Daily, FitFluential, Fitness, Photos

Valentine’s Day Sunset Bike Rides!

1 Comment

Sunset Bike RidesValentine’s Day. Bike Rides. Especially at sunset? Can’t get any better than that. Gotta say you guys, riding our bikes together has got to be one of the most fun things.

Alfie-meWhy didn’t I get a bike sooner? Why didn’t anyone remind me how fun it is to go bike riding?

I mean, I’m not even afraid of the clipless (or are they called clip-in?) pedals? Sheesh, so much easier to go. And the pedals can be adjusted to be harder to step out of the pedal (scary), or easier (safer, for me…). We toured around lookin’ like pros, all suited up. I have to say, wearing the entire cycling getup doesn’t feel too bad at all. I thought I’d feel/look foolish because I don’t have a biker-bod (aka no muscles in my legs lol). But I’m feelin’ pretty good. It is a little funny feeling wearing those padded shorts for the first few times, though.

LosGatos-TrailWe cycled up, and left the house around 4pm because: traffic = sketchy on a bike, and cars aren’t that nice to cyclists. Plus we live in a busy area of town, and navigating through that was nerve-wracking a little. But it’s all part of the process I suppose!

New-BikeHowever, I did have my first spill on the bike on Valentine’s. I may have even cried a little. I mean, the car was being totally impatient next to us, and I was unclipped going as slow as a snail. Anyway, I suppose if you think shedding a few tears is handling it like a champ, then I guess I handled it like a champ. haha.

McDonalds-pigoutAs per our ten year Valentine’s Day tradition, we had to clue it up with a big meal from McDonald’s. You guys know the story on how that goes, right? It was excellent.

I’ll be blogging more this coming week! Come back soon!

Continue Reading

Beauty, Daily

Valentine’s Day at Santana Row

3 Comments

I’m choosing to keep it short, sweet + simple for this Valentine’s Day. A mini gift guide on what to get your Valentine! Everything shown, you can grab at the stores in Santana Row, and the links for the ten items are below!

Santana Row Valentines Day

BUY:
Anthropologie Boho pillows  ..  Urban Outfitters Herschel Duffel  ..  Kate Spade Battery Bank
Anthropologie Body + Hair Oil  ..  Urban Outfitters Herbivore Mask
Best Buy Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones  ..  Free People Vegan Tote
Sephora Blue Sea Kelp Scrub  ..  Ted Baker sweater  ..  Ted Baker dress

Gosh, it’s been ages since I’ve stepped foot on Santana Row’s property. Last time I went was in early December, right when they put the Christmas lights up! I think I’m going to head there this week, especially over to Anthropologie and pick up the Posies & Co. body + hair oil. I want to smell it, and drop the thirty bucks on it.

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? We aren’t huge on giving gifts for Valentine’s Day, but if you’ve been a reader for a long time you know that Mr. Spiffykerms + I enjoy going to McDonald’s on Valentine’s Day, because it’s our tradition! If you hunt back on the archives of this blog, you’ll know why. I think we might’ve missed one or two years of not going on the famous February 14, but I’m sure this year we will go. Especially because we have gift cards (tee hee!). Maybe after our meal there, we can hop on our bikes around the city to burn off all the high calories we ate.

P.s. Are you diggin’ the new gift guide layout? I thought I would put my Graphic Design skills to work again, and come up with something different that I normally would do. I kinda like how it all turned out though, what are your thoughts? 

Continue Reading

Daily, FitFluential, Fitness, Health, Newfoundland, Travel, Vacation

Snowshoeing in Pippy Park

4 Comments

GrinI’m going on week 7 of being here in St. John’s Newfoundland, and I’m making the most of spending time up here in my old hometown during this super cold Canadian winter. Last weekend my climbing buddy Lori (who visited me last year for our Yosemite Climbing trip!) and I went snowshoeing around Pippy Park.

NancysnowshoeLori already owned snowshoes, and me being illprepared for how long I was going to be home, didn’t have much snow-gear besides a winter coat and hat. So just like old times, she brought over everything for me to wear to snowshoe.

PippyParkI wore her Arc’teryx snow pants, and her two shell jackets that were super warm, along with a buff to put around my neck, and I even wore her mittens. Man, what a pal… let me tell ya. I had a time! I didn’t even have proper footwear to wear (I leave my UGGs at home, and I only brought my riding boots which aren’t insulated). So I popped on my Mother’s winter boots and went off for a bit of snowshoeing.

LoriNancyoutAt Pippy Park you can rent your gear whether it be cross country skiis, or snowshoes + poles by the hour. They keep your ID and once you get back you pay your fee. It’s so inexpensive too: $5.00/hour. We ended up doing all the loops of the trails (about 4 or 5 loops) and we were going at obviously a walking pace, stopping to take photos, and to chat – and it still was only about an hour to do it all. So for $5.00 and a bit of fun, it was well worth it!

NancyArmsUpI filmed some footage of our adventure, but I don’t have the software here on my Mom’s computer to upload it to YouTube, so that’ll have to wait until I get back to California.

InCar(By the way, had a family friend ask me if anyone in St. John’s was paying me to shout out to local companies. They are not. No one knows I am writing about them … and I don’t get paid for ANY blogging I do – so I suppose you can honestly say you can trust my judgement when I mention places? Lol)

Continue Reading