2017: A Year in Review

Here we are at the end of yet another year. Most years go by really fast for me but, I think 2017 didn’t go by as fast as other years. We definitely had some busy seasons with work and travels, mostly during the summer and October, but the rest of the year felt smooth and less rushed than others. I’m so not complaining about that! I am not one to glorify busy and enjoy taking time to enjoy my days and not feel rushed.

A big highlight of the year for me was becoming part of the Rock N Roll Marathon Series ambassador program, called Rock N Blog and I’m excited to be a part of the team again for 2018! This definitely set the tone for my running schedule for the year. I ended up running 18 races! Seven of these were virtual 5Ks, but they still came with some awesome race bling!! One was the Run Love Virtual 5K by Running Skirts and the other 6 were with the Rock N Roll Race Series! I also did a fun non-competitive community 5K with the kiddos. And 2 more 5Ks, one at Rock N Roll San Diego and the other at Rock N Roll Las Vegas as part of the Remix Challenge. I ran 2 obstacle course races, the Vegas Spartan Super and the Badass Dash. Lastly, I ran a total of 6 half marathons this year. By far, the most half marathons I’ve ran in 1 year! My favorite was the San Diego Half Marathon, not because I PRed or anything, but because it was such a fun race! If you want to check out any or all the race recaps, you can do so HERE!

Traveling and getting out to explore new places, near and far, is a big part of our lives. This year, 3 of our trips were race-cations! We traveled to San Diego, Seattle, and Napa for me to run half marathons + we got vacations out of it too, I’d say it was a win-win for everyone! For Spring Break we visited the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Malibu. We took our summer family vacation visiting the Pacific Northwest. We spent 2 days in Seattle and rest of our week was spent in Oregon. We stayed in Portland and saw the main sights in the city, as well as visiting the Oregon Coast and the Colombia River Gorge, including the famous Multnomah Falls. We also took a kid-free weekend getaway trip to San Diego, mostly to run the Rock N Roll 5k + half marathon but also to unwind a bit. It was great. Another trip we took was to the Sonoma/Napa Wine Valley. That was a fun trip we took with our friends without the kiddos too. I ran the Napa to Sonoma Half Marathon and the rest of the time we visited some amazing wineries and ate some delicious food!

We also planned smaller weekend and day trips throughout the year to Southern California, Valley of Fire, Willow Beach at the Arizona border, and Sand Hollow State Park in Utah. We had a great Summer Bucket List, full of activities and even though we didn’t finish everything on the list, it was a ton of fun! This year we also celebrated my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary!

This time of year, I always like to reflect on all aspects of my life and really take note of what worked, what didn’t, where I can improve, and start planning for the upcoming year. It can be difficult to balance life and I know it’s impossible to get it all right, all the time. The best I can do is learn from my experiences, grow, and start off with a good plan. I hope you too take the time to reflect and learn from this past year and not just dwell on what didn’t go right, but really embrace and appreciate all the good too! XO Jessie

Bristlecone Events Groundhog Day 5K Community Run

Earlier this month the kiddos and I woke up early, drove to the other side of town and ran Bristlecone Events Groundhog Day 5K Community Run! I’m part of a running group on Facebook and one of the members was offering free registrations for this upcoming event and of course, I was all for it! Free Race, count me in!

Bristelcone Events is a new racing company in Las Vegas and they’ll be putting some new and fun events this year. The cool thing about their community race series, is that they are only $15 and although they don’t have tshrits and medals at the finish, they’re still fun, community oriented, and organized. They also provide a water station and treats at the end 🙂

This was Diego’s first 5K and he did so great. He took off at the starting line and Elysse and I never caught up! The race was 3 loops with 1 aid station. Jason was waiting at the aid station and cheered us on at each lap. Since Diego was running ahead, I stayed with Elysse and ran alongside her. She started off super excited but about halfway through our first lap, she started to get tired. I’ll admit she got a little whiny and started complaining. It was hard to keep positive with her complaining, but I tried to motivate her as we ran and walked.

Diego finished strong about 5 or so minutes before us and he was so pumped! I think he may have experienced his first runner’s high!!! He went on and on about how much he loved it and how good he was feeling. I was a proud momma 🙂

We’re already looking into doing another family 5K run together and hopefully Jason will join us next time 😉

Have you ever ran a 5K together as a family? What’s been your favorite race?

Terrain Racing 5K | Our First Family Mud Run

Back in October, my family and I ran our first mud run together. We ran the Terrain Racing 5K here in Las Vegas and it was epic. Both kiddos have done the Kid Spartan races, kids Dirty Dash races, and have participated in a runDisney kid 1 mile race and fun 5Ks like the Bubble Run. So they are definitely not strangers to running, obstacles, and getting dirty! But, this was the first 5K mud run and it was the first time we’d all participated together, as a team.

They were so excited to be a part of the race and run alongside us and other adults. This was a pretty tough race and they did so well. They climbed walls and cargo nets that I thought were pretty high and scary. They trudged through muddy water, flipped tires, carried sand bags, and went up and down some pretty steep hills. They did it all with so much determination and courage. They never gave up. They tried all the obstacles and hardly needed any assistance from us. Jason and I were so proud of them. I think the best part was having so many other runners come up alongside them and cheer them on, especially Elysse, who was so tiny compared to everyone else out there! I could see how good and empowered it made them feel.

I’ll admit, I was a little nervous that there might be whining or bickering out there but we all kept it cool and got along great! The kiddos didn’t fight and actually encouraged each other to keep going. We seriously had the best time! I can’t wait to run another race together as a family. I would most definitely recommend running a race or participating in an event as a family. I just wish we would have done it sooner.

It’s great to get the kids involved in staying active and setting some healthy fitness goals. Come back Thursday for tips on how to get the kiddos excited about exercising and running races!

Documenting Life

As some of you may know already or if you read My Story, I’m a wedding and portrait photographer. I make my living documenting milestone events and moments in the lives of others. It is my dream job. Being able to capture these special moments for people is amazing. As a photographer, I strive to not just tell people where to stand and how to pose, but to capture how they are as a person, as a couple, as a family. I think these photos, with the real smiles, real expressions, and real moments are the ones that tell the story. These photos will tell future generations who we really were. What we were about. What and who we loved. How we lived and what mattered to us most.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because for the past few years I have gotten away from documenting my own family’s life. Business is going great. I am capturing some great moments for my clients, but when it comes to my own family, I am slacking. I realized I never take out my “fancy” camera unless it’s for work. I got lazy. That’s the bottom line. It’s just so easy to take a snap shot with my iphone, I mean, I carry it with me everywhere I go anyhow. I was also finding that with my pro camera in hand, I missed out on a lot of the fun and I worried about keeping my camera protected too, especially if we were outdoors like at the beach or something. So, a year or so ago we purchased a nice high end digital rangefinder camera that is small and convenient, so we’ve been using that for our trips and leaving our pro cameras at home. And although I love the convenience and ease of the smaller camera, I feel like something is missing. There is something about my professional DSLR camera that I can’t capture in the smaller camera.

The other problem I have with documenting life is that photos rarely live outside of a screen. With sharing on Instagram, facebook, this blog, or my photography blog, I’m not getting photos printed. I remember being a kid and getting so excited when we’d develop a roll of film and eagerly flipping through the photos, careful not to get any fingerprints on them. Or as I got older, making scrapbooks and putting the pictures in albums or small “brag books”. Remember those? I want that for my kids. I want them to be able to sit down and open a book and look through the images and remember all the fun we had on a certain vacation, hiking our favorite trails, or just on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

After giving this much thought, I’ve come up with a plan. Because, come on, you know me, there is always a plan! First of all, I’ve got to be realistic. I know that I won’t carry my pro camera everywhere. It’s just not who I am. So, there will still be lots of documenting with my iphone on instagram. However, I’m excited to check out Chat Books. They are small 6×6 60 page books where every photo you shear to Instagram creats a page in your book series. The best part is that you can easily remove photos and add captions to create perfect book each time. Because come on, I post a lot of photos of food and running that probably don’t need to be printed each time. The best part is that each book is only $6 and they also offer subscription plans. I can’t wait to try them out and let you know how they are!

My days of scrapbooking are over. Who has time for that?!? But, I do love the photo books from My Publisher. I made one for our 2013 summer vacation and the kiddos love looking through it! I know I said I had a plan, but I’m honestly not sure how I want to go about these books, yet. Ideally, I would love to make books for each season of the year or at least from each of our family vacations. Any ideas? Please share them in the comments!

Lastly, like I said, I know I won’t take my pro camera with me everywhere we go. But, I will make it a point to take it on longer vacations and periodically on hikes and stuff. I want to document, not just the special occasions, but pieces of everyday life too. Because it’s the everyday adventures and shenanigans that make up our life. It’s the forts made out of sheets in Elysee’s room, the cool kendama tricks Diego does daily, the family game nights, the bbq’s with friends. It’s these moments that make up our life. It’s these moments that are worth documenting.

Bonus: In an effort to keep up with documenting our lives, I ask that you join me too! I know I am not the only one struggling to take out the camera, be it the point and shoot, camera phone, or DSLR. I challenge you to document your life for the month of August. Let’s see how much we can photograph and document in one month. I’ll be sharing my favorite moments here on my blog and if you are also a blogger, I’d love to have you share your favorite photos on your blog. Maybe this could even become a monthly or weekly blog swap! Who’s in? We may be surprised to see that the ordinary moments are the ones that make life extraordinary.

How to Encourage Kids to Eat Healthy & Be Active

OOPS, so I haven’t blogged all week. I feel bad about it. I really enjoy blogging and it helps keep me sane. But sometimes, life gets crazy and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what needs to be done and work, laundry, dishes, all these things tend to pile up on you…BUT, that’s for another blog post because I finally did carve out some time this morning to share a bit of my family life with you.
Most of you know, I’m a mom of two kiddos! I blog about them a ton, especially when it comes to doing fun stuff together and going on family vacations and adventures! Today, though I want to talk about how important it is to lead by example and how to encourage kids to eat healthy and be active. When I started this weight loss journey and began exercising regularly I did it for me. I mean, yeah, I wanted to be able to run around with my kiddos and not be out of breathe, I wanted to be a good example to them about eating healthy and keeping active. But guess what? These things don’t happen by osmosis. Kids don’t just become interested in eating kale chips because you are. They won’t trade video games for jumping jacks because you tell them they should be more active. Nope. You have to engage children. You need to get out there and do these things with them. They not only need to see you go for a run, they need you to invite them to join you. It took me a little bit to realize that while I was enjoying the benefits of a healthier, more active lifestyle, my kiddos weren’t as involved as I wanted them to be. So, I made a conscious decision to change that! And for the past year or so, we’ve been making changes for the kiddos too!

Here are a few things we do & you can use to help you and your family eat healthier and be more active:

Making easy Lexi's Clean Kitchen no-bake nut-free Powerbites! Check out the recipe :) Kids love these! — Making easy Lexi’s Clean Kitchen no-bake nut-free Powerbites! Check out the recipe 🙂 Kids love these!

Cook together! Having my kiddos help me cook dinner or a healthy snack helps a ton when trying new things. It doesn’t mean they’ll love it, but they will at least try it because they helped make it. And, even if they don’t like a certain dish or vegetable, it’s still a great way to spend time together and talk about the benefits of healthy foods verses junk food.
Make Exercise Fun! Kids are kids. You can’t pop in a workout DVD and expect them to love the burn! You gotta make it fun for them and for us, that means taking it outside. Whether we’re going on a family hike, a bike ride with daddy, or a 1 mile run I like to let them know we’re not just having fun but also exercising. We’ll do fun little “boot camps” or challenges at the park. Jason & Diego will play football or basketball. The important thing is to stay active!

Be Sneaky! Yup, I am not above tricking my kiddos into eating healthy. I mostly do this by adding spinach & chia seeds to all our smoothies and making fresh juices with both fruits & veggies! Smoothies are usually a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt, a banana, milk, berries, a bunch of spinach, and a tablespoon of chia seeds. One of Elysse’s favorite juices is made with 5 carrots – 1 cucumber – 4 celery – 2 big handful of grapes! It’s fun to experiment and try new combinations and of course, have the kids help 😉
Share your Passions! I love to sign up for races and my favorite are obstacle races and lots of times my hubby runs along with me. It’s fun to take the kids to watch us run and cheer us on. By race day, they are super excited because they saw how much we trained for that day. They see us put in the work and then see the results of our hard work. Nothing like your kid see you succeed and be proud of you!
Get them Involved! Not only do we sometimes take the kids along to see us race, we also sign them up for their own races! Of course, there is nothing competitive in these races, it’s just a ton of fun for them and that’s what we want. There are lots of races that have fun 1 mile family runs or are kid/stroller/walker friendly. We want our kids to enjoy a healthy, active lifestyle now and as adults!

How do you encourage your kids to eat healthy & be active? Feel free to share your tips too!