Thankful Thursday: Music & Helplines

It's thankful Thursday time! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. Please take this time to share with us what you're thankful for as well. If you have a blog expressing your thankfulness, please share the link! Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful for my mom. This week she celebrated her birthday, and I could not be more thankful for the years she's been on this earth and the years yet to come. My mom is one of the most incredible people you could have the opportunity to know. She is a better wife, mother and friend than anyone I've ever met. The love, commitment and sacrifices she has always made for my dad, brother and me are unmatched. As an adult, I am privileged to not only call her mom, but friend. As a mother now myself, I have grown to respect her that much more.

I'm thankful for the ability to run. Last weekend I was able to put a lot of miles on my legs while running at the shore. I feel so blessed to be able to go out for a run, and especially blessed to be able to run with the ocean breeze at my back. It was such a great place to run: good people watching and beautiful homes to look at.

I'm thankful for music. I have been downloading new songs lately and loving it. It is pretty incredible how certain songs can really speak to you. Not to mention, runs would be really terrible if I didn't have music to listen to...I mean, who wants to listen to themselves super out of breath?! It just makes me more tired.

Ronnie's List:

I'm thankful for helplines...and just wish I would cave-in and use them sooner. I've been battling my gas grill for quite some time now and had all but given up on trying to get it to light. I've replaced parts, had other look at it and thought I was finally at a dead end. I was resigned to the fact that I was going to have to have a professional come out and look at it. Well, when I called to hire a professional, they first had me talk with someone from their helpline who walked me through some steps after I described the problem. Wallah!!! It works like new.

I'm thankful for used clothes stores. Baby and kids clothes are relatively cheap. Used baby and kids clothes are even cheaper! Mckenna and I recently went on a "shopping spree" and picked up some new threads for Mckenna. You should have seen her giving me a fashion show in the store. She looked like she was walking down a runway. Yikes.

I'm thankful for new filters. It had been quite some time (as in never) since I had replaced the filters in my nebulizer compressor. I finally ordered new filters and holy moly, it's like I have my old machine back. 

So, what are you thankful for today?

Quicker than expected...

One thing that's been pretty consistent in my adolescent and adult life is the ability to make up ground quickly in my exercise health, but just as quickly lose it if I table it for a while.

While being on our east coast trip, I did very minimal exercise. Yeah, I walked around quite a bit and rode bikes often, but rarely did I push myself to the level that I'm used to at home. Mandi and I managed to do one, yes one, crossfit style workout in the 10 days we were away and I put on my running shoes exactly one time. (And of course there is always a reason - I experienced my first UTI EVER on this trip within the first 3 days of us being away and it lasted about 5 days. With that said, I still didn't maximize all of the days that I wasn't peeing fire.)

My run actually felt a lot better than I expected it to considering I haven't run for distance in over 3 months. I get so much cardio from the group classes that we do, and cough up so many lungs, that running isn't really necessary. Well, on my trip I was inspired by my crazy wife, who ended up running like 25 miles in three days, to actually lace up the ol' sneakers and go for a run. Not knowing how it would feel, I tried not to let my mind wander about the impending pain that was to come upon me.

To my surprise, it really wasn't all that bad. Granted, I tried to run down hill as much as I could, and I'm sure the ocean breeze helped with my "freshness", but even my lungs passed the test much better than I was expecting. I ended up running about 3 miles, and if I didn't feel pressed for time, I think I could have eeked out another mile or so.

Anyway, I'm happy that I got something done on my vacation other than eating ice cream for dinner and sitting around on the beach, even if it was just 2 workouts. I think those two workouts set me up quite nicely for my return to our classes this week as I don't think I lost as much ground as I usually do the other times that I've taken off of exercise. Sure, the workouts have been tough, but they've been manageable.

It feels good to be back, and I'm looking forward to where I can take my exercise health from here!!

Back to Reality

Ronnie, Mckenna and I were blessed to spend time with family and friends on the east coast last week. It's a trip we had been looking forward to for months. Usually once a year we go to South Carolina or the Jersey shore with some dear family friends, and this year, we were blessed to be able to not just go to the shore, but go to their son's wedding. Since we were going to be on the east coast, we decided what better use of time than to get to spend time with my Grandpa and head to the shore for a little vacation.

We hit up Lancaster, PA to see my Grandpa. Mckenna had never met my grandpa, her great grandpa, and what a sweet experience for both of them. Mckenna warmed up to her "Pa" very quickly and enjoyed every moment she spent with him. We rented a house to stay in (with my parents who were also there), so we brought my grandpa over each day to just hang out for the day. We all so enjoyed time together. My grandpa is the kind of man that light's up a room with his whit, stories and jokes. Anyone who interacts with him even just for a moment leaves feeling happy. It's an incredible character trait I would love to learn from.

After Lancaster we headed to Wilmington, DE for the day for the wedding. It was a great wedding. The happy couple planned an incredible day, one that I'm sure they'll look back on fondly, forever. It was a kid-free wedding, so Ronnie hung with Mckenna and found all sorts of adventures, while I went to the wedding. Their daddy date was complete with a figure skating competition they stumbled upon, ice cream for dinner, and snuggling in bed because for some reason Mckenna was less than excited about sleeping in her pack n play in the bathroom...gee I can't imagine why!

After the wedding we headed to Avalon for a little relaxation and even got to tag on a trip to Rohobeth to meet some new friends (well new to us...they were friends of my parents' and family friends). We had such an incredible time and are so blessed to have gotten to spend the day with them. At the shore Mckenna got to spend time on the beach, go for tons of walks and enjoy massive amounts of ice cream. She dug it...and so did her momma.

We were all sad to see the trip come to the end. We had such an incredible time with family and old and new friends. But we got out of there before we got too spoiled, and we are excited to settle back into the normal daily grind...I may just day dream about the trip for 50% of the day the next few days.