Fitness Friday...July 5th Edition!

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had an awesome 4th of July yesterday! We had a blast with my friend Rhonda! And we even got to see a proposal!!! Rhonda's son Terry asked his girlfriend to marry him during the finale of the fireworks...sooo sweet and romantic!!!

It's Fitness Friday time! I can't wait to tell you all about my runs and workouts this week!

• Saturday- #plankaday 1:01, 1 mile run in 8:53

• Sunday- 6 mile run in 1:02:02 average pace 10:20, 2.5 mile walk with Rhonda

• Monday- #plankaday 1:01, 1 mile run in 8:46

• Tuesday- #plankaday 1:02, 3.11 miles in 29:50 average pace 9:36

• Wednesday- #plankaday 1:11, 1 mile run in 8:37

• Thursday- #plankaday 1:07, 3.11 miles in 33:39 average pace 10:49

• Friday- #plankaday 1:00

Pretty good week! And Thursday was the last day of the run streak! I've run every day for the past 39 days!!! I'm super proud of myself! Now...time to give my hard working legs some rest days! :-)

QOTD: Did you do the run streak? How did it go? What was your best run or workout this week?

The Weekly Chase #27!

Hey all! I hope you had a great weekend! I did! I spent lots of quality time with the family! We even went and saw Monsters University with the hubby's parents, sister, and her husband! The movie was awesome! I LOVED it! I also had a fabulous long run yesterday morning..I'll tell you more about that later this week!

Look at my little MU students!!! :-)

It's time for another Weekly Chase! Who's ready to set some weekly goals? I encourage to link up your goals with us this week!

Here's how I did last week:

• Goal #1: Run at least one mile every day (challenge goal). Success! I'm still streaking!  I even got in two 3 milers and a long run this week! :-)
• Goal #2: Stretch and roll every day. Yep! It helps to remember to stretch and roll everyday when you are running every day!
• Goal #3: To show the love of Christ at Vacation Bible School. I did my best! Me and my friend Paige taught second graders and had 19 kids in our class! Wednesday night we had 5 in our class accept Christ!!! It was an amazing week!
• Goal #4: Unpack! Yes! It took me Monday and Tuesday but I got everything unpacked from our vacation! 

Here are this week's goals!

Goal #1: Run at least one mile every day. The streak ends on Thursday! I am so proud of myself for how far I've come! And...every run was done outside...no treadmill runs like I did last summer! I want to finish the streak strong!

Goal #2: Stretch and roll every day. Want to continue to do this...even when the run streak is over. 

Goal #3: Update my resume. I need to update my resume. I was a substitute teacher last year. I would love to get a job as a teacher aide this year. But if not I will continue to sub. Regardless I need my resume to be as up to date as possible. 

Goal #4: Work on St. Jude fundraising. I have neglected this since summer has started due to being so busy. I need to refocus and get those ideas set in motion. If you want to make my day and donate I will love you forever!!! :-) Visit my fundraising page HERE. 

That's the plan for this week! It's going to be a fun week with July 4th! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your family!

QOTD: What are your goals this week?

Fitness Friday...VBS Week!

This has been a busy week! I've been teaching at Vacation Bible School every night and boy am I tired! But I LOVE it! I look forward to this week every summer...and so do my boys! This was my third year teaching with my friend Paige! We have been teaching the same group of kids since they were in kindergarten! Both her son and my son Hayden are in our class. It has been so awesome to see these kids grow in their relationship with God each year! Wednesday night was the most important night of the week...it was the night when we talk about accepting Christ. We had 5 children in our class that became saved that night! And I had the blessing and privilege to pray the sinner's prayer with one of the boys in my class. It was AMAZING and an experience I will never forget! How awesome to see these children accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior! And then to see their excitement over their decision...WOW!

It has been an awesome week! So much fun! And I will be singing these songs for a long time! Colossal Cooooooaaaaster Wooorrrld! You'll understand if you've done this theme in VBS! ;-)

Me and Paige...and yes we like to dress silly...we have on Bondi Bands and crazy knee high socks!

Me and my sweet Hayden!

Just look how many children! Awesome!

It's time for another Fitness Friday! I'm ready to tell you how my runs went this week!

• Saturday- 1 mile run in 9:07

• Sunday- #plankaday- 1:03, 1 mile run in 8:44

• Monday- #plankaday- 1:00, 1 mile run in 8:49

• Tuesday- #plankaday- 1:10, 3.11 mile run in 30:08 average pace 9:42

• Wednesday- #plankaday- 1:02, 1 mile run in 8:57

• Thursday- #plankaday- 1:31, 3.11 mile run in 30:06 average pace 9:41

• Friday- #plankaday- 1:00, 1 mile run

It felt great getting back into the routine this week! I am thankful for running on vacation last week but I missed running more than 1 mile. I'm glad I got in two 5K's this week...despite being worn out from VBS! I made myself wake up early and run...and I didn't regret it! This weekend I plan on running a 5 miler at some point! We are also going to see Monsters University on Saturday! I can't wait after seeing so many things at Disney about it!!! :-)

QOTD: What was your best run or workout this week?

The Start to a Magical Vacation!

We had so much fun on our summer vacation to Walt Disney World and Orlando! We were blessed to have our family, my hubby's parents, and my friend Stephanie and her 3 kids with us! The boys had a blast having other kids there! It was just icing on the cake that it was our best friends!

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you know I love to runDisney! Well...I also just love Disney in general! I think I was more excited about going to Disney World than any of the kids!!!

This is my favorite sign in the world!

I took a ton (TONS) of pictures and hate to leave any of them out. But I know you don't want to see them all so I will pick and choose some of my favorites. But bear with me...because there's still going to be lots of pictures! ;-)

I'm going to write several posts about our vacation...because I have so much to tell you! And there's no way I can include it all in one post! So hopefully you won't get bored hearing about our trip!

We arrived in Orlando Friday afternoon. We own a timeshare and that's where we were staying. It isn't on Disney property but is only about a mile from the entrance to Disney World. We've owned the timeshare for 11 years and it has been the best thing! It forces my workaholic hubby to take a vacation! ;-) The timeshare is a super nice condo in an awesome resort! It can sleep up to 8 people (more if you bring your own air mattress like we did this time). One of my favorite things about our timeshare is that it has a full kitchen. So we can cook our own meals...which is way cheaper than eating at Disney. And I'm also impressed with how clean it always is! Each time we've stayed there it is super clean.

After we got all checked in, bought our Disney tickets, and went to the grocery store, it was time to swim! I think the swimming pool is my boys' favorite part of a vacation! So the first thing we did on vacation...swim!

After some pool time it was getting late. We cooked some dinner, bathed some kids, and tucked them all in with promises to see Mickey the next day!

I used my favorite Disney app on my iPhone to check the crowd forecasts at the parks the next day. If you don't have this app from Undercover Tourist...I highly recommend it! It gave us a crowd forecast that was spot on for each day. We never stood in line for more than 20 minutes for a ride...and that wait time was rare. It also gave us accurate wait times for rides so we would know if we wanted to trek across the park for particular rides at particular times. Love this app!

A screenshot of the crowd forecast. Green is the park that will be less crowded, then yellow, then red. 

Magic Kingdom was in the green for the next day so that was our plan. I couldn't wait to see the new additions to Fantasy Land so far!

I woke up early the next day to get my run in for the run streak. My mother-in-law had talked about running/walking with me during vacation and she did this first day! After that I think she was just too tired from all the walking we did at Disney each day. Running around the resort was great! There were sidewalks to run on. And there were ducks everywhere in the ponds! I enjoyed seeing them each morning during my run!

Getting my mile in each day before anyone else woke up was an awesome start to each day! I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would! After my run....it was Magic Kingdom time!

To be continued....

QOTD: Do you exercise when you're on vacation?

The Weekly Chase #26!

Hey everyone! I had an absolutely fabulous vacation! I can't wait to tell you all about it! We got home late Saturday night and reality is starting to sink in. I took over 670 pictures this past week so I have a lot to sort through and determine which ones to share with you...I won't make you look at all 670 I promise! ;-) Here's one of my favorites that I decided to share today!

It's time for the Weekly Chase! I am excited about a new week and getting back into my goals. I didn't abandon all my goals while on vacation but I limited them. I can't wait to get back to it! I hope you will join us this week too!

This month's challenge is called "Move Your Body!" It's summertime and I don't want us to forget about our fitness goals. This month I want you to be specific and make one of your goals a fitness goal. Your goal could be to run 3 times a week, strength or weight train twice a week, go for a walk everyday, or do at least 15 minutes of exercise each day. Whatever you want...just make it all about moving your body!

Here are the goals I had last week while on vacation:

• Goal #1: Run at least one mile every day (challenge goal). YES!!!!! I am so excited that I can say a big fat yes to this one! I wasn't sure how I was going to do running every day while on vacation but I actually looked forward to it every day! It was great starting out the day with a run. And I really enjoyed running somewhere new! I got to see tons of ducks by the ponds on the property I was staying at. Let me tell you...those ducks are NOT afraid of you! They wouldn't share the sidewalk with me at all lol! 

• Goal #2: Stretch and roll every day. Yes! I stretched before and after every run! And I rolled before every run. I should have rolled after but I only did that a few times. 

• Goal #3: Have fun! Definitely! We had so much fun! Everyone stayed hydrated in the heat and all my crew stayed healthy. Unfortunately one of my friend Stephanie's kids got sick one of the days but we didn't let it stop us. We just loaded up her other two kids with us and took them to Epcot so they wouldn't miss out. I hate Stephanie and Mason missed Epcot but luckily he was feeling much better the next day. My mother-in-law hurt her back on Space Mountain the first day but she was a trooper and still rode every ride with us! 

So here are this week's goals!

Goal #1: Run at least one mile every day (challenge goal). I am still streaking! I can't believe there are only 10 days left to the Runner's World Run Streak! It has flown by!

Goal #2: Stretch and roll every day. I really think this is helping me stay injury free during the streak. And...the awesome Zensah compression socks that I won from Karen at Just Me and My Running Shoes were GREAT for traveling to and from Disney! They made my legs feel great! Before we left I had some slight shin pain in my left leg...but after wearing these compression socks during the 8 hour drive the shin pain was completely gone...and hasn't come back! Yay!  

Goal #3: To show the love of Christ at Vacation Bible School. I LOVE teaching at Vacation Bible School every summer! Me and my friend Paige have been teaching together the past two years...and we have been teaching the same group of children. My oldest son Hayden is in my class and it's so awesome to share the experience with him each year. It's going to be a very busy week but it's worth it! Even if just one child gets saved!

Goal #4: Unpack! We are home and it's time to unpack everything from our vacation. I got some of it done yesterday but hope to get the rest done today and tomorrow!

That's it for this week! It's going to be a week of busy and late nights due to VBS. But it will be fun! 

QOTD: What are your goals for this week?