Touching base!

I still have 1 more Florida recap to write, but haven’t had a chance. I wanted to pop in and say hi and give a little update though.

Re-entry

In terms of post vacation re-entry, this was one of our best yet!

We were away for a total of 9 nights and got home Sunday at about 3 or 3:30 pm. Compared to other recent trips, this felt dreamy and SO EARLY. Haha. (If you recall, we got home from our June trip at 10 am on a Monday after an overnight flight and then we both proceeded to work the rest of that day. 🤪 Our flight home from the Virgin Islands in March got in at almost midnight on a Sunday night.)

Ivan and I both felt highly motivated to use the time well. The boys helped unload the van (and all the boogie boards and noodles and beach towels etc..). I set out to immediately clean out my van. As in, I actually vacuumed it all (even though we never drove to the beach, there was still a lot of sand in it) and wiped down seats and cup holders and it looked great when I was done.

Meanwhile Ivan already had one load of laundry done by the time I finished the van AND he had completely cleaned out the fridge. We both unpacked everything else (and the boys even did their stuff) and we had all our suitcases put away by 5 pm.

I then forced myself to go straight to the grocery store! I am guilty of often not shopping post-vacation for days (see above, usually because there is literally no time…) and then we spend days scrounging or eating weird things or just going out more. We ate out plenty on the trip and I felt like I wanted to be able to truly re-set my diet, so, groceries helped.

Anyway, within a couple hours all the laundry was done (thanks Ivan!), everything was unpacked and we had a fully stocked kitchen. Ivan and I literally high fived each other. 😅

ALSO, I successfully re-started my workouts right away on Monday! This is another pain point for me post-travel. I am sure it helped that I didn’t change time zones (and didn’t have crazy flights), but I typically struggle with low energy/ feeling hectic/out of sorts post-travel, which then leads to me prolonging my exercise hiatus for sometimes a whole week. (I generally do not workout on vacation.)

But not this time! I jumped right back into my routine and did a home Heather Robertson workout at lunch on Monday. Tuesday I went to the gym for upper body (though I did feel a little tired and briefly entertained “just doing a yoga video at home” instead, but I forced myself to go and was glad I did). Yesterday I did another home cardio workout.

I also got right back into walking and even started charging my Apple watch again to motivate me to get more steps. haha.

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The boys

This is Ethan’s last week of summer- school starts Monday for him! He is spending most of the week working in Madison for Ivan’s cousin (and with his son who is 15- he and Ethan are BFFs). They own a cleaning company and contract with campus frat houses and apartments and this is busy season for move ins and move outs.

They always need extra help in August and asked Ethan to help. It’s long days, physical labor, and GREAT pay!!! Perfect way to pad his bank account with some extra $ before school and soccer start and his Panera hours will go down.

Asher started his Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) course last week. The first day was Friday, when we were still in Florida (it was just a few hours and virtual, so he brought his laptop and did it from the beach condo). He had a couple other virtual days this week Monday and Tuesday, and yesterday was his first in person day.

He now has training from 8 am – 4 pm three days this week, plus online work. The course continues through the first week of September, right up until school starts. He’s also still lifeguarding on the weekends, so he will be staying quite busy for the rest of August.

His longer term plan with this is to get a part-time job as a CNA when he’s done (the pay is excellent for a 16 year old), use it to get an internship his senior year (where he can get school credit and also make $$ at the same time), and just use it to gain medical experience. He currently feels he wants to go into the medical field in the future, so what better way to get some hands on experience. 🙂 I presume this would also look good on future applications, too.

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Senior pics!

Last night Ethan had his senior pictures!!! OMG! Senior year is almost here. 😭

Ethan was not incredibly enthused by the whole idea of senior pics, and as they are not a “thing” in Mexico, Ivan was mostly confused/annoyed as to why we would need to spend hundreds of dollars to take pictures when I already take a ton of pictures of our kids?? 😆

Of course, I won that argument, HA, and Ethan did ultimately want them (I mean, he knows everyone does them and his friends were all doing them this summer, too).

But under the circumstances, we opted for a “mini-session” instead of a long, drawn out session with multiple outfits and locations and props.

We got a package with just 1 main location, 2 outfits and it was 1 hour long. It felt perfect.

Thankfully the evening was gorgeous, too. He kept it pretty casual, fitting his style. He wore a tee and shorts and Birks for one outfit, and a slightly more elevated henley with nicer shorts and shoes for the other. We didn’t feel the need for like, a shirt and tie or otherwise dressy option. That’s not really Ethan’s vibe!

We did the pictures in downtown Sun Prairie where we live (take “downtown” with a grain of salt- it’s not a big city, but it’s a very cute downtown) and it was the perfect spot. There are a bunch of cool brick buildings, funky staircases, a fountain, alleyways, walls with vines and greenery, etc. It was even better than I had anticipated.

Ethan struggled a bit to smile naturally- he has this fake forced smile that tends to come out when he tries to smile on demand. 😆 Which is a shame, because he has THE BEST natural smile…. when it comes out naturally.

Fortunately the photographer was great and patient and I think she got a ton of awesome shots.

Here’s just a splattering of action shots I snuck from behind! 😉 I didn’t take any of his first outfit, unfortunately.

I think Ethan was happy to check this off the list, and I am very glad we got this done before school started. He was happy we timed it for right after Florida, too, because he has a great tan right now. 😉 Haha.

Alright, time to hop on a meeting. I’ll hopefully be back this weekend with our final Florida recap.

I desperately need some open, white space to catch up on other things like my GMAIL and our FINANCES!!! Looking forward to this weekend.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for beautiful weather for Ethan’s pictures.