Friday Faves
Hey hey! Happy Friday! How was your 4th? Hope you enjoyed the holiday and have had a lovely week. It’s been a great one, and thanks to the mid-week holiday, it feels like the week flew by so quickly! Part of me is enjoying that, but a huge part can’t believe that we really only have a month-ish left of summer before the girls are back in school. Bananas. We’re focused on living it up and enjoying as much of summer as we can! We’re doing a staycation this weekend at a local resort and I have some little adventures planned in the next couple of months.
(Chilling in the backyard in our inflatable pool + Uni the sprinkler unicorn. Swimsuit is from J. Crew; on sale right now)
For our 4th celebration, I enjoyed a leg-shaking class at barre3
(you can always find me with 2 YumEarth lollipops in my purse) and
we headed to my brother Kyle’s house for a family BBQ. Kyle got a smoker for Father’s Day, so he smoked chicken and ribs for about 5 hours. The chicken was the RIDICULOUS. You could taste the smoky flavor and it was basted in a tangy and slightly sweet BBQ sauce.
Meg and Kyle had an amazing spread of watermelon, berries, potatoes, broccoli slaw, the most ridiculous gf brownies with walnuts, and my nana brought her famous Jell-O salad. (I gave Liv a bite of mine and she said, “I don’t want to share with you. Please get me my own.” haha)
We watched the kiddos play in the sprinklers and in a giant inflatable pool (Tucson life), ate amazing food, drank cocktails and chatted. To be totally honest with you guys, I’ve been feeling a bit blah/down lately, and I feel SO thankful that we’re in Tucson for a bit.
Having the fam around has been a huge blessing, and the girls love running around with their cousins.
We made s’mores around a fire pit and watched Moana outside on the projector. World to the world: if you haven’t had banana and Reese’s on a s’more, you need to do it.
We drove home with the girls in their swimsuits, completely covered in dirt + s’mores remnants, and watched the fireworks from 3 different locations at the same time. It felt like the quintessential summer day, and everyone crashed hard.
For this morning, it’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party! This is where I share some of my favorite finds from the week and around the web, and I love to hear what you’re enjoying, too. Please shout out any faves in the comments section if you’d like to join in the fun!
(Pics from OB farmer’s market with Betsy last week)
Food + recipes:
These cookie dough energy bites are happening.
New Four Sigmatic goodies. My friends at Four Sigmatic sent me a little sampler pack, which included a few things I haven’t tried. I’m particularly stoked about the Cordyceps elixirand the lemonade.(If you place an order, the code FITNESSISTA gets you 10% off.)
It’s watermelon eegee time aka the most wonderful time of the year.
Read, watch, listen:
Check out this week’s podcast episode with Dr. Patrick Flynn here on iTunes, or stream on the podcast page. He is so knowledgeable about women’s health and hormones, so I was pumped that he was able to be on the show. I’ll have an episode up with an RD friend next week.
Tips on living a minimalist life with kids.
Book ideas! I’m going to check out this list because I’m ready to start a good book this summer. (With the move, I’ve had zero time for reading so I’m going to start something new this week. Please let me know if you have any summer faves! Nothing too intense/dark so I can read it before bed pleeeease.)
Fitness:
Peloton treadmill classes! When we were packing up our Valdosta house, I saw the movers carrying my spin bike into the moving truck destined for storage. In my mind, I ran after the spin bike in slow motion, yelling “Noooooooo” with arms outstretched until they carried it back out of the truck and to it’s rightful destination. In real life, I was carrying P in one hand, a stack of important papers in the other hand, and wasn’t wearing shoes, so I figured I’d just let it go and see it again when I see it. Well, I REALLY MISS THAT SPIN BIKE. I was doing Peloton classes at home 1-2 times a week and it was so incredibly convenient. I went to pause my subscription this week and saw that they’ve added a ton of yoga, bodyweight strength and now treadmill classes to the app. I tried a HIIT interval workout this week and LOVED IT. So, I guess I’m keeping my subscription… and trying to be patient until my spin bike is back, even though I have no clue when I’ll see it again at this point.
How much protein should you eat and when.
5-minute build-a-burpee workout.
Try this yoga strength workout.
Hope you have a very happy Friday and I’ll see ya soon.
xo
Gina
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You’re rockin’ that red bikini and I love your 4th of July outfit, too!
ahhh thank you, friend!
I am on summer break so after my hobbies of running and hot yoga I read !! Some great books I have read this summer….. Eleanor Oliphat is completely fine ……….. Educated by Tara Westover. This is a true story and amaZing read !! Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn ( gone girl ) I see HBO is making this a mini series And if you have not read The Nightenagle by Kirsten Hannah, please get it. Those are all good easy reads !!
i will check out all of these -thank you! the nightingale is one of my all-time favorite books. i think i sobbed for last 20 pages straight
The Sailor from Gibraltar by Marguerite Duras is a good summer read, I’ve actually read it twice (two different summers). It really makes you want a cocktail on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
ohhhh sounds perfect 🙂
I feel silly recommending a young adult novel, but it was recommended to me and I LOVED it. A Study In Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro. It’s about the descents of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Highly entertaining!
Whoops for spelling errors- it’s about their descendants.
that sounds great! i’ll check it out- thank you!
Just finished reading Elin Hilderbrand’s The Perfect Couple. Great summer read. It has intrigue and mild suspense, but very safe to read before bed. Another recent book was Kimmery Martin’s Queen of Hearts. I always enjoy debut novels, and this was great. It’s the story of friendship among a group of medical students, now doctors. Another fun read — and it’s YA — is Sandhya Menon’s When Dimple Met Rishi.
i’ll check it those out- thank you so much!!
Just finished this book and absolutely LOVED it! Super light, cute, feel-good book. I highly recommend!! Please read it 🙂
https://www.amazon.com/Matchmaking-Beginners-Novel-Maddie-Dawson-ebook/dp/B076CJX3YN/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530906665&sr=8-1&keywords=matchmaking+for+beginners
just downloaded it. thank you!!
The best book I’ve read in a long time is Lucky Boy. Great (but sad) story and the writing is amazing, the author has you really feeling for each character and rooting for everyone!
Three things:
1. I’m not certain I can wrap my head around mushroom lemonade.
2. I can’t even handle the cuteness of a Unicorn sprinkler.
3. Read this, it’s fantastic: The Sun Does Shine by Ray Hinton with Lara Love (true story, Oprah book club choice)
~okay four things
4. Meg and Kyle make me realize I seriously need to up my BBQ game!
Your Fourth of July sounds awesome! Since it was in the middle of the week I hung out with my husband and watched the NYC fireworks on the computer. The how to do anything article is amazing – loved it! Thanks for sharing
Being around family is such good medicine right? Let us know which book you choose. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is next on my list. I think a virtual bookclub would help me read more 🙂
Just bought a bag of YumEarth pops to have on hand for air travel with the kiddos… they are so good! Thanks for the mention/recommendation!
MOM WIN. that will be perfect for the flight!