Hey y’all! I hope you all had a wonderful Friday and those of you following the Couch to 5k series are ready to tackle the 5k in the morning. Please comment below letting me know how it goes! Good Luck!!

Anyways, today started out with a quick 45min workout. 30minutes on the spin bike where I did 1mile easy warm up, 8miles of .5mile hard, .5mile easy, then a 1mile cool down. I followed that with a 10minute core routine and 5minutes of foam rolling and stretching. After my morning workout I came home and (even though I tried burning them) made a breakfast burrito for my dad and I. It was a quick and easy breakfast that was high in protein even if it was a little bland today. Not a ton in the fridge to choose from so today’s was just an egg, egg beaters, cheese, and salt and pepper wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla.

After breakfast, I got in the car with my parents and we headed up the mountain to Boone to celebrate my baby brothers 22nd Birthday!! After a little running around when we got there, we sat down to lunch at Macado’s. It was pretty good….Well, sort of…. the service was pretty slow and the food was average but the dessert was on point so that made up for everything else the restaurant was lacking in my book. It was a giant cinnamon roll with ice cream on top. Sorry I didn’t get a picture, the 4 of us devoured it before I even thought to snap one. You’ll just have to take my word on it, it was AMAZING!

After lunch, since nothing we do is super conventional we opened birthday presents in the car. I made my brother a birthday BRO-quet. I think it was a pretty big hit and I had a lot of fun putting it together. I’ll be sure to post the details of this one in a later post.

 
Then the real fun started. We went and chopped down the family Christmas tree. And no, it was not like the Griswold’s, no one froze from the waist down, goofy carols were not sung, and we didn’t hike miles into the woods, but we did have lots of fun.

We went to a Christmas tree farm where they have tons and tons of trees to choose from and people to help you when you need it. Alex, Mom, and Dad have all done this together the last few years but this was my first time and I thought it was pretty cool.

 
When you first get there they hand you these giant poles so you can measure the trees; out on the mountain none of them look huge but trust me, some of them are GIANT! Or as my brother says, they are GONKERS!! Mom seemed to find those trees even though she was “looking” for a small one.

After lots of searching and maybe a little bit of playing,

we found the perfect one….

Just kidding we didn’t go with the Christmas palm tree but it did give us a good laugh. Once we picked out our tree, a guy in a big tractor comes by and chops it down, brings it down the mountain, and trims it up…I think he had maybe done this once or twice as he was pretty quick! …Faster than we could pay for it and grab our free hot chocolate and cookies.

After tying the tree to the top of the car (funny story, the guy helping us phone started ringing and his ringtone was something about beer and titties. Mom, Alex, and I did all that we possibly could to keep a straight face but we failed…we are all so mature 😉 ) it was time to say our goodbyes to the birthday boy and head back down the mountain. Mom and I joked with Dad that the tree kept falling off the entire way down, but no worries, it made it all the way back to the Queen City with no problems. I’ll be sure to post a picture once we have the pretty tree up and decorated.

So who else chops down their own tree? I highly recommend it to anyone in Charlotte looking to buy a real Christmas tree this year. It could be a fun day trip with the family or your significant other. There are tons of Christmas tree lots up in Boone to choose from.

Comment below if you are doing your 5k in the morning and if you have ever chopped down your own tree.

Happy Friday Y’all!