My first Shakeology(R) Video!

Gotta keep it short but wanted to share my first Shakeology(R) video with you! I received my Shakeology packs in the mail yesterday and I couldn't be happier!! Let me know if you would like a sample pack!!

This link will take you there now!! THIS IS THE REASON I LOVE SHAKEOLOGY!!

Books, Books Everywhere!!

Here's a lil book giveaway for ya. I really thought I would have more to give away by now but since I discovered the Army ebrary audio book app I am hooked and I am S-L-O-W-L-Y making my way through the other books I have on hand.

So, for now, this is what I have:



From top to bottom: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips

Just comment - I know some of you email me instead - and let me know which one you fancy or you can have them all. The first person to request each one gets it or them, whichever you like. :)

Have fun!!

~Ash

Hohenpark Killesberg is the best ever!!

We still have lots of sunshine here and it is AMAZINGLY good for my soul!! :) We have been told we are now officially out winter but now we are to expect LOTS of rain. The rain part doesn't make me too happy but for now we are enjoying the sunshine as much as we can. The temps. have been in the 60's and only slightly cool at night. WONDERFUL!

The other day we took the afternoon off and headed to Hohenpark Killesberg. I had heard from several moms that this was THE place to be in weather like this so we headed on over. It had waterfalls, a petting zoo, tons of playground area, hiking trails, a train, puppet theater, restaurant, ice cream bar, and the list goes on and on and on.

Neeley really enjoyed chasing the ducks around for a little while.



And then we found the goats. Neeley was trying to feed this one a flower...



And this little cutie had to be THE LOUDEST animal I have ever heard. I secretly wanted to take it home with us. So cute!!



And please, I beg you to explain to me what this thing is. I called it a dogbearllama. ??



Then we made our way over to the playground area for some more fun...













The have a neat tower there in the park and on holidays they put lights on it and have light shows. The bushes were in the way but we'll get better pics of it soon when we return.



This is the truck used in the puppet theater...



They also had some really interesting architectural pieces there. We looked to find some sort of explanation as to what in the world this was but found nothing.



We ended the afternoon with a visit to the "milchbar" or ice cream bar for a treat....

Neeley trying to feed Daddy her cola pop while sitting under what we found out was a beehive. Yikes!!



I tried to get more fun pics in this one and not as many of the pretty flowers that were blooming because we have scheduled a session of family pictures to be taken in this very park on Sunday by one of our photographer friends here and I couldn't be more excited. We haven't had true family pics taken since Neeley was 4 months old. Shameful I know! Bad mama!! But we are so going to make up for it on Sunday. Can't wait to show you all the final product!!

Enjoy!!

~Ash

Another Downtown Adventure

We now have only a few more days with Ronnie here at home with us. :( We have been trying to make the most of our time together. Of course, in my head that means running around everywhere and trying to see as much as we can see but I also know that that means we need days to be still and appreciate each others' company.

We have had gorgeous weather here for about the past week and have really tried to take advantage of it. Monday, Ronnie was off so we kept Neeley out of school for the day (ssshhh.....don't tell!! actually, DoD schools completely understand and make it a lot easier on us), and went to see some fun stuff.

Our first stop was to run by the Rathaus, or City Hall Stuttgarter.



We had a good laugh because to most of us that is pronounced "rat house" but I found out from my German neighbor lady that they pronounce it much like "hot house". So, hot house or rat house, either one...it was an interesting place to visit. It was more like a Chamber of Commerce of sorts, with TONS of touristy information. Neeley had to have her picture taken on the sign to finish up the requirements for a GS patch. We have been trying to take advantage of the cultural patches they can earn here and have found several but still have many more to work on.

We found some random fun in downtown Stuttgart when we were in that area... I am afraid to even ask what that car says!!



And then we found the mecca of all toy stores and Neeley's eyes had that glazed over look for the next hour...



Can you tell she was caught completely off guard with this pic? This was taken when we were in the Lego heaven section. Oh my!

What a fun trip!!

Thankful Thursday

I am so thankful for the sunshine! I just got Neeley off to school, and now I am getting ready to take Anna Banana for her morning walk. I think I may just have to take some pictures of the beautiful sunshine we have had for the past couple of days. My sweet little Germany neighbor ladies have told me we are past the snow season and now we are in the rainy season. Oh great! I don't know which I dislike most but at least we have some intermittent sunshine for now.

We had big plans for a fun family four day weekend but Ronnie has to be somewhere tomorrow and Neeley is testing tomorrow-her school is right smack dab in the middle of the Terra Nova test this week (yuck!!)-so we'll start our fun on Saturday.

I am thinking of trying to put together an Easter egg hunt here on post for all of our kiddos. Can you believe no one does one here? What!?! :) And you know me, I can't leave well enough alone...I have to get involved and get something planned. Speaking of...can you believe Easter and April are almost here!?! Yikes!

Ronnie is off on Monday so we are keeping Neeley out of school that day to have an extra family day. Our weekends go by so fast if we do anything fun and she has some things she needs to finish up for some of her local Girl Scout patches and the places we have to go are only open during the week so we are going to make the most of the day and have some fun.

Today I am listening to some calls and answering emails and I am getting ready to work out to my INSANITY Cardio Abs. Ouch! I know I have lost about 10 lbs. so far just in the past few weeks with INSANITY and P90X and Shakeology, so we'll see how this helps too. I did Plyometrics the other day and now I can't walk! :) I am going to the Patch gym this afternoon to see how much interest there might be to bring in an instructor from the States to do a Turbo Kick training for us to be able to teach the classes ourselves. :) And I have been approached about leading a Slimdown Challenge to start soon. And I am so excited! I think we are going to start with a 10 day challenge and then possibly extend it to 30 days. I am hoping to constantly have these going. Just a few months ago I would have never thought I would ever be involved in something like this but I am loving it! I am so glad I have found Beachbody! This has become my full time job and I couldn't be happier!!

Neeley is now in a Jazz/Tap class on Thursday afternoons so that's our fun for today. She is LOVING it! She has also been invited to participate in the Science Expo at her school. It is normally only for 4th grade and up but because she is part of the Gifted Education program, she gets to participate and now we are in the middle of trying to figure out what in the world we will do for it. Any ideas?

Better finish my call and get outside and then back in and back to my to-do list. My days are way too short!

Adventure to the Hauptbahnhof

Yesterday we were out running errands - the usual grocery shopping and all that fun stuff - and had a few extra minutes so we headed over to the hauptbahnhof for a little visit. The hauptbahnhof is the main train station here in Stuttgart, and it really was an awesome place. The pictures just don't do it justice. I had never been to a main station and have always wanted to get there so I begged Ronnie to take us on over. :) It really was quite an experience-there are tons of places to eat and some shops too-and we really enjoyed it, except it was FREEZING cold in there! It was a nice Sunday outing!

One of the many trains was in this area. People were coming and going EVERYWHERE!



Look at all those shops!



They were FREEZING! It was so cold in there. This part was inside but the areas where the trains came in was wide open and everyone was bundled up even inside.



Yum! There were so many good yummies to choose from but we chose the fresh fruit cups for 2,50 euro and we couldn't have been happier!



We're trying to take advantage of our travel opportunities while Ronnie is still with us. I try not to think every day that soon our time together will soon come to an end as we prepare for another deployment. :(

Sensapowhat?

Last Friday the kiddos were out of school for a teach work day so we took Neeley and a friend to this fun place here called Sensapolis. Oh my! Was it fun!?! All of our Arkansas peeps . . . it is like the best Mid-America Museum program ten times over and then some. It's fun and playful, it's got sciency stuff, the food was great and inexpensive, it had every kind of fun you would ask for. Awesome, awesome, awesome! Hopefully one these days you and your families can get there. It's like nothing you have ever experienced before!

This used your weight to fill up the water in the tube. I tried to join them later to see how far it would go but I think we almost broke it! LOL

Look at all the treasure found in the Pirate Ship!



Silly girls in the bathtub in the Castle.



Riding on the witches' broom...



Even Ronnie enjoyed playing the harp. See that laser sensor there running along the left side of it? Yep, that's how it worked. Cool!



He also took a turn on the rock wall...



I think they had had enough of this area...

A little pizza and chocolate is always good for the soul... (they are drinking their chocolate from the chocolate fountain. Yum!!)



Silly girl trying to climb the tree...



They loved playing in the water, and didn't get too wet! :)



Neeley thought she'd try the harp too!



We had fun too!



Riding on the horse at the entrance to the castle...



Look at these girls on the king's throne.......



We thought we'd try it out too!



Can you tell we had fun?? It was a good time!

Working On My Beachbody . . .

Hi friends & family!

You may have noticed from my last post here, or if you follow me on FB or Twitter, you may have noticed it there. But......I have a new adventure going here. A personal one. And I am loving it!

Some of you have asked for more info, so let me share a bit about it here and then you can go on over and check it out if you wish. I have started another blog just for that info and will share more on that here in a bit...

Anyway, Team Beachbody has had my attention for a while, and here's why...you can make it as big and bad as you want to. You can use it for your own personal motivation and gain, you can work it as a business, you can use it to share with others, you can use it to make a lot of money.

Team Beachbody is the company that distributes those FUN programs such as P90X, Turbo Jam, Slim In 6, INSANITY, and the likes. It also has the accessories available to help you with these programs.

The other part of Beachbody I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE is their Shakeology. These are meal replacement shakes that are absolutely delicious! Yum, Yum, Yum! Chocolate and Green Berry never tasted so good! LOL

So, if you are interested in any of this, you may go check out my coach site here. You may also follow me and my daily health & fitness related updates on Twitter here. And, last but not least, debuting my new health & fitness blog! You can use these tools to see how far I've come in my journey to lose weight, become healthier, eat WAY better (lol), and just feel better.

I have been doing Beachbody for about two weeks now and I can tell you I have already lost some weight. Can't tell you how much just yet because I need to weigh again, but I have. I now exercise at least 5 days a week, or try to anyway and have so far been able to stay on track with that. And I have been eating a ton better.

On the business side, I am already generating income from it and I am already on Facebook and Twitter and the bloggy world every day anyway, so it really doesn't add anything else to my day other than something to look forward to and a little padding in my bank account. Nice, huh?

I have talked to some other local ladies here and we are going to (hopefully) pull some classes together at the gym to help share the P90X, INSANITY, Turbo Jam, Slim In 6, and 10 Minute Trainer programs. And we have even talked about maybe doing some kids exercise camps this summer. Oh my! I'm so excited!!

And that is it in a nutshell. Well, sort of... lol There is SO MUCH MORE I could tell you, but I swore to keep this a personal blog since I have the health&fitness blog and I intend to do just that. I may share my personal milestones here with you, with your blessing, as I intend to drop about 15 more pounds and come out in the end with my body beach ready! Bring out the bikini...er...um...I mean mumu.... :) Kidding!! I am ready for some sunshine and warmth and laughter and fun with my fellow ladies who enjoy getting to know each other and this is another great way to do just that. I already go to the gym several days a week and this will be just another fun aspect of it all and will help keep us all motivated.

Head on over to those sites, especially the beachbody one. And then let me know what you think. I will be doing some giveaways soon, too, so be on the lookout for those.

Happy Sunday!!

On My Mind

My thoughts today . . .

~ We had a great time at the end of the year soccer party for Neeley's team. It has taken us this long to have one due to the coach being back in the states for a while and scheduling difficulties. We celebrated at our little club here on post. Fabulous food, and a great time with friends. Good for the soul!

~ I finished reading Firefly Lane and HIGHLY recommend it to everyone! Please, go pick it up at your library or order it. It is a definite must read.

~ I am now a member of Team Beachbody in order to kill myself, I mean to get back in to shape, and I am very excited to get started! I hope to stay really focused and motivated while Ronnie is away again to get my beach body back. :) Will keep you updated on the progress. Maybe one day I can have my own Team Beachbody coaching site too. Stephanie is another Army wife currently living in Kansas and is a great motivator! She has become an instant friend - we met through the Army Wives 101 blog. I will be really focusing on the P90X and Turbo Jam programs and using the Shakeology program as well.

And one more thing . . .

~ MY HUBBY COMES HOME TODAY!!!! So excited! Can't wait to see him. We have him home only for a short time before he leaves again so we plan to spend this time doing fun family things together and just enjoying our time while he is here.



Be sure to hug your families today and say an extra word of prayer for everyone you know!

Fun With Friends

Kids' birthday parties are so fun. I usually stay when Neeley is invited to one because, well mostly to help with crowd control, but just to take in the laughter and fun that comes from the kiddos.



We went to a girls birthday costume party a few days ago and the kiddos got to play fun games like this . Let's see who can drink juice out of a baby bottle fastest. Neeley came in 3rd place. :) She likes juice but she is definitely not a fast drinker.

We had a great time!