Happy First Day of Spring!

Hello everyone!

Happy first day of spring!! Spring is officially here! We survived winter! There are still some patches of snow and still freezing cold up here in Ohio but I know that warmer times are just right around the corner. I’ve said this countless times – I love snow but I can’t wait to run outside in shorts!!!

I’m so ready to put away our winter coats and scarves. They take too much space in our closet. I’m pumped about the new season and waking up to a bright morning like today! It’s really bright out so I’m rocking my new sunnies today. 🙂

Want my Bulu Box shirt? Click on the pic and check out my giveaway. 🙂

My favorite thing about spring is all the bright and beautiful colors. I also love the warm sun and the cool breeze touching my skin.

But, I don’t hate winter because I love snowboarding. All the snowboarding adventures and trips I had with my husband during the winter was a lot of fun!

The snowy scenery you get during winter season is just beautiful.

And oh, my first time running in the snow was definitely a lot of fun too!
(Related post: My Holiday Recap (Part 4): My First Run in the Snow!)

So, yeah, I don’t dread the snow but I’m over winter season (for now). I know I will definitely miss having a little bit of the white stuff again come the dreary summer months, that’s for sure.

I now look forward to more running adventures this spring. The best thing about this season is the weather. There’s nothing like a good run on a nice, crisp, sunny day. When the weather is perfect, not too hot, not too cold, your body is comfortable, your breathing is easy and the sun feels warm on your face. These are the days when you love being a runner.

By the way, I got my POP Pilates in the mail yesterday! If you haven’t checked out Blogilates, you MUST. She is an amazing trainer and I love doing her workouts!

What’s your favorite thing about spring? Do you hate winter?

Wishing you all a beautiful day!

Please don’t forget to participate on my giveaway going on through the end of March. 🙂

-XoXo

❤ Ja

My Holiday Recap (Part 3)

HELLO EVERYONE!

Today, I am going to try to get caught up on everything that I was supposed to get to last month! It’s been crazy and very busy for us the past month. I think January is always a hard month for blogging. The rush of holidays and getting back to reality once again felt overwhelming. Whew!

But I can do it …I can do it …I can do it!

I’ll continue my holiday update. After all, Filipinos earned the distinction of celebrating the world’s longest Christmas season. The spirit continues until New Year’s, all the way to Three Kings (celebrated every first Sunday of the year) to Chinese New Year, which is still fast approaching. So this post is never too late. Anyway I still see houses in our neighborhood with their Christmas lights on and decorations still up. Who says holiday is over yet? Holiday spirit is still in the air. LOL! *wink *wink :))

continuation of My Holiday Recap (Part 2)…

Dec 24 (Monday): We arrived Indiana past noon. My aunt’s family was so excited to see my parents, my brother & sister.

As soon as we arrived, we started preparing our food for Christmas Eve. A Philippine tradition that every Filipino family looks forward to is the Noche Buena. It is the grand family dinner after the midnight mass.

As we prepared dinner, my cousins started making their gingerbread house with my sister and brother.

Before we attended midnight mass, we went sightseeing to check out neighborhood Christmas lights and decorations.
One of the houses we saw, their lights were synchronized with music. It’s so cool.

Christmas Eve. After Midnight mass, we headed home right away for Noche Buena. We saved our appetite the whole day for this feast.

This festive meal was followed by exchange of gifts. For Filipinos, we don’t wait for Christmas morning to open our gifts. We do it on Christmas Eve! 🙂

Everyone was happy with their presents, especially me! My mom knew about my running addiction so I got more running clothes from her from the Philippines!

I got my parents workout clothes for Christmas so they’ll get motivated to exercise. I am encouraging them start living healthy by being active. They’re not getting any younger and I want them to take care of themselves. I’m glad they got the point. I love you Mom and Dad! 🙂

It is also a Filipino tradition to receive an aguinaldo from grandparents during Christmas. It is a money gift placed inside an envelope or chinese red envelope given by grandparents and parents to the younger generation. Even though our grandma celebrated Christmas in the Philippines this year, she never failed to send our aguinaldo. Thank you Grandma!

After opening gifts, we got hungry again, ate some more, did a little chitchatting and took lots of pictures before everyone called it a day.

Dec 25 (Tuesday): Christmas morning. In the Philippines, Christmas day is the time for visiting relatives and receive their aguinaldo and gifts from godfathers and godmothers. But for us this year in the US, we just stayed home, relaxed and did a lot of catching up with family.

We drove back to Ohio later that day.

Dec 26 (Wednesday): It was supposed to be shopping day for us for this day but a blizzard warning was issued in our area and driving was not advisable. Good thing we have a good place to sled close to where we live. It was a perfect day to go sledding!

Since we don’t have snow in the Philippines, my family took advantage of the snow brought in from the blizzard. We managed to have fun despite the bad weather forecast.

Later that day, we accumulated a few inches of snow and my brother volunteered to shovel our drive way. He said he wanted to try. Well, I said, “Go ahead! Be my guest!” 🙂

It seemed he enjoyed it! 🙂 I was teasing him and told him we’d love for him to stay forever so someone could do the shoveling for us. LOL! 🙂

Dec 27 (Thursday): Shopping Day! I drove my family to the Cincinnati Outlet Mall. We did a lot of crazy shopping and took advantage of the “After Christmas Sale”.

Dec 28 (Friday): My husband’s parents from Houston, Texas and relatives from Toronto, Canada arrived in Ohio. Our home was packed. We were 18 total in our mini home. Imagine that! 🙂

It was crazy snowing up to this day. While some were dreading the weather …

…my dad, who’s from Philippines and my husband’s dad, from Texas, loved it. Haha! 🙂

They were young “ones” …once again. LOL!

Dec 29 (Saturday): SNOWBOARDING …AGAIN!

As we were preparing to head out, my sister was enjoying herself scraping off the snow from my aunts car. It was something different again for her. 🙂

My brother and sister’s goal was to be good at snowboarding before they leave. They really learned it fast as if they’ve done it before. It’s like they’re born to be snowboarders. I’m really proud of them.

Second time in the slopes and my brother dared to hit the black diamond with us! That’s how awesome he became at snowboarding.

Now that my brother and sister are hooked, they look forward to spending Christmas again here in the US with us. 🙂

After all the teasing, my dad and my husband’s dad gave in. They finally tried hitting the slopes too.

My dad tried snowboarding.

My husband’s dad tried skiing.

Remember, you’re never too old to try something new. 🙂

We had to let them join in the free lessons group. My husband and I thought we wouldn’t be successful with them. So we decided to leave them under close supervision of a more professional instructor. LOL!

We checked up on them at the lesson area from time to time. We were glad to see that they were having a great time. At least they can now say to everyone that they’ve tried to ski and snowboard!

It was a fun day again for all of us in the slopes.

What better way to end a tiring day than to eat some good Japanese food! After spending the whole day in the slopes, we headed to this Japanese place that me and my husband usually go for some good sushi & hibachi.

Hibachi is always very entertaining. The chef put on a great show that entertained us very much.

It was actually a very nice way to cap off our day. 🙂

Stay tuned for my New Years celebration recap! 🙂 Have a great weekend everyone!

My Holiday Recap (Part 1)

Hellllooooo out there!!!

My apologies if my blogging is a bit spastic the past weeks. It was a busy (and fun) holiday for my husband and me.  I’ve barely had time to check my email and Facebook. This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and relax and man, it feels amazing!

First things first, I hope that your Christmas and New Years were filled with happiness and blessings.

I feel very blessed this year to have had such a great Christmas and New Year spent with family, friends and so.much.food (c/o of my husband’s dad, Thank you Papa for cooking!). It went by way too fast, as always, but was memorable and really, really fun!

So, what happened to me? 🙂

After a little blogging hiatus here’s a quick run down of how my family and I spent the holidays! I have to divide it in parts or this post would be too long.

I knew that it was going to be hectic once my family gets here so I had to post a schedule of our itineraries on our fridge so that everyone could just refer to this and be prepared of our everyday planned activities.

Dec 21 (Friday): Arrival of my family (my dad, mom, sister and brother) from the Philippines!!! 🙂

At the Detroit Airport, we received a call from my mom that they missed their connecting flight to Ohio (what?!). It was hectic at the airport and it took a while for them to transfer and check-in their luggage for their connecting flight. They were able to fix their flight but due to high volume of passengers (holiday rush!), they had to fly to Ohio at separate times. It’s all good as long as they all arrive safe and sound.

First to arrive were my dad and my brother, then few hours later, my mom and sister. 🙂

FAMILY!

Reunited with my siblings!

at the airport parking lot

It really feels so good to be reunited with loved ones. I knew from that day on that it’s going to be a happy Christmas for us! 🙂

Dec 22 (Saturday): We hit the slopes the next day at Perfect North Slopes. Yup, already! No day should be wasted, right?!. 🙂

We don’t get snow in the Philippines and one of the many things my siblings were looking forward to for their Christmas vacation here in the US was to learn how to snowboard!

My husband and I became snowboarding instructors for a day. My husband and I divided the task by teaching them separately. I was in charged of my sister while him with my brother. That way we can focus on each of them. Once they learned the basics, we can all go together and teach them more other stuff as we go through the day.

I have to say, my sister and brother learned it pretty fast.  Compared to me when I was learning it, I was struggling. LOL! I am so proud of them for being quick learners.  I am very proud too of myself and my husband for doing a good job teaching them. 🙂

You guys have to see how much they have improved the second time we went snowboarding. I will have to share that on my next post.

It was a fun day for all of us! It was great first two days with my family!

More to come! I promise! Stay tuned!

Embracing Winter

It’s December and with a little more than two weeks before the official start of winter season, my husband and I are now ready to welcome it with arms wide open. It’s definitely the most wonderful time of the year, but with it, comes bitter cold temperatures and difficult traveling conditions. I wish everyone to be safe and to make sure to bundle up!

I’ve decided to lie low from joining races for the coming season but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget about running. My love for running will never fade. 😛 I will still keep running through the winter. I have yet to experience running in the snow and ice. I know, it may seem crazy to think about it but a lot of people say it’s really fun and with the right gear, it’s doable!

I’ve only started serious running this year and so far, I prefer running in cold temps than in the heat and humidity of summer. I love that I don’t have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to beat the heat. I love getting out there and knowing that even though I’m cold starting out, I’ll eventually warm up. I love being outside, even if it’s cold.

To those who have ran in the winter cold and snow, care to share your experience?

Speaking of snow, Perfect North Slopes (related post: Mudstash update) opened last weekend! 🙂 They have made enough snow during the past cold days to have a few runs open for preview. We dragged ourselves early Saturday to the place to check it out and get a head start on the slopes. 🙂

We came to pick up our season pass too!

Our season pass is good for one day per week. Since they had a limited amount of terrain open last weekend, they considered both Saturday and Sunday, bonus days! So, we got to go again on Sunday with our season pass for free! Awhhh-some! 🙂

It was hot for snowboarding on those two days. The temp was in the high 50s. We didn’t have to wear thick jackets. Some of the people were wearing shorts while skiing and snowboarding. I thought they looked weird. 😛

Here are some of the videos we took that day! We were trying to learn how to “butter“. But in order to that, we had to learn how to spin first.

My husband did a good job and learned it pretty fast!

As winter comes, try not to hibernate! Don’t wait for spring to get active again. Beat winter blues! Get outside if you can.

Winter sports are not for everyone. If the cold isn’t your cup of hot chocolate, there are alternatives to still get active indoors.

For me, if the weather doesn’t permit me to go running outside, I go to our local gym and use their treadmill. Sometimes, I join my friends play indoor volleyball with them.

My arms got so bruised after I played volleyball for the first time again after so many years.

It has been so long since I played volleyball. This is totally normal for the first few days. The impact of the volleyball damages the small vessels under your skin. I’ve had this before during my first days of volleyball training when I was in high school. Once you play more, you get used to it and the bruising gets minimal ’til you don’t get them anymore.

More bruises on my knees too. I will definitely remind myself to wear knee pads the next time I play again. 😦

Another alternative that my husband use to be active indoor, his indoor bike trainer.

Basically, you put your bike’s back wheel in the trainer, and then pedal your bike, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Depending on the trainer, you can set the angles and tension to give yourself a more rigorous workout.

Winter weather can sometimes make working out seem less than desirable but there are really no excuses for my husband and me. There will always be a way if you really want to. So, bring it on Winter! We’re so ready for you!

Do you have alternative workouts in the winter? What activities do you do to stay active in the winter?

Have you guys set up your Christmas tree yet?

We already did! 🙂

Christmas is definitely in the air in our home! 🙂

I love spreading cheer the old-fashioned way. Go ahead and fill out my address book, if you want to receive a Christmas card from me!  … I know you want one! 🙂