home sweet home (& my first CrossFit class!)

i finally came home for the first time in 5 months yesterday!

moving out was bittersweet because the last year has been the best year of my life, hands down. i made the most amazing friends, was incredibly challenged academically, became even more of an independent person than i already was, and so much more. UCLA is the best thing that's ever happened to me. & there's a whole post on that coming later!

one of the last sunsets of my first year! 

anyway, coming home was seriously like discovering a whole new wardrobe. after the long drive i started unpacking right away and then discovered how much crap i have. there were a lot of things that i left at home that i completely forgot i had - so i went through it all and threw away and donated most of it. it felt so good! i still have some more unpacking to do (and a lot of stuff is staying in boxes for moving back in in the fall) but it's so, so, so good to be home. 

i get to hang out with my babies and smother them in kisses. 

and sit on a couch and watch TV on a big screen.

and drive my CAR! (while blasting imagine dragons, of course!) 

and make pancakes & eat loads of berries. 

and, try out my first CrossFit class!

i knew that i was going to miss my IFT barbell class like crazy when i came home this summer, so i looked into crossfit. i found a box that's 10 minutes away from my house and  emailed one of the coaches about a week ago asking how to get started. he told me about the free intro class they have on saturdays so i decided to go to that this morning (even though getting out of bed was reeeallyy hard. i was wiped from yesterday!). 

i was super nervous beforehand because it's really easy to get intimidated by crossfit, for many reasons! i almost bailed out like 10 minutes before i was supposed to leave, but then i realized how stupid i was being. lifting and doing intense workouts is something that i absolutely love, so why not try it? 

so i went! the box is reeeeally cool, especially compared to the room we use at school for IFT. i felt like a little kid at a playground! and the coach that i met was really nice. it was just me and this other girl there for the intro class, and the coach told us about what crossfit is and what a typical class looks like. then he went over some of the movements with us, and had us do a 12 minute AMRAP workout of jump rope, thrusters, kettlebell swings, and burpees. 

guys, i absolutely LOVED it. i knew how to do most of the stuff he went over today, and he told me i had a perfect front squat (using a PVC pipe, haha). this kind of stuff is my favorite kind of workout!! i know there's so much potential for me to really challenge myself, learn a lot, and have a lot of fun. 

after the intro class i was stretching and the coach came and talked to me a little bit - he asked about my IFT class, if we lifted heavy, and if i could a couple of things (like snatches). and then he told me that i could skip the fundamentals class (which is where they teach you most of the movements you do in crossfit)!! the other coach that i'd already emailed had told me that there was a possibility to skip the fundamentals class depending on how much experience i'd had, but i was fully planning on taking the class unless after the intro class a coach told me otherwise. 

i left with the biggest smile on my face! i am so grateful that i took the plunge fall quarter last year and signed up for my barbell class, because if i hadn't, i don't know if i would've been able to get myself to go to that intro class today. i was so nervous, but i'm incredibly glad that i went. i know that there's so much for me to learn and improve on, but i love a challenge. 

here's to a freakin' awesome summer! 

have you ever tried crossfit?