Love to be FIT

Fitness is a new topic that I haven't written about on my blog. These days it seems that everyone has an opinion on fitness. I have one too. Why not share? From my latter elementary school years until middle school as a wee little chap, I found myself struggling with my weight. I wish that I could say that I loss the extra weight that I carried eating healthy and exercising, but that isn't the case. Instead, the pounds that I loss were from eating very little. It wasn't until my college years that I started to establish a routine of exercise and became more selective with my food selections and became mindful of meal portion sizes.

The formula for maintaining a healthy weight is as simple people make it out to be,

Exercise + nutritious foods = healthy weight

The challenge that is difficult for many people to solve is, how on earth can I compute this formula everyday with my own body?

You can scour the internet for the perfect diet plan, but I've learned that if you don't have a few key elements in place as you embark on this fitness journey you will find the numbers on the scale yo-yo-ing back and forth time after time.

The philosophy of fitness that I have made my own is, our body is a temple of the Lord and because of that we should take care of it. To neglect exercise and abuse the blessing of eating by gorging myself on whatever I want, whenever I want, and however much I want is a misuse of the body that God has blessed me with. In taking care of our bodies our focus should not be solely on the exterior. Any exterior enhancements that are realized because of fitness are a by-product of exercise and healthy eating. When we're consumed with how we look, we're led to make our bodies an idol.

Here are a few lessons that have enabled me to stick to a health and fitness plan over the years,

• Get yourself an accountability group. Signing yourself up with other people who have the same goal of maintaining a workout routine can be one of the most crucial decisions you will make to staying with a fitness plan. When you know someone is responsible for ensuring that you're following through with your plan, it does something to your mindset regarding exercise. We never want to let someone down, so an accountability partner or group of people can be the motivation that you need to stay committed to your goals.
•  Identify the exercise technique(s) that you're willing to commit to for fitness. Do you like to workout alone? Does taking a long walk in the park sound appealing to you? Or, do you enjoy group fitness classes where you can feed off the hype of an instructor face-to-face and other class members. Identify your exercise of choice and make it a part of your exercise plan.
•  Make exercise engaging and enjoyable for yourself. When you do, you will find that you're more apt to commit to it. Who wants to do something 5-6 times a week that they don't enjoy? If you enjoy walking, then make walking your regular exercise regime. Think about the physical activities that you enjoy and investigate ways to scheduled them into an exercise routine.
• Establish a time of day that you can commit to exercising and the days of the week that you plan to workout. If you don't establish a plan ahead of time as soon as there is a distraction, you will neglect your workout and could become discouraged on following through and keeping up with your plan. 
• Adopt the mentality that each time you workout, you are making time for yourself and in doing this you become a blessing to others. When you exercise you are not just doing something special for your body, you are taking care of the person that also takes care of others.

For several years now I have been blessed with amazing, energetic, and beautiful women who desire to honor God through fitness. We have become accountability partners to each other and keep each other accountable simply through text messaging each other with our weekly goals, sending encouraging notes after each workout, and sharing in each others successes. You can do the same, even if its just one person that you can enlist to share in the journey to loving fitness.

There's only one you.

Take care of you.

Meal Preparation - An Update

Sesame Chicken with Cabbage and Cauliflower Rice

Fast forward to several months after writing this blog about planning my family's meals, someone out in blog land may find utility in our most recent meal planning system.

Since that latest blog, our family has been extensively using the Cook Smarts Program, which you can learn more about here. For an affordable price, we've been reaping the benefits of having our grocery list generated for us each week after I make time on Saturday to select which meals we're going prepare Monday - Thursday.

If I don't find a particular meal that I think that my family will enjoy, I will either search the "archives" on Cook Smarts and select a meal or I'll find one from our favorite cookbook, "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime".   In it, Ree Drummond provides step-by-step instructions, with pictures, for even a beginner cook to make a tasty meal for their family.

These two resources have not only make meal preparation more simplified, they have also spiced up the family cuisine at our dinner table. The picture above is one of my all time favorite meals that we've prepared thus far using Cook Smarts. This dish was sweet, spicy, and ingenuous! Rice made out of cauliflower. I would have never of thought of that on my own.  Here's one of the reasons that our family continues to make use of Cook Smarts as it jazzes up our dinner table and challenges us to try something new. We all still can't wait for dinner time!

School Update - Third Year Wrap Up

Where did the time go?

As we wrap up our third year of homeschooling, we simply roll right into planning for the next year. It's that simple in the homeschool world. Things just move right on along.

Our 3rd year seemed to go by so quickly. It was our first full school year in our new school room. The room proved to be a wonderful spot for the girls to concentrate, for me to have a dedicated spot for our school materials, and a location that Trey came to know as "the place for school". During a portion of the morning during the school day Trey makes his toddler play area, the space just outside of the homeschool room door. When he crosses the threshold into our school room, he's "at school" so to speak and when he exits, he has free rein to play and get into whatever toys and books he can reach. Our year was full of reading, arithmetic, science, spelling, grammar, singing, practicing the violin, watching educational videos, and anything else that constituted "school" in our schedule.

The most memorable field trip of the school year was touring the White House. Getting a White House Tour ended up being a lot simpler than I thought it would be. After emailing the local Senator's office and requesting tickets for a tour, I was contacted within a few weeks with instructions on how to get a tour. I had to submit information about each person in our group for White House Security and specific dates that we'd be available for the tour. I was contacted about two months later with a tour date and we were set! To walk the halls of the White House was a special treat for the girls and for myself. There were no sightings of the President, but being able to walk the same halls that our current President and past Presidents have walked just gave me goose bumps.

We finished up the second year of American History in the Sonlight Curriculum. Next year we'll shake up things a bit with a year of World History. Love will be moving into an independent Science curriculum through Apologia for seventh grade. I am thrilled that she's doing more and more independent work, but it makes me a little sad to think about my baby growing older and slowly maturing beyond needing Mommy's help for every subject area. I noticed a great deal of growth in my 11 year old this year that is expected as a homeschooler nears the high school years. We're also going to shift to a full Saxon Math curriculum, graduating out of the Math on the Level curriculum. This is a big step. Math wasn't the subject of the year for my girls three years ago. They stomached it, but didn't embrace it with joy. There still are no birds signing and sun rays beaming down on my daughter's faces when its time for Math, but their endurance for Math as grown and has reached a level that can handle the Saxon curriculum which provides an intense and thorough math program. For Bible, the girls had dedicated, focused time doing their on Bible study each morning using the book, "Starting Strong", by Paula Rinehart. Each lesson was presented with a fictional story about a character facing a moral dilemma. In parallel to each moral story, the girls were guided through scripture that supported the main objective of each lesson. In addition to using this book, we read through several of Paul's letters (i.e. Galatians, Ephesians) which gave us the opportunity to openly discuss Biblical doctrine. Challenging, yet engaging. It is a blessing to take part in my daughter's spiritual growth and see them mature even as young people to understand God's Word.

We welcome the summer months where I'll be sprinkling the girls schedules at a minimum with Math work and reading to keep the educational fire burning so it will be warm and cozy come August. We're also going to plan for continued violin, singing, and piano lessons and add in some art classes as well.

With the Lord guiding us, we're working to build and cultivate a continued love for learning!!!

Farewell, but not forever

 

We've made many memories in Hilton Head and Lord willing we'll return and make more. You can't put a price on the special time that you're afforded when you can get away from the routine of life and just bask in the moment with the people that you love. Their laughter, silliness, enjoyment of the simple things are gifts from God. I am thankful for the people God has blessed me with in my family. Its farewell for now, but not for long.

Trey not so sure about the pool today

His sisters convinced him to take a dip

Rainy Day, Still Fun Day

On  our first rainy day on the island we took the excitement indoors to "The Sandbox", an interactive museum for kids. Trey was in his own toddler world, being entertained by larger than life racing cars, trains, and boats. The girls enjoyed making crafts for little brother. 

Wheels Taking Us Around

One of our favorite activities on HHI has been bike riding. We hitched our bikes on the back of our vehicles and took them across the bridge just outside of HHI to the Pinckney Island Wildlife Reserve. There is no admission to this beautiful place. There are miles of trails in the Reserve, surrounded by all sorts of birds. My Dad even spotted a crocodile in one of the marshes. People have been known to see armadillos, but we weren't so fortunate.

We biked around 8 miles on our trip and were blessed with fantasic weather. May is an ideal time to venture to the island as the crowds are minimal and the temps are hot enough for getting in the water but comfortable for lounging outside.

Harbour Town

Our day of exploration today took us to the western end of the island to Harbour Town. We visited the popular Harbour Town Lighthouse, perused the shops, tested out the playground (it passed my toddler's fun-test), and had a few scoops of ice cream while rocking in the red chairs while watching the boats come in and out of the harbor.

Beach Day at HHI

Today's adventures at Hilton Head Island (HHI) took us to Coligny Beach. One of the things that I appreciate so much about HHI is the pride that the developers and/or owners in the area have taken in the grounds of the area. From the sidewalks on the way to the beach, to the bathrooms and dressing areas, everything is so well cared for and manicured. It has made us feel welcome.

Right after breakfast we loaded up our wagon and popped the little man in a stroller and headed for the beach. It was a pleasant 10 minute walk from our resort.

The entryway at Coligny Beach is flanked with swinging chairs and private changing areas for beach-goers. We had a beautiful, blue sky as the backdrop for our day. What was funny was the song and dance that we found ourselves having to play with the tide as it inched closer and closer to us.

When we first arrived there was a large wading pool that was created by the outgoing tide. It was just the perfect spot for toddlers and kids to wade around in to alleviate parents from having to worry about the waves. As the time passed by we found that the wading pool was disappearing and was being replaced by the larger body of ocean itself. My kiddos soon realized what was happening and were scurrying back to safety under our beach umbrellas and within a short time we were taking up beach-camp and moved several yards back up onto shore so that we wouldn't have to dodge anymore incoming waters.

The temperature felt like it got up in the low 90s, but the continual breeze made it very comfortable to be outside. The breeze was so nice that we took out a kite and were entertained by the kids trying to maintain control of the kite and try to keep it from making a nose dive into the growing crowd of sun bathers.

After several hours of sun and surf, we headed by to the resort for the traditional dip in the pool and a nap for our little guy!

 

 

 

 

Stop Plop & Enjoy

Hilton Head is absolutely beautiful. The scenery, the close proximity of all the amenities, and the variety of eateries make it great stop-plop-and-enjoy vacation destination.

Just yesterday we were able to take in the local sights, all on our bikes. The sand is packed so hard on the shore, making it a welcoming location for joggers and bikers.

This morning the hubby and I got up early and soaked in the sun while we jogged.

Anyone Seen the Sun?

Toes painted, stocked with a book, and sunglasses awaiting sun.

After many, many months of quiet land on the blog, this Momma is anxiously back and in full effect. In the immediate timeframe, I won't be picking back up with stories from our past school days, though I will recap in the coming months.

I thought that it would be more of a joy to blog about sun, sand, surf, and maybe a few things more.

Hilton Head, SC is our location of choice this year for our end of school year family vacation. A new place for us.

Everyone has a vacation style. What's yours? Are you a back country, wilderness-loving, cozy-in-cabin sort of person? How about the adventurer? Does hiking high elevations and jumping from moving contraptions fit your fancy? If you're like us, you're a mixture of both of these. When we vacation we simply love to get away from our normal routines and just relax, but we also thirst for activity. A heart pumping hike that takes us some place unimaginable or a bike ride that always ends up with a kids versus parents race.

We're hoping to do some chillaxing and  moving and shaking in Hilton Head.

There's one more item on our to do list that I can't close this blog entry without mentioning. Food. My family has acquired a growing appreciation in recent years for food. Good food. We'll be taking in the local cuisine as well on this vacation.

Relaxing, action, and cuisine. Here we come.