This year Ella Bella Portabella got very lucky as she got to celebrate her birthday three weeks in a row. This Saturday we had the family-friends-at-home party. It was a lot fun, great company, and good food.
First time she had a pinata. Oh boy, it was a lot of fun to watch her and a couple of our adult friends (myself included, lol!) take turns and hit that thing! It took some serious team effort. :)
We played Headbanz. Big hit in our family!
And ate. I made baba ganoush for the first time. It was delish!!
And watched Madagascar 3 again! To Ella's delight our friends hadn't seen it so she got to get excited about it all over again with them.
And had some yummy chocolate cake with chocolate ganache (another first for me.) It was heavenly, will probably never use store bought frosting again.
This coming Saturday we resume for the final festivities with a rock climbing party with close friends from school and church.
Then this momma can take a break from party prep, ha-ha! :)
As far as updates, Ella has started to nicely canter as of last night. She cantered before but hesitantly and with a certain degree of fear. It is a pleasure to watch her ride Jenkins last night. They're both in the groove, nice posting and sitting trots, good diagonals, and lots of CANTERING!! She's loving it now, she wants to do it all the time but forgets that cute little Jenkins Pooh is a little old and needs to take walking breaks! :)
Ella and Jenkinator!!!!
(I tried to post a video of her in action but it errors out... I've never been successful in uploading a video up here.)
First time she had a pinata. Oh boy, it was a lot of fun to watch her and a couple of our adult friends (myself included, lol!) take turns and hit that thing! It took some serious team effort. :)
We played Headbanz. Big hit in our family!
And ate. I made baba ganoush for the first time. It was delish!!
And watched Madagascar 3 again! To Ella's delight our friends hadn't seen it so she got to get excited about it all over again with them.
And had some yummy chocolate cake with chocolate ganache (another first for me.) It was heavenly, will probably never use store bought frosting again.
This coming Saturday we resume for the final festivities with a rock climbing party with close friends from school and church.
Then this momma can take a break from party prep, ha-ha! :)
As far as updates, Ella has started to nicely canter as of last night. She cantered before but hesitantly and with a certain degree of fear. It is a pleasure to watch her ride Jenkins last night. They're both in the groove, nice posting and sitting trots, good diagonals, and lots of CANTERING!! She's loving it now, she wants to do it all the time but forgets that cute little Jenkins Pooh is a little old and needs to take walking breaks! :)
(I tried to post a video of her in action but it errors out... I've never been successful in uploading a video up here.)
After her next competition in two weeks, she'll be starting semi-private group lessons with another little girl of the same level. She's excited to have a riding buddy in the arena.
It's just so amazing to watch her grow in self-confidence and command of the horse. She looks great and you can tell she's the happiest when riding.
On the fitness front, I did some metabolic and cardio testing at the gym last Friday and got some good news: my cardio vascular fitness is that of a 20 year old so now I can truly say that I'm only 20, ha-ha!! Really, this is such a great testimony to me that all this work is truly paying off. I've also learned that I need to work at higher intensities (in my new heart rate zones) so that I can most efficiently burn fat and carbohydrates. Not going to be easy, as I've been cruising on a very comfortable speed on my runs but I have to take it to the next level. My VO2 max (that is the maximum capacity of an individual's body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise, which reflects the physical fitness of the individual, as defined by Wikipedia) went up significantly from last time I tested. It's got good potential to go up even higher with increased intensity aerobic exercises.
Warrior Dash is coming up in a couple of weeks so we're excited about that!! Remember, Hrishi and another friend are going to join me!!
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