PADDLE BOARD YOGA!

Dutch Chocolate Shake

I know, I recovered from the fair and you guys are still in shock... In an effort to be a little be more behaved (only in the food department) today, I started off my morning without my usual bowl of oatmeal & opted for a protein shake and some whole wheat toast.  I feel like my body is in need of a detox or cleanse... which of course meant a chocolate shake and peanut butter toast.

Ingredients: 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (I used Medifast's dutch chocolate protein shake mix), a heaping handful of washed spinach, 8 ice cubes, a little almond milk and a little water (I like my shakes to be eaten with a spoon... it's like froyo for breakfast!)

We were up and out of the door before 7 am because we were headed to our morning adventure: PADDLE BOARD YOGA!

If you're still a little confused, don't worry, I was still trying to wrap my head around the concept an hour into the lesson (they assured me it's normal... hmm)

Basically, this group of young yoga gals decided to combine their love of power yoga, water sports, and fitness - sounds like a death wish, I know - and created paddle into fitness.  At first I was skeptical, but it turned out to be one of the coolest things I've tried in awhile.

After grabbing our gear, we warmed up with some sun salutations and a few other yoga variations on the shores to wake up our muscles and get our hearts beating a little faster.  In case you can't tell OR you are blind, that is my sister and I struggling a little with the whole flexibility thing.  Thanks to genetics and a lack of practice, our standing head to toe pose is a little less than perfect. 

A few more rounds of never-ending downward dog... and then we hit the water with our boards!  I was amazed at how fast everyone got up on their feet - I was the slacker in the back.  We started off, testing the stability of the board, on our bums and then off we went.  It ended up being a lot easier than expected and we were having a blast just paddling around the bay and enjoying the sun

We all stopped when we got to "the third buoy" and our instructor led us through a series of yoga poses - don't worry we stopped short of standing bow pose and basically anything else that would result in my ass in the water. WAIT she actually tried to get us to do a tripod (balancing on your head...) on top of a board in the middle of the ocean.  f that. yeah right.   That's about the time when I looked at my sister and started paddling back towards the shore.... crazy woman.

My cousin - who's from Minnesota and therefore a lover of all things SoCal related - was the first one to topple off her board and into the water.  But she didn't mind at all, she was enjoying the water and sunshine.

We were starving after this 8 am adventure so we scrambled home and whipped up some tofu, egg, spinach and mushroom scramble! & some left over pizza :) duh.  And of course I munched on some of those blondie and brownie treats too!

My nights have been filled with delicious food (french silk pie and s'mores, anyone?) and amazing people - this is why I love coming home :)

I'll update you guys later on my shopping trip to the outlets & my mom's pizza on the grill!!