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Faith Thoughts on Life

He is the Gift

Thanksgiving reminds me to be grateful, and Christmas reminds me of Christ. Though many Christmas traditions originate in interesting ways, I celebrate the way the holiday helps me turn my thoughts to Christ, and of the miracle and blessing of his birth. I try and make sure that I do not let myself get buried in our activities and forget Him.

We spent last Christmas in our Airstream, just North of Houston Texas. We had a quiet and magical time as a family, where it was easy to direct and focus our attention and activities. The lights we strung inside the Airstream lent a magical feeling to our holiday.

I remember the Christmas that I really discovered the joy of giving. That year, I finally figured out that the giving is much more important and special than the receiving. My joy increased, and my understanding of our Heavenly Father’s Gift to us grew as well. I am grateful for Christ, for his willing sacrifice and his Atonement. He is My Saviour, and yours too, if you’ll allow him to be.

This Christmas we will be spending with family in Utah. We will trade a little quiet and simplicity for family traditions and a slightly busier schedule, but there too Christ will be our center of celebration. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and that you also can celebrate the true meaning of Christmas with those you love!

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Utah

Coming to Terms with Christmas in a House – Utah

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I feel a little overwhelmed right now. Have you noticed the lack of posts this week? Yeah… That. It turns out that I’ve been really, really busy.

When I think of our Christmas last year, I get fuzzy feelings with how “perfect” it was. No stress of shopping (it was all ordered on Amazon and delivered to my aunt & uncle’s house), we were able to find a great little state park, we bought our Christmas tree, hung out with family, Santa found us, and we relaxed.

This year, I’m still waiting for the relaxing part. I feel like my poor kids haven’t seen me in days (not true, as we went to the zoo today), and the shopping list is endless. To top it off, we completely turned our plans inside out and decided NOT to gift our kids skiing lessons this year as things were just not working out how we imagined they should.

However, we are so grateful to spend quality time with family. Instead of skiing together, we decided that our “experience” this year was having Christmas and Grandma & Grandpa’s house, and that we needed to focus on that. It has been glorious. The kids are excited every morning – they play, feed the dog, read books, and generally just get to BE here with people they love. We’ve seen Christmas lights, watched the animals get fed at the zoo, and today we are going sledding. In the SNOW. They desperately want to build a snowman.

Maybe it is a little more crazy, but you know what? It’s worth it. We’ll go back to simple and uncomplicated in January.

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WanderLog

Yosemite National Park to Rainbow Basin, CA

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Travel Dates: December 6-12, 2014

What a great week!! We decided to head to Yosemite from the Oakland Temple, just because we could. We stayed in a little RV park outside the National Park for the weekend, and drove the hour into the Valley Visitor Center Monday morning. We then proceeded to hike about 10 miles, gaining 2000 feet in elevation up to Nevada Falls via the Mist trail and back down the JMT. We are SO incredibly proud of our kids and their little legs! I still can’t believe we pulled it off. After leaving Yosemite we headed south, met up with some friends in Bakersfield and finally landed in the Rainbow Basin Natural Area outside of Barstow, CA. The desert greeted us the first night with the most amazing sunset!

From here we will head to Las Vegas on Sunday, and then pack the Airstream away into storage while we drive to Sandy, UT to be with family for Christmas!

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Faith Video

Angels We Have Heard on High – Guinness World Record Nativity

10832060_536554679813817_773245934_nOn Instagram over the last week or two we followed a few of our favorite popular people as they all converged in Provo to set the record for the most people participating in a live Nativity Scene (Scott Jarvie, Shay Carl, Peter Hollens, Alex Boye, Devin SuperTramp, Stuart Edge,  David Archuletta, and the Piano Guys).   Oh, how I wished we could have been there! What an amazing experience it would have been for our family.

Today, they released the video on the Piano Guy’s YouTube channel, and after watching it there was no way we couldn’t share it with you. I’m in awe of the amazing talent, planning, and generosity of these people that all came together to give us this special gift and to remind us what the Christmas season is really all about: Christ.

Equally as great, is the behind the scenes video done by Devin Graham which features the thoughts of the artists and why they participated:

Hope you enjoy, and as Steve Nelson suggested, find a way to help a stranger this season and spread the joy of giving and love to others!

Categories
Daily Life Fitness & Recipes Tips & Tricks

It Feels Good to Break a Sweat: My Newest Workout Routine

Mobile Gym

Trying to exercise with our unpredictable schedule has been one of the biggest challenges for me of our full time travel. I posted back in January about my failure of an attempt at working out, and although things aren’t much better, I feel like I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.

We have some smaller equipment that we keep on hand – most of them purchased through Amazon at some point:

Jump Rope
5 lb weights
12 lb weights
Exercise Mat
Arm band for my phone
Exercise head phones
Foam Roller

I will still occasionally get on a road ride (like this short one back in Oregon near John Day), but in reality I have 30 minutes or less to get my workout in. So, I get creative. Most weeks I manage to get in 2-3 workouts, but when we are slammed busy driving, or hanging around friends/family, or just plain BUSY (lame excuse) that number dwindles significantly.

I find that when I do make time to regularly exercise I’m much happier and even eat healthier. Balancing travel planning, home schooling, grocery shopping, hiking, and everything else does present its challenges, but before we are done traveling I’m going to make it work! Here’s what I’m currently doing:

Workout DVD’s

I have a friend who is a Beach Body consultant (check out her Instagram feed for awesome tips & recipes!), and she introduced me to Shaun T’s Focus T25 series. I have both the Alpha & Beta and I really like them. I feel like I get a great workout in, and it just doesn’t take very long. Yes, I’m typically outside in the campground where everyone can see me, but I’ve just developed a thick skin. I’ll try and find some privacy, but its usually me, half of our outdoor mat, and my computer. Good times.

Since then, I’ve also purchased the PiYo series which I like, but not quite as much. I’ve just never been into Yoga, but its a good mix of Pilates and Yoga and I don’t get quite as sweaty while still working on muscle development.

Smart Phone Apps

When we hike, bike, or walk (and even sometimes when weight lifting) I’ll track with Endomondo (Android, iPhone). I know there are others out there, we just invested in a Pro account years ago and I love it so I haven’t found a reason to change.

Nike Training Club (iPhone, Android) – this one has its pros and some serious cons. Its a little confusing at first and I hate that once I start a 4 week program I’m stuck to it. It gets depressing when I want to do a workout on Tuesday instead of Sunday and it won’t count towards my total minutes.

To compensate I just pick workouts and fit them in when I can. Maybe it’s not “ideal” but at least its something. I also hate that if your phone crashes you can’t start back in the middle of a workout. Or maybe that’s a plus… “Look! I’m done 15 minutes early!” 🙂 I do like the workouts I’ve have completed and definitely feel sore the next day!

Better Diet

I loved it when my friend posted a Clean Eating Challenge on Instagram a few months ago. It was awesome! We’ve been really trying to eat simpler, healthy meals. Lots of fruits, veggies, and ditch the processed stuff. I no longer buy crackers, or processed snacks (except Z bars & ropes from Costco, but those are for hiking or driving days) and we stick to carrots, cucumber, broccoli and hummus. Yes, we still eat ice cream, candy, and other not good for you items, but we eat them LESS. It’s a start.

Shakeology is seriously my favorite meal replacement drink. We’ve done a lot of Costco Protein powder, but this stuff just works. I’m the only one that drinks it (because its so darn expensive) and I can tell when I’m not consistent. I find it even more important at helping me maintain my weight because my workouts are so inconsistent. If I just got on the ball, maybe my numbers would actually start to go down…. wouldn’t that be nice?

The Ideal Schedule

In an ideal world, I’d have an actual workout schedule instead of trying to fit it in whenever. I was thinking this last week it would go something like this:

Monday: Nike Training Club 30 minutes
Tuesday: T25
Wednesday: Run (even though I still HATE it)
Thursday: Nike Training Club
Friday: PiYo

Sounds good, right? We’ll see…. What’s your favorite way to work out?