The Hopkins family has been on the move the past few weeks. I’m calling it the “tour de best friends” because it was back to back to back weekends with some of the most important people in our lives. It’s pretty exhausting traveling with these 3 little girls (especially a one year old), but it’s been pretty incredible to get to see our people. First, one of my sisters came in town with her family. We stayed at our family beach house on Isle of Palms, so even though we were technically “in town” anyone with kids knows that you still have to pack the same amount of shit as if you were traveling cross country. It was incredible being with them and getting to spend time at the beach with my adorable 4 and 6 year old nephews. The weather in Charleston was absolutely perfect, so we got a full beach weekend in October. It was also my week in between rounds of the program that I do, so it was nice to have an excuse to splurge a little bit.
The next weekend, my best friend (since kindergarten) was supposed to come in town with her husband and her 18 month old son (my godson), but Hurricane Matthew was heading straight for Charleston. We changed our plans and ended up going to their family’s mountain house in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Pretty sweet deal, right? We evacuated early to try to beat the mad rush of people leaving Charleston. My kids are not great on road trips, so traveling at night and hoping that some of them will sleep is usually our game plan. It was kind of a nightmare with ridiculous traffic and kids that were in and out of sleep, but we finally made and believe me, it was TOTALLY worth it. We got to wake up to this view.
We stayed active with the kids and even managed to get in some workouts. My best friend, Lolly and I and worked out 4 out of the 5 days and the boys even joined us for one, which was interesting having two 3.5 year olds and an 18 month old joining in. Also interesting, because this is not normally what the 4 of us do when we are together, ha! I think we were all kind of shocked that we were spending some of our time together working out. Not a terrible view from our “gym”, right?
We had the best weekend ever and we are completely in love with Blowing Rock. We cooked amazing (and healthy/plan approved) meals and got to sit by the fire overlooking the mountains with this view. I was ready for some cooler weather.
Then this past weekend, we went to Houston to see more of our best friends. A year and half ago, some of our best friends moved to Texas from Charleston, which was completely devastating. I met Kristen when I was coming out of a really hard time with the twins were babies. At the time, she had 3 kids 3 and under and was pregnant with her 4th…yes, you read that right. She and her husband, John, have been some of our closest friends in the craziest years of our lives. It’s been hard not having them with us in Charleston, but it was so nice to visit them in Houston and see their new life, and their 4 adorable girls. Yup, we had a full weekend with 7 little girls under 7. You should have seen the looks we got everywhere we went.
We are all fitness minded people, and so it was so fun to be able to incorporate that into the weekend. Kristen and I even escaped to a Pilates reformer class and a Soul Cycle class, both were awesome. I’ve been dying to try Soul Cycle and we don’t have one in Charleston. It was REALLY fun. It was also very interesting because it pretty much goes against the Cycling based training that I did as a Spin instructor, but was still so fun, full of energy and a killer workout. It was fun to switch it up and even more fun working out with Kristen again.
I definitely went off plan this weekend. It happens and you have to live your life, but I’m sitting here on the airplane heading home, and I’m excited to dial back in my nutrition and get back on track tomorrow. Sometimes I have to get off track a little in order to remember why I am doing all of this to begin with and how amazing it makes me feel to eat clean and be in control of my portions. I have all the tools I need to get back on track, so it makes it okay to have a splurgy weekend away with some of our closest friends. I’m recommitting and ready to get back at it tomorrow.
Now, I need a vacation from all these vacations.
