Peralta Trail

Sunday workout: 3 hour hike (789 calories burned)

Hi blog buddies! As you can see today we went hiking. It was a little cloudy and we were nervous that it might rain while we were out but it didn't. When we first started out it was kind of cold. I wore a sweater and my gloves and was hoping that it would get a little warmer soon. We had planned the hike for many reasons but the main reason was to take our holiday picture. We are sending out holiday cards this year and we wanted Weaver's Needle to be in the background. =)

Here is some information from Peralta Trail which is in Superstition Mountains. It's one of our favorite hikes and we hope to do other trails there soon. The information came from Hike Arizona which is a very helpful site and we use it very often. http://hikearizona.com/

Difficulty: 3

Distance Round Trip 4.9 miles

Trailhead Elevation 2400 feet
Elevation Gain 1380 feet

Avg Time Round Trip 3.5 hours

Peralta Trail Pictures

Weaver's Needle

"Weaver's Needle (elevation = 4553 feet; 1388 meters) is the main landmark in Arizona's Superstition Mountains. According to one of the more well-known legends about the range, the Lost Dutchman's Gold lies within its shadow." Information from Gemland http://www.gemland.com/

After hiking we were pretty hungry so we went to TGI Fridays. I got a chicken sandwich with a side salad. The salad was not that great so I didn't eat it but the sandwich was pretty good. We enjoyed some football while eating our lunch. We just ordered our holiday cards and are about to eat dinner. Tonights plans also include putting up our Christmas tree and our Christmas Village. Every year we add something to our village and we buy eachother a Christmas ornament. I will post pictures of our different ornaments tomorrow.

Have a great night! I go back to work tomorrow..ugh. I'm feeling a bit lazy.

Betty

Lazy Day

Hi peeps! I spent most of the day being lazy today. I think it's my actual first lazy day since Tuesday. I tried to be a bit lazy yesterday but it didn't happen. We ended up getting some Christmas shopping done and also went to see Christmas lights last night. My sister and neice went with us. Today I went to a couple of stores and got a few gifts. I want to be done already. Every year I say I'm going to start early but I never do. I'm done with my neice's gifts. I got a few others but i'm not completely done yet.

This morning I tried the oatmeal with squash and it was SO good. I have more and I'll be eating this a lot more often.

After it was mixed. It was YUM!!!

Craig and I. We didn't wait for them to light up the tree. We will have to go back when they do.

My sister and neice.

Santa

It was a fun night. Let's see what we do tonight. I'm thinking mexican food and a movie. We will see. I told Craig I would be my treat.

See Talk to you later bloggies!

Betty

THANKSgiving

Thursday workout: 20 minute run and 45 minutes dance (yes I consider that a workout) =)


What was the best part of your Thanksgiving day?

Once in awhile i'll ask Craig what his favorite part of the day was.... especially since sometimes we both did the same things. It's fun to see if we have the same fond memory or a different one. I would say my favorite part of yesterday was running with Craig at a race and crossing the finish line. It was only a 2 mile fun run but it was fun. My family came to support Craig and I. There was a point in the race when I looked around and realized how diverse running is. That made me happy and excited that so many people enjoy it as much as I do. All the runners got ribbons and Turkey Trot shirts.

                                         

I started the morning off with this.....Green Monster and a piece of toast with the best PB EVER!!!

                                            

After our run we went and had Thanksgiving lunch with Craig's family. Okay I have to admit something. I had never in my life tried squash. I know that a lot of families have it for Thanksgiving but my family doesn't. I don't know why. I decided to try it at Craig's house and it was SO good. OMG I have been missing out this whole time. I brought some home. I'm going to mix it with my oats for breakfast. Yum. I've seen some of you do this and now I know why. While there we also played Wii. I had never played Wii either! It was fun but kind of hard to control for me. I need more practice. We've ben wanting a Wii...maybe we will get it for Christmas? =)

From there we went to my families house. When I got there I thought most of it would be done....but it was a crazy house. I usually go over to my parents during the day and help with the cooking. It's a tradition that I love. This year I decided that I wanted to go with Craig and spend Thanksgiving with them too. We tried to take a little nap while we waited for the others to finish getting ready but we couldn't so we chatted it up with my peeps. Dinner was great and I didn't go overboard. I only had one plate at each house which was lunch and dinner. I tried a little of everything but didn't go back for seconds on anything. I could've gone crazy on my mom's mac and cheese and stuffing. NO JOKE. I love her food. Even though I didn't go back for more I was still so stuffed. I think it's because I had a Dr. Pepper. I don't drink soda. I haven't for a VERY long time. It was one of the first things I changed about my lifestyle. I was craving one yesterday so I had one. It was not the best and it burnt my throat. That was the end of the soda craving for HUGE while.

                                   

While at dinner we decided to go dancing with my sisters and cousin.We came home got ready and headed to club Myst. We danced a lot and I was happy to burn off some of the food I ate. It's always fun having my girls and my cutie with me.

We had a blast and Craig is a dancing machine. Lol.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. If you are out shopping today be safe and hope you find some great deals!

Betty

Day with my girls.

Good Evening bloggies!

Hope everyone enjoy's their Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'm sure we all have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for my health, family, friends and last but not least my Craigo. We will begin our celebration running the Mi Amigos Turkey Trot at 8:30 am. I'm very excited and I will be taking a lot of pictures.

Okay let's begin my Wednesday recap. I was off work today and I don't go back until Monday!! Yaaaaaaay!!! I hope I have atleast one lazy day...we will see. Today was the planned lazy day but it didn't happen. This is why.......

My sisters invited me to go to the mall with them to do a little bit of clothes shopping. I was at my parents to meet them by like 11 am. We started our day by going to Red Robin for lunch. I got a chicken sandwich with a side salad. I got it sans mayo and bacon. Just an avocado and chicken sandwich. The salad was not that great and I did not eat much of it.

This is my neice enjoying her cantaloupe and corn dog. She is had a blast hanging out with the girls today. She felt so grown up.

Oh before leaving to lunch I found out that the family dog " Chiquis" is pregnant!! We have had her for so long. She is very loved and a part of our family. I knew something was different last week when I saw her but I didn't know what. Well now we know. =) She felt so much more heavier and her belly is HUGE!

My sister had fun trying on this hat that she wants. She tries it on everytime we go but doesn't end up buying it.

These are some of the tops I came home with. =) I also bought a black sweater that I plan on wearing tomorrow and black leggings.

Look who I saw while I was at the mall!!! Santa waived to me. It was pretty exciting.

We decided to take a shopping break and got ice cream. It was really nice outside. You can tell my niece likes taking pictures. She is so adorable. I love her and my sisters. Girls day was fun!

I'm about to go to sleep. We must get our rest for our run tomorrow. =) I can tell Craig is excited too. He just asked me to pull up the course map. He is so cute =)

Good night!

Betty

Snap Your Fingers

Friday workout: 4 mile run
Saturday workout: 30 minutes walk/hike
Sunday workout: 3.5 mile run at the park

I must tell you now that the title really has nothing to do with this post. I was just snapping my fingers when I decided to write a post and it was on my mind. lol. Yeah that's how weird I am. =)

Seems that everyone had a great weekend. I think it makes it better that most of us have a short week coming up. Yay to that. I only work Monday and Tuesday this week. Wednesday I go pick up our Turkey Trot running packet. Thursday plans are running in the morning. First we are going to Craig's families for Thanksgiving since their's is during the day. After that it's off to my parents for dinner. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I just like how it brings families togerther and not just for gifts but to spend time together. It's pretty awesome. Plus HELLO the food is yummy. Craig doesn't agree with me. He doesn't really like Thanksgiving food but I love it. How do you plan on spending Thanksgiving this year?

Okay I should do a weekend recap. It was a pretty busy weekend but a good one too. I have a few pics to show what we did.

Saturday during the day we went 4 wheeling....

This section of the trail is called Windshield Rock. I think you can see why. =)

It took up most of the day. It was a lot of fun. We used to go a lot but since Craig has to work Saturday's now we don't get to go as much. We took advantage of his day off and made a day of it. My lovely sister picked up my Bountiful Basket for me while I was 4 wheeling. She is the best!!! This is what I got this week...

I'll be using a lot of it for Thanksgiving and most of the bananas on my Green Monsters. After picking up my yummy fruit and veggies we went out to dinner. Then home to rest. We were pooped.

Sunday morning we went for a run at the park. We ran more then expected. We both were not feeling that great but I'm glad we went because we felt better once we were done. It was a nice way to start the day. we had lunch at home and then went out to ET Motorpark to see a lot of jumping vehicles.....  Craig bought me the hat. I usually don't wear hats because they just don't look good on me but it was a gift from my sweetie.

After that we went to dinner at Jason's Deli. It was really good. I had a turkey wrap with soup. They also have complimentary froyo so of course we had some.  Now we are watching the AMA's while I write this blog. About to go cuddle with my cutie.

Have a good night.

Betty

The Good, The Yum and The Unhealthy....

tgif...louder..TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope everyone's day is going great. I went in for OT today. I stayed a little longer then I had planned which will be good come Christmas shopping time. I picked up Subway for lunch. It was delicious as always.

Yesterday I started the day off pretty good with my breakfast. I bought the Mighty Maple Peanut Butter that I saw on Watermelon Tequila's page.(http://melonshots.blogspot.com/) It was DELICIOUS!!! I think it's better then the Dark Chocolate Dreams. I plan on buying this again. I loved it! I had it with a slice of toast and a green monster. This is were the "Good" part of the title comes from....now for the "Yum" part......

I had tomato's with Lime. It was really yummy so I decided to have it again today for my snack. Not pictured here I had a grapefruit as well.

This was the " Unhealthy" OMG was this UNHEALTHY. I'm not going to lie though. It was really good and I did eat the whole thing.

I told Craig I was going to take him out to dinner yesterday. He decided he wanted a burger from a new place that had just opened up called " Four Guys" There isn't much to choose from on the menu but I'm pretty sure the few things on the menu were as good as the Cheeseburger and fries. We shared the fries of course. We should've gone with the smaller ones but what's done is done and it was good. =)

Tonight we are going to my parents for dinner. We are going 4 wheeling tomorrow and possibly hiking on Sunday. Hope you all have a great weekend. I'm dressed and ready to go running. Let's hope it's nice outside still.


Betty

Persistence

Good Evening Bloggers! I was online today reading motivational quotes. I came across this one and I thought it was perfect. It can apply to so many people in so many different ways. When I first read it I immediately thought about my first half marathon. I am planning on running a full marathon in a year. I know it’s a long time from now but I want to take the time and train the right way. Well I don’t know if there is a right way but just a better way for me. I have a half marathon coming up in January with my sister. This will be her first  half. I had a talk with her the other day because I noticed that she wasn’t putting her all into training anymore. When we first started training in August she was running about twice a week and once on the weekend with me and Craig. Little by little I noticed her making excuses for not running. I don’t want to PUSH her to do something she doesn’t want to. It came out of her to train for the half marathon with me. She said it was something that she really wanted to do. So what I decided to do was let her be for a couple of week. She knew I was still training but would not bring up running with me. Last Friday we went to lunch and started talking about running again. She admitted that she had been slacking but that she still really wanted to run the half marathon in January. I let her know that I didn’t want her to feel forced to run it if she didn’t want to. I told her that training for a race is not easy. Sometimes we want to give up. Sometimes we want to postpone it. I told her she needed to stay motivated and pushing herself to run. I let her know how important it was for her to keep up with training because she didn’t want to be in the middle of the half marathon and feeling like crap. I don’t want her to not be prepared. I want to try and explain to her as much as I can so she knows how hard it really is. Anyway this spoke to me LOUD and CLEAR. Training is the little steps to be able to complete the main goal….which for us at this point is finishing the P.F.Changs Half Marathon on January 17th. I did tell her how awesome and exciting it is when you cross the finish line. Told her how the morning winter runs when you can barely move and the summer runs where your sweating EVERYWHERE are so worth it. She is back on track and I will keep posting updates if anything changes.

I'm off to the gym for my run and ab workout. 

Have a great night!!

Betty

Won My First Blog Giveaway!!

Tuesday workout: 35 minutes on Treadmill (incline 5-11) Crunches and ST

Yes gals the title says it all. I won my first blog giveaway!! I am so excited. I entered Becca's (http://rebeccastaggs.blogspot.com/) Fage Giveaway last week and won. =) It made my day. Just in time for Thanksgiving. I'll be looking for Thanksgiving recipe's in which I can add the greek yogurt. If you have any ideas please send them my way.

I didn't do a weekend recap but I do have a video from our weekend at the dunes. We had a lot of fun, especially when it was so windy that our tent was almost flat. It was pretty funny when we were trying to get all our stuff together and the wind kept blowing our tent everywhere. We were laughing so hard that we almost fell on the ground. I love that Craig doesn't let situations like that get to him. He turns everything into something fun. We could've easily got mad and threw everything into our truck but we just enjoyed ourselves. Even when we had sand in our ears. LOL. Check out our video and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hNLXDI-WlQ

And here is a picture of our tent almost flat because of the strong winds. You can also notice how strong the wind was by the flag on the truck....

Another awesome thing I did today was.... register Craig and I for our first race together. Craig started running in August with my sister and I and he is now ready for his first race. I am SO excited to experience this with him. We will be running the Mi Amigo's Turkey Trot. We will be wearing our matching shirts. I know it's super nerdy but I am so excited for that. hee hee

Oh and another thing I got today.....

I got my calendar for 2010 already. I keep my workouts documented everywhere. LOL. It's kind of crazy. I have a calendar at work, in my purse and one by my desk at home. I just like to see what I've done for the month. I like to see where i'm slacking and need to focus more on. Right now I would say I'm slacking. It's just so cold outside and it gets so dark that I just want to go home and cuddle with Craig. LOL. Its the truth people. But I haven't let it get to me. I still workout atleast 4-5 days out of 7. I think that's pretty good. My body needs to rest too. Anyway, back to what I got in the mail today. I got a book as you can see. I don't really know what to expect from it yet but I will let you know how it is.

I hope everyone had a fun exciting day!

Betty