Thanksgiving weekend and my second week of postpartum workouts

Hi, friends! I hope you had a nice weekend. And if you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope it was wonderful and festive and you had a moment to appreciate all that you are grateful for. I love that Thanksgiving makes us think about what we’re grateful for, but I must say that having Brady in my life has helped me to be more grateful every single day — a practice I’ve always wanted to work on and am finally committing to. 

Our weekend was great, and I basically feel like it lasted for five days!

I’ve always been a fan of weekends, and not just because they typically mean no work (which isn’t actually how things go in the blogging/writing/fitness worlds anyhow, when every day can be a work day), but because weekends mean that Dave is home, and we all get to spend time together. Now that we have Brady, I crave those times when it’s all three (or four, if you count Rudy) of us. It just feels better. As much as I love spending my days with Brady alone, I like having Dave around even more (I also like it when someone else is there to change some diapers, you know). That being said, let’s see some pics from the holiday weekend and then talk about workouts …

Thanksgiving weekend 2017

The longest massage ever at Woodhouse  

On Wednesday, Dave stayed home with Brady so that I could go to The Woodhouse Spa in downtown Walnut Creek for a super long massage experience, complete with hot stones, body scrub and the best head rub ever, which lasted for nearly two hours from start to finish.

Dave had actually selected the service and given me the gift certificate as part of a present for me after the whole childbirth thing. The massage was a fabulously relaxing and luxurious way to kick-start the holiday weekend. The rest of the day, we hung out at home, had sushi for dinner and watched “The Voice,” and I’m definitely enjoying this season so far. Anybody else?

Turkey Trot in downtown Walnut Creek

We were up early on Thanksgiving morning to load up Brady and walk to downtown to participate in the huge annual turkey trot. Because Dave and I have never stayed locally in Walnut Creek for a Thanksgiving before, we’ve never had the chance to experience it. Well, it’s massive. There were so many people, and we participated in the last corral — corral 7 — which was reserved for walkers and those with strollers. The announcers referred to our corral as the “party corral,” and that’s because a lot of walkers had costumes, beverages and a much more laid-back spirit than the actual runners. We met up with some friends and had a big group for the race through beautiful Walnut Creek.

It took us just over an hour, and little Brady slept the entire time, never even making a peep. Once the race was over, we walked all the way home and had put in more than six miles before 10 a.m., so we were more than ready to shower up, relax and chill for the rest of the holiday.

A small and tasty Thanksgiving dinner

Around lunch-time, Dave’s little sister, Gwena, joined us for the day and even stayed the night. We all hung out, snuggled with Brady, watched the parade on TV and took some festive photos outside.

Then, around 3 p.m., we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal, which we purchased entirely from Whole Foods. We pre-ordered the spread, not wanting to spend too much time in the kitchen, and it came with an organic turkey for four people, stuffing, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, cranberry sauce and even gravy. All we had to do was heat it all up in the oven, carve the turkey and enjoy. It was a decent amount of food and was incredibly tasty, so it’s certainly something I would recommend and do again. Whole Foods does a good job and makes it very easy to order and pick up too.

After our big feast, we took a walk on the trail and then got into the desserts before spending the rest of the evening watching TV and hanging out.

It was a really nice day, but both Dave and I agreed that it didn’t quite seem like Thanksgiving, because we didn’t travel or have a lot of our family around. My older brother and his fiance were down with my parents in Florida for the weekend, and I was a little sad I wasn’t there to take part in that. However, we did do a FaceTime with them so they could see Brady, and that was fun. 

Wine tasting and lunching in Sonoma

On Friday, after a quick gym trip for me, Dave and Brady and I headed up to Sonoma for a wine tasting and lunch date with Dave’s aunt, who was visiting Northern California for the week. Dave and I had wanted to return to Anaba Wines in Sonoma since visiting it with friends more than three years ago and being very impressed. I happen to love the taste of Anaba Wines, and it was a pretty day for sitting outside and sipping on them.

We had a table on the patio and did a short tasting, and you’ll never guess what Brady did — slept the whole time. After we finished trying the line-up of six white and red varietals and purchased a bottle of pinot noir, we drove to Sonoma Square to meet Dave’s aunt and family for an incredibly delicious lunch at El Dorado Kitchen. I seriously could not say more good things about the tuna nicoise salad that I had for lunch that day. It was the best ever. Loved it! I also loved the company and loved introducing them to little Brady. They were enamored with his cuteness.

On the way home, we stopped at Peet’s for our first of two trips to get hot and festive beverages over the weekend — a coffee with peppermint for Dave and a large pumpkin spice latte made with almond milk for me. I couldn’t resist! So good! (And better than Starbucks, I must admit.)

That evening, Dave had to work at the Warriors game, so I gave Brady a bath, did some laundry and had leftovers for dinner. Pretty glamorous stuff. I also did a tiny bit of online shopping and ordered some buy-one-get-one workout outfits from Fabletics (referral link!).

Gym, birthday party and decking the halls

On Saturday morning, after sleeping in (Dave and Brady let me get an extra couple of hours), I went to the gym for a short upper-body session. Then, we all went off to attend a one-year old’s birthday party for a bit in Pleasant Hill. The theme of the party was a camp, and it was super cute! I wore Brady to the party in my favorite carrier, and he was snoozing the entire time.

And you can’t really see much of them, but I was very happy to pull back out these boots I haven’t worn since last year, which are currently on sale, by the way. I love them!

From there, we hit up Peet’s again (yes, I had two incredibly large and sweet pumpkin spice lattes in one weekend, and I’m not ashamed, and that’s a lot of caffeine for me), and hung out at home for the evening. We pulled out our tree and decorated it while listening to Christmas tunes and then had burgers for dinner. Yum! I’ve only had a burger a couple of times since having Brady, which is probably because I went a bit overboard on them during pregnancy, but I sure do love a good grass-fed patty with fries! 

Oh, and Brady hit eight weeks on Saturday and was looking like a big boy in his 0-3 month onesie!

Friends, manicures and a pizza

On Sunday, Dave and I went to visit our friends’ new home in Walnut Creek for a little bit. We enjoyed some nibbles and hanging out, which was super nice, because it was a rainy day and our plans for a walk were thwarted. Ohhhh the rainy season!

Later, we did a lot of stuff around the house (you know, the 9th load of baby laundry for the week, another bath for Brady, etc. … ), and I also snuck out to get a manicure (bright red, of course). We had pizza for dinner and snuggled on the couch, closing out the very long and wonderful holiday weekend.

My postpartum weekly workout recap

Here’s a detailed look at my second week back into working out …

At 7 weeks postpartum …

(Fun fact: In last week’s blog post, I wrote that I had been 7 weeks postpartum at the time, but that was wrong, because I had actually been 6 weeks postpartum. I realized that I had done that when I went to write this post. Geez. Mom brain. It’s been fixed, and we’ll try to get it right from here on out.)

• Monday: Took a 1.5 hour walk, 10:30 a.m.
• Tuesday: Did 30 minutes of barre at home, 10 a.m.
• Wednesday: Did this 30-minute yoga flow at home, 10 a.m.
• Thursday: Walked in a 5K turkey trot (and walked to the race site and back, 30 minutes each way), 7:30 a.m.
• Friday: Gym session — walked on the treadmill on incline for 10 minutes, warmed up, foam rolled and did lower-body moves, including squats, deadlifts and bridges using 10 and 15 pound dumbbells 
• Saturday: Gym session — walked on the treadmill on incline for 10 minutes, warmed up, foam rolled and did upper-body moves, including rows, shoulder raises and modified push-ups using 10 and 15 pound dumbbells and my bodyweight
• Sunday: Rest day

Overview of the week of workouts

My second week of working out is now complete! This past week had a few less walks than the week before, and that’s mostly because of the holiday and Dave being home. We left the house a lot more, which was fine by me, leaving much less time for movement and walking to kill time.

The biggest things to note from this week of working out were my return to doing yoga and return to doing modified push-ups. Having stayed away from exercise for just over six weeks, I also stayed away from stretching and flexibility training, so doing that 30-minute flow at home was really tough. I actually broke a sweat, which is a little pathetic. It felt good though, and I plan to do it again. Also, attempting my first round of push-ups in maybe three months was also quite hard. Even modified push-ups had started straining my core late in my pregnancy, so I avoided them altogether in the late third trimester. I was super sore on Sunday from having done three sets of 15 knee push-ups the day before. So sore! Overall, I’m very happy to be back to exercising, even though it’s not easy.

That’ll do it for today, my friends! I’ll see you back here later this week for a giveaway. Have a great start to your week! 🙂 

Holiday fun in Walnut Creek and #postpartum weekly workouts on A Lady Goes West ... Click To Tweet

Questions of the day

How was your Thanksgiving?

What’s something hard that you’ve done lately?

What’s something you’re grateful for?