Fairmont Hot Springs

This past long weekend my family and I ventured to Fairmont Hot Springs. Being that it was May long weekend, it should shock you. I never go away for long weekends because I hate the traffic and all the people that go out and ruin my quiet time. But I went anyway.

We stayed at the Fairmont Lodge, it's on the same grounds as the pool and it is lovely. We've stayed there once before and stayed this time again as it is just a quick walk to the pools, the price of the pool is included with your room, and you even get bathrobes to wear over to the pool. The one perk we liked the most was skipping the line ups, we just had to let them know our room number and we get to jump the line! I love that. The hotel is basic, nothing fabulous, but I am not bothered by that. I never stay in a hotel room long enough to care other than about cleanliness. The hotel is clean, the beds are comfy, there is a fridge and a TV in the room. We also had a main floor patio which we ate breakfast on, and it's just nice to have a little outdoor space.

One of my favorite things about going to Fairmont is that I get to go to one of my favorite restaurants, The Black Forest (www.blackforestrestaurant.com). I love the German fare, schnitzel, red cabbage, and they make the best salad there! I always have the combination salad, it's 4 different salads, spinach, tomato, caesar and cucumber. I know it's sad, but I look forward to that salad!

The trip wasn't too bad as far as traffic went. We left Friday afternoon and came back Sunday which cuts out a lot of the traffic. The camper's on the road were annoyingly slow, but it wasn't too terrible. We saw lots of animals, Deer, Moose and Big Horn Sheep. We took some rockets and set them off on the Saturday. My daughter was enthralled by the deer carcass we found, along with other bones.

Overall it was a great trip. It's just nice to get away and relax. We go there twice a year usually, most of the time we go in the winter as it's nice to soak your butt in hot water when it's freezing out! But I think it's nice any time of year. This time, it was 32 degrees so we did get to use the "cold" pools too. They have 2 diving boards and I perfected my cannon ball on the low and even took it to the high board. Some 13 year old boy told me that I was awesome! He said that I won the splash contest by far! And to think that I was scared of the high board before.

Spice Wellness - A review

I bought a Spice Wellness voucher from Dealfind and I have just been there to redeem my services. For $49 I received a voucher for a 60 minute deep tissue massage, 3 ten minute whole body vibration sessions, a 30 minute detox ionic foot bath, and a 30 minute infared sauna session. I have done all of them with the exception of the foot bath and my third vibration session.

The vibration sessions are funny, you stand on a platform and the thing vibrates your whole body. It's supposed to help with building bone mass, improve organ function and waste processing, and improve blood circulation, among other things. It felt funny, but not in a bad way.

The sauna was a 30 minute private dry sauna. It was great. I read a book and sweated. The sauna is supposed to help with detoxification, ease joint and muscle pain, induce weight loss and more.

The real reason I bought this dealfind was for the massage. I love getting massages, I carry a lot of tension and since I work out regularly and play soccer, things tend to hurt. David was the massage therapist and I swear this was the best massage I have ever gotten. I have gotten a lot of massages over the years, and this was the hands down winner. He used a lot of pressure, used his elbows and forearms. He also did an amazing job on my feet. I have already booked my next massage with him. I like deep tissue massage and I got it. I just wish I could hire this guy to be my personal masseuse!

I do not have a clear idea of how well the other things work, but they felt nice and we'll see if they help with things. I can highly recommend the massage! The other stuff is new and interesting, so it can't hurt right? Next week I have the foot bath and another massage. I feel totally spoiled and all for the low price of $49! You just can't go wrong for that kind of money!!

The countdown is on!

Oh who am I kidding? The countdown has been on for a while. The only difference is the number is getting a whole lot smaller! What the heck am I talking about you ask? We are going to Europe in 36 days!!!!

Can you tell that I am excited? We are heading to Munich, bumming around for 2 days and then it's off to the apartment that we have rented in Keszthely, that's a town on Lake Balaton in Hungary. We have that for a week and that little town is probably in the top 3 of my favorite places on earth. We spend the days on the beach, going around to other towns around the lake, going to the markets and looking through churches and castles. It is so wonderful there!

Next we head to Budapest for just 4 days. We have some relatives to visit, some sights to see, some shopping to do. I love it there too. It's a bit busier than being at the lake, but it's an amazing city.

We then go back to Munich and fly to Barcelona! I have never been to Spain before, but I think it will be amazing. We have rented an apartment there as well, and I have done some research as to what to see and avoid. We will go to the beach of course, look at more churches (I LOVE churches in Europe, they are amazing!), see some sights, eat some food, and do more shopping. It's my kind of vacation!

I am sure that this trip is one of the reason's that I am so chipper lately. We are at the point where I can finish the planning and booking, and I get to start my lists of what to pack! I love packing for vacation - I know it seems weird, but I will pack mentally for weeks before a trip. It's fun to me.

While transferring the data from our pc to our new iMac, we lost our travel folder, so I have to make sure that I can remember everything that I didn't print off. I should be mad, but somehow it makes planning more fun now that I have a bit of a challenge. I'm just thankful that I had printed off the plane tickets!!

A side note to Mother's day

Apparently wonders will never cease - My husband actually went out and looked at e-readers for me. He didn't buy one, but he looked. He has decided that they are only good to read books. Well no Sh*t! I had to laugh at him for that. But he did decide that a tablet might be a better choice. An ipad or a blackberry tablet. So at this point, I am not going to argue with him. I am simply amazed that he took my hints and looked at what I wanted!



Now lets see if I really get a tablet of some kind.

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm not going to say that I love Mother's day, I think it's just one more of those commercialized days that like to make you feel guilty. I mean, if you don't let your Mom know that you love her all the time, then what is one day going to do? That being said, I did send my Mom flowers as a nice gesture. I don't have the best relationship with her and I don't think that will ever get any better, but what can you do?

On the other hand, I have a great relationship with my own kids. I think I grew up wanting something more from my Mother and I vowed to make sure that my kids had what I didn't. I make sure that my kids know that I am here for them no matter what, I make sure they know that I love them and that they can trust me with their thoughts and feelings. I have been told by many people, including the kids teachers, that my kids and I seem to have a really close relationship. If they can see that, then I am doing my job.

I am very active at the kids school, mostly because I care about their education and what is going on at the school, but also because the people that go to their school see me too. They know who I am, and I know what's going on with my kids friends and the other people around them. Most kids in my kids grades love me, they know that I will help them if they need it and they know that I care about them too. I have a BFF in my daughter's grade, he thinks I am awesome! He's one of those kids that you can see he wants that attention, so I gave it to him. He always tells my daughter to say hi to me from him when he doesn't see me, and when he does see me, we chat a bit, high 5 and fist bump. He is a 12 year old boy after all. It makes me feel good knowing that he knows I care.

My kids go through their day knowing that I will be there after school, they know how important they are to me. They know they can open up to me about their problems and tell me what they honestly think about things. They aren't perfect kids, but they are wonderful and I just love them so much.

One day they are going to grow up and leave me, and I want to make sure that I do my best for them now, so they can go out into the world as healthy, well rounded, successful people. I always tell my son that I am the most important woman in the world to him, that is until he finds his future wife, and then she is the most important. She has to be. I want them to leave me and find their own lives. I will always be here waiting for when they need me, but I know that I will have to step back from them one day. Until then, I will hold them as close as I can, I will steal as many kisses as I can, and I will make sure they know that I love them. That is what a Mother needs to do for her kids.

This Mother's day I got creations from my kids, they are playing happily together and I am doing laundry and sitting on the computer. Later today I get my mother's day gift from my husband, new shoes. Now don't get too excited for me, they will be new running shoes. But what else could I possibly want? I have a great husband, two loving and adorable kids and a wonderful life. Mother's day is just one day, one day that I don't have to cook my own supper, but still just a day. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. I hope you all are too!

Aveeno Products

I've noticed lately that I have been replacing all my beauty products that I've finished, with Aveeno products. It wasn't intentional, but when I was out looking to replace things, I always gravitated to the Aveeno products. I have used them before, that along with the price, and the smell of them have made me purchase more of them.

For example, I needed a new face scrub, well Aveeno just came out with a new one, so I bought it. It is lovely. Then I ran out of facial moisturizer, and I usually buy Aveeno anyway, so I bought more. I love the fact that they have a few different types, I have one that has 15 SPF for regular days and 30 SPF for the days that I know that I am going to be in the sun. I always wear sunscreen on my face because I look weird with a really tan face, and I want to avoid getting any more "age spots".

I also bought a tinted moisturizer as I don't really like foundation but I need a little bit of extra help on bad zitty days. I've found that I wear that one every day as it looks really nice on. It brightens my whole face up and gives me that extra coverage that I need. It has SPF 30 as well, but I also wear my other moisturizer underneath as I have really dry skin. If you buy this product just beware that you much treat it like foundation. Meaning you have to blend at the jaw line and make sure you get any extra out of your eyebrows. I went around all day one day last week with a bunch clumped up in my eyebrows. Either no one noticed, or they just thought I was crazy and didn't say anything! I think the tinted moisturizer is my new favorite Aveeno product.

Looking around the house, I've noticed that I've bought the Aveeno eczema cream for my kids and a few other products that I hadn't noticed. I find that the Aveeno products work really well, but they are also not very expensive. They aren't dirt cheap, but they work so well that I am willing to spend $20 on them. I don't think that's too much to pay for something that I love. They also aren't really small containers so they last for quite some time. I always buy his brand at Walmart, you just can't beat their prices, so why pay more somewhere else.

I love to hear about how other people rate products because I hate to waste my money. So take it from me, Aveeno products are awesome, as long as you like the smell of them, I can pretty much guarantee that you'll love them!

Boot Camp!

I have done boot camp twice this week, Monday and Wednesday night. Tuesday my abs hurt, last night, my whole body hurt with the exception of only my elbows!

I wasn't sure what to expect, but when I showed up Monday night, there was about 50 people there! I didn't think it would be such a big class. To be honest, I thought it would be hard with that many people, but it really wasn't. We did a warm up, then we did 6 exercises for 1 1/2 minutes each, with not much break in between. After the 6 exercises, we had a 2 minute break. Then we did the same thing again. After that was a cool down and a bit of stretching. It was a bit less than an hour as it was the first class and there was paperwork to be done. Last night we did warm up - jogging - and then right into exercises. We did a new 6 exercises, then the 2 minute break and the 6 exercises again. These were all done for just one minute. After that, we did 4 new exercises, for one minute each then a minute break in between. Then we did the 4 again and then cool down and stretching.

The thing I love about boot camp is that I am not the least fit out there - I am not the most fit either, but I think that no one is really watching me anyway. I also love that each exercise in only a minute to a minute and half. I can do anything for that long. They also do that as they expect you to go as hard as you can for that short time.

Our boot camp is outdoors, which I love. The trainer, Katy, is really sweet, but tough. She really does a great job of showing how each exercise is done and comes around to help those who are doing it wrong.

I have been a bit of a crazy person this week with boot camp and all the other stuff I have been doing. I ran on Monday as well as boot camp, ran and did weights and then ran again at night on Tuesday and then just boot camp last night. Today I am going to run just tonight. I have lost 2 pounds already, I have been eating really well, but I snuck in ice cream last night as a treat for being so awesome. Being this awesome screams for ice cream!

I've got boot camp twice a week for the next 5 weeks and I am going to love every minute of it. It really makes me motivated to do more. I know, how weird is that? I felt like running after Monday nights session, I just felt so energized. My boot camp is out of World Health, but I have seen tons of other boot camps being offered. If you have ever been inclined to do one, I would highly suggest it. It is a lot of fun - I mean it! Take this from the former non exerciser turned gym rat! Everyone complains and jokes the entire time, it's good for everyone no matter what your fitness level, and really, what have you got to lose? My only advice, get one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg just in case you hate it!(which you won't, but still) Mine only cost $40 as I mentioned last post, and it will be worth every last penny!