fun | 2 Cups 'N Run

Except for running and getting coffee, I didn’t leave the house all weekend, and it was the most amazing weekend ever.
Every now and then I need a few days of doing nothing for a while. Sure, it sounds like a waste of time, I could have gone on a trip or to the park or at least do some shopping. But it wasn’t a waste at all.

It seems like life responsibilities always take away from the fun things we want to do, although they aren’t one bit less important, like playing with the kids, cooking, baking, taking naps, and getting home pedicures and manicures for me and my little girl.

I got a couple of good long runs in, so I was relaxed and happy. I am aware of the fact that I wouldn’t have been the most pleasant person to stay home with, without getting my running done.

#30summerdays Photo Challenge: Day 2 through 8

I’m really enjoying doing the #30summerdays photo challenge.
I’m not trying to take particularly pretty or interesting pictures. The goal for me doing this challenge is to take more pictures of my life and share them with you. I also love randomly looking through my phone pics a while later and remembering all the simple moments, when they become good memories they don’t seem so simple anymore.

Day 1 is here

Day 2: Monday, ugh! What’s keeping you going today?
Quite obvious, but coffee gets me going every day. 2 cups before I go work out, and another one in shake form after my workout, that keeps me awake all day.

Day 3: Who made you smile today?
My little girl, she’s such a source of smiling/laughter in my life.
We were watching my oldest during his swim lesson and she wanted to go in the pool, so she was crying. Eventually I started taking pictures of us to distract her, and she was a happy girl again.

Day 4: Look up. What do you see?
I love flying and I work for an airline. When I think of the sky, I think of planes. And I get to see them often too, right over my head!
This picture is from a past vacation to St. Marteen in the Caribbean, where the airport is right by the beach and they fly literally right above your head, quite an experience.

Day 5: #TBT Share a photo from a past summer trip!
Our first and last family trip to Uruguay, where I grew up. I wish I could go more often to visit family and friends, and for my kids to get a stronger sense of the culture I grew up in.

Day 6: National Doughnut Day! Snap a pic celebrating! Or, what did you have instead?!
We don’t eat a lot of doughnuts in Israel, but croissants and all kinds of sweet baked goods are one of my favorite treats.

Day 7: Saturday! What are you up to?
Family time and running!

Day 8: Time to relax before the start of the week. What does relaxing look like to you?
Long overdue pedicure and a funny movie while the kids took a nap, so relaxing!

Do you enjoy doing challenges? Which kind of challenge is your favorite: fitness, pictures, etc?

I went for my usual once a week 3KM/3280yard swim this morning, a tough workout that I partly enjoy and partly hate. Except this week I did it twice because I missed it last week and just had to make up for it.
I had a HIIT running session yesterday afternoon, and will do a Fartlek run tomorrow morning, so running was out of the question today.

We are on Passover holidays and I’m staying home for a few days since the kids don’t have school.
My husband was able to take off work as well, and we went for a good bike ride on some trails about an hour from our house.
The kids are too small to ride their own bike for longer than 10 minutes, but we were able to carry them on a buggy. We don’t own bikes at the moment, so we rented all the equipment.

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We rode about 11KM/7M, taking it really easy, stopping to take pictures, to eat fruit, to enjoy nature since we were pretty much alone the whole ride.
It took us about 3 hours to get back to the town where we rented the bikes, the only reason we hurried up a bit at the end was because it was around noon and it was getting too hot to be in the sun, especially riding. The kids were covered and had their water bottle so at least we didn’t have to worry about them, but we hadn’t taken water with us, and we were doing all the work.

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Surprisingly enough, at least for me, I was able to carry the buggy about 40% of the time, taking the load off my husband. Last time we did something similar, which was about a year ago, I couldn’t carry it for more than a few minutes.

After we returned the bikes we went to lunch at a really cute and good restaurant in a city called Binyamina. We sat on the front porch, and they had an area for kids to play in, with a small slide and other things like that, perfect for them to entertain themselves after the 5 minutes it took them to eat. The food was very tasty, we were starving too so probably anything would have seemed good, but I can tell this was good for real. A few appetizers, main dish, yummy dessert, and strong coffee, and we were ready for the car ride back home.

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It was a really nice, relaxed, and enjoyable day. I admit this is not a given while home on vacation with little kids. So double perfect day.