getting zumba-fied

the bean and i started our sunday nice and early. as she sat on the potty and we had deep conversations about our plans for the day, she pointed to my freshly pedicured, pretty pink toenails. "i like your toes," she said. this gave me a bright idea - i present to you the bean's very first nail polish:

yes, yes that IS silver glitter added on top of that pepto bismol-y pink i painted her little tootsies with. what of it?

later, i bid her and the hub farewell for a few hours while i headed off to starbucks to meet my buddy kelley. knowing that i was interested in trying a zumba fitness class (and promising not to point and laugh at my lack of dancing skills), she'd invited me to an "all star" gathering of local instructors. it was being held at a nearby middle school's gymnasium, and after grabbing a quick coffee, she hopped in the tahoe and i drove us there.

not knowing what to expect (she'd only taken the class a few times and i'd never been, obvs), we chattered excitedly and anxiously as we followed these arrows to the venue:

there was already quite a line ahead of us, and we could hear lots of squealing and cheering as hordes of hard-core zumba enthusiasts greeted each other and took pictures together. and as we joined the line, even more showed up behind us.

we got to talking to the chick behind us, who was also super excited for the session. she'd been zumba-ing for about three months, and was really friendly, encouraging and enthusiastic. and as we bantered back and forth, we were asked for our tickets and handed a waiver to sign.

the excitement grew as the music began playing - loudly. heh. i swear, i'm such an old fart. but it was effective, based on the escalated squealing that resulted. and then we finally got to enter the gym.

i actually went to this middle school - but not this campus. the grounds of my old school, where i spent 7th and 8th grade, were taken over by a bunch of now-defunct car lots. boo.

kelley and i held on to our pledge to stay in the back of the class, which actually turned out to be a bad move. with the stage not elevated enough for us to see the instructors' feet, we ended up guessing at a lot of the steps. and while i'm fairly coordinated and have a bit more than zero rhythm, i'm not really good with the fluid hip movements of the latin-tinged zumba routines. seriously, i'm a pretty freaking awful dancer.

but we had a blast - laughing at ourselves and jumping around and following along as much as we could, and sweating our asses off. i have no idea how many calories i ended up burning, but i felt good and the two hours actually went by fairly quickly as the instructors took turns up onstage. although we were rather surprised when we learned that the session wasn't just two hours (already a brutal workout for someone who hasn't done any kind of activity in months), but three. yikes. even the ticket said from 11 to 1! oh, well.

we ended up leaving at 1, but we weren't alone. there were a good number of others who were taking off "early" too. i probably could've stayed, and maybe i would've been able to hang in there, but i was secretly relieved when kelley said she had a birthday party to attend and couldn't stay later. and look at how HAWT i was, drenched in my own sweat and hair all askew:

they're actually doing another session at the same place next saturday, and i'm hoping kelley can go. i don't know if i want to attend alone, but i suppose i could - that's how much fun i had. i knew i'd be sore, but it was really a fun way to get a workout in.

plus, it's just fun to say. ZUMBA!