We're here to PUMP - you UP

I made it to my Body Pump class last night at my gym! I have been trying to make it to this class (on Wednesdays and Saturdays) for about 2 months, so I was glad to finally make it to class. The instructor was really nice and showed me what kind of weights/gear I would need for class and then we began. Holy God! About five minutes into class (and what turned out to only be the warm up!), I was hurting. My legs were screaming and shaking. I couldn't believe that. Six months ago, I could hold my own in a weight lifting class. It's not like I was a body builder or anything, but I could go through class without having to take major rest breaks. Not so this time! I had to rest three times and let my muscles relax. I knew my muscles would be weaker, but I thought I would be a little stronger than that. Just goes to show what six months and no weight lifting will do! I'm glad I did the class, though, and feel better for it. I just hope that Saturday's class goes a little better :)

I had some grand plans to grill this for supper, but seeing as how the Body Pump class was an hour long and started at 5:45pm, I quickly discarded that plan. Instead I got some spicy chicken nuggets and a small chili from Wendy's. I avoided the fries, but still felt slightly unhealthy after a day of healthy eating and working out. There was just no way the kids were going to last if I tried to cook - they were hungry!

Derek came home from work yesterday afternoon (he came in early and completely scared the dirt out of me - I thought someone was breaking into our house!!) with a bad cold/cough. Derek and I were married for six years before we had kids, and Derek was sick exactly one time in those six years (plus the 1.5 years we dated before getting married). Now that we have kids, Derek gets sick probably once a month. I swear sometimes he's sick more often than the kids! Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon and will get to enjoy the weekend. This is the first weekend in almost a month (or maybe more??) that we haven't had out of town guests staying with us. I love company, and I love my family coming to visit, but it'll be nice having the place to ourselves this weekend! I might just sit on the couch and watch TV all day to catch up on some shows. If Piper will let me watch something. She's developed a little girl crush on Diego (Dora the Explorer's cousin) and demands Diego at all times. It's cute, but that show is a little annoying....

Today the kids and I went to Celebration Park again. I really do love that park! We met up with a friend whose husband works with Derek. She is also a stay at home mom with two little ones. We didn't get to talk much because we were each chasing kids and she has a 4 month old who is still nursing, but it was nice just to go somewhere and know someone else. The park was getting new bark put in, and Danny was fascinated with the tractors and front loader. Little boy Heaven. Unfortunately, he kept getting in the way of their work and by the end of our hour and a half there, the construction team was calling out, "Where's Danny?" before they backed up the tractors. I'm just glad they didn't get annoyed - they seemed like they understood that I had two little ones - who of course wanted to go in opposite directions - and couldn't keep Danny out of their hair at all times because Piper was busy climbing parts of the play structure that I'm sure were about 3-5 years out of her age range. She would climb up, pull herself up, and then say, "help mama!" as she dangled from a ladder or some crazy climbing thing. Cute, but made my heart skip a beat or two. Here are some pictures from the day.

The animals at the Zoo

My Dad and Granny went back to Nashville yesterday, and I have to say...those two exhausted me! They got in around supper time on Saturday, so we just sat and chatted. The last time I had seen my Granny was at my Grandpa's funeral in December 2010. We had a lot of catching up to do! I was so happy that my Granny had decided to come with my Dad since she had two back surgeries very recently (she cleared it with her doctor before she sat in the car for the 10 - 12 hour drive), and she's still a little hesitant about doing things.

Sunday, my Dad and I had our indoor triathlon in the morning and then we had some delicious Papa Murphy's Veggie DeLite pizza (love, love, love that pizza!) before heading into downtown Dallas. On the way down there, we had to stop at a gas station because Danny had to go to the bathroom. If you've ever stopped half-way between Rockwall and downtown Dallas (along I-30), you probably know that it's not the best area to stop in. Let's just put it this way: there was a guy "working" the corner of the gas station and I'm pretty sure we saw multiple drug deals going down. Great place to take your kid to pee, but there wasn't anywhere else and Danny was getting desperate!

We stopped at the Convention Center and hung out with some cows and cowboys. And then made our way to Highland Park area. Beautiful homes through there! We found a cute little park with running trails and took the kids to play for a bit. The kids loved their little adventure. I was pretty tired from the triathlon still, but had a great time. We stopped for Chinese food on the way home (it was about 8pm by the time we started eating). Danny had fallen asleep in the car at about 5:30 pm and he stayed asleep for the rest of the night. Until about 3:30 am. When he woke up.  I tried everything to get him to sleep, but it was a no-go. So he and spent the (early, early) morning on the couch watching Wall-E.

We decided that we would spend our Monday at the Dallas Zoo. In Spokane, we didn't have a zoo, and here in Dallas, there are TWO! There is the Dallas Zoo and the Fort Worth Zoo. Everyone keeps telling me that the Fort Worth Zoo is a million times better, but we haven't checked that one out yet (my mom is taking the kids there in May; which is why we didn't go there this time). I wasn't even sure if the kids would like the zoo, but man, they LOVED it. We were able to rent a wheelchair for my Granny so she didn't have to walk so much, and Piper hopped right on and toured the zoo from her lap.

Danny was stuck in the double stroller, but I let him out at pretty much every exhibit.

They had lots of cool animals and a fantastic kids area where Piper went down the slide about 30 times and Danny splashed in the little mock-river they have set up. It was great! We stayed until about 1pm, when the kids started to meltdown (especially Danny - being extra tired and hungry was not a great combo!). We went to the McDonald's by the zoo - which was decorated like a zoo and was incredibly cute!

After that, we sat out in the sunshine at my house and just talked, drank a few beers, let the kids play, and grilled some ribs. It was a great day and great trip for my Dad and Granny. I wish it could've been longer, but my Dad has this crazy thing called work that he had to get back to. My Dad and Granny left early the next morning and made it back to Nashville in a pretty good time. I spent yesterday getting my car fixed (oil change, new timing belt, and some other things that I'm not really sure what it is but it keeps my car running!) and being incredibly lazy. I was so sore and tired from the triathlon and pushing the stroller all around the zoo.

Today I'm going back to the gym and doing a weight lifting class. Can't wait to try it out - if I can make it to the class on time! But before I do that, I need to do about three hours of work. I better quit procrastinating and do it!

Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon Recap

Let me just start this post off by saying, YES, you can in fact complete a triathlon by doggie paddling in the swimming portion. You'll go really slow, but you can do it. And it doesn't matter your shape or size - or age for that matter - triathlons are for everyone! Here's a pic of me and my Dad after we finished our first ever indoor triathlon! Sorry it's a little blurry.

We made it to Lifetime Fitness out in Allen, TX right at 8:15 or so, which was perfect for our wave start of 8:40. My Dad and I were awestruck by the enormity of the Lifetime Fitness. For real - this place could have it's own zip code! It had a salon, three or four class/yoga type studios, an AMAZING spin room, a juice bar/restaurant, an outdoor pool complete with an awesome looking slide, and an indoor pool that I think was Olympic sized. And that's just what I saw as we breezed through. Seriously, if I didn't already belong to a gym, I would join this one. And no, they are not paying me to say that ; )

Instead of a race t-shirt, they gave our swim caps and running hats - "if you wanted them." I pocketed my running hat, and threw my swimming cap on for the first leg of the triathlon: swimming. This was the portion of the race that I was dreading. Mainly because I hadn't swam in over a year, and my swimming "skills" are somewhat lacking. I remember taking swim lessons where I learned all the fancy moves, but I was a little fuzzy on the details. I'm more of a doggy paddle/tread water type of gal. My Dad thought the swimming would be easy since he goes to the pool for 30 - 40 minutes at a time when he goes. Turns out, I was right - swimming is HARD! We had to swim laps for 10 minutes and a lady at the end of the pool counted our laps. I did 12. My Dad did 11. The guy next to us did 24. I was in awe. My Dad decided that when he goes to the pool he is probably more like me: a water treader.

After the swimming, we had five minutes to change and meet in the spin room. I'm horrible with time and am always late. So I was worried that I was going to be late. I changed out of my swim suit in record speed. And tried to put on my sports bra. While I was still wet. I ended up with it stuck in a very awkward position and totally wrenched my back. It was awesome. And I was the first person to make it to the spin studio :)

The spinning went by pretty fast. It was 30 minutes of spinning on those super uncomfortable spin bikes. But I made it a little over 13 miles in the 30 minutes. For some reason, I thought I would go further than that, but oh well. That's what I did! Running was next, and I busted out 1.88 miles in 20 minutes. I was pretty proud of that. I'm a slow runner and I was super happy with my fast-ish run. My Dad did a little over 12 miles on the bike and 1.5 miles on the treadmill. My Dad rocks! I'm so proud of him for his race accomplishments this past year. And myself for that matter. Getting fit and healthy is sometimes such a challenge. But when I can push myself that little bit further and test my own limitations and endurance and will power, it makes it all worth it.

Sink or Swim!

Triathlon day is here! I got up early thinking my Dad (who thinks getting up at 4am is a "normal" time to get up) would be up, but he's still fast asleep. So, I of course decided to blog a bit. I can't wait to see how this triathlon goes and if I'll be a convert. We were joking around last night and I said I was going to be a 'triathlete' and my husband said, "Your going to try to be an athlete??" Which I thought was pretty funny. But maybe that's just me because that's what I feel like sometimes. Like I'm really trying to be athletic. Before I took up running, I would never have thought of myself as an athlete. But now.....am I a runner? An athlete? I don't know. I just know it feels fantastic when I run and I'm training for my third half marathon in one year. That just sounds crazy to think that my first half marathon ever was only last year, and now I have set a lofty goal of completing a full marathon in December and possibly doing a sprint (outdoor) triathlon sometime this summer. I feel athletic...so maybe I am!

I still haven't cut up my veggies for my breakfast salads, so I decided to try something that Monica over at RunEatRepeat makes. And OMG! Now I know why she eats it so much. It's so incredibly good!! Here is what I did:

• Warm up a 1/2 cup of pumpkin in the microwave for about 30 seconds. 
• Add a little Splenda to your taste. 
• Add pumpkin pie spice and vanilla (I just shook some in; didn't measure) 
• Add some granola (I did a 1/4 cup of vanilla almond)
• Throw on some Chia seeds (which are actually pretty good - a little expensive - but pretty good)
• And the best ingredient: 1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter 
• Mix it all up and enjoy. You'll thank me! 

It kept me full until about 1:30 pm when I ate it at 8:30 am yesterday. I'm doing it again today for race day. It's a little high in points, but it was so good and filling, that I'm going back for more. Now I better go get ready for that race!

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink

I've been getting some gnarly charlie horses in my right calf. Like BAD. Like when I was pregnant bad. And don't worry, I'm not preggers. If that happened, I would start to think God had something against me haha. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out why for the last week or so I've been getting these charlie horses/leg cramps. And my only conclusion? Not enough water. The past three days, I made it until about 3pm and realized I hadn't drank anything other than my morning coffee. Yikes! So, today, I'm going to pile on my water and see if it changes. I think part of the problem is that I'm not a real big fan of Texas water. It tastes like it has dirt or clay in it to me. I miss the Spokane Aquifer! When I drink water here, I put a Crystal Light on-the-go thing in my water and right now I'm out of them. Ergo, I cannot drink water. I *do* have a whole case of bottled water in my laundry room, but let's not talk about that now :) I have been drinking obscene amounts of Cherry Coke Zero in the evenings too, so that might have something to do with my leg cramps, but I would prefer to leave the glorious Cherry Coke Zero out of this.

I weighed myself this morning and I'm back down to where I was before I ate massive amounts of food at Chuy's. Woo-hoo! I was looking back through my food journal (I write down everything I eat) this morning and noticed that I"ll have about 4-5 weeks of good eating followed by 1-2 weeks of BAD eating where I just about blow all the work I'd done in the last month. My new eating goal is to try to not have those two weeks of  bad eating and really buckle down. If I'm ever going to make it to my goal, then I have to eat better. Exercise only gets you so far. I can workout for hours, but if I follow it up with three hot dogs or a whole medium pizza, I kind of just wasted all my hours on working out. I have to put good things in my body!

I've been reading "Born to Run." It's a very interesting book and I'm loving the information on ultrarunning and discovering how our bodies really were made to cover long distances and to run. Right now I'm at a part where the author is getting some nutritional advice. He was told to try salad for breakfast. My first thought was a breakfast salad??? Eww! But really, I'm not a huge breakfast foods person (my sister can attest to me cooking asparagus for breakfast as a kid!), and salads are yummy...I think my next thought was how much work it would be to make a big salad every morning. All that chopping! But the more and more I think about it, how nice would salad be in the morning?? Maybe I should just prepare a big weekly salad on Sunday and eat it all week. I did that years ago when I lost all my weight, and it helped me get my veggies in for the day. Why not do it again, and just eat it for breakfast?

So now my mission for today is to go shopping: buy some Crystal Light so I can drink gobs of water, and get some salad fixings. Oh and my Dad and Grandma come tomorrow(!) so I better get them some food and do some meal planning for their trip too. And my indoor triathlon is Sunday! I'm so excited :) And a little nervous. Mostly about the swimming part. Can you doggie paddle in a triathlon without getting laughed at?? I'll have an answer for you on Sunday.

Cat Tails

My plans yesterday kind of went out the window. I was supposed to go out with my mom's group, but life got in the way. As always! But, the good news is, I did still make my oven hot dogs. And BONUS - my sister Kristen came over to hang out with me and kiddos and eat the yumminess that is oven hot dogs. Danny and Piper were going crazy bananas so we let them loose outside and they 'mowed the lawn' and searched for geckos. Oh to be a kid again! After that, the kids went to bed and Kristen and I sat up talking about old times. We were some wild kids - oh how I hope that Danny and Piper take after their Dad when it comes to their teenage years...

Today was a busy day. We did a playdate with our meetup group at a Chik-Fil-A toddler time. It was really cute and the kids had fun. It was a little crowded, but the kids still had fun. And they gave out fresh fruit as a snack, which was a nice touch. My kids gobbled one of them up and we saved the other serving (having two kids is really good for getting an 'extra' for later) for lunch.

Just as we were heading home, I got a text from my work asking to do some work-ish things, so I spent the next 3.5 hours creating itemized budgets for a big ol' grant. I just feel like my head is swimming in numbers. But I've put in a bunch of extra hours working on this grant, so now I'll have a nice paycheck to spend on lavish spa days, a vacation in Tahiti, and an Audi TT. Oh wait, that's in my dreams. Really, we're using my extra moolah to pay down some credit cards. Someday I hope to be truly debt free..right after I pay off all those student loans from both undergrad and grad school.....

Anyway, my cats are all piling on me now that the kids are asleep. And they are helping me type. They are really good blogger cats. If I could take a picture I would. But I am using all my energy to keep them off the keyboard. Just picture three LARGE cats putting their tails in my face and stepping on the keys. I love my almost 10 year old cats :)

Bullet Point Wednesday

My mind is a bit here and there today. So here are some bullets. I should call them bullet-graphs because they are kind of long....

• Danny was punished this past weekend by not being allowed to watch his current favorite movie - Wall-E - for 4 days. He didn't mention it AT ALL for those four days. This morning, he woke up and said, "Mommy, can I watch Wall-E?" Is my son a genius and really count down the days until he was allowed to watch it again, or did he just forget about it until today?? 
• Ran a 4.3 mile tempo run today. Felt AMAZING! I would have kept going, but I remembered that I have my indoor triathlon on Sunday and I should probably be mindful to taper a little for it and not wear my legs out. Oh, and that pesky muscular injury thing....
• I am making these for supper tonight. Put these on the kind-of unhealthy list and make them anyways. I'm using my 97% fat free hot dogs and only a little, itty bit of mayo and cheese on mine to lighten them up. And I'm only having one and adding green beans and salad on the side to fill me up. And then I'm leaving the house. Because I *will* eat the whole pan!
• Tonight is Mom's Night Out with my mom's group. Can't wait! I'm limiting myself to only 2 drinks and no appetizers though so I can a) make it home in one piece and b) not gain 45 million pounds. We're going to a Mexican place (can't remember the name), so it's going to be hard because you just know that there going to put a basket of chips and salsa down RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! I just have to remind myself that I am not meeting up with people to eat and drink. The purpose is to go out with other moms and have fun - without the kids!
• I was reading this and found myself seriously wondering if I should be vacuuming more. I usually do 1 - 2 times per week, but according to her findings, I should be vacuuming about 4 times per week. Crap! Just when I was starting to feel like I was ahead of the curve by vacuuming twice a week. 
• I am so happy that it's almost summer because this means fresh fruit! I have already eaten two pre-cut bowls of watermelon this week, and I am hungry for more. Why oh why is watermelon so delicious?!? I also can't wait for cherry season! I think I might go to the farmer's market this year and buy lots and lots of tomatoes too. I used to eat those all the time fresh off the vine with a little salt. Yum!
• I am really looking forward to moving again! Our rental agreement is up on our current house at the end of June and we are hoping to move closer to my sister's house and Derek's work. I'm guessing we'll be in Plano/Allen area. Right now we take the tollway everywhere because it's so freaking convenient and we live so far out, but it costs almost $5 roundtrip to my sister's or Derek's work. And that's just insane! 
• I'm really interested in doing the White Rock Racing marathon build-up series (the timing would be PERFECT for my 12/31 marathon), but they are currently upgrading their website and everything is kaka. They list out the events, but don't say how much they are or how to register. Very frustrating since I am planning out all of my end of year races (doing one race a month for 2012) and want to pay before prices increase - especially if I choose to go with other races for September, October, and November. I lack patience...
• I want to do a sprint triathlon sometime this year. I don't have a bike (although my sister said I could borrow hers) and I don't have a pool to train in (although, my sister does have a pool at her apartment complex....), but I still want to go for it! I was looking at one in June, about 2 weeks after my half marathon on Memorial Day. The only problem is that it's $50. And that's a cheap triathlon. $50 may not be much to some, but since we'll be moving at the end of June, we are having to save up for new deposits and moving expenses (as well as having to replace the timing belts on BOTH of our cars). I wish my hobbies were cheaper! 
• My friend from college, Erin and her husband Tim, are going to Africa NEXT WEEK to go meet their little girl and attend a court date to begin the actual adoption process. I'm so proud of Erin and Tim! I really do admire them for committing and following through on this adoption. After they get to meet their little girl, they will have to go back home to Washington and wait until the end of summer to actually go get her and bring her home. It breaks my heart to know that Erin will get to meet and love on her little girl and then have to leave her in an orphanage for months before getting to bring her home. I can only imagine how hard that will be : ( Erin and Tim were fortunate enough to receive a grant for this trip to Africa, but are still looking for funds for their return trip to Africa when they get to bring Harper home. If you want to donate, please do so here. They are also trying to get together supplies to take to the orphanage in Ethiopia so I'm sure if you messaged Erin, she would tell you how you can help with that. They are taking supplies next week and then again when they go to pick Harper up.