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

Tuesday Introductions…

I know, I know, ‘Tuesday Introductions’ is not really a thing. I made it up. Clever, huh?

But, now that you’re here and I have your attention, I wanted to introduce myself. I realized that I’ve had this blog for about 4 years already and I’ve never done an introduction post. Of course, you can always go to “My Story” page to read about why I started It’s a Messy Life and a bit about me, but do you really know someone off their about page? So, here goes!

5 Random Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Me

1. I’m obsessed with La Croix sparkling waters. I don’t drink soda, so when plain water starts to get boring, this is my go-to! I especially love the grapefruit flavor! Have you tried them? What’s your favorite?

2. If I had a pet, I’d want a mini pig!!! With a husband, 2 kids, running a business, a blog, and everything else in life, there’s just no time for a pet. So, for now I just get my mini pig fix on Instagram! Anyone else follow @mybestfriendhank

3. I don’t like Starbucks, but I collect their You Are Here coffee mugs! I don’t particularly hate Starbucks, I just think there are lots of better coffee options available. Given the choice between Starbucks or a local coffee shop, the local coffee shop wins every time. But, everywhere we go has a Starbucks, so I always get a mug to commemorate where we’ve been! Does this make me a hypocrite?

3. I’m a professional wedding photographer. It’s the best “job” ever! You can check out my work here: http://www.theemerics.com/ and if you’re looking for a wedding photographer, I’m your girl!

5. I was born in Texas! But, I don’t own cowboy boots or listen to country music. We moved to Maryland when I was 10, so that part didn’t get ingrained in me. I do say Ya’ll a lot, though!

Ok, so there you have it. A little more info on who I am and what I like to do besides running and blogging! I’d love to hear more about you! Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments and give me a random fact about you. XO

Summer Bucket List 2017: In Review

Summer has come and gone and we’re finally out of the triple digit temperatures here in Las Vegas! Kids have been in school for a month and our days are packed and busy again. Anyone else out there ready for a break already?!?

I thought I’d go back and relive a little bit of our summer fun! As you all know, we’ve been putting together a summer bucket list for years now, but I think this year’s was a little too ambitious and it’s no surprise we didn’t get to do everything on the list. Some things we didn’t do together as a family, such as the grandparents taking the kiddos to Dave & Buster’s while we were away in Napa and Jason taking the kiddos to the drive in movies while I had book club. Diego got to go to Wet N Wild water park with some friends and I took Elysse to Gravady Trampoline Park last weekend with her friend. Sure we didn’t get a chance to try rolled ice cream, but we did enjoy plenty of ice cream this summer, including the famous Salt n Straw in Portland! YUMmmm! Although we didn’t get to visit Zion National Park, we did visit Sand Hollow Sate Park in Utah.

We’ll have to try to get to doing some ice skating this winter, try to get a camping trip in this spring, even if it’s close to home in Mount Charleston, and Spring Mountain Ranch Super Summer Theater will be back on the list for summer 2018!

Hope your summer was fun and that you got to spend time together as a family and make some messy memories together!! XO

Surprise Trip to Southern California | Summer Bucket List

The kiddos are on their 3rd week back to school and although it’s been nice getting into a regular routine and being able to work without interruptions, sometimes the school grind has me missing the lazy days of summer. The heat in Las Vegas has not let up, so carpooling and driving back and forth in 105+ degrees is the worse!! So, it make me so happy that we were able to squeeze in one more super quick trip before school started earlier this month.

Ever since Diego started school we’ve taken a beach trip to Southern California in August as our end of summer/back to school trip. We had such a busy summer this year that we just didn’t think the trip would happen. We told the kids and they were totally fine with it But, It’s been our tradition for years and I still wanted to make the trip happen! I decided to redeem some of our Hilton Honors Rewards points for the hotel and drive out to SoCal on Friday morning and head back Sunday!

Since the kids didn’t think it was happening, we thought it would be fun to surprise them! For the past few years we’ve added a “mystery activity” to our yearly Summer Bucket List and they’ve been simple things like mini golf with friends and driving out to get ice cream. Well, we totally surprised them Friday morning when we woke them up to our favorite California song! You can listen to it HERE 😉 Elysse got it pretty quickly and started jumping up and down and ran into Diego’s room yelling, “We’re going to California! It’s our mystery surprise!” It was a pretty funny moment! We had packed the car beforehand, so we had them get in the car in PJs and change when we got there. It was epic.

And just like that, 4 hours later, we were sitting on the beach under our umbrella in Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach, CA! The kids had a great time boogie boarding, building sandcastles, and just playing in the water. Once everyone started getting tired, we packed up and headed to our hotel to shower and grab some dinner. We were all beat after our long day on Saturday, so we slept in Sunday morning and took our time checking out. We decided to hit the beach again, this time making our way towards L.A. and hanging out in Venice Beach for a bit. Jason and Diego skateboarded along the boardwalk and Elysse and I hung out at the beach. The boys joined us after a bit and we stayed a little longer but we didn’t stay too long since we were driving back to Vegas.

It was definitely a whirlwind trip but it was still a good time and we made some fun memories together, which is always the best. The kids were so appreciative of their surprise trip and kept thanking us. I’m so glad we made it work and didn’t break one of our family traditions. Now, I hope the kids don’t expect us to top this “mystery activity” next year! LOL

What traditions do you have with your family? Have you ever had to break a tradition? How do you keep them going year after year?

Summer Family Vacation Part II: Portland, Oregon

Here’s Part II of our Pacific Northwest family summer vacation. We left Seattle in the early afternoon and headed to Portland. As soon as we were out of the city, the weather started to clear up and we were happy to see blue skies and sunshine!

We arrived at our rented apartment from AirBnB, unloaded our suitcases from the car and freshened up for dinner. Our AirBnB was in a great location close to so many of the best food spots in town! We met up for dinner at the Country Cat with some good friends who’d moved to Portland a couple of years ago from Las Vegas. The restaurant was small and cozy and we had a great table right up against the window and not in the middle of the restaurant. That was great for us with the kiddos! Afterwards we made our way to Salt & Straw on SE Division St. for ice cream. The ice cream shop had a long line and we probably waited a good 30 minutes before we had our ice cream, but it was worth it! Plus, time went by fast since we were chatting and catching up! Thank goodness our apartment was just around the corner, because we were stuffed and ready for bed.

Before heading out to explore on Monday, we grabbed breakfast at one of the awesome food truck pods that are all over the city. We chose Fried Egg I’m in Love because they had great reviews on Yelp and with breakfast sandwich names like Smells Like Protein Spirit and Free-Range Against the Machine, we knew they’d be good! They did not disappoint. Bellies full we took off on our day trip to the Colombia River Gorge area and got to see the famous Multmonah Falls and drive along the river and visit the countryside. We were a little early in the season for berry or cherry picking but we got to feed and pet some alpacas so that totally made up for it! Plus, the craft beers and gourmet food truck at the Gorge White House really hit the spot after our long day. Once we were back in Portland we picked up some groceries at New Seasons Market. It’s a local(ish)grocery store chain in Portland/Vancouver areas that is similar to Whole Foods. We were beat after our long day but so happy we got to spend some time in nature and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

We planned to stay in Portland on Tuesday. We started our day with a cool make-your-own-pancakes place called Slappy Cakes. The food was ok and the pancakes weren’t amazing, but the kids really enjoyed making their pancakes into different shapes! It’s a nice place for kids, but don’t expect an amazing meal. We did lots of walking and sightseeing in Portland and visiting a lot of the major attractions, such as the Japanese Garden, the International Rose Testing Garden, Voodoo Donuts, Powell’s Bookstore, and eating from yet more food trucks. We met up for dinner with our friends again at Deschutes Brewery and Public House, which was another not-so-great place. The wait was long, the food was mediocre, and the service was poor. We were disappointed, especially since there are so many other good places to to eat at in Portland. I don’t recommend it.

We took another road trip on our 3rd day to visit the Oregon Coast. Seriously would love to spend a full weekend out there! The coast is so beautiful and we really enjoyed Cannon Beach and Astoria! We got back to Portland just in time for dinner and we chose to visit another food cart pod, this one was on SE 28th Pl and Division. We were totally diggin’ the vibe there and we all ended up picking up our meals from different carts! Diego had pizza, they actually had a brick oven! Elysse chose mini corn dogs (not so adventurous this day) Jason had sushi, and I chose Indian. We were pretty tired from our trip, so rather than eat it there, we took it with us and enjoyed a nice quite evening at the apartment. I also took advantage of the washer and dryer and ran a load of laundry. Not exactly what you want to be doing on vacation, but it was just 1 load and it made packing easier. Plus, it was one less thing to do when I got back home!

Our last day started off with a quick breakfast in the apartment while we, and by we, I mean mostly I, packed everything up to check out. We then met up with our friends for lunch at Lardo. Do yourself a favor and go there for lunch next time you’re in Portland. I crave their Korean Pork Shoulder sandwich and the Pork Meatball Banh Mi! So so good!! The rest of our day was spent at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry! I didn’t think we would spend the entire day there, but there was so much to see and do that it really did fill up our whole day. Then it was off to PDX to head back home to Las Vegas! One worse thing about the flights back home to Vegas is that they’re usually filled with folks ready to party, while we’re always tired and grumpy our vacation is ending and theirs is just starting! LOL

Seriously though, it’s hard when vacations end but I’m always so grateful we got to go! We visited some amazing places, enjoyed cool weather, ate some delicious food, and made lifelong memories together. What more could we ask for?!? What are some fun places you’ve visited this summer? I’d love to hear some of your favorite vacation spots ever too!

Summer Family Vacation Part I: Seattle, WA

As I mentioned in my last post, I got to run the Rock N Roll Seattle Half Marathon last month. And, having never been to the Pacific Northwest, we decided to make it a family vacation, adding Portland and the Oregon coast to our trip. Today, I’ll be sharing all about our weekend in Seattle first and Part II will go into our 4 days Oregon.

Since our trip ended in Portland, that’s where we flew into. Whenever we have trips where we are visiting a few cities or doing a road trip once we land, I prefer to fly into the city we’ll be visiting last. The main reasons I prefer to do this are 1: Renting a car one-way is a lot more expensive than returning it at the same airport. 2: It’s less stressful to be near your airport at departure than having to calculate for a few hours drive. I’d hate to miss our flight due to unforeseen traffic or getting lost.

The drive to Seattle from Portland took longer than anticipated due to traffic, but we had plenty of time to pick up my race packet at the expo and then make our way to Pioneer Square for our walking tour by Beneath the Streets. We’d heard about these tours from some friends and when I saw they were giving 1 complimentary tour to Rock N Roll runners, I figured we’d give it a try. We don’t normally do group tours on vacation because I prefer a more authentic vibe, plus with little ones, you just never know if they’ll find them interesting. Well, to my surprise the kids, who aren’t so little anymore, did enjoy the tour. They found it interesting and even asked some really good questions to our tour guide. Afterwards, we stayed in the area and enjoyed some of the fun games they had in the square.

Our next stop was Pike Place Market. The market was closing when we arrived but it was still super crowded. I know this is an icon Seattle tourist spot, but I wasn’t really impressed. I think there were just way too many people walking around aimlessly and being, well, tourists. We originally planned to walk around the market, watch the famous fish throwing, and eat from a few of the popular food places. With the market closing, we didn’t get to see much and we only made it to one place Beecher’s Handmade Cheese for some mac n cheese. It was cool to see the cheese making process through the window, but it wasn’t really amazing mac n cheese. The best part was seeing all the beautiful flower stands.

Afterwards, we checked into our hotel room for the night and we were all so tired & a bit cranky from waking up early for our flight and walking around all day, that we just ordered a pizza and salad and had it in our room.

It was another early morning for me on Sunday to get up and run the half marathon. It was a great course and I really enjoyed it and the VIP lounge area. You can read the race recap on my previous post HERE. After the race, we made our way to Seattle Center for a closer look at the Space Needle and to grab some lunch before making our way to Portland! I wish we would/could have spent more time in this area. I would like to go back and check out some of the museums, but we still enjoyed our time walking around the pretty gardens and the kids had a blast at the playground there. Our last stop was to go see the Fremont Troll under the Aurora Bridge. Such a quirky spot and I’m so glad we got to see it!

Although it was a bit of a whirlwind, our weekend in Seattle was a ton of fun. Coming from Vegas, we welcomed the gloomy and rainy weather. It never really rained but we did have a few drizzles. Ideally, I think 3 days in Seattle would have been perfect and would have allowed us to visit a museum or two and not crammed so much into 2 days.

Have you been to Seattle? Besides the museums, what else would you recommend we do or see on our next trip to Seattle? What side trips would be worth a visit from Seattle? Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back for the rest of our PNW trip!

2016: A Year in Review

Hey remember me? Yea, it’s been a hot minute since I blogged. OOPSY! These past 2 months away from the blog has shown me that I really do love blogging. Coming here and sharing our family travels, the ups and downs of life, and having a place to log my running and staying accountable to my fitness goals is really important to me. So why did I take a blogging break? Because I got lazy. That’s the plain and simple truth about it. And it cost me. Not being accountable with my fitness goals these last few months has definitely left it’s pounds, um, I mean mark. No, really, the pounds came on too! Plus, I missed having a place to share and update on what’s been going on in this messy life of mine.

But, this isn’t a blog post about regrets and feeling sorry for myself. With a new year, comes a clean slate and I’ve had some time to meditate on what it is I want to focus on with this blog and I plan on sharing lots of great things in the coming weeks and months. I hope you stick around around for the ride.

Before we get started on making It’s a Messy Life better than ever in 2017, I want to look back at all the fun and adventures we had in 2016.

The biggest thing for us in 2016 is that we purchased our home! After living in Las Vegas for 7 years, we finally decided to plant some roots. Although purchasing our home seemed to take up most of our time and resources this year, it was a great decision and we’re excited to be homeowners! I look forward to sharing more from our home, as we decorate and make it our own.

2016 also marked our 20th wedding anniversary in August! My family threw us a sweet 1920’s theme anniversary party at my sister’s house and it was such a fun time. And, Jason and I decided to put off the bathroom remodel in the house and take ourselves on an epic adventure to Peru! We took off without the kids for 8 days and crossed off a few things from our bucket list, including visiting Machu Pichu! I can’t wait to share more from our trip soon and share tips and tricks to traveling outside of the country.

Aside from these 2 major events, I also ran the LA Marathon in February. This was my first full marathon. 26.2! I was so grateful to have my family there cheering me on! You can read the recap HERE and check out the fun we had afterwards too exploring LA with the kiddos on THIS blog post.

In other running related news, I finished the year with a pretty low milage of 327.30 yearly miles. Although it was not a year full of a ton of races, the races I did run were great. I especially loved running the Terrain Mud Run 5K as a family! I just realized I didn’t blog about that, so be on the look out for that race recap, along with some pretty funny pics of my kiddos in mud 😉 For more race recaps of 2016, go HERE!

As a family, we had a pretty fun year too! We went on our 2nd annual summer camping trip to Lake Navajo in Utah. We traveled to LA twice and Ventura Beach. We saw the super bloom at Death Valley, enjoyed seeing it snow up in Mount Charleston in December, we spent lots of spring and fall afternoons hiking Red Rock Canyon, and visiting the water parks this summer.

Although it was a stressful and busy year (yeah, I know, which year isn’t, right?) I still think 2016 was noteworthy and we can always find some good in every season of our life. I hope you also took the time to reflect on this past year and were able to find the good in it too!

XO – Jessie

Race-cation | Southern Califiornia Getaway

One of the best reasons to choose a race in a different city is the opportunity for a race-cation! You know, where you sign up for a race and plan a trip around it! Because I love to run and I love to travel even more, it’s no wonder most of my races are out of town. I love being able to combine two of my favorite things! Mostly, these are just weekend getaways like for the L.A. Marathon and sometimes they are full-on family vacations, like for Disney’s Wine and Dine Half Marathon in DisneyWorld. Either way, it’s always exciting to get away and run in a new place!

Last month I got to race the Ventura Beach Half Marathon and we made a nice little family trip out of it. The kids had already started school, so we let them play hooky and we left Friday morning. We headed straight to L.A.’s The Grove shopping center where Elysse had an appointment with a personal shopper at the American Girl store! You can read all about her amazing experience and my recommendations when visiting this store HERE. While Elysse and I shopped and had lunch at the American Girl Cafe, Jason and Diego spent their afternoon catching PokeMon Go at the nearby La Brea Tar Pits. They also grabbed a bite to eat and even did a little shopping too.

In case you didn’t know, Friday afternoon traffic through L.A. is insane. We thought because we were leaving a few hours before rush hour that we would be ok, but it was still really congested and it took us quite awhile to get from Los Angeles to Ventura. When we finally arrived at our hotel, I realized just how chilly the evenings are in Ventura and we were not prepared! Elysse still got in the pool before we headed to dinner. She’s crazy and maybe I’m a little crazier for letting her get in. But hey, it’s a vacation!

Saturday morning, was packet pickup and our family day at the beach. The first thing we did, was head to Old Navy to get some sweaters because the morning was cold and cloudy and I knew the evening would also be chilly. Then we headed to Trader Joe’s to grab food for our beach picnic lunch later. At this point, we’re all starving, so we had to find a place to eat a late breakfast on Main St. Finally, around noon, we made it to the beach. Packet pick up was right next to the pier and super quick to find and get my bib for the race the next day.

After all of this, it was finally time to relax at the beach for the day! The weather was cool but it did get pretty sunny once that morning fog rolled out. We spent the day lounging, making sand castles, and gathering shells. Diego had gotten a skate board while in L.A. so him and Jason practiced skating along the bike trail. It was seriously one of the most chill out days at the beach we’ve ever had. Even though it was too cold for actual swimming in the ocean, it was a blast! We were all so stuffed from our big breakfast, that we didn’t even have our lunch or snacks until we got in the car to leave.

As soon as we got back to our hotel, Elysse was ready to jump in the pool again! I don’t know how she has so much energy. But, because we didn’t swim in the ocean, we figured why not! So her and Jason stayed at the pool while Diego and went up to the room to get a head start on showers and get ready for dinner.

Sunday was race day and it was perfect! You can read all about my race recap HERE. Unfortunately, with school on Monday, we decided to head back home soon after the race was done. After my race, we headed back to the hotel to check-out and for me to get myself all cleaned up from the half marathon. After breakfast we decided to take the scenic route and find the Musical Road in Lancaster, CA. It was originally made for a Honda commercial. It’s a quarter mile bit of road that when driven on it, it is supposed to sound like William Tell Overature or better known as the theme from the classic Lone Ranger tv show. Was it worth taking the scenic route for this? Absolutely! There are only a few of these musical roads in the world and even though it wasn’t perfectly in tune, it was still a fun little side track.

Click the photo to see and hear our drive over the Musical Road!

We also got to see one of the largest wind farms in the world as we drove back to the interstate. We had no idea we’d be seeing that, but when we kept seeing so many rows of windmills, I quickly googled and found out it was the Alta Wind Project, also called the Mojave Wind Farm, the third largest onshore wind energy project in the world. Pretty neat bit of trivia 🙂

All and all, our family race-cation was a much needed break from the busy months we’d been having with packing and moving and the kids starting new schools. I highly recommend when looking for your next race, consider making it a race-cation! I’m sure the idea of traveling and getting away will be a nice motivator as you put in those training miles!

Wanderlust…

Traveling is my absolute favorite thing to do and this year we have had to slow down on the travels and focus on another type of adventure, home buying. With summer in full swing and so many families and friends going on trips, I too am longing to get out and explore. I am an adventurer! I live for experiencing new things, going to places I’ve never been, and expanding my horizons. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am. It revitalizes me. It keeps me feeling alive and creative. I find inspiration when I travel. I feel at peace. No, I am not complaining because I cannot go on a summer vacation right now. I am not going to throw myself a pity party. What I will do is show gratitude and appreciate everything I’ve seen and all the places I have been. I do not take it for granted. Our life has been full of some pretty awesome adventures and travels and we don’t plan on stopping, just taking a break to focus on “adulting”.

We’ll be back traveling soon enough, but staying put is not easy for me. To pass the time, I should really start packing up our house, huh? I am so grateful for the opportunity to purchase a home, as stressful as it may be. We’ve worked hard, made sacrifices, and we’re excited to (hopefully) soon be in a home of our own. So, in the meantime as we deal with house hunting stresses and packing, I will live vicariously though everyone else’s epic travel adventures.

So tell me, where are you going this summer? I can’t wait to here about it!

Visiting Death Valley National Park | Super Bloom

I love to share about our family travels! Big or small, they are all adventures and a fun way for us to be together as a family and hopefully reconnect and disconnect from so many electronics 😉

Our kiddos go to year-round school, so they are currently on their Spring track break for 3 weeks and then Spring Break, so they’ll be at home for a full month without school. We’re not planning an out of town trip this year, like we have in the past, so we want to be sure to have lots of fun activities and nearby adventures!

On their first weekend of track break, we decided to go on a little day trip to Death Valley. Death Valley National Park is having a super bloom this spring. The conditions were just right with the perfect amount of rainfall and light winds so what is normally a few spring flowers popping up here and there became into a field of yellow wildflowers blooming all over the desert! Apparently this is a pretty rare occurrence, so we packed up our car with lots of water and a picnic lunch and took the 2 hour drive from Las Vegas to check it out. We were not the only ones with this idea! The park was full with people wanting to take a look and photograph this phenomenon!

We had a great time and we’re so glad we got to see a different side of Death Valley than we had before. If you’re in the area and have some time to go out there, check it out. It’s not like a full field of wildflowers to run through or anything like that, but it is pretty neat to see so many flowers blooming in the desert!