Christmas, Easter and even Mardi Gras! 

We ended up using our trip to celebrate my little bears best friend's birthday and it turned out to be awesome! Just before the trip I made some shirts for the girls to celebrate their "wild" side and they had a blast. Even my 19 year old was able to have a good time, he even ended up have a little fishing lesson with the girls and they all did so great. Hailey was able to cast her line several times but most of all she was able to bond with her big brother. This crazy weekend was just what we all needed after some very stressful weeks in the real world. Little Bear says her favorite part of the trip was spending time with her fiends and family, sound like a girl after my own heart.

Finally being able to sit down and re-cap my Weekend Snapshots feels super good, remember to check out the other ladies at 3twentysix & The Reinvention of Jessica to see what they were up to this weekend! 

Yummy Breakfast! Eggs, bacon and pancakes! 

Yogi who?

Besties having fun! 

Human Foosball! 

Fun in the Sun

My little bear fishing! 

The girls just hanging out :)

My whole world...

The much needed group selfie!

A great feeling of accomplishment when you get the tent to fit perfectly back in its bag! 

The Family Fitness Plan

If you have followed me in the past you know that I started Running in Faith, to journal my running, fitness and weight loss journey. It was a great ride for about three years and then something happened. Through my love for running has not faded, the love for spending my most of my free time training has. I realized as I attempted to train for a full marathon that I did not want to spend every free moment and sometimes not so free moments away from my family. I found myself stressing to keep up with one thing and longing to be a part of another – so I threw in the towel and I fell back on just running the half marathon. I walked away from the 2016 Aramco Houston Half Marathon with a different mindset.

For the past few months I’ve back off from the running schedule and I’ve spent time doing other things I love. DIY projects, cooking, baking, family and traveling near and far have consumed my weekends. I’ve loved it, my waist line not so much! In January I mentioned to a friend that I was afraid that backing off running (my weight loss hero) that I would gain back the pounds and I was right! So what to do?!

Thankfully my church started up a series called #NotMyOwn based on the following scripture:

¹⁹ “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” -1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)

The series, although my pastor is encouraging us to be more active, is not solely about working out. More so it focuses on being a healthier person inside and out, yes spiritually but also eating better and knowing your body and its needs. Going to the doctor and listening to what you doctor advises, do you have high cholesterol? High sugar? Blood pressure? How is your mental health? Do we chug along and ignore those flashing lights and subtle hints that your body gives you when changes need to be made?

The Family Plan: Along with this series we are signing up to do a 5K in May the 12^th Annual Pear Run and we have started to go out every night for a walk/run as a family. During our evening outing the Little Bear rides her bike as we try to keep up with her – hence the running.  I want to check pace and distance all the time!! Hey we went 1.75 miles! We were a whole minute faster tonight that we were last night!! Truth is - no one cares. We are just out there reaping the healthy benefits of being active together as a family every night. My hubby is cutting back on junk food, the Bear is learning how to ride her bike, the fur babies are loving every walk and I get to cook on the lighter side helping me stay on track.  Not to mention the connection that we are making with each other as father and daughter and as husband and wife, I’d call that a healthy choice too.

Daily walk/run training plan & scripture @ New Hope FB

I’ll keep you posted as the Family Fitness Plan moves on, yes I am hoping for weight loss but it is so much more than that. I am hoping for a lifestyle that sticks around for the long run, for Little Bear, for my hubs, for myself and for my family.  

New Beginnings - Part One

This is what happens when I don’t post in a really really really long time – you get a two part post! HA!

This is what a silly little Pre-K Grad looks like!

So much going on lately my mind has been in over drive and my emotions have been scattered but like many say “there is a clam after the storm” My “storm” isn’t over but this is a good storm, this is a- I could sit outside on my porch on hot summer day and watch the clouds roll in, feel the breeze pick up and wait for rain to start as the sky lights up with that deep in the clouds lightning show kinda storm.

I have a 5yr old little girl finally moving on from daycare to elementary school to start kindergarten, just in time to have my 18yr old boy graduate from high school. Can you say double gulp? Can you say emotional?

If you know me personally you might have guessed by now that I do not very often show my emotions outwardly believe it or not I can very much be an introvert in many many ways – this gets confused with being tough all.the.time which might also hold some truth to it except when my babies are concerned.

Whether you like the little ones having an all-out “Graduation” or not, the simple truth is that all I care about is that she is excited (right now) about going to her big girl school. The ceremony was cute and the memories are awesome. The kids in Hailey’s class have for the most part been with her since she was 1 ½ and they are so close and adorable together. They have been in the same daycare, in the same classrooms, down the same hall of this little building for 4 years. In August she will be going to an elementary school that swallows up her little daycare in one gulp.  

My whole world right here... 

Hailey Bear has come a long way… in August of 2011 I enrolled Hailey Bear into Kids R Kids and I swear for a whole month she cried every.day. I got to the point where I told my husband that I was going to quit my new job I couldn’t handle it. Every day I picked up Hailey, as soon as she saw me she burst into tears, not a "I’m so happy to see you tears", no, they were little miserable tears and pudgy hands reaching up to me – her  little tiny self, burying she face into my chest day after day.  The following week I told myself if it didn’t change I would quit (and I really would have) and then somehow one day that week I came to pick her up and she smiled. A little "Hi I was getting worried there for a second kinda smile" BUT it was a smile. To this day I pick up my little bear and she squeals Mommy! And runs full speed at me and I catch her in my arms. Yes this happens every.day. All I can think about is how one day she will ask me not to hug her or kiss her in front of her friends - my heart will ache. 

Class of 2015

This Saturday Chris will walk across a stage I’ve never seen myself. A stage that has been part of a goal for years… oh about 18 years to be on point. I am overwhelmingly proud of him, if you know my Christian you know he is a good kid, he has a good heart, he loves deeply and has matured in this ah-inspiring way that draws people to him to find comfort and acceptance.  He is not just a good kid, he is an amazing kid, and he is my kid.  
Can you hear the thunder? 

The Bandwagon

I have been on the brink of posting this blog a few times in the past couple of weeks. I’ve deleted it revised it and started from scratch. Mostly because it’s a controversial topic, that has been on my mind lately. I was going to title this one “Mission at Hand” or even “Forward Motion” but even as I am typing this I am not sure what I want to title it.

As I sit here right now I just finished nibbling on a piece of chocolate, I am about to eat my grapefruit and I just refilled my water cup. All of this sums me up in a nutshell. If you know me you understand right off the back…

Two years ago I was on medication for being a border lined Diabetic, when I started the mission to change that, I stopped drinking sugary drinks, actually I only drink water now. Occasionally I might have a coke- as in I’ve had one coke so far this year. The grapefruit it’s my breakfast these days, as I’ve started to “watch” my calorie intake because I am on the mission to lose a few more lbs. (I’ll cover more on that later) and my little piece of chocolate because I can’t say no to chocolate. :) There is something in my being that is just enamored with chocolate it runs in my family and if you had any sense you would never say no to a good piece of chocolate, real thick frothy hot chocolate on a cold day, a good piece of chocolate cake or an amazing chocolate chip cookie. I know what you are thinking; the chocolate just threw a wrench in the whole healthy thing. To me it didn't, it’s just part of my daily struggle and some days it’s a walk in the park others the struggle is real and other days when the clean eating and healthy wagon gets in the cross roads with really good food that was baked or fried and makes you lick your fingers… I’ll push you off the wagon right along with me.

I'd have to think that chocolate still taste better.

About a year ago I was having a conversation with a beautiful thin good looking woman and somehow the word “brownie” was mentioned and she said “oh brownie…I haven’t had one of those in like five years”. I walked away a bit shocked. I went to my best friend’s house that night and I said “why would anyone ever do that to themselves? And my bestie answered “Girl, I don’t know – that’s just crazy!”

Alllllllll of this because of blogs or articles or even meme’s that are fighting the “being fat is greatness” or “being skinny is the bomb.com” I hate seeing both of these and even more I dislike people getting behind one bandwagon or the other like it’s a blanket for every fat person or every thin person.  Every person out there is different - NOT one of us has the same health issues, self-esteem, emotions of anxiety, confidence, etc...  – Not all of us love our selves like we should.  

I feel like I have always loved my self even at my heaviest – I may not have been happy with my self at my heaviest but I loved my self, none the less. Does that make sense? This is why at my heaviest when I looked at the picture that made my jaw drop and something click – A picture that we took on our trip to Angle Fire New Mexico where my size 16 (almost size 18) self was bundled up in layers of warm clothes and jackets smiling alongside my friends and I didn’t recognized who that was staring back at me… the inside me didn’t match the outside me.

I am happy right now being a size 10(ish), I have found a happy place running and exercising, the friends that surround me right now and my family are great and encouraging. I am in love with something else now too (other than chocolate) my body. I am strong! I can run! I can do stuff I never thought I could do! I am training to do a pull up right now - don’t laugh! I just happen to have most of my weight on my bottom half and it makes for a complicated pull-up!! BUT I want to do more!! Here are two bucket list items for you – I want to go rock climbing and I want to go paddle boarding.  Have you ever done either of those?? Teach me!

Where was I going with this… if being overweight is standing in your way from being, happy, healthy and able – well don’t stand behind the “fat is awesome” front runner. Is being skinny causing you to be unhealthy (eating disorders), obsessive and unhappy – get out of that line too! Find your happy place!! One blogger wrote “Happiness does not require thinness. Fatness does not presume sadness.” But what does it do for you?

So why do I want to lose a few more lbs, because I want to. Really because I’d like to run a marathon at least one in my “Running in Faith” life time and after running the half back in January I know for certain that I need to lose a few more pounds – it will not be etched in stone that when I lose that weight, that it won’t find its way back (LOL) but I know I’ll run a better and stronger marathon by doing this. I am okay with that. I am a girl, I still look in the mirror and don’t like the lumps and bulge I see sometimes but you know what I’m okay with that too. As a girl I am prone to seeing imperfections in myself all the time but I refuse to obsess over them and by God I will not let that keep me from eating a brownie!! Especially the cheese cake brownie one of my co-workers shared with me yesterday.