A {Body} Pumped Up Weekend Of Fullness

Morning and happy Mond…errr, Tuesday, friends. This week marks the second week I couldn't get my Monday post together because the weekend was the lead car on the busy train. Thank you all for your good thoughts/wishes, I am happy to report I passed the BODYPUMP instructor training I attended all weekend and am super stoked for the next steps. I plan to do a full post on my training, for those interested, but will touch on it for my weekend records today.

Friday night I left work, quickly prepped food for the weekend and then headed to a family friend's home for a fun retirement dinner. They live on the same street as my parents and are moving next month so while it was a celebration it was still sad to know they won't be here later this year. We all enjoyed their food and watching the US women rock it in their quarterfinal game. #USA!

When we got home I was allll ready to head to bed, but then I remembered my college was going to be on the Food Network for Diner Revival. It highlighted a famous dinner in Farmville and I was so excited to see it get a lil spruce up because of some amazing students. I was live tweeting the show and Ty Pennington favorited one of my tweets, woot woot! After the episode I hit the hay and tried to get some sleep before my big weekend. 

I was up super early Saturday morning, to head out west for my training. It was pouring in the morning and I was a bit stressed about being late, but luckily enough people stayed home that I could fly on the roads. I arrived in plenty of time, found a corner, started listening to my music and then BOOM it was time to start the training. I really enjoyed the master class we took and it was awesome starting the morning with such a great workout. We learned more about the class, did our presentations [oh em gee, so scary] and really broke down the movements so we could learn how to teach them better. There was a lot more in the day, but I'll touch on that in another post. I will say, I was pretty tired Saturday afternoon, but my day wasn't done after training. 

I was so thankful we were let out of training early because it gave me extra time to scream home, SHOWER and get ready for a retirement cruise. My original plan was a wet wipe shower at the gym and changing in the car, so I was super stoked to actually get clean and smell good. I chose one of my favorite maxi dresses and a ballerina bun for my quick turn around and was quite happy with my appearance. We boarded a ship in Old Town and then went on a lovely three hour tour of DC. There were yummy drinks and delicious food [thank goodness, because I was starving] and wonderful company. It rained for a good portion of the cruise but we didn't let it get us down, we just embraced it and enjoyed dancing in the rain…literally. #nodebbiedownershere

Man I just love him :)!

The cruise ended around 10pm and after we got home I still had some BODYPUMP homework to get done. I managed to get into bed before midnight and was up bright and early again on Sunday. Everyone was a bit sore from all of our working out on Saturday but we hit three more workouts Sunday, including the fun BODYPUMP challenge. I believe we hit 6,000+ reps all weekend but everyone rocked it like champs. I was extremely nervous about my last presentation but felt good after it was over and was ECSTATIC when I received my 3/3 rating. This was a HUGE step out of my comfort zone and I was extremely worried I wasn't the right person for the job. #teamfitnessisawesome #soexcitednow

Part of my success came from my awesome group. All of the ladies in group four were amazing and we really cheered each other on throughout each assessment. I really liked our instructors too because they had great personalities and were extremely knowledgeable. Their critics were always helpful and they really wanted everyone to succeed. It was very long and tiring weekend, but the instructors and members made it a wonderful experience.

I have to give a MAJOR shout out to the fabulous Nikki of 'From My Life to OUR Life'. Homegirl was the FIRST person I told about wanting to MAYBE try BODYPUMP instructor training and she answered with the biggest YOU CAN DO IT!!! She cheered me on to talk to my instructors, helped me figure out the portal and really pushed me to try something outside my comfort zone. Not to mention she answered EVERY SINGLE ONE of my gobzillion questions and helped quell some of my fears. THANK YOU SO MUCH, NIKKI!!!! And thanks to all of my blog friends that cheered me on behind the scenes when I wasn't ready to put it here on the blog, y'all are the best!

I was on cloud nine after passing so I stopped by Starbucks for quick pick me up and of course, some extra napkins for my car! #napkinhoarder #dontcare #ownityall #lovemycoldpresscoffee

My life wouldn't be my life it I wasn't rushing back from BODYPUMP training to attend some family event. Mama B turns 60 this December 26th, crazy, and decided that this year she wanted a birthday party in the summer, since everyone is always busy with the holidays around her special day. So, we threw her a half birthday party at the pool and it was a wonderful Sunday evening. There were about 40 people in attendance and we served homemade pulled chicken, baked beans, macaroni and cheese [evil cheese tried to choke me out, so scary], coleslaw, broccoli slaw and of course birthday cake. 

Because a party without a cake is just a meeting!

The weather was perfect, the people were fun and the drinks were flowing [cheers to passing] so it was easy to perk up for the party. Mama B had a wonderful time and we all enjoyed celebrating her in the summer. Lady looks good for her age, hopefully I get to keep her genes when I grow old. 

I couldn't help making fun of her, though. She couldn't find her glasses and phone so I put them on and pretended to be her. Babyspice captured this hilarious picture and holy cow, do we look alike. 

Once everyone left, we broke down the party, took things home, cleaned up and then I headed back to the apartment to rest. I thought about writing this post when I was laying on the couch trying to recover but my arms just weren't functioning, haha. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow and made the exactutive decision to sleep in a lil on Monday morning [cheers to a boss being on vacation].

ERRRMAGGEEEER was I sore on Monday. My calves and shoulders were on FIYAAAAH and my body was just tired. Luckily I was able to come home early and I grabbed a quick nap before Le Husband got home. My evening consisted of dinner, blogs and early bedtime and it was fabulous.

Thanks again for all the warm wishes and support, y'all are just the bestestestest < 3!!!!!