My Semi-Kind-of-Ish Work Out Routine

Your first thought should be, "What? Beth works out? As if..."

Because, before a few months ago, I hate hate hate hate hated anything to do with the phrase "work out." (okay I still kind of do but that's beside the point)

Well, except horse back riding and ice skating but those are too much fun to be put in "that" category. ;) The sad thing about those, though, is the cost... SOOO I can't ride horses and skate as often as I'd like (which would be everyday if I was in control... xD).

But, I realized this was not going to happen, so I needed to come up with some other sort of enjoyable exercise (that I could do with just my laptop and my bedroom space) -- because, no, I'm not going to just "go for a jog." No. Jogging is not fun and I do not jog and that is that.

yet another reason not to jog.

So... about a year ago I discovered Blogilates. Run by a really sweet and fun girl named Cassey, she makes pilates workout videos on Youtube... and she runs a blog... hence the name: Blogilates. ;)

(Also -- it's pronounced "blog. ih. lat. ees." Not "blogh-ih-lats" like I called it for a few weeks before being corrected. xD)

Anyway, she makes these 5 to 15 minute workout videos (and she's got a bajillion of them now) of medium-difficulty pilates. Some are harder than others. But -- here's the thing. They're pretty fun. And they don't require any weights, and barely any space. AND they work your muscles so hard.

Here's the kicker: each month, Cassey releases a workout calendar that tells you exactly what videos to do each day, which simplifies everything. There's also a beginner's workout calendar, which she just updated! (hint: if you want to check out February's calendar, the password is lovebug , and just sign up for the newsletter to get next month's password!)

SO...Blogilates is great, but I still lacked that bit of "fun" aspect that I was after, for the days when I just did *not* want to work out.

Enter REFIT, who make zumba-like dance video workouts. I can't say I condone their whole channel, as some of their song choices aren't the best. BUT they have quite a few videos done to Christian and/or clean songs, which are so. stinkin'. fun. you will not even believe it. I'm currently looking around for some more dance video workouts. Or maybe I'll just make my own choreography...? Always an option. ;) Here's my youtube playlist of le favorite videos.

So, what about you guys??? Ever heard of Blogilates, or Refit? Let meh know if you like them, want to try them, or if you know of some other kind of fun exercise -- because, I'm all about the fun work outs, ya know. ;)

Journey to New Zealand: There and Back Again

Bonjour, my lovelies!

Okay that sounded a little creepy... o.O Anyway, here is, finally, the final section of the recap of my journey to New Zealand. It's been a month and a half since I returned home, and it feels like ages since I was in that beautiful country - and yes, I started planning a return trip the day I got back. xD

Oh, and the title of this post: I just couldn't resist. I can't help feeling the similarities between Bilbo's journey in Middle-earth and my own to Middle-earth - though I didn't meet a live dragon nor did I lose 3 of my travelling companions. *sobs*

But we must move on before I go through all that pain again. #lifeofafangirl ;)

Before the pictures though, here's a compilation of all the video clips I took on our trip. They're all very random, and I did barely any editing to it, aaaand they're all out of order somehow, but it's fun to see my travels in a different medium. Plus I have a few of going through Hobbiton... :D

Now for those pictures!

"Our" gas station. We literally only stopped at BPs while in NZ. xD

There was just no way to capture the glorious weather and beauty on our drive to Raupehu from Welly.

Gorgeous view of Mt. Raupehu.

Adorable little sheep on the way. ^_^

Second day on our drive back to Auckland, we drove by Mount Ngauruhoe (don't even try to pronounce that), WHICH was one of the mountains used for portraying Mount Doom (Orodruin) in LOTR!!

The Waitomo Glowworm Caves!!! Very very VERY sadly, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the caves, but let me tell you -- it was gorgeous. Probably one of the most gorgeous places on earth. Go look up pictures -- they don't do justice, but you'll get an idea.

Our last day in NZ we visited Hahei beach, and what gorgeous weather we had for it!

My sis Alissa enjoying le views.

panorama!

I believe this is the back view of Cathedral Cove. I could be wrong. We didn't have time to walk down, sadly, but it was still gorgeous from the look out.

Panorama of the overlook near Cathedral Cove.

Views on the drive.

Random, rocky beach along the way...

Gorgeous sunset as we drive to the airport, the ending of my Middle-earth journey. ^_^

P.S. A little offering just for the peeps who read all the way to the end, here's the link to le photo album on my personal facebook account, featuring all 918 of those pictures I took on my NZ trip. :)

I Need Your Help For the #HobbitChallenge!!

"The beacons are lit. Beth calls for aid."

I need your help. You saw the previous post where I told you about the #HobbitChallenge, and now the fan voting period has arrived and you can help me and my friends win it!!! It will only take a minute, and you have no idea how much it would mean to me. Like, literally. You'd completely make my day.

The short version: click on this link here and click the "vote" box below our video. Yes, that's literally all you have to do! No signup or anything required. :D It should come up with a "Thanks for voting!" screen -- if it doesn't, try searching for AnElvenPrincess and voting from that video. :) You can vote every day for the next five days, so if you really want to be amazing you can bookmark the page and vote every day!!

Now, the long version. ;)

The video at the bottom of this post is my and a few of my friends' recreation of the "Good Morning" scene from An Unexpected Journey for the contest that The Hobbit is hosting, the Hobbit Challenge.

The gist of the Hobbit Challenge: fans had the opportunity to make a video recreating one of 3 scenes from AUJ, DOS, and BOTFA (we chose this one because of how fun it is -- and I wasn't really up for taming a dragon or dealing with ringwraiths), and then upload it to Youtube with the hashtag #HobbitChallenge and submit it on the Hobbit website. Then the videos will go through a long judging process: the first round is fan voted, which will determine the top 30 videos in each eligible country. In the 2nd round, judges will select the top 10 of those videos. The 3rd round will narrow it down to 20 finalists, one from each country. And then, of course, one winner will be chosen from those 20. And the prizes??? Ooooohhhh boy. Each of the 20 finalists will win $1,500 worth of various Hobbit memorabilia, and the grand prize winner gets a 5 day trip to New Zealand. (I can't believe I can say "been there, done that" xD) So, yeah. Pretty amazingly awesome.
Of course, our odds of winning are pretty slim. But you better believe I'm not going to give up hope until we're eliminated from the contest! I love the Holman Christian Standard translation of Colossians 3:23 - "Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men..." Ya'll, that's what I'm doing, or at least trying to do. God's going to get whatever glory I/we gain from this, whether that's just from people seeing our video on Youtube, or winning first place.

Whatever happens, I'm so glad we made this little vid because we had the absolute best time with it, and I hope you like the finished product. Now, go to this link and vote for us in the challenge and DON'T FORGET let me know that you did in the comments below so I can personally thank you!!! :D

A few last minute troubleshooting tips:

When you click "vote" a screen should come up saying "Thanks for voting!" If it doesn't, try searching for AnElvenPrincess and voting on the video that comes up there.

Also, I believe only U.S. residents will be able to vote on our video, so if the link doesn't work and searching AnElvenPrincess in the search box doesn't bring it up either, I'm thinking that would be the reason. :)

[Battle] Tauriel Cosplay - The Photoshoot

177 days ago I wrote a post entitled BOTFA Cosplay Announcement. This was the beginning of a wonderful journey leading to the creation of my favorite costume that I've made yet.

It was bittersweet, though, as this costume was created for our final visit to Middle-earth -- the premiere of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

That premiere happened a month and a half ago now, and is an amazing memory that I will never forget. Friends, costumes, and The Hobbit -- there's no way that couldn't be awesome. ;)

And now, I share with you the culmination of this journey. A collection of my favorite photos from a photoshoot of this costume. I had so much fun doing it, and the pictures are better than I even imagined.

But I must give credit where credit is due:

To Amber, Crystal, and Karis, for these pictures. The photoshoot could never have happened without you guys, and I so appreciate your insane talent. So thanks again, girls, for taking all of these!!!

And above all, to God. He gave me the talent for creating costumes. He gave me the body that I get to cosplay in. And lastly, He gave up His life, so that I can live and enjoy the life that He gives to me. I would be absolutely no where without Him. I would have no hope, no desire to live life if I didn't know that it is God who is in control of it all. And I hope, I pray that my costumes, my blog, my life gives glory to Him. Because He is the only thing that truly matters in this life on earth.

Weeping over Kili. Note: I was laughing. xD

Tell me this does not remind you of this.

Battle Tauriel: Finished.

#HobbitChallenge Beginnings

This past weekend, a few friends and I got together to film a video. What kind of video? A very nerdy video. A video entry for the #HobbitChallenge!!! :D

In case you didn't know, The Hobbit is hosting a contest where the contestants have to film a recreation of one of three scenes: "Good Morning," from An Unexpected Journey, "Hide and Seek with Smaug" from The Desolation of Smaug, or "I Am Not Alone" from The Battle of the Five Armies.

About two weeks ago, when the scenes to choose from were released, Karis (who I've mentioned several times before on here, and who blogs over at The Horse Nextdoor) and I decided we should attempt the "Good Morning" scene, between Gandalf and Bilbo. We knew it would be so much fun, no matter how it turned out or how well we did in the competition.

And so we began the preproduction process for our little video. :D

First was brainstorming, along with casting. This part was easy -- Karis is short, so she gets to play Bilbo. I'm tall, so I'm Gandalf. End of story. ;)

With this in mind, we decided to really play up the "feminine" flip on the characters. For instance, Bilbo sips tea instead of smoking a pipe, and Gandalf doesn't have a beard and wears a skirt. Oh wait -- he already does that... "No! It's a tunic!" ;D

The brainstorming continued for our set location, props, film angles, etc., and we began putting together our costumes. No, neither of us made any part of the costumes (except some alterations I made to Gandalf's hat) since we had a deadline to meet (February 1st), but the costumes still turned out much better than I was expecting them too, which I was so happy about... considering costumes are one of my favorite things about movie making. :D

Next began the actual production, which took place on a cloudy Sunday after church. Karis and I recruited our friends Amber and Emily to be our "film crew," and so we all congregated at Karis' house for a 2 hour shoot. Before we could do any filming, however, Emily and I combined our efforts to curl Karis' very straight hair, set up our location for the scene, and prepped the cameras.

Which was actually rather amusing -- we had four cameras during the shoot. We used mine for filming, Amber's for production stills, Karis' DSLR for character shots and her little point-and-shoot for a behind-the-scenes vlog. (We didn't use the DSLR for the cinematography because it didn't have as good video settings as mine.) This multiple-camera setup was great, and totally made us feel all professional. Like, literally, the whole production of our video has been exactly like professional movie making -- just without moolah involved and on a super small scale. ;)

So, the shoot went quite well, and took about two or three hours. It was seriously cold, and windy, but thankfully the rain held off until we had wrapped, and then it started pouring (which was totally a God thing). Poor Karis was getting hypothermia, though, since she was wearing hobbit clothes fit for a warm, spring day. (I lucked out with all my costume layers!) Just goes to show how dedicated we were. Hah!

As for the scene itself... we got alot of great footage. We also got alot of not-so-great footage, like when Gandalf forgot what kind of morning it was, or when Karis' ponies came over to crash our party. (We're going to have a very long blooper reel.)

I hope you're getting the impression of how much fun we had with making this thing. ;)

Anyway, after filming, our little movie crew went through all the footage and pictures, which was just great. Lots of hilarity and some surprisingly good footage as well.

Now it is Wednesday, and we're in the final stages of postproduction as Karis edits the 2 minute clip. It'll be up on Youtube by tomorrow, and once it's there I'll be posting the link on my Facebook and Twitter pages. (Yes, those are both fairly new developments, and I hope you'll go and like/follow me! I love talking and interacting with you guys, and FB and twitter make that a bit easier. :))

Buuuut... in the meantime, enjoy this little "behind the scenes commentary" from Karis and I. :D

P.S. I promised you guys some more pictures from my battle Tauriel photo shoot, aaaand they *are* coming!! I've just got so many things I want to blog about, and no time. Hopefully within the week there will be a post featuring them -- it's in my drafts folder currently, just waiting for edited pictures. ;)

[Battle] Tauriel Cosplay - Photoshoot Sneak Peak

So, to mix up my post topics a bit, I wanted to share with you all what I did last Sunday...

My two friends Amber and Karis, my older sister Crystal and I had a cosplay photoshoot!!! Yes, for battle Tauriel. And let me tell you, these three are incredible photographers.

Needless to say, with these talented peeps, three really nice cameras, beautiful weather, an epic location, and an elf for a subject, the photos turned out better than I even imagined -- though many turned out terrible and hilarious and hideous as well. You don't get to see those of course. Gotta maintain my image, right... jk, jk. ;D

There's around 400 photos in all, and I've narrowed it down to 150 favorites... SOOOOO I'm currently in the process of editing up my very favorite favorites. ;) But in the meantime, I wanted to give you guys a quick sneak peak picture of the shoot, courtesy of Karis.

More pictures coming soon -- from le cosplay photo shoot and New Zealand! :)

Journey to New Zealand: More of Our Visit to Welly

Ah, you didn't expect another post so soon! I had a bit of time, and figured I'd make good use of it since I'll be so busy starting... tomorrow.

But anyway, this is the follow up to my last post about the Hobbit costumes in Wellington! Here follows a few select pictures of everything else we saw/visited while in Wellington (which I'm obsessed with calling "Welly" because I feel like a Kiwi when I do. ;D).

Just to give you an idea of the amount of pictures I took on this trip, they number 918 in all. I'm trying to find an easy way to upload them all to my blog, so that whoever wants to look through them can... but still working on that. ;) In the meantime, I (as usual) hope you enjoy the following pictures, of the rest of our adventures in Wellington!

Driving into Wellington.

The Te Papa museum.

...which had a giant statue of Azog the Defiler and was fully creepy. :D

Uhm yes Hobbit fans will recognise this place... :D :D :D The theater where ROTK and AUJ premiered!!! Yes, they were showing BOTFA, and we almost went to see it... but time restrictions inhibited that. :P

"The Tripod," made by Weta Workshop, to commemorate Wellington's film industry. ;)

One of my favorite stops in Wellington, we visited the Weta Cave and got to take their epic "Window into Workshop" tour!!!

Of course I had to get pics with the trolls outside the shop!! ;D

And here's where things get really cool... very near Weta, I found Park Road Post.  WHICH IS WHERE THEY EDITED THE HOBBIT AND LOTR FILMS AND I COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT.

No but wait, it gets even better. Two streets over from Park Road is Stone Street... WHICH IS OF COURSE HOME TO STONE STREET STUDIOS WHERE THEY BUILD ALL THE SETS FOR BOTH TRILOGIES AND WHERE THEY WORKED AND JDSKLFJDSLKFFAKLJAK. Of course, it was all locked up tight, but we dd drive around the back and saw...

(what's through the gate...?)

YES YES YES THAT'S THEIR HUMONGOUS GREEN SCREEN WHERE THEY BUILT LAKETOWN AND STUFF AND IT WAS SO AMAZING TO SEE IT IN REAL LIFE BECAUSE LOOK IT'S RIGHT THERE and i am so sorry for all the fangirling but... this was just awesome. xD :D

An adorable calf (there were tons of cows in NZ, btw) on our way to Rivendell!!!

"Lord of the Rings Film Location"

Now, the whole walk was gorgeous, and even though there's nothing left of the Rivendell set now, the maps did point all the places it was built out! Aaaaand this place, which was the setting for all those promotional photos of Legolas for LOTR!!!

A huge archway the park put in, feat. my sis Alissa! ;)

One of our final stops was a visit to the Wellington airport, which I knew had alot of Hobbit awesomeness that we just had to go see... including Smaug...

Gandalf and the eagles...

And Gollum!!!!

Wellington's capital building.

Goodbye, Wellington!!! I enjoyed my stay more than I can say. :D

Journey to New Zealand: Hobbit Costumes in Wellington!

This is the second part of my "picture posts" of my New Zealand trip. I loved reading all your comments on my last post, and am so glad you enjoyed seeing those pics and experiencing NZ through me, in a way! ;)

And now I'm back home. I got back last Wednesday, quite late. There is so much to tell, but I'm recovering from wisdom tooth surgery currently, and am just plain weary, honestly. Which is also why I haven't replied to the e-mails sitting in my inbox, or to any comments on my blog -- for which I apologize sincerely. Another post is coming on that, but for now...

Enjoy the pictures of the Hobbit "costume trail" through Wellington that we were able to see!!!! We visited all the costumes, except for one (Oin, who was a bit out of the way and I didn't really mind missing his costume. ;)).

The first costume we saw was Tauriel, making my Tauriel costume journey come full circle!!!! It was the most incredible thing to see the real costume, worn by Evangeline Lilly herself, up close and in real life. It was like... there it is. There is the costume I've seen so much in pictures and in the movies, right there, close enough to touch. And needless to say, it made me want to remake my costume and make it 900% more accurate! xD

Also, I was so much more excited than I looked. Just keep in mind, I had a cold during the whole trip. ;D

And lastly - please excuse the terrible quality of some of these. The natural lighting did horrors to the pics. :p

Here follows the dream come true for a cosplaying Hobbit fangirl. ^_^

Tauriel

Mirkwood Guard

Thorin

Gloin

Gandalf

Dwalin

Bard

Radagast

Bombur

Bofur

Bifur

Balin

Kili scale, with Kili full-size behind (I just could not get a decent picture of his!)

Fili

Dori

Ori

Nori

Bilbo

Legolas

Needless to say... I still can't believe I saw all these amazing costumes. In real life. I was fangirling so hard the entire time we were touring around, finding the costumes nestled away in random stores and hotels... it was just great. One of my favorite things on the trip. :D