Warning long post ahead! So this last weekend myself, my sister-in-law and my two small children went on a drive to visit my families cabin to retrieve some treasures since we recently sold the property. We decided to go a round about way to get there because it would be a pretty. Unbeknownst, to us there was still plenty of snow on top of the mountain road, because we were in a 4x4 pick up and both country girls we decided to keep going. Well we made it up and over the mountain with lots of prayer and butt puckering. We were laughing about how lucky we were when bam, another patch of snow and we slid sideways, almost sending the truck over the side of a very deep cliff drop off. We spent an hour trying to dig ourselves out and move the pick up. In the end my sister-in-law and I decided that we needed help. We are at this point, a minimum of 25 miles from cell service in any direction! She grabs one of our handguns we had on us and started out walking(I’m very lucky she actually works out, runs, and is fairly active). I stayed in the pickup with the kids. She went a total of 5 miles before she hit the first house and other 1/2 mile before then next one where someone was actually home. All in all from getting stuck to headed home was 5 hours. I have not been in good physical condition in probably 10 years. Had I been on my own I would have had to take both kids(3yr old and 8week old) with me. I live in a very rural mountains area where cell service is very rare. So I’ve decided for the safety of my family I need to be able to comfortably walk/hike with both my kids for at least 5 miles. This was a huge wake up call. We didn’t have food to make it through the night, no shoes that were meant for the snow, no shovel(we used a deer antler we had found the previous day hiking) I currently weigh 190, size 12-14, am 5ft 4in and 8 weeks postpartum. My diet is half decent and am not worried about what I eat I just know I need to cut back proportions. I know close to nothing about physical fitness. My plan is to just start walking a mile a day packing my 15pound 8 week old for a week or two and steadily increase distance. Any information, resources, tips of tricks I would love all input.

Picture of myself and my family on Easter Sunday.