Couldn't resist posting some vacation photos

Alternately titled "Two Matthews-ers, Swimsuit edition."

My sister & I just got back from a week in the Southern California sunshine! (So sorry ladies, no Handsome Hubster in this one). 

Our sweet grandma bought us some tickets to come visit her & the rest of our family near LA (yes, I'm yet another California-Oregon transplant kid).

We drove to the airport in true Pacific Northwest fashion-- windshield wipers battling the rain at top speed, bags packed optimistically with shorts & sandals, and pale legs coated in blotchy self-tanner.

Then we enjoyed six long, sunny days of:

-- boogey-boarding for hours (and the resulting traumatic sunburns),

(look! apparently I run like a raptor too) & (I hope Kelsey's okay with her butt on my blog) ('cause I know YOU guys are) (wink wink)

-- visiting with our uncle's family and soaking up all the cousin love we possibly could absorb,

got to see our awesome grandad on Father's day! Schweet. (In other news, B.F. meter has bumped up to a 6.25)

-- doing rascally things like taking a tour of all the nearby In-n-Outs at 1AM, and inventing a suuuuper mature "game" with my grandma's bathroom scale: how much weight can you lose by going to the bathroom? Kelsey won, with 4 POUNDS LOST in one... "sitting" (her strategy involved lots of water, then lots of coffee).
(Sorry. There's another "TMI" tag & "things that happen in the bathroom" tag for the tally.)
(My grandma didn't know we were playing this game. Now she does... Hi, Grandmom.)

-- and last but not least, somehow convincing our 70-year-old grandma to try boogey boarding.

Have I mentioned that summer is my favorite thing in the universe? Just the smell of sunscreen makes me giddy.


(Next up: part two of The Story of Hubster & Me, as told by Mr. Matthews-er himself!)

This is what happens to your face when you try to race the Hubster

One of those little things I somehow forgot to blog about:

Jason ran a half marathon last month (13.1 miles).  The dude hardly trained for it, and still managed to crank it out in just over 7 minutes per mile.

What?!!

But the best part? These photos of him & another guy duking it out on the home stretch:

Jason got passed! *cue look of intense determination

Jason passed him back! *cue victorious grin & stride like a RAPTOR GOING IN FOR THE KILL

Am I mean for laughing really, really hard at both of them?
...especially considering I haven't run more than a mile in about a month...?

All I want for Christmas are some REALLY SORE glutes

As nerdy as we may otherwise seem, Jason & I are helplessly addicted to our local Crossfit gym (there are 300 in the US). We tried it out last year, right before Sweden, and it is OFF THE HOOK amounts of fun. Guess who got themselves full-time memberships for Christmas? ; ) ; )

Mr. Matthews(er) amongst fellow curly-haired Crossfitters

It's like a PE class for big kids. (Some of you have probably stopped reading right there. The rest of you, who are Jocks-for-Life like us, are probably ready to sign on the dotted line, eh?) You do stuff like pullups, burpees (gawd, remember those?!), box-jumps, and slinging around kettlebells.

My muscles have been so insanely sore that I sound like a catastrophically constipated old man whenever I stand up (or sit down, or bend over, or turn my steering wheel...) This is coming from a chick who used to weight train with her body-builder mom back in high school. I'm not complaining, though; I'm such a jock that I like being sore.




Another perk to Crossfit, as illustrated by a recent conversation:

Crossfit Coach:   Hey, look who's back from Sweden!! Did you guys work out much
                             while you were gone?
Jason:                  Yeah, a little.
Myself:                 Nope. I love working out, but I need someone to yell in my face to get me to do it.
                             (...as I point to the coach.)
Jason:                  Yeah, didn't think it would go over too well if I tried that.
Coach:                 (...awkwardly smiles, like this is something he doesn't really want to get in the 
                              middle of...)

Still, we totally imagined him going home that day and writing up a new ad pitch:

Eugene Crossfit: pay a professional to yell at your spouse!

[Photo from eugenecrossfit.com.]
P.S. Stop giving me the suspicious side-eye. They're not giving me any free sweat sessions to write this.
P.P.S. With that said, every Saturday 10AM Eugene class is free to everyone!! Come so we can laugh at each other : )