Memorial Day BBQ Ideas

Just a quick shout out to my hubs and all those who are currently serving and who have served. Thank you for your willingness and sacrifice to protect our great nation. May you and your family be blessed, always! We honor you this day and everyday for your amazing bravery and patriotism! Thank you!

Here is a collection of a few recipes I found that would be AWESOME for today's BBQ! Check 'em out and let me know what you think. Comment below! We are having steak because I just had an amazing burger on Friday night, and I found a nice steak in the deep freezer begging to be used! But I'm doing the zucc, and the berries. Maybe the water and the fries. It all looks yummy to me! Enjoy and Happy Memorial Day!

Start with a nice Patriotic Drink of Blueberry and Strawberry Infused water! 

Grilled Zucchini -

Classic Hamburger- Make them slider size for better portion control. Use lettuce leaves instead of buns for gluten free option. I make my own homemade buns so I know what is in them. Here is the recipe for them.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries: 

Stuffed Strawberries-

Friday's Five May Collection

I haven't done one of these in awhile! Here are my 5 things I am totally loving these days:

1. 21 Day Fix. Seriously loving this because I can modify the workout to work for me. If I need to be a wimp then I can wimp out. But if I wanna push it then I can totally push it for as long as I can, and then wimp out and go down to a lighter weight. But honestly I am getting stronger. I was convinced that Collin had lost weight because he just wasn't feeling as heavy to me. Well the little chunk is now over 20 lbs and low and behold I was just getting stronger. Go figure! Ready to get your hands on 21 Day Fix Finally? ORDER HERE for the workout combined with Shakeology! BEST DEAL THOUGH is to get the Beachbody on Demand Annual All Access Challenge Pack where you get access to every workout program ever created for 1 year, 1st month supply of Shakeology and the entire Nutrition Fix Program (those fun little containers to help you eat right!)

2. Pandora: Love turning on my pandora station and just listening to it. Sometimes during the day I will turn on the kids songs for the kids and watch Collin "dance" to it. But he loves music. Mason just tells me to turn it down. There always has to be a critic.

3. Pinterest: I am loving snooping and pinning on Pinterest lately. I have been looking for clean eating recipes, or different workouts, and lots and lots of motivational quotes to help get me through the day.

4. You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero: (sorry mom didn't mean to swear but that is the name of the book). Seriously this book has hit point on point in what I need to be hearing right now. No more wallowing in my sadness. Time to get out there and make something of myself. Help others. And just enjoy life for the roller coaster ride that it is. There are lots and lots of ups and downs and corkscrews in our life and we just need to know how to ride them. Cower in fear or with hands up! Which would you prefer?

5. Lost: I have started to re-watch Lost again. I am use this as my decompression for when I am having a bad day, because my dad is NEVER as bad as theirs gets to I have something to be thankful for.

Short and sweet. What are you loving these days? Comment below! I wanna hear from you!

Emerald Coach

So this happened today! Super excited not only because I hit my first milestone as a coach with Beachbody but because of all the amazing women that I have helped and are currently helping to set their goals and ACHIEVE THEM! I feel like I have been called to help inspire, encourage and motivate women to get out of their comfort zone, make that choice that they are worth it and to help them with the next step of their lives by taking care of them! What a wonderful blessing it is in my life! Thank you to all my friends who have helped support me and followed my journey. I so look forward to the rest of my journey that has no end at this point! Thank you everyone! 

What is a Team Beachbody Emerald Coach? An emerald coach is the first advancement as a coach in Beachbody. It means that you are building your team of awesome coaches and the beginning of becoming a leader. If you have any questions about it or about coaching please let me know! This was my first business goal when I became a BeachBody coach 10 months ago. My ultimate goal is to help women and men to set their fitness and health goals and learn to achieve them. I am doing that on a daily basis now and it is amazing! 

My coach wrote this about me and I feel so blessed. Sometimes I don't see myself in this way. What a wonderful reminder to keep on being that light and beacon! 

--- I am so excited to congratulate Becky Allen on becoming an Emerald Coach today! Becky has been inspiring and helping others through her blog Connect The Dots Ginger while being an amazing mother, spouse, teacher, and pursuing her passion to run, be healthy, and eat clean. She's been inspiring others while using PiYo, 21 Day Fix, and Shakeology to support keeping herself and her family healthy. Becky has the amazing ability to take adversity and turn it into a positive force. I know this is just the beginning for her on her journey to help others be happy and healthy! Congratulations!!!

Till We Meet Again

Tonight I said a physical goodbye to a very, very good friend of mine! She is moving to UT for the military and such is a military life. Where friends come and go. But let me tell you about this wonderful lady. She changed my life. She is the one I met at my very first race ever! I was petrified. I didn't know what the heck to do. Or what to expect. All I knew is that I was going to walk it and that I needed to go to the back of the pack and be with the walkers. Honestly I was looking around for all the people my size because I figured they would be the slower ones. (sorry but true)

I happened to stand in the vicinity of lots of strollers. I had left Mason with a friend to meet me at the finish line so I was child free. But I was just kind of observing the people around me. I kind of listened in on the conversation in front of me and heard one of the ladies mention military. It was a race honoring the 4 The Wounded Warrior Project but she knew military stuff. So I pipped up and said HI! The lady not holding the stroller introduced herself to me and I told her it was my very first race and how scared I was. She mentioned that her friend had left her jogging stroller at home and they had to walk it and invited me to walk it with them.

Janet and I at the 4th of July 5k

We began talking and I learned that she was an officer with the Air Force and a SMART one at that! I told her about my miscarriage a few weeks prior and how I wanted to get back into running. She then talked up the Woman's 4 miler training program. And when I mean talk, she talked about it a lot! And insisted on me doing it and that it would be awesome and exactly what I needed. And the whole 3.1 miles that is what she talked about. By the end of the race I told her that I would look into it and would probably do it. She said that she would see me there on the first day. And we have been friends since. I did see her there and she always made a point to remember me, and talk to me. We ran the same race the next month and was cheering me at the finish line. She cheered for me at the finish line of the 4 miler. And I asked her to be one of my safety runners when I did my first 10k at 10 weeks pregnant. She has been here for me whenever I needed her. We have become great friends over the last 2 years. She also got me into coaching for Beachbody and I am so thankful she did because I am making a difference in other people's lives like she did for me. She changed my life. I am so sad to see her go but it happens. I am so thankful for Facebook and other modern conveniences we have to allow me to never lose touch with her because she truly is an amazing person.

Me, Jen and Janet, my safety runners to make sure I was ok for my first 10k at 10 weeks pregnant.

Moral of the story: You never know who might become your next greatest friend. When you go somewhere, to an event, church, reading time at the library, even the grocery store. Just say hi to someone. Introduce yourself to someone. Make an effort to get to know someone and listen to what they have to say. Be interested. It might be scary but sometimes you can walk away with a great friend who you will always remember and always want to keep in touch with. God places people in our lives for a reason. Don't deny yourself that next great friend.

Janet, I love you, and will miss getting to hang out with you this summer in training and for fun movie nights like last night! Can't wait till we can hang out again! Safe travels and Thank You for all of your service for our country. You are amazing!

Bye, Bye Gym

Well after much thought, discussions and prayer, yes, even prayer. We have decided to cancel my gym membership. Matt and I agreed that if I weren't going to the gym enough to justify the cost of it that we would cancel it. And folks, we have reached that point. It is hard with 2 kids to get to the gym. When one gets sick. I can't go. The the other gets sick. Still can't go. Than child #1 gets sick again and it is a constant battle. And I just can't justify spending the amount we were (and it wasn't cheap) only going to the gym 1 or twice a week. NO WAY!

So snip...there it goes. Thankfully I have been doing really well with my home workouts at night. Only skipping one night in the last week. AMAZING for me. And I am feeling so much better adding in strength training. It is making a huge difference.

So I said prayer earlier. I try not to get too preachy on here but I wanted to talk about the "response" I felt. So I started praying about canceling my membership. And I said something like, "I have 4 miler training coming up soon and I will need to run. I need to try and figure out a schedule with Matt on when I can run. Please help us be able to figure that out." And honest to goodness the answer I felt and felt many times was, "you can always go running at 5am when he is getting ready for work." So now I am like. "Okay, looks like if I want to go running 2 days a week in the morning I better wake my butt up at 5am and go running." And you all know I am not a morning person but it is going to have to be done and a way has been made for me to be able to get it done. So there you have it. Me getting a spiritual 2x4 to get my butt in gear and wake up early to do a little exercise.

So now it is...no gym, workout at home either with my 21 day fix or PiYo and running outside, hopefully 3 days a week, and when we save up enough money I will be getting a treadmill.