Tag: Kickboxing

Pampered Chef Party in NH, Apartment Hunting, Poolside, Lakeside

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Hey there! I am currently en route to NYC for a quick work trip (I’ll be back tonight). How is your Tuesday looking?

Last Friday night, I got together with most of my St. Michael’s girls at our friend Nikia’s new house in New Hampshire. She and her boyfriend recently bought a brand new home in the country and WOW was it beautiful. Seriously, I couldn’t even believe it! I am so proud of all that they have done to make it “theirs”.

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We got together both to see the house and to attend a Pampered Chef party. Has anyone been to one of those parties? I love Pampered Chef kitchen stuff SO much. You’ve seen the stones on my blog quite often.

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The host created these delicious, healthy pepper strips that were a huge hit. They were so easy, too. She combined some ingredients, mixed them with a Pampered Chef seasoning, placed a scoop on each pepper strip and baked for 7 minutes.

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I ordered a few things, but told the host to get in contact with me in Sept/Oct so I could host a party at my new place!

It’s always a fun time getting together with my SMC girls, but we missed you Kelly and Jessi! These girls are my rock- seriously we all just “get” each other, even though we are all pretty different. That’s what makes it so fun, though!

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Thanks for an awesome party, Kia!

On Saturday, I woke up, packed up and headed out to see an apartment at 9 before teaching my 10am kickboxing class. Even though the apartment is a basement level, I really liked it! The ground goes at an angle so the back of the apartment is not underground at all and there is a door from the bedroom that leads out to a back patio. Everything has been recently renovated and the landlord is awesome. I have a few questions, but I think I might take it- eeek!!

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After my class, I headed north and met mom and Danielle at the Mahoney’s pool. Pure bliss, if you ask me!

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Mom had a whole cooler full of goodies, which I quickly dug into when I got there since I was starving!

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Shortly after we finished, the other Jean and Colleen and Emma showed up! Look how stinkin’ cute she is in her little bathing suit!

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We even brought her in the pool. She was loving the water and splashing her hands around!

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We left there around 4 so we could head over to Sara’s house on the lake to get some Zeke snuggle time. Boy are we lucky to have so many friends with access to water!

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Zeke gets cuter and cuter every time I see him!!! And he is so GOOD. Literally just sleeps and eats… barely ever cries.

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Sara looks phenomenal. Seriously. A beaming mom for sure! I got my mommy multitasking practice in

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Haha. It’s easier than you may think 😉

We took the boat out for a nice stroll before heading home.

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Dad had hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob ready for us upon our arrival. How’s that for fantastic service? Per usual, we had a blast laughing and joking and drinking wine!

Questions for you: Ever been to a Pampered Chef party? What’s your favorite kitchen tool? Do you prefer a pool or the lake?

Scenes from {Friday and} Saturday

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Hey there! I hope you’ve all had a nice weekend thus far! Mine has been so busy, but good! Last night, I was in NH at my friend, Nikia’s, new home with all of my St. Michael’s girlfriends. Her home was BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, I couldn’t believe how BIG and how NICE it was. And, it was so much fun being with most of my college girlfriends. Today, I saw and apartment at 9am, taught Kickboxing at 10am, and then drove north where I met my mom and sister at the Mahoney’s pool and then went to visit Sara and baby Zeke. Enjoy!

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How was your Friday/Saturday? Do share!

They Call it “Hotlanta” for a Reason!

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Hey friends! We’re almost through the work week! When I travel, I am always thrown off on my days, but I think I feel like today is Thursday! I got back from Atlanta around 10:30 last night and was so happy to get into bed. My flight home was less than desirable-the guy in front of me reclined his seat ALL the way and the girl next to me smelled like BO, but tried to mask it with abundance amounts of perfume. Yuck!

Tuesday morning, I got up and worked out before I started my short morning of working from home and then my long afternoon of traveling and working from the hotel. I did 2 rounds of one of my “go-to” no equipment workouts (Got 20 Minutes? workout, to be exact) and 2 rounds of the “15X10” workout that Athena posted on Instagram earlier this week (minus the 10 mins of cardio). Phew! For some reason, this workout killed me. I blame it on the fact that I am not used to working out first thing in the morning 😉

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The flight was productive; I got some blog posts drafted and wrote an article for work. Once I got to my hotel room, I worked until about 6:30 and then spent an hour on some trainings for the YMCA before I called it quits and headed down to the bar for a wine and dinner. While enjoying my wine (Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc- my fav!), I wrote up some kickboxing routines/combos. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about them and it has been keeping me up, so I figured if I wrote them down, it would help (which, it did. Between that and the wine I slept like a baby 😉 ).

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I got the fish tacos for dinner, which were a bit of a disappointment. The menu read “blackened tilapia”, but they came out as fried nuggets of tilapia. Whomp,whomp. I ate all the greens and picked at the nuggets, but they were SO fried that they were dry. Regardless, the bar was a fun place to spend a few hours. It was packed by the time I left, and they even had a live guitarist!

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Ok, let’s talk about “Hotlanta”… holy moly you guys. The HUMIDITY was unreal! I got up yesterday morning to workout before meeting my coworker at the client site and figured that 7am was a fine time to run. I grabbed the hotel running map (how cool is it that the hotel provides these?! Such a great way to promote healthy living even when you’re on the road!) and felt like I walked into a wall of humidity as soon as I walked outside.

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30 LONG minutes and 3 miles later, I finally walked back into the hotel. It was certainly the most humbling run I think I have ever had. I physically couldn’t run at my normal pace or go than a few minutes without stopping. I felt like I had never worked out a day in my life. It was awful, but also a good reminder to appreciate all of the good runs and workouts that I sometimes take for granted. The bell boy handled me this as soon as I walked in and I couldn’t have been happier!

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Now that’s some service! I finished off my workout in the hotel gym. They had Reebok Core Boards which made me SO happy! There is a Reebok Core Board class at my YMCA in Maine and I LOVE it! I played around on that and then did lots of core stuff including stability ball planks and stability ball v-sits (Athena I love these!!) before calling it a day.

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I showered, got suited up and headed to breakfast, which was AWESOME!!! Ok, so I have an issue with buffets. My issue isn’t eating too much, but rather with GETTING too much. I get so excited over all of the options: fruit, yogurt, granola, cereal, muffins, toast, eggs, potatoes, etc. that I want ALL of it. Or at least a bit of all of it. At least I was eating by myself so I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone!

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We were in meetings until about 3pm when we grabbed a cab and headed to the airport. I was traveling with my manager, who is awesome. We grabbed an early dinner and drinks and before you knew it, I was back home! I am working from home today and tomorrow, which is a nice treat.

I hope my BSC’ers had a good class last night! So excited to be back tonight! Hoping the kickboxing routine I made up while having cocktails at the bar turns out to be suitable for teaching 😉

Questions for you: Humidity- can you run or workout in it? When you travel, do you still make time to workout? Favorite “on the road” healthy trick?

Tia’s, Baby Zeke and Maine- Weekend Recap!

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Hey there! Has everyone cooled done a bit? I’ll tell ya, working from home on a Monday is ALMOST as nice as working from home on a Friday! There’s something about not having to do food prep and “week prep” on a Sunday night, especially after coming home from Maine, that is SO nice. Sunday evenings are drastically better when that’s the case.

Friday

My friend, Cristina, hosted a Lupus Fundraising event at Tia’s on Friday night after work. With the weather temps at over 90 degrees, I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to spent a Friday evening!

1460Not only did I get to hang out with my college girlfriends, but my friend, Stephanie, was also there! Steph and I went to the same high school and used to Rollerblade down Main street in Sanford in the summers. #classy

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1465The whole time we were at Tia’s, we were checking our phones since we knew Sara was most likely going to have little Zeke at some point that night. Sure enough, around 8:30, we got THE text from Amy that we had been waiting for! Baby Zeke Aronson White was born!!!! And boy was he beautiful! I think Danielle and I made everyone at Tia’s cheers to baby Zeke! We are proud “Aunts” of this little boy 🙂

Saturday

I got up and packed an overnight bag since Danielle and I were going to head up to Maine right from the YMCA after my class. Class was sweaty and awesome, but to be honest, my mind was TOTALLY focused on going home to meet Zeke that I can barely even remember what I taught! I hope everyone liked it, though 🙂

We got to Sanford around 1:15 and drove straight to the hospital. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I will say that Zeke is the most beautiful little boy and has a wholeeeee lot of people who are already so in love with him! Sara looked like a beaming mom and it was so sweet to see her interacting with Zeke. She was in labor for about 20 hours with unreal contractions and the kicker was that she couldn’t get the epidural 😦 Sara was fully on board with getting one, too, but things moved so quickly once they broke her water that it was too late to give her the epidural. Poor thing! I can’t imagine how tired and physically beat she was. Anyway, here he is!

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sara and zeke

(mom and baby! I had Sara send me a pic of her with Zeke when I was writing up this post since I realized I only had pictures of Zeke being held by other people… we were baby hogs!)

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(and then she sent me this! I wonder what he is dreaming about that makes him smile?!)

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We stayed at the hospital with Sara until about 5pm when we decided to give her and Tim some time to themselves. Once we got home we had a really nice cocktail hour on the back patio with mom and dad.

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Not long after we poured drinks, Amy and Chris stopped by to do more baby gushing and celebrating!

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We all decided it was too hot to BBQ or cook, so we ordered food from the Corner Store (literally right next door) and called it good. While it tasted delicious, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach ache 😦 Such a fun, impromptu little get together, though! Sara, congratulations on your new little baby boy. I cannot wait to spend so much time with both of you and to be able to watch him grow up!

Sunday

I woke up early (I mean, I was in bed at 10pm, so no wonder why I was up early!) and decided to go visit my very good high school friend, Caitlin. She was due to have her little baby boy on June 1st, but he decided he wasn’t ready to come out quite yet! As I was leaving the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the huge snapping turtle who crosses our lawn each year to get from the brook behind our house to the pond across the street in order to lay her eggs. She was HUGE!

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Anyway! For Caitlin’s sake, I hope he decides to grace the world with his presence sooner rather than later! I hadn’t seen Cait in far, far too long, but like always, as soon as we get together, it’s like nothing has changed; the true sign of friendship! She is the most adorable little pregnant lady (she literally just has a basket ball belly!) and I am so bummed I didn’t get a picture of her. Can’t wait to meet her little one!

When I got home from my visit, Dad and Danielle had already done all the potato planting.. bummer! Since there was nothing else to do to help around the house, we took advantage of the sunny (but HOT) weather and sun bathed on the back patio.

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We decided to hit the road relatively early so that we could go grocery shopping and unpack and grab dinner (since it was too hot to cook). We walked to the grocery store (about a 1/2 mile away) to get a little exercise since we did nothing all day but relax in the sun! For dinner, we kept it casual and grabbed apps at Not Your Average Joes. I got their special “Strawberry Rhubarb Sangria” which was SO SO SO delicious! And BIG! Look at this thing!

1493I got the Tai Chicken Lettuce Wraps for dinner and they were quite tasty.

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Well, there ya go! Fun-filled weekend surrounded by friends, family and a new baby!

Questions for you: What did you do to stay cool last weekend? Favorite summer cocktail? Any new babies in your lives? Do share!

Weekly Workouts

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Happy Monday, friends! How was your weekend? I was in Maine for half of it, which is always a better place than the city to “survive” the heat. I taught too many classes last week, but happily, I survived injury free (my nagging injuries didn’t even pop up when teaching my second double of the week- woohoooo!!!). Now that I have dropped back on the number of classes per week that I teach, I realize that teaching 6 a week, while working a full time job and blogging was just way.too.much.

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I ran 3.1 miles in Maine, while adding in 25 reps of different strength exercises after each mile which was a fun way to change-up a run. I also gardened with my dad all day!

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  • Tuesday- I got asked to sub a double at the South Station BSC last minute, so I took it (since it’s a 5 min walk from my office). I taught a Kickboxing class followed by a UXF class and I have to say that I really like teaching those 2 classes (what I do on Thursdays) in that order wayyyyy better than what I do on Thursdays!
  • Wednesday– I got in 25 minutes on the elliptical before teaching UXF Burn. I’ll try to get that workout to you this week!

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(The humid weather+sweat= crazy frizzy hair!)

  • Thursday- I had zero time to make up a workout to teach in SHRED at work (dealt with computer issues all day), so I decided to repeat a UXF Burn class I taught a few weeks ago, but it worked fine! Kickboxing was a blast as always and it’s so nice to see how much that class has grown since I first started teaching it! Another plus of of the double was the amount of energy I had! I have no idea where it came from, and usually by the end of my double I am beat, but last Thursday was awesome!

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(Shirt says “No one has ever drowned in their own sweat”, but I’ll tell ya, I came damn near close on Thursday!)

  • Friday- REST! Besides walking to Dunkin Donuts, haha.
  • Saturday- Taught Kickboxing for the 3rd week in a row at Oak Square before heading up to Maine!
  • Sunday– Rest, again. I woke up really quite sore from Saturday’s kickboxing (which is so weird because it was the 3rd kickboxing class of the week that I taught so you’d think my muscles would be used to it!), so I decided to take it easy again.

This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I am subbing a UXF Burn/BodyPump class at 5:30 at the Wellington BSC!!! I LOVE this gym and it’s legit 5 mins from my house so I am pumped. BSCers- come join!
  • Tuesday- Maybe a rest, maybe go to a kickboxing class, maybe run on my own. We will see!
  • Wednesday- The usual- cardio and teaching UXF Burn.
  • Thursday- The usual- teaching SHRED and Kickboxing.
  • Friday- Pending on what I do on Tuesday will determine what I do on Friday.
  • Saturday- NOT TEACHING! I may join a Lupus walk with friends, may do something extra in addition to that, who knows!
  • Sunday- I would like to do something different- maybe my own workout, maybe something Athena has posted lately, maybe yoga or Core Fusion?

So, there you have it! After my crazy teaching schedule last week, it’s nice to have an open schedule this week. Any suggestions for what I should do for a workout with my extra time?? Any good ones that you have done recently?

Questions for you: What was the best workout you did last week? Try anything new? How did you escape the heat, but still get a workout in?