Shred Me

Today, in my living room as the kids dreamt peacefully, I started THIS wicked little video:

I started at level2, and had to pause it in the middle to go get another towel to wipe up my drippage (the sweat, I mean... just to clarify...).

Anyways. I thought it was worth broadcasting to people who blog-love me. I'm excited to see how it goes, I've heard there are some pretty amazing results if you can stick to it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll actually put the pint of ice cream down and join in. HA!

xo

It is Written

BEHOLD:

That's right, folks. Dawson has met his summer goal of being able to spell AND write his first and last name before kindergarten.

This is a proud parenting moment, indeed. The kid is brilliant, I'm telling you. He simply made up his mind one day, and it took him less than 5 minutes to memorize the letters once he decided he could do it!

I sat and watched as he wrote them all out yesterday, and never said a peep. It was like he had done it a million times. The strangest feeling came over me, like we are entering a new chapter and this is tangible evidence. It stung a little!

The part that struck me most odd was as he wrote the lowercase letter 'e,' he looked at me and made a comment about how he might need some help... and the way he was holding his pencil at the bottom of the line where the letter should end I thought he was confused for a moment. But then, he went backwards and drew it from the bottom upwards, ending with the part that curves back around to the middle.

This is precisely how Tyson writes his lowercase letter 'e.'

Creepy, no?

How's THAT for genetics. I'm pretty positive Dawson has never actually watched Tyson write this way, and I've always thought it was a different way to go about the task. Maybe I am the unconventional lower case letter 'e' writer, ha. Either way, I could SWEAR their handwriting already bears similarity (although Tyson's is more than a little bit neater for the time being).

Anyway, enough about all that. MY LITTLE BOY IS OFF TO KINDERGARTEN in less than a month! I'm stocking up on Kleenex.

I promised him at the beginning of the summer that if he mastered his task of the first and last name perfectly before school started, I would take him to Target and get him ANY toy he wanted.

He chose this here Star Wars storm trooper gun:

He was so sweet in the store when he realized Anabelle wouldn't be getting a toy, he made her all kinds of promises about how he would share it and "I won't even tease you with it, Anabelle."

Of course he forgot almost immediately, but it was the thought that counted.

I think the best part was watching him SO excited to rush home and take it outside and round up all the neighborhood kids so they could play outside with it. It made me happy that he was so thrilled with a new toy, like it was something that really meant a lot to him because our kids NEVER get new toys between their birthdays and Christmas. So this was a definite reward, and a real treat. He was in heaven.

So am I, for that matter.

How did I get lucky enough to have the best and brightest kids ever?

xo

Whoops, I Did It Again.

That is, volunteered to subject myself to cruel and unusual torture methods just to say I could do it (I guess?).

Also... I like to make my friends happy. And Kari really really wanted to do this. How could I say no?

Last Saturday was my first official bike ride. Like, really getting out on the road to see what she could do. It was about 20 miles, took a little more than an hour, and was an absolute blast.

I did, however, discover that while I absolutely LOVE the bike I found in theory... it is unfortunately a smidge big for me. I haven't quite decided what the solution for this dilemma is... whether I am going to tearfully kiss her goodbye, re-craigslist her and try to find her smaller sister for the same price or better (miracles happen every day, people!), or else Tyson has expressed an interest in keeping it for himself, and just purchasing a new bike for me (again, miracle cash shows up ALL THE TIME!). In the mean time, she is still rideable. Its just a little awkward at times.

And so... and HERE'S where the crazy talk begins, next week I am starting a training regimen that looks a little something like this, so that in 12 weeks from now, I will be ready to do THIS.

That's right my friends. Don't get all googly-eyed about the 'wine and roses' catch phrase, that's just something shiny to lure you into a torturous 100 mile ride to the prize.

I'm scared.

Between now and then, I need to:

A. Find a bike that fits properly. (for free, or close to? ha).

B. Invest in 2 good quality pairs of padded bike shorts (the term saddle sores has been added to my recent vocab list of 'phrases that make me shudder'). Apparently 2 pairs are necessary, because of the sweating which leads to the chaffing...

C. Drain my Roth IRA or post a personal add on craigslist offering my services to come up with the extra change to acquire things like padded shorts, a storage bag, watter bottles that fit my holders, and possibly a used pair of cycling shoes.

and, oh, yah... last but not least...

D. Be conditioned enough to NOT DIE in the process of riding 100 miles.

Piece of cake, I say.

Mmmmmmm, cake.

Dear Lord, what have I done?

Snakes and Snails, and Puppy Dog... um... Nipples.

This morning was a gorgeous summer day in Apple Valley, and all the kids and moms were feeling especially social, so we all ended up mingling in the streets in the wee hours of the morning before it got too hot. I want to say there were probably a dozen kids out playing before 9am!

The boys were all playing (every mom's favorite game!...) 'guns.' Anabelle joined right in, and was THRILLED they would have her. Guess who their first hostage was (the one holding the camera!).


Anyhoot. The band of hooligans all ended up playing 'army' in the field next to our house. They were commando crawling thru the rain trenches, and looking for a helpless victim to snipe.



The neighbor dog who just had puppies came trotting up to Dawson with her momma dog nipples sloshing around everywhere and Dawson goes "Hey, MOM! Look! We are the army guys, and Sophie is our army DOG! She even got's squirt guns all over her belly!"

I could NOT stop laughing.

One of the neighbor mom's whipped up a makeshift lemonade stand to keep the troops hydrated.



Dawson was especially excited about writing his own name on the cup...




When it got too hot to stand around shooting nerf guns, we whipped out the sprinklers and all the kids cooled off.

Tyson and I are always saying what a shame it is our kids never have anyone to play with. :)

It was definitely a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

xo

Love Fool

Anabelle: (sunning herself like a mermaid and striking a dramatic pose on top of the picnic table)

"Hey, Mom? Do I look like an idiot?"

Me: "What...?"

Anabelle: (batting her eyelids and enunciating for her slow mother)

"I said... do I... look... like... an IDIOT?"

*flashes a huge, hopeful stage grin*

Me: "Why do you say that? And where did you hear that word?"

Anabelle: (obviously flattered)

"Oh, Dawson says I look like an idiot all the time! Do I...?"



Me: "Dawson is not allowed to call you idiot. And its NOT a nice thing."

Anabelle: (smile melts)

"Oh. Alright."

Super Troopers

After church yesterday, we decided to go on a little hike at Serra Alto campground.

Its been a year since we hiked it. Actually, Ty and I did it last March for my birthday without the kids (obviously), so it had been awhile.

We were trying to fit a bunch of activities into our only family day together, so the time it worked out that we could go was at 2pm.

The hottest part of the day.



The trail is pretty shaded... we were walking along having a great time, and its close enough to Morro Bay to get some of the lovely ocean breeze, so it wasn't as scorching as it could have been. But it was still pretty warm in the sun.





Since everyone was having such a blast, I had a brilliant idea!

I suggested to Tyson that we try to do the whole loop. In my mind, we were 'practically there anyways!' It was 'just around the corner and up one more hill until the part where you start heading back down to the campgrounds.'




...except then, it never really was just around the corner...

only by the time I realized I was delusional, we had gone so far, we had to just keep going...

The kids started whining about being hot, and 'getting too much exercise' (that would be Anabelle) about a mile and a half in.

This is mostly uphill, mind you.

We brought a couple water bottles, and I grabbed a couple granola bars as an afterthought on the way out the door.

They came in handy when all of a sudden the kids went from squeaky clean poster children for the YMCA...

...to THIS:


I felt SO.BAD.

Their poor little cheeks were burning red, and their bright blue eyes looked like they might just pop right out of their flushed little faces. There was some minimal complaining... but heaven KNOWS Tyson and I weren't about to throw our backs out carrying 45lb kids up a mountain.

We rested a lot. We said a LOT of 'we're almost there!'s not really knowing if we actually were almost there...

...there might have been a silent prayer or two...

But ultimately... they did it!

And they were proud of themselves when we got to the top!

It was 1.7 miles uphill to this sign, then another mile down the mountain, which wasn't bad since it was all downhill (but all in the sun).

And after nearly three miles of wilderness hiking, we all did a victory dance on the bridge leading back to the sweet sight of the air conditioned car.


I am SO proud of my little super troopers. That was quite a hike!

And how cool is it that now... we can head out on a Sunday afternoon with minimal packing requirements to have an enjoyable outing.

No diapers. No strollers. No bibs. No nap times to rush home for.

All we have to worry about now is making quality memories for our children to fill their childhood with.

Yesterday was a great start.

Trotting Along

Today I ran my second 10k.

This time I was even more nervous than the first one... this time, there was a standard to live up to! I thought I did pretty well for a beginner before, and I couldn't stand the thought of getting a higher time now. I've maintained my work out schedule pretty regularly, but I've been doing spinning, step class, and other cardio things... not as much running. So I was worried.

I got up at 5:30 so I would have an hour before I needed to leave to hydrate, coffee up, eat breakfast (which I don't usually do that early), pee a hundred times, and feel calm heading out.

Somewhere between the wake up call and the starting gunshot, I got siiiiick.

Maybe it was the nerves. Maybe the last supper was haunting me. Maybe the caffeine, maybe just carsickness... but I really, REALLY thought in my head it was going to be ugly.

I'll spare you the details (Lynn, it involves the 'd' word!!)... but lets just say, we ended up running late, parking a mile away, and I was on the toilet in the tasty beach bathrooms until the moment we needed to be on the beach.

Not.pretty.

This race was a lot lower budgeted. There weren't any professional photographers (so no pics, sorry). There wasn't a party at the end. There were no mile markers to moon walk across along the way. It was also dreadfully foggy, and I didn't wear a watch, so I had absolutely no idea how far along I was at any point. Last time, we could spot the pier about a mile away to know hope was in sight. This time... zilch.

Until all of a sudden... we were there!

And.

The final times aren't posted yet, but according to Kari's expert timing techniques... we improved our time from last time by over 3 minutes.

Also... it hurt a lot less, we both agreed.

So. I think one day soon I just might be ready for a half marathon....?

Thanks for watchin the kids, Mom... and for getting up early and making an awesome running mix, Kari.

I ran my second 10K this morning, and MAN, it felt good!

xo