EA SPORTS Active for Life Challenge

As some of you already know, I was chosen by EA SPORTS Active to be one of their featured challengers for their brand new fitness game More Workouts. You can check out my post about it here, and even watch the video I submitted. Don't laugh at it, mkay?

So as I type this, I'm sitting in my awesome hotel room near San Francisco. I just drank coffee from a French Press. I'm admiring the view of the hills from window. And I'm blogging.

I'm here in California to shoot a commercial for EA SPORTS Active! I was asked, along with several others challengers to participate and I couldn't be more excited, YO!

Last night I met with wardrobe and had fittings for the shoot, which will happen later today. It was awesome and fun, and a little tiring, but OMG the clothes! So many!!

Some of them were not so good.

Most of them were spandex-y. ACK!

But it was a blast, and I didn't have to re-hang anything I tried on!

I totally encourage you to check out EA SPORTS Active Personal Trainer and More Workouts (available 11/17). As a matter of fact, we're giving away several copies of More Workouts over at the Sisterhood this week! The Active for Life 6 Week Challenge starts on November 20th, and will run until December 31st. That's 6 weeks that will change your life! I took part the 30-Day Personal Trainer challenge, and I'm a believer!

Disclosure: EA SPORTS Active did not pay me to advertise for them. I did receive a copy of EA SPORTS Active Personal Trainer to review for the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans, and I will receive a copy of More Workouts to review as well.

The skinny on April's visit

Blogging and I haven't been getting along lately. I haven't been blogging and I haven't been reading blogs. BOO. I do have an amazing excuse this week though! I had a visitor, a wonderful friend that I met in bloggyland, on Twitter if you want to get all crazy about it. Yes, I met April on Twitter (she's @aprilshowrs), and we became fast friends. I invited her over to the Sisterhood, where she was a champion supporter and she eventually became a contributor. Our first official IRL meetup was at Blogher in July, but her trip to visit me has been in the works since before that.

She arrived on Tuesday, and from that moment forward, we were on the go. I took her for her first REAL Tex-Mex, including table-side guacamole, and super-duper margaritas. Then we headed for my house where she got to witness a real life traffic jam. Then we hung our, watched the Biggest Loser, drank some beers, and chatted with each other on the 'hood. Yeah, we were sitting in the same room, but whatever!

On Wednesday we got all crazy and decided to head to Lost Maples State Natural Area. I knew the maples would be near peak, and I knew it would be an awesome hike with lots of photo ops. We were not disappointed. We ended up taking the 4.9 mile loop, with 1.5 miles being a steep and rocky climb up, and then another mile was a steep and rocky climb down. Did I mention I had Mia in a Kelty Kids backpack? Um, yeah. I had never hiked that far or that high with her, and it was challenging. Totally worth it though! I mean, look at these shots I got!

On Thursday we baked all.day.long. Friday was the Wild Game Dinner at my son's school, and I had committed to making cobblers and brownies for the bake sale. I've never made a cobbler so I googled recipes and found this one. Can you say heart attack on a plate? For reals, yo. As April and I melted the stick of butter in the 9x13" we laughed and maybe gagged just a little. Then when it came time to add in the TWO cups of sugar (I know, right?!) we skimped because we felt totally guilty for the fact that someone was going to consume this sweet buttery mess of dessert. So 4 cobblers and two batches of brownies later, I'm pretty sure we were drunk, or maybe close to it. Neither one of us had any desire to eat cobbler, and we might be totally scarred for life.

On Friday we geared up for the dinner, and it didn't disappoint. Perfect weather, so much amazing food, including elk, venison, antelope, fallow, oryx, axis, and much more. About an hour and half into the dinner, with more than 450 people already served, we started running out of food. Very scary because we had 2.5 hours left and dozen of people flooding in. We managed to scrape by with limited selections available during the last part of the dinner, but not one person complained. We raised a TON of money for the PTO, which will go into the school's activity fund to support, among other things, the end of year field trip.

I know I had fun, and I'm pretty sure April did. I mean, what could be more fun than coming to Texas and going to a wild game dinner, right?

The next installment of our trip, the Sisterhood Virtual EA SPORTS Active 5K, will come tomorrow over at at my Shrinking Jeans blog!

Come back later tonight/tomorrow because I'm going to tell you all about why I'm in California RIGHT NOW for EA SPORTS Active! It's so exciting!!

You Capture - Autumn

One morning last week, after I dropped BJ off for school carpool, I decided it was a perfect morning for a photoventure! The temperature was in the lower 40s and the sun was shining so perfectly. Autumn is absolutely my favorite time of year, for so many reasons. One of the main reasons is the wild flowers. These yellow beauties are EVERYWHERE!

And this tree? It's a cedar tree and I really want to hug it all day long. So lovely with all of it's yellow friends surrounding it in the early morning light.

And this amazing view? I get to see it everyday on my run. So peaceful.

Because it was so chilly that morning, the river was giving off some nice steam. In the morning light, it was so beautiful.

Finally, this spot is very special to me. I love to slow down as I pass by and take in the beauty of the view. Often times, I'll pull over and jump out with my camera just to snap a shot because, no matter what time of year, it's always so breathtaking.

Thank you Beth for choosing Autumn and encouraging us to take in it's beauty.

For more amazing Autumn Captures, head over to Beth's blog, I Should Be Folding Laundry. She's the bomb, I promise.

The Shrink-a-Versary Extravaganza Challenge begins

Can I just tell you I'm SO excited about this challenge. SO excited because the Sisterhood has been around for almost a year and it makes my heart so happy to think of all the wonderful people I've met in shrinkdom! I've forged strong bonds with people who are so amazing and inspiring and just downright freaking awesome!! Without them, my life would not be as full as it is at this very moment.

So on to the good stuff!

My goal for this challenge is very conservative. The reason is that I've continuously set lofty goals for myself, and time after time, I fall short of meeting them. For once, I want to meet my goal and feel that victory!!! So my goal is to lose 5 pounds over the next 7 weeks. I feel good about that goal and I feel like I can achieve it.

As far as my EA Sports Active 5K challenge training goes, it's been kind of hit and miss. Illness and rainy weather have tried their best to derail my efforts, but I'm staying the course. I might not be running the entire Sisterhood 5K come Sunday, November 8th, but dagnabbit, I'm going to give it my all. I'm going to push myself to make it as far as I can before keeling over on the side of the road and passing out!

Today's Shrink-a-Versary Extravaganza starting weigh-in: 142 (up .8 from last week, if you're keeping track!)

You should seriously consider popping over to the Sisterhood and checking things out! We're an awesomely cool bunch of people with a goal of being fit and healthy!!

Good luck to all of you who've joined our fantastic challenge! I hope you find the kind of fulfillment I have at the Sisterhood!!

A new challenge

Tomorrow, over at the Sisterhood, we're starting a brand-new-super-duper-exciting challenge called the Shrink-a-Versary Extravaganza. Did I mention it's going to be exciting? And challenging? Okay, good. So the reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to come over and join us! Even if you don't need to shrink! Even if you just want to get in better shape and hang out with pretty much the coolest group of chics (and guy) on this here internets.

See you tomorrow. Over here. K? Bye!

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend was beautiful. Cool in the mornings, warming up to the lower 70s in the afternoon, and so sunny. Typical fall weather in Texas. We took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and headed to the pumpkin patch, and I just KNEW I was going to get that shot. You know, the one for the Christmas cards this year. Only I didn't. The sun was too bright, shadows too harsh, and I couldn't get either one of the kids to look at me at the same time, much less smile without squinting, to save my life!

We still had a wonderful time, and I did get some great shots, even if I didn't get "the one"!




This was the typical shot of them together.

BJ and a baby turkey chick.



Getting ready to toss some hay.

The obligatory Texas Longhorn shot.



Mia and the turkey face off. That thing was as big as she was! I loved this shot in black and white, but the color version was so nice, so I'm sharing BOTH!



I used the Pioneer Woman's free actions for Photoshop to edit these photos. They are so much FUN, and did I mention FREE?

Shrink for Good Parade of Cans

Get a load of my cans!


Our last challenge at the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans revolved around Weight Watchers' Lose for Good campaign. We named our challenge (most appropriately) Shrink for Good! The premise was for every pound lost, we would donate a pound of non-perishable items to our local food banks. In conjunction with this, Weight Watchers committed to donating $1 million to help fight childhood hunger.

Let's just say we're all shrinkers and our local food banks are growing, for good.

Personally, I only lost 3.6 pounds during our challenge, but I did commit to donating 100 pounds of food, no matter how much I lost.

This is a picture of 50 pounds of my donation. Yes, I sat down with a calculator and tallied up all the ounces after figuring out my scales wouldn't cooperate and weigh my stuff for me! This 50 pounds is also representative of all the weight I've lost since I started this journey 3 1/2 years (and a baby!) ago. WOW.

I will be stopping at the grocery store tonight to pick up the rest of my food donation, and I'll be dropping it all off later this week, so come back and check out the rest of my cans, m'kay?

And if you feel so inclined, sift through your pantry today and pull out some cans for YOUR local food bank. Somewhere there's a child who might be so grateful you took the time.

OH! I almost forgot!!

Last week: 142.6
This week: 141.2
Loss: 1.4 pounds WOOT!!!!