NYE!!

Today I started off bright and early with a workout with Manda, Adam and Hey Hey at the gym. I got 5 miles in on the bike and 40 mins plus in on the circuit machines. I am loving the weight training so far! I am hoping once I get back to work that I can keep it up.

The rest of the day I have been updating things on my laptop. Hey Hey suggested that I get Google Chrome and Live Writer. Doing such easy tasks takes me forever to figure out usually but it was quite simple to do. I am using Live Writer now and I can not wait to actually have some pictures to arrange and play around with on here.

Bri and I are going to his friends house tonight for the usual NYE gathering. I am going to attempt to throw together a Crab Dip to take. It is already 3:30 and I am all wrapped up in a blanket I am literally going to have to throw it together since I still have to go to the store. But plus side I know what I am taking tonight!!

Yesterday Bri and I drove to NY to go bowling with my niece and nephew. It was a blast I will have a recap up tomorrow of how I got my bum kicked by a 3 year old!!

 

Happy New Years EVE!

Workout week!!

This week has felt great walk/jog wise! Last week I was still walking daily. This week I was able to start jogging a little bit. Today I did 4:2 with walk:jog. IT FELT AMAZING! I wish we had a camera to capture the smile on my face when I got to jog! Talk about paying attention to the clock too much too. I was counting down from 30secs until I got to jog again!! I did 30mins for a total of 3.2miles :) YIPPEEE!!

Tomorrow I am hoping to go to the gym and just do a little cardio with some machines. New muscles hurt from using the machines the other day. So...I need to keep using them!


 source
QOTD: When you are sore the next day does that just motivate you to work harder on those muscles?

Favs of xmas and first time running!

I made it back to PA yesterday around 3:30 after spending Thursday-Sunday AM with my family in NY. Xmas was a blast with my niece and nephew.

Henry and Evie got mini Mickey and Minnie Mouses' from B and I. The reaction was priceless!!

 Neither of them has been to Disney and REALLY want to go. Every time they see a picture of Disney they say Aunt SB has been there! (Lucky for me we still had points to use up from our trip so all their gift for Bday and xmas were free!!)

Best gift without a doubt for Henry was his leaf blower!

I got some great gifts as well. I now will be receiving Women's Running Mag., I got a new Road ID slim youth size which fits great, iTunes card, and awesome stocking holders that I flipped into a Medals Holder!!! (pic to come once it gets into is final home)

Thanks everyone for my great gifts and a wonderful holiday. Now it is time to relax and focus on getting into my workouts.

I started my walk:jog workouts today with 5min walk 1min jog repeat 5xs. It felt great!! I got in a total of a 5k with my warm up and cool down!! Tomorrow I am headed to the gym with Hey Hey and Manda to get some more sweating in!!

QOTD: What were your fav gifts this year?

Brownie balls and trains!!

It has been a busy day today. The kids are out cold now. Here are pictures of us making brownie balls (similar to cake balls) and going to see the trains with a light show.

Almost there...

I have exactly half an hour until all the kids leave the buiding then we have a faculty luncheon. I want to be on the road by 1:30-2pm so I am not driving to NY in the dark at all. Secret Santa ended without a hitch! My last few hints were given to me from followers. I used the height hint where I was over 5feet and under 6feet. Which eliminated only 1 person! Then I said my first job was 15yrs ago and I was a camp counselor! I threw her off completely!! She guessed a guy like I thought. After she took her guess someone stood up and gave her another hint I had prepared. It said that I was closer than she thinks! I was sitting right next to her...:) I didn't even stand up to reveal myself I just busted out laughing and handed her her gift! I LOVED every minuted of this and can not wait for the Secret Sweetheart one on Valentines Day that Kinder team is organizing!

Here are some of my treats I got today form my secret santa who ended up being another reading teacher but I figured it out on Tuesday!

Oh I can not wait to spend tomorrow with my niece and nephew. My mom and I plan on taking them to see some trains and I want to also do some cake or cookie balls with them.

I will be  back after my travels on Xmas day to spend time with "My other family!!" I will be back on here eventually with photos of my adventures!

Happy Holidays everyone;)

Secret Santa

I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting a chance to sneak around and try with all my heart not give myself away. This year instead of a boring boring boring prank gift thing at the school dinner we decided to do secret santa. I just delivered my first gift and I am waiting to see what my person says! Want to know how I will know??!! Well lucky me I picked one of the ladies that works in Title I with me! She sits at the table right next to me!! So I had to be creative with how I delivered the gift! So it is just sitting in the doorway at the moment. I get here way before everyone else so I have to pretend I didn't see it. I also had to type a card because she knows my hand writing.

So today I got her a lovely snowman ceramic candle holder with a nasty cinnamon candle inside. Hopefully she likes the holder at least. I did that is why I got it for her. I also put in there two ornaments. I am starting small today because I have awesome gifts for her for the rest of the week. She put on her sheet that she wanted cheese steaks, salt and beer. Well...tomorrow she is getting 5 different kinds of chips, the next day she is getting a 6 pack of Stewarts Root beer with a huge beer mug, and the last day she is getting a gift card to her favorite sub shop!

I am also putting little hints in every card. Today I put "I get here before you do!" HA she is a paraprofessional and doesn't have to be here until 8am so that only tells her it is a teacher!!

Now I need to think of a hint for tomorrow! Any ideas??? Hair color height gender? Or is it too soon for that?

Back in it!!

Yes I am finally able to do high impact exercise!! The dr said that he could see the healing and it looked great. So I was handed a training plan to follow. Let's just say it looked nothing like run less run faster plan. I am to do walking first and build up from 8 plus 2 mins a day until I reach 30 mins. Then start walk jog then lead into jogging!! I began tonight with my walking. My poor treadmill was so dusty I gave it a wonderful cleaning! Ziva also joined me on my walk tonight. She actually walked on the treadmill and I didn't take ANY pictures! Next time.

I also wrapped all our gifts last night (don't mind the laundry by the tree I was sleeping so bri put it there instead in the room)

Do have your gifts wrapped yet??

Reality Shows

I would like to list the top 5 reality shows I would like to go and see or the stars I would like to meet.

5. Top Gear: First off yes I love these guys. I have no clue what they are saying half the time but they are hilarious. I don't know a thing about cars but the things they do with or to cars is crazy. I would like to meet all three of those guys and say.....ummm yea your nuts!

4. Pawn Stars: I really wish I owned something rare and amazing so I could see their faces. I would not go into a bidding war with the old man because he starts to go backwards instead towards your bid.

3.Storage Wars: I don't know why but this show has me hooked! All the "characters" on the show are nuts and I have no clue what they see in any of those storage lockers prior to them winning it. So based on that I would like to go and be at one of the storage lockers they bid on so I see it too!!

2.Sing Off: No reason need here! They all are amazing and I love music, I was in a group in high school like this, I MISS IT! So I would go and just love to hear the groups live!

1. Biggest Loser: Also do I really need to explain, Dolvett and Bob? Awesome awesome awesome! I want to train with both of them and please bring Jillian with you! I do not need the other two from last season or Anna.

What reality show would you want to see or go to?

Frostbite Penguin Walk Race recap

On Sunday we did a race I ALWAYS LOVE to run. It is the Frostbite 5mile. It is an awesome out and back where the out is a long gradual uphill. Last year I killed it in the lovely cold rain. I got second women overall last year (but the cold rain scared all the fast runners away!).

This year there was a huge turn out and lots of speedy women. Robyn, Manda, Dud, Mister and I all came out to enjoy the wonderful 28 degree sunny day. The race started at 1pm at the Fire Hall. Manda, Robyn and Dud all did the 5mile run. Mister and I did the 5k walk since I am not cleared to do ANYTHING yet! I was getting really really upset as I saw more ladies that I wanted to race against and see where I was compared to them. I held back tears at one point so no one saw (but they know now). I told Mister we were going to win the walk!!! (my racewalk days were coming back though I said I was not going to get into form because I knew the course and it was tricky to do form on some of the hills up and down).

I also wanted to stick with Mister and enjoy the race but as soon as the person yell GO...I just couldn't hold back. At the beginning I stuck to a normal walk but there were 3 ladies ahead of me...and I am saying right at the start line and that bothered me! So I got moving to pass them. Ok so this lady...she made me mad...I caught up to her and what does she do...crosses the whole road and gets directly in front of me! HOW RUDE! So I go all the way across the road to pass her...she then follows me and gets right on my shoulder! ARE YOU SERIOUS! A crazy walker lady! I just wanted to be first women walker not crazy women walker! Well she pissed me off so I pulled out the old racewalking form and blew passed her. I kept form except on for the crazy gravel downhill for the whole rest of the 5k. I left Mister behind (sorry Mister but she made me so mad). I ended up getting first women overall and my time was 34:57 (awesome 10:57 pace!)

For the 3 race series Manda got third!! Robyn got third in her age group today too and Mister placed in his age group for the walk! Dud is in the crazy 60 age group and it is impossible to place in that! Though I listened to the 30-39 age group and I don't know if I will ever place in that next year!!

QOTD: Have you ever had someone cut you off in a race? Do you see crazy people going all out in the walk at your races?? (yea that would be me!!)

Polar express ride

Today we all took Ella and aunt evie on the local Polar express ride.
These are the characters that we saw on our ride.

Tid Bits....WARNING!!

STOP HERE IF YOU DO NOT LIKE DEAD DEER PICTURES!!!











1. I have given a lot of space to the post today so if you really did not want to see what pops up you did not have to see it. If it was still not enough pace I do apologize but I am WAY to excited to not share!

Ok so yes....I GOT A DEER!!(Side note....I have not worked out in 2 weeks to due trying to get a deer!!) Last night after school I busted home and got up in the stand by 3:30. By 4:30 I still had seen NOTHING! I text Bri, who could see me from the diningroom window, that I was bummed. Then I look up from my phone and I hear deer. I get into position but I can only barely see their tails because it is so thick of brush.

I text again that I saw some...look up again and a doe is walking by! I try again, but can't get it into my scope...it is getting real dark at this point and afer a certain distance I can't see anything.

I am usually down and inside by now but I was intrigued now that there was deer moving. SO I wait longer!

minutes later and much much darker....a group of 5 doe (including fawns) walk up. They are even closer to me! That means I can see them in my scope!! I look at each one carefully and pick the best one (SHE IS HUGE!!). Downside a fawn is right beside her.....so waiting game begins when each minute means more darkness!

Finally.....after coaching the deer to take just 2 steps I SHOOOOOOOT!! I was shaking so bad afterwards I could not text Bri at all!

I only saw one deer run and I made sure I watched the direction and I swear I heard her fall!!

I look around and all the other deer were still standing infront of me!! So Bri had to wait even more time to walk out. I did not shoot until 4:45ish Bri and I starting looking after 5pm with headlamps. It did not take more than 5mins to find her! I will never forget what Bri said "Holy Crap she is huge!!"    YEA TO ME!!!

Here she is all 175 pounds....love my camo fleece and pink camo headband???

I have one battle wound to my face....I got attacked by a briar looking for her...the thick stuff!


My hunting season is almost over...and I can't stop smiling bc this is my first success and my first shot!

A 5yr old girls Bday

So....how pink and princessy can you get?? Well we tried and had elements I am sure sweet sixteen parties have been bigger.

My niece had her bday on Saturday (actual birthday is Friday!!) and I drove up to NY late Sat. morning for it.  Note to you all: I was up at 5am to hunt for a few hours...at 9am I walked back inside frozen to sleep a little more. By 11am I was on the road to NY. Around 1:15 I was getting frantic phone calls to run errands for the party. I got to the party 10mins prior to the start. I was BEAT! It was great and the kids were all so cute (well minus the one who stuck her hand all over the cake before my sister got pictures...thankfully blogger that I am I have one!).

I can not believe how fast Evie has grown up!

 Make your own crown table.

 Cake my sisters made

 The BEST cookies ever that we order for every party!!!! There were dresses, high heels, crowns, and castles

 My cousin Griffin making is prince crown! LOTS of glitter....I could not stay too close to the glitter!

 Henry enjoys princess stamps too!

 CAKE!!!

The next day we went to JCP to get family pictures done. Two hours later and 2 session (had to retake some) we hit up lunch. This is Henry's GRILLLL CHEEEEESE face!

 Evie and my sister and I hit up Claire's and had a blast trying on all types of hats and head bands. I even have her hooked on Active bands. She now owns 4 of her own!

I made it home...barely. I had a severe migraine all day and tried everything to get it to subside so I could drive. I forgot sunglasses so I made a stop at a dollar general to get some. I had chocolate, Excedrin, soda....nothing worked.

I made it home made dinner (with a few tears) then turned off the lights and crashed on the couch.

PHEW.....crazy weekend but it was so nice to spend that time with the kids since I missed Henry' bday bc of the seizure.


QOTD: Kids bday parties......go big or stay small? DO you go all out?

Friday!!!

We made it to friday and I am not frozen yet! The cold has made it to PA. I came in from hunting last night with white toes.

I have completed 3 days of the Holiday shred and I am happily sore EVERYWHERE! Who knew that pushups made your entire bra line painful to touch!! :) Loving it!




Hop on over to the Fitness Friday Blog Hop

Holiday long weekend is over

Well it has been a great long weekend and it came to an end with my first Holiday Shred workout. I LOVED it. I only had to adjust the hops to something lower impact on my leg. ONLY 2 MORE WEEKS UNTIL MY CHECK UP!!

Today was opening day for the hunting season in PA. Did you know that schools get that day off?? Yup there aren't enough subs in the state to cover all the teachers (and kids) that are absent this day! I happily went out to try to bring home a buck. It was a lovely 50+ degrees out, which is rare, and sat is our double seat tree stand.

Bri already got his buck during archery so he couldn't bring his gun out. So he was happy with his iPhone all day. ( he is camera shy too) Well the outcome....a 6pt snuck his way around us in that really thick stuff in the back of the pic. All we saw was his antlers, we also saw 2 spikes (not legal) one of which was mostly white on its back REALLY COOL! Our crazy neighbor who hates hunters walked the property line twice today and kicked down a doe as well. But we can't shoot doe until next weekend. SO long story short I came home empty handed. No big surprise I have yet to get anything in 4 years!

So to wrap it all up here is the youngest hunter in the family!

*she only wears this outfit inside while we are all outside...it was good luck because her daddy got an 8pt!!!

Giveaways to check out

Go check out Stefanie's Gu giveaway!!

Also, check out Heather's Gymboss Interval Timer giveaway!!

Question answered

Last week I had asked everyone what you did to not get bored while on the elliptical. I got some great responses!

I have been going to the gym on Wednesdays so hopefully I can try some of these ideas out tomorrow.

I also emailed Janae to see her opinion or what she does to get amazing miles done on the elliptical.

"HEY SARAH!! Thanks for your email and I completely understand why you got SO bored on the elliptical.  I am so so sorry bout your stress fracture and feel your pain!  The ellipticals at my gym all have tv's with a million channels on them and so it makes it really fun to catch up on tv.  I also have an iPad and get really into the books I am reading and forget I am even working out.  I also love going with my sis or a friend because we just end up talking the whole time.  New playlists also help and incorporating intervals during the chorus of the songs make time fly by.  Hope this helps.  Have an amazing day and HEAL soon so that you can get back out there running!"

Thanks,
Janae Jacobs
www.hungryrunnergirl.com

Sadly our ellipticals do not have TV's so I watch what ever the DUDES have on at the time. I also do not have an ipad. I do have an iphone so I might try to read something on that small screen. I do have Hey Hey there with me and we laughed and pushed eachother the whole time.

Only a few more weeks then I can SLOWLY start back into running again!!

5 days of blogs in one

Let's just say it has been CRAZY the last week!! I have gotten in 2 workouts in a week. I did the elliptical with Hey Hey and then roller bladed with the the Family on their Friday night run. Now for all the millions of things I have been up to via pictures.


Friday night we took Ella to the Xmas parade in town and she loved it! Here she is with Bri.

 Watching the floats with Hey Hey and waiting for candy!!

 Saturday I headed home to my parents for a family reunion. My cousin is back in the states from Germany. He is finally going to be based in the US in the Air Force after 12 years. It took 2.3 seconds before I found the newest cousin to the family. Meet Samantha!!! Love the hair!!!

 Last night I tried a new treat that I saw on Livin' the Dream in Bean Town. Take 5 bars for conferences.

I had to run out the door with the last ten at the end of the night. They were a big hit!!

So night one of conferences done. One more 7-7pm day to go then break begins!!


QOTD: Do you have family reunions??

Tid Bits

First of sorry for my absence but this leads into my first thing of the day.

1. I got sick out of no where this week. All day Monday I was hungry but couldn't eat. I got worried that I ate too many gummy frogs the night before and this was payback from my stomach. Well I made it home and curled up on the couch. My phone went off so I started searching house for it and that did it...too much movement and I had to RUN to the bathroom. The rest of the night I didn't get sick but my muscles were so sore. I had to sleep in a weird position on the couch in order to get any sleep, which wasn't much. I got up and tried to get ready for school because I HAD TO!! I had IMPORTANT meetings all morning and the GOTR 5k that afternoon. Long story short I went to the meetings came home slept 3 hours went back to school for the 5k came home slept more! All better now!! :)

2. I was caught on camera by the newspaper at the GOTR 5k.....I look like crap because I had been in bed all afternoon and was still sick!!! I am trying to find the article and then I will post the awful pic!

3. Last night Hey Hey and I went to the YMCA to do the stupidest exercise ever created. Yup elliptical. I hate it...how does HGR do it for 10miles???? (We will see I am asking her!)

I was not happy and I was SOOOO tired!

4. My cat will not allow me to dry clothes....it is just a new play house for her!

QOTD: What do you do to keep occupied while on the elliptical?

First of 2 GOTR recaps

Once again I stink at taking pictures so all I have are words to get me through it.

Anywho prior to working at the fall festival I joined Manda, Hey Hey, Robyn and cutie Ella for the Friday fun run. What did I do you ask? I jumped on Manda's bike and edal a few feet ahead of them so I didn't clip anyones ankles. It was good to get some air and spend time with the girls.

I then headed to the Fall Festival for the cake walk. Which according to most of the comments you all left it is well known but I am also not the only one out there who hadn't heard of it before. We had a lot of cakes but kids were always at our spot so we kept playing quickly. Which meant by 6pm (in an hour) we ran out of cakes. Woohoo to getting out of there an hour early!!

_________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday morning I was up and out of the house early for another race!! Yea I just can't stay away even when I can't run them. This one was an hour away and for a Girls on the Run group. I took Manda and Robyn with me. I was trying to see how they put together their 5k so when I get mine around in spring I have some things that worked for others and things that needed tweeked.

I was so glad to see that one of my GOTR girlies came to run the race too!! I hopped into my roller blades and got on the WAY back of the start line. I promised the race coordinator that at the start I would stay out of all the runners and slowly catch up to my girl. Manda was great and stay with my GOTR girl until I caught up and then took off to run her own race. Sara is my GOTR and she did amazing!!! She took her first walk break around mile 1. It was just a slow gradual hill for that first mile and she couldn't tell but I could being on the roller blades. We turned a corner and she was ready to run again when we were faced by a nasty hill. I quietly worked my GLUTES up the hill and so did Sara. I kept motivating her and getting her to talk to me so she wasn't holding her breath at all. You know she is only in 3rd grade!! We ran about halfway up the hill when I told her that we most likely will have a nice down hill after this so it was ok to walk on the uphill. She gladly took that up. So we did a post to post run. She would pick a spot to run to and then walk for about 30secs. Then she would start up again. We was doing about 3mins run 30sec walk. The hills kept getting harder and harder but she didn't once get negative. I kept pointing out to her that we were surronded by 75 other girls out here for the first time too and that they were all in the same boat just trying to get to that finish line.

On that last hill about 2.7miles in I told her to make her laugh...
ME "Sara you know what is killing me right now? "
Sara "uh no" barely got that answers as the hill was HARD
ME" MY BUTT GIRL!! Roller blading is no joke!!
Sara.....OHHHHHH

Before she knew it we were .1 from the finish and Manda and Robyn came back to get us. I jumped off the course at that point. I had to take my roller blades off since the finish was on a college track. Manda and Robyn were AWESOME and took her to the finish. I um.....hobbled across the wet track in socks to see her cross the line. 35:20 something (I forgot to stop my watch) was her final time!!! She was awesome awesome awesome.


Robyn placed 1st in her age group and Manda got 2nd! Great day so far!

Robyn Manda and I then spent the rest of the day shopping.....more to come on that later :)

Fitness Finally Friday

Workout last night was 30mins on exercise bike....10.5 miles!!!!


It felt so good to sweat as much as I did last night (sorry Mister but I did clean off your bike!). Today I am backing it down...maybe just going for a walk before a long night begins.

It is our Fall Festival here at school so I will not be home until after 8pm. We do a game that is not very healthy...we do what is called a cake walk. Kids make a cake with their parents at home then donate it to our game. Then we play music just like musical chairs. Then we stop the music and all kids playing find a chair which are numbered. I then pick a number out of a hat and that kid wins a cake.

Let me tell you there are kids that play and spend $20 or more trying to win a cake. So I confess here and now...I feel bad so I fudge the number pull and just call the number of the seat the kid is sitting in.

QOTD: Are you doing any fall festival activities??


Link up to Fitness Friday...

Thursday Tid BIts

1. I baked last night.....Magic Cookie Bars. I couldn't let them sit more than 10mins before I dove into them!!

2. I have had shakes the last two mornings. Hopefully I get back into this routine. Just don't want too much protein powder in them since I am not doing as much exercise now.


3. I am going to try to get to the local YMCA today to get on the elliptical.

4. I found an exercise bike that someone at school is willing to sell. I might be able to go look at it today to see if it is worth $50.

5. I AM NOT GIVING UP DURING THIS 6 WEEKS! I WILL FIND EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I CAN DO THAT WON'T HURT MY LEG!!!

15 year old.....

Roller blades!! Workout today...3miles on the bike path roller blading. If you call what I did roller blading. I really wanted to get outside in the 65degree weather so I dug out my roller blades that I believe I got when I was 16yrs old. I tried not to push off with my left leg and kept it on the ground and cruised along. My time proves that I did not go fast because I have run this path faster than I did it today. I did 3miles in 26:45 which is almost 9min pace. But I got a sweat in and my leg is not yelling at me.

My shadow looks weird....crazy skinny legs then not skinny

So I might be using the roller blades to go along with the gang on their runs!

QOTD: Have you ever roller bladed? When was the last time you skated??

Race recap from the photographer

Yup...think I found my new role for the next month or so. I did my first race spectating this  past weekend. It is a race that I love running though it is not always a well organized race. But we always run this park and it is a beautiful run.

Manda, Dud and Mister ran the race this year. I tried to get as many pics as I could and may have broken the no running rule twice to get some shots of them all. But they were running so fast they got to certain spots before I could WALK there.

They all did awesome and as you can see it was a small race and everyone was spread out. Manda kicked butt and was the 5th female to finish. She also got first in her age group!!

QOTD: Is it still bright colors where you are? We thankfully still have beautiful colors on the trees even after the snow we had.