CARLSBAD, CA

We are officially on our family vacation here in Carlsbad, CA. It's about 20-30 min from San Diego. We haven't been downtown yet and that's ok cause we absolutely can't peel ourselves away from this city anyway. LOL. It is GORGEOUS here and we have everything we want at the Carlsbad beach that's just in our backyard. 

We rented a beach house here in Carlsbad. It's absolutely stunning!! Three bedrooms and three baths never looked so good. There's a hot tub in the backyard with an outdoor shower so we can wash off the sand and salt water before entering the house. It's amazing!! The kitchen is so top notch!! All Kitchenaid appliances. It makes Hoko & I wanna cook all the time. The stovetop and oven is soooooo NICE!! As in it's like SMART. Lol. Seriously. Your food never burns cause it has some type of settings that lowers the heat accordingly, I think. Everything is stainless steel in the kitchen. Even the blender. Lol. It's just so beautiful and seriously a dream home!! 

The house came equipped with a surf board, boogie boards, beach chairs, beach towels, toys for the kids and one of those big umbrellas that blocks out the sun. It's so GREAT!! The beach is UH-MAZING!! So beautiful and clean. It's shallow part is really far out and the waves are perfect for the kids to be able to swim in safely without drowning cause they're not too aggressive. I love it here. Can we just move here already?! I wish!! I told Hoko that we should definitely retire here!! The locals were looking at us like we were crazy cause its cold right now for them. And we're over here like, we're from Utah niggz. Where it was in the negatives last week. This is paradise to us!! We're the only ones swimming in the ocean. Everyone else there is only there to surf and since we're annoying and like to live by that famous saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Lol. So we went to the local thrift store in town and bought all the wet suits they had and hit the beach today lookin' like some locals!! Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!! Hahahahaha!! It was our first time putting a wet suit on and I loved it!! It kept me dry and warm and I paddled my heart out on the surf board and caught a wave ONCE the whole hour I was on it. Hahahaha!! Yeah. I was being greedy with it and finally gave it to Polu Marie and Lote si'i who took turns with their dad. It was so FUN!! 

There's a ton more pics of us at the beach on Hoko's phone. I'll get them and upload them tomorrow. After the beach, we always rush home so we can shower off and soak in the hot tub until its time to make dinner. It's so GREAT!! 

We made the decision before we came to grocery shop so we wouldn't be spending so much money on food alone. Also because I didn't wanna always have to find somewhere to buy fast food whenever we got hungry. Especially with seven kids. That's just crazy!! So we hit up Costco, which is only five min from here, to grocery shop for the week. And it's working out pretty great!! 

Top pics are from yesterday. 

Hoko and I have been talking a lot while we're out here and we've been so grateful to be able to do this for our kids. They have no idea how much we love them and how much their happiness is important to us. We talk about them all the time. Our hopes and dreams for each of them continues to grow as they grow. We're excited to watch them grow up and become who our Heavenly Father has planned for them to be from even before the world was. I love my Heavenly Father and recognize that I have so much to work on to be able to return to Him someday. It's been a great week so far!! Our vacation is perfect. 

Growing Pains

My poor little Jordan has been waking up from his sleep crying out in pain cause his legs hurt from growing pains. My poor baby. I always get up and massage his legs and usually it does the trick and he's able to go right back to sleep. But some nights, like tonight, the pain is too great and I have to resort to drastic measures. That is, NETFLIX. Lol. It distracts him enough and he stops crying and forgets his pain until he falls asleep once more. 

It's after 4 a.m. And we're lying here on the couch in the living room watching Batman and I'm hoping his pain will go away soon and we can both get back to some much needed shut eye. 

I was able to hit my workout last night. Right after dinner, I threw my gym clothes on, packed my bathing suit and towel and headed to the gym in hopes of being able to soak in the hot tub before hitting my workout. I'm back to the Shred and today was day 25 of chest, triceps and abs. When I got to the club, I changed into my bathing suit and headed for the hot tub. It was filled with teenagers. Ugh....I was like. Wth?! Don't you kids have school tomorrow?! HOI!! So I went into the sauna, which was also filled with an old man and three other boys. But I was over it and found a spot and sat down to at least loosen up my muscles before hitting the weights. 

I sat in the sauna for thirty min before heading out and changing back to my gym clothes. 

With my note cards in hand, I headed out  to the weight room excited to increase my weights for this high reps, single joint session. I felt GREAT!! I did the optional advanced technique. It's called the cardio accelerated rest-pause dropset. The burn was REAL!! I loved it!! It's shoulders, legs and calves today. I can't wait!! I gotta go easy on my shoulders cause my right one is hella strained and I don't want it to get worse. 

When I got home, Aaliyah was up doing homework and watching Savou and Jordan. I love that girl. She actually had them all tucked into bed, which they happily jumped out of when they heard my voice. Lol. So I had to lay with them in bed til they fell asleep. 

And yup!! I have to lay in between them or one of them (usually Savou) ends up feeling neglected and goes to sleep sad. We can't have that. I need them both to know that I love them equally. As soon as they fell asleep, I hopped on IG and discovered Bey's new album release. It was so hard for me to peel myself away from her album so I can finish the night strong with day 4 of T25. Ab Intervals. It was so intense and killed me once again!! Lol. But I loved it!! 

Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!

OMG!! Beyonce released her album last night!! A visual one!! Meaning, every song has a music video!! I can't even sleep I'm too busy watching all the vids and trying to memorize the songs!! Aaaaahhhh!! I love this woman so much!! She just keeps gettin' better with time!! She's so AMAZING!! 

I'm so fricken EXCITED I can't sleep. But I have to cause I'm starting to feel hungry. HOI. Good night!! 

Clean Eating

I've really started to reel in my eating and only eat clean this week. I'm so excited that I'm almost thru with week one and that I've stuck to it. I've been sticking to low cals this week and probably will until I hit my goal weight. I did this before and then just started eating bad and gained a lot of muscles, but also a lot of fluff. Carb fluff. And it was ugly. I hated it so here I am. Back to clean eating, but making it more of a true lifestyle change. I'm really excited this time around to reach my goal weight. And I'm hoping I can reach it by my birthday in April. That would be thee BEST present everrr!! We have Ab Intervals for our 25 min T25 workout. Can't wait!! I'm gonna hit the gym for day 25 of the shred. Gonna take my bathing suit so I can soak in the hot tub afterwards. 

Some of my clean eating meals. Simple and delicious. The only way I can have it. I don't have a lot of time to spend making food so it has to be quick and easy. I've been having Greek yogurt and mixing all natural peanut butter into it. Soooo good!! And satisfies my sweet tooth. Sometimes I eat an orange and a very generous tbsp of pb. It's heavenly. Try it. Anyways, I'll post again soon on how Lote and I died on ab intervals tonight. Lol. 

T25 Day 3 part II

I hit the gym today after the kids came home from school. It felt soooo GREAT to be back in my element. I switched it up today and did Jamie Eason's Phase 3 legs day. Specifically hams and glutes. I only had an hour before it was time to pick up Aaliyah so I didn't take any breaks. The burn was reeeaaalllll!! I was sweatin' like crazy and my hams were starting to tighten and cramp. I had to stretch them out in between sets. I loved it!! I finished up and went to pick up Aaliyah from basketball practice, headed home and made dinner. It's been another successful day of clean eating. Yeehaw!! I'm so stoked cause I still feel GREAT!! 

Top pic is what we had for dinner tonight. Simple and clean. An hour later, Lote and I strapped our shoes on and hit our T25 day 3 workout. Total body circuit. We've never sweat so much!! Holy cow!! We barely made it. HOI. Lol. 

And yup!! You get all three of our annoying selfies!! Hahahaha!! We worked hard tonight!! Lol.

I'm learning so much this week about how much nutrition is KING!! I can smash as many workouts as I want, but if my nutrition isn't on point, it's a waste of time progress wise. I've never been so eager and more reassured about hitting my goal weight then I am now. I'm so EXCITED!! Keeping myself accountable and working with what I have. As much as the scale has been something that's been discouraged to use to measure progress, it's still so important to me to hit a goal weight cause I know once I get in that ball park.....my results will be amazing cause I'll be a lot more lean. I'm down 6 lbs since last week and over an inch on my waist. Yay!! Hard work and discipline always pays off!! Summer 2014?? I'm coming for you!!