Weekend + Welcome Mom

Happy Thanksgiving week, friends! 🙂 My mom arrived in Charlotte yesterday morning to spend some time with me and Finn. We are so happy to have her here but definitely missing my dad and grandmother down in Florida.

Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday of them all because I love how it’s family and food focused. I don’t know how much cooking I’ll be doing this year since it’s just my mom and me but I still wanted to share some of my favorite recipe resources with you guys!

Don’t miss out on this post where I share 18 of my most tried and true Thanksgiving recipes!

And here’s a fun “Torch the Turkey” bodyweight workout that you can do anywhere your holiday travels take you. Reminder, I have a whole category of bodyweight workouts on my workout page!

Now onto the weekend!

WEEKEND

I hung out with Finn on Friday morning until it was time for preschool. He is always so excited to get there.

Next on the agenda was getting Zoey out for some exercise before packing up to spend the weekend in Tennessee leading yoga teacher training at VIDA. We ran a 5K on the trails and it was so, so nice. Every single time I walk or run on these trails, I feel so grateful to have them in my neighborhood. It feels like such an escape and breath of fresh air to be on them.

I took off for Tennessee around 1:30p and ate a PB+B sandwich and some wheat thins on the road. I have been eating PB+B almost every day since my food poisoning/stomach thing last week. It’s been one of the only things that sounds appetizing.

I passed the 3.5 hour drive with some podcasts and phone calls. Once I arrived I checked into the hotel, threw my stuff in the room and then took off for the studio for our Friday evening session of teacher training.

Back at the hotel I ordered a salmon and quinoa salad and called it a night.

Saturday was a fun but LONG day! I was at the studio from 8a-8p. I always walk over to Little Cake on our lunch break to get cupcakes. They are so good! This weekend I got the blackberry with cream cheese frosting (made from fresh blackberries and so good) and I got a Neapolitan which was chocolate cake with vanilla filling and strawberry frosting. YUM!

Our Saturday session covered how to create and design standing sequences and assists for postures like triangle, revolved triangle, half moon, revolved half moon, big toe hold, etc. I also led a two-hour workshop called “Finding Freedom in Twists and Binds.” It was my first time presenting this workshop and it went so well! I can’t wait to teach it again!

TT ended at 6p but I stayed after because the owner of the studio a photographer come Saturday evening to shoot some headshots, holiday photos and retail photos. I needed a headshot for VIDA so I quickly changed, put makeup on and did my hair. Headshots are definitely not my favorite kind of photos to take but we had a lot of fun with the session so it wasn’t so bad. 🙂

I picked up some sushi to go on my way back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

I was back at the studio bright and early Sunday to wrap up our weekend of training. We went straight through from 7:30a-3:30p. Our day kicked off with my trainees leading each other through a power practice. We also covered assists for backbends and floor postures, as well as talked about how to sequence and time an entire class from start to finish. Our day ended with a pretty deep discussion on vulnerability.

I downloaded the book Ask Again, Yes on Audible and listen to it on the way home. I love to listen to fiction on the drive home because my brain is so overloaded from the weekend. I arrived back in Charlotte at 7p and had Finn and my mom to greet me! It was the best welcome home.

Dinner was a simple frozen pizza and salad.

We are all happy to have my mom here, Zoey included! We both laughed to find her passed out on the guest bed last night. She is wearing the cone again because she somehow managed to get a little scratch on the place where her hot spot was healing so in an abundance of caution, I’m having her wear the cone for a few days so that she leaves it alone and it can continue to heal.

I’m REALLY looking forward to a low-key week with my mom and Finn (although he won’t be with us for Thanksgiving). I’m extra excited about getting my Christmas decorations up. I’m kind of bummed that there’s such a short window between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year so I want to soak up as much of the decorations and cheer as possible!

What are your Thanksgiving plans? Are you hosting? Cooking? Traveling? 

When do you plan to do holiday decorating? Or have you already!?