Hiking Adventures

Recently the husband and I have started hiking! So far we've only gone twice, but So Cal has  SO many great places to hike. Part of the reason I have fallen in love with Southern California is the diversity. We can spend a day at the beach, or drive 30 minutes and hike a mountain, or drive a few hours north and go snowboarding. They just have everything here! 

A few weekends ago we went to Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. We hiked about six miles total. It was pretty much entirely flat, but it had a great little waterfall that reminded us so much of all the pretty waterfalls in the foothills of the Adirondack's where J is from. 

The pretty little waterfall!

It felt SO good to be outside all day. Not to mention in the six miles we hiked we went through a forest, a desert, and a waterfall! 

J and a HUGE cactus plant in the middle of the woods!

I had a great time. It was easy enough for someone as out of shape as I am, but still a decent workout. J put a 25 lb weight in his backpack to make it more challenging for himself. Silly boys.

J climbing up some rocks.

I decided I didn't want to venture into the rocks. It just looked like the perfect hideout for some nasty snakes that I definitely didn't want to meet.

Yesterday we decided to try a more difficult hike. Our friend from college spontaneously ended up visiting us Friday and Saturday and he's a pretty avid hiker. He and Jon decided on the hike while I was still catchin' some Z's. They decided on Mt. Woodson.

Friends, let me tell you, if you're out of shape and new to hiking this is not the trail for you...and I know this from experience. ha! It was up-hill right from the get go, and pretty steep too. The combination of my being out of shape, being dehydrated from a night full of beers the night before, and a not-so-friendly visit from Aunt Flow meant that I chickened out. Yes, that's right, before we'd even made it half way I turned around and went back while the guys went on to the summit. *facepalm* 

Needless to say that proved to be a HUGE amount of motivation. I'd already decided this post-wedding weight had gotten out of hand, but dude, having to quit a hike was so embarrassing there's no way I can keep going the way I have been! I've attempted to do p90x several times. But the truth is, it's hard and I'm not the type of person that enjoys pushing my physical limits. I can never keep it up just from the sheer memory of the pain endured the day before.

So I decided to look into other at-home fitness programs and discovered that there's a Power 90 program! It's still going to be challenging and it's still by Tony Horton, but it promises to be a little less intense, which is definite what I need. I found the whole thing on eBay, bought it, got it in the mail yesterday and am starting tomorrow! I WILL CLIMB AN ENTIRE MOUNTAIN!

2012

As I posted about last year, I'm not the kind of girl who makes New Year's resolutions. That being said, in that brief time of year in which we wave good-bye to the past year and gaze wonderingly into the year ahead I can't help but find myself both reflecting on everything that 2012 brought with it and all that 2013 holds.

In 2012 I...

• met some of the most amazing ladies I've ever known. I made my first military friends. I cherish the friendship of these girls perhaps not more, but certainly in a different way than all my other friends. They understand my life. When my husband is deployed and I can't sleep at night because he's not next to me, these women will know my pain and welcome my call at any ridiculous hour. When I went for weeks at a time seeing my husband every day, but never really being with him these ladies kept me going. Along with that joy of military friendships comes the sadness of having to say good-bye. I stayed in Florida and had to watch all of my friends leave. It was incredibly difficult to not know the next time I'd see the faces I'd spent so much time with., but I learned they are truly forever friends, even though we're spread out all over the country, and even the world.
• went flexitarian for awhile. Yeah, that got old. I still enjoy vegetarian dishes and by no means have abandoned what I learned from my research, but daaang cooking vegetarian all the time is hard work!
• found purpose. Since getting married in 2010 and moving to the other end of the country, 1,500 miles from the only home I'd ever known, abandoning a job I loved and all the people I knew I spent a lot of time wondering what the heck I was doing. I had no job and couldn't even find possibilities in the small, poor area we were forced to live in. We wouldn't be there long enough for me to go back to school. My life was just monotonous. Then we found a great church that, even though they knew I would leave soon, offered me the opportunity and privilege to work as a leader with their youth group. Coincidentally, the majority of the youth were very similar in many ways to the at-risk youth I so have a passion for. I learned so much and met some incredible kids. 
• moved to SoCal! The opportunity to live in sunny, glorious Southern California has been one of the best experiences I've had. We were blessed enough to find an affordable apartment less than two blocks from the beach and 3/4 mile from the cutest downtown area filled with shops, restaurants, and bars. Though I wish our time here wasn't coming to an end in the next month or two, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to experience life here.  The sunny skies, perfect temperatures, and laid-back attitude of the people here make it a place that will definitely be hard to leave.
• saw the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forrest, the Hoover Dam and Vegas for the first time. On our move from Florida to California we decided to take advantage and see all of the big sights on route. Vegas....meh. But the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forrest were so amazing. It's hard to be in places like that and not find yourself in complete awe of our Creator. 
• got my first glimpse of baby fever. Don't go getting excited, I never ever came even close to catching it! In Florida in the months before I left everyone around me had a baby, or got pregnant, or was trying. EVERYONE. Sorry. I'm just so not in that stage of life yet and don't see it hitting me for quite some time, which makes it really hard to relate to the women around you when all they've got on their brains is diapers, bottles, and swollen ankles! Just one more reason I missed all of my friends I met in Florida when they moved -- NONE of them were in baby mode.
• was a bridesmaid for the first time! My best friend since high school, Kaity, got married and I had the privilege of standing by her as she said 'I do'. She was my first friend to get married and I had an absolute blast celebrating her last night as a single lady and her commitment to a super great guy!

So there's some of the things that happened in in 2012. Check back for my look ahead to 2013. It will definitely be a year of changes.