Wow, I suck.

Time for another edition of Family Fun Day!

First, Bill wanted to go to the Zoo.  But the zoo closes at 5pm and it just seemed like too much money for too little time.  Even though we probably wouldn't have stayed any longer, but it's the principle, you know.

The girls suggested the Museum of Discovery, but it's closed on Mondays.  Bummer.  It's expensive anyway.

Then Bill decided on mini golf.  We drove all the way out there, to discover they are closed on Mondays.  What is up with everything being closed on Mondays?

So, instead, we went bowling.

Funny, partly related story first...

Yesterday, I saw a sign for soccer sign ups.  So I asked Bill if he thought we should sign the girls up for soccer.  He asked them and texted me back:  "They say the only sports they want to play are cheerleading, air hockey, and bowling."

Needless to say, they were happy to go bowl, as it's one of their preferred sports.



They got ramps.  And later in the game, bumpers, once the lady came by to show us how to set the computer to put them up.  ;)  I probably shouldn't admit that half the game was played without bumpers for them.  You'll understand later.

The scoreboard kept scrolling a message about a Kids' Summer Bowling Camp.  Two weeks on Tuesday and Thursdays, from 3-4pm.  It starts tomorrow.  I went up to the counter to ask about it and found out that as long as we have coupons from Kids Bowl Free, the camp is free (with the exception of shoe rental).  Zoe's not actually old enough (it was 6-12), but since they weren't full, they decided it would be OK to make an exception for her.  They'll learn to throw the ball and by the end should be playing without bumpers.  



Isabelle tried throwing the ball instead of using the ramp.  It was hilarious, but surprisingly (and with the help of the bumpers), she did pretty well.  She would fall down every time, she put so much into it.  I wish I had a video of it.

Equally hilarious was how badly I was bowling.



I wish I could say I was just trying to make sure none of the girls were in last place.  I suck at bowling.  However, towards the end, I did get 2 strikes, pushing me past Olivia.  Her final score was 60... mine was 66.  Pathetic.

The girls are excited about Bowling Camp.  Hopefully they'll have fun.  I could probably use Bowling Camp myself, but I'm past the age limit.  ;)



They didn't have any cheerleading activities, but they got to play their other favorite sport, too. 

Summer Break - Week 1

Ahhh, what I've been waiting for... summer break!  Actually, I have mixed feelings about summer break.  I am so glad school is out, but I do dread the antics of bored children.  Two years ago, I had to go to working part-time because my kids were so off the wall.  Last year was a little better.  Hopefully this will be the summer where I just wish I could take off of work to have fun, not to keep the house from burning down.

Since Mr. Bill is off work on Sundays and Mondays, one of those days (or occasionally both) are Family Fun Days.  This week, since there was much yard work and cleaning to be done on Sunday, it was Monday after I got off of work.  We took the girls downtown...

No, seriously, it really is downtown.  Little Rock rocks!

They played on the hills by the Clinton Library and we walked and they played on the playground.  

Tuesday.  Day 2, may I remind you.... Tuesday brought this:

That looks good compared to the next day...

Olivia and Isabelle were playing outside and Isabelle threw a mini baseball bat behind her, not knowing Olivia was right there.  Yep, Olivia took a baseball bat to the face.  There were a few moments where I thought we might be making a trip to the ER, but I eventually decided I would just be told to put ice on it and Tylenol for the pain, and I was doing that anyway.

Here's a picture from today... not the best picture, but you can see the shiner it's become.  Wednesday it was black, Thursday it was purple, today is maroon with a little yellow.

Wednesday is our walking day.  As the weather permits (no rain or 100 degree temps), my plan is for us to take a long walk.  We took a .8 mile trail, and had to walk it back, so they got in a little over a mile and a half.  

Monkeys.

Now, let's talk about work.  There are 4 front office employees.  Me, the boss, the boss's daughter, and the new girl.  Guess who was on vacation this week?  Not me.  But everyone else was.  All three of them.  The new girl was hired with the understanding that she already had this vacation planned, and the other two were gone for a wedding.  So it was me and a girl they pulled from the back with minimal front office training.  How'd it go?

Do you know what that is?  It's an AC adapter.  Not just any AC adapter... the AC adapter to the time clock.  It's broken.  No one could clock in or out Thursday or Friday.  Fun times.  Fun times, indeed.  

Let me just tell you about my Facebook status this morning.  It read, "There was a hole in my coffee cup this morning. And that's a pretty accurate metaphor for how my morning is going as well."  My whole week, really.  I'm glad it's over.  When I found out about them all being gone at once, I joked that I was taking July off.  I really feel like I deserve it now.

So, after escaping hell, I mean, work, today, it was officially "Fun Stuff Friday."  Where I reward the girls for not killing each other or burning the house down by doing something fun.  Yes, there was an injury, but it was a true accident.  Today we went to the sprayground.  Free water fun wins in my book.

That's pretty much the whole sprayground right there in the picture, but it's water and it's free and the girls like it.  I just sit there and watch, with a slight mist hitting me every so often.  It's nice and relaxing.

That's my week.  I'm beat.

I have a couple of facebook pages that I follow that talk about kombucha a lot, and I got curious about it.  Kombucha is a fermented tea drink and is supposed to have all sorts of health benefits.  When I read about how it's made, it pretty much grossed me out.  You can make your own... you brew sweet tea, add this bacteria/yeast culture (that's the gross part) and let it ferment for like 3 days, add some fruit juice and let that go for a few more.  It was described as fizzy, sweet and tart.  If you want to know more, those links go to Food Renegade.  It's pretty interesting.  

As grossed out as I was, I was curious, and curiosity won.  I bought two bottles of it today at Fresh Market and tried this one tonight...

That's some good stuff right there.  I was only going to drink half of it, but then it was empty.  =)  I didn't really know what to expect.  It reminded me of a wine cooler, and I even felt mildly buzzed by it (it's not alcoholic, by the way, it was probably just a mental thing from the taste).  I really liked it.  I'd really consider making my own if I had any sort of counter space to set up a jug to ferment.  It's super cheap to make, but hella expensive to buy (I paid $3 EACH, on sale).  Go figure.

 

Long Weekend

Happy Memorial Day!  I'm very blessed to have several people in my life that have served in the military and made it back home, and my heart and everlasting gratitude goes out to those who did not make it home.

We've spent our unusual amount of family time out and about.  We've had 2 full days, minus my time racing on Sunday. 

Yesterday we decided to go out and play some Frisbee.



Silly Olivia, that's not how you play Frisbee.



The girls really didn't know how to play.  See how intent Zoe is trying to learn, tongue out and all!



That child needs to stop looking so grown up.



But then it started to rain.  So we drove around a bit until the shower stopped and we ended up at this pond.



It wasn't all that impressive, really.  Kind of run down.  Blah.  But we wandered around and found a little trail.



You would think my husband is the most unpleasant person ever, he always has to look so grumpy in pictures.  Our kids are going to look back at their childhood pictures and think he was just miserable all the time.

We left there and had some dinner.  Went to bed, woke up, cleaned the house a bit, and then were out of the house by 10am, which is a miracle.  We're usually doing good to get out by 1 or 2pm. 

Bill had been wanting to check out a new State Park, and we had to wait for a day that we had all day to do it in, because it was a 2 hour drive.  Personally, I don't really want to make a 2 hour drive unless it's somewhere we're staying the night.  Because it means a 2 hour drive home, too... and I don't want to be in the car for 4 hours in one day.  But, he wanted to go, so we went.



It was really pretty there.  Lots and lots of dirt roads.  



We had a picnic with the bumblebees.  My kids aren't fans of bugs of any sort.  Somehow Bill telling them that bumblebees don't sting because they'll die made them feel better.  I don't know if that's true.  Personally, knowing something would die doesn't make me feel any better about the prospect of getting stung, but I'm not afraid of bumblebees anyway.



We did a little hiking but those pictures were kind of blurry.  Not sure what happened there.  It was a nice trail, though.  Isabelle and I got to take a little walk by ourselves while Bill drove the other two to the bathroom.  She said she was glad she was exercising with me and the other two just don't understand exercise.  I assured her that they'd understand it plenty this summer... I intend to keep them active.  

That was about it, though.  It was fun, but totally not worth the time spent in the van.  Especially since we got stuck in traffic on the way home, so we were in the van more like 5 hours.  We were all a little testy by the time we got home.

Hope you all had an excellent long weekend!

Guess what I did today?

Today was my usual "run outside" day and I set a goal of running 2.75 miles.  That puts me at running 3 miles on Tuesday and then a trial run at 3.1 on the treadmill before the big day next Sunday.

I went to the park where I usually go and was just thrilled to see that there was a soccer tournament going on... so there were people everywhere.  The trail I wanted to run pretty much circles all the soccer fields, so I would have an audience.  Yay!  =p  Luckily, it doesn't bother me as much as it once did.

I decided to go a total of 4 miles... I usually go farther than just my run, simply because I can.  I walked 1/4 of a mile to warm up, and then started running.  I started using a new app, Runkeeper, instead of CardioTrainer.  I don't have a problem with CardioTrainer, but my sister got me using Achievemint and Runkeeper is one of the apps they track.  (Achievemint is one of those sites where you earn points for different things and when you reach a certain number of points, they send you money.  When and if I get a check, I'll probably talk about it more.  It'll be a while.)  Anyway, Runkeeper has a really cool feature where it will show you your pace minute by minute, instead of just mile splits.  My pace is anything but consistent.  I'd run a 13:00 pace for a while, then drop to 15:00.  It's not really important right now, but interesting to me.

So, as I was starting to get close to the 3 mile mark, which would have been my 2.75 goal, a friend of mine came to mind.  We've been online friends for over 5 years... we've never met in person, but she's one of my dearest friends.  She runs, and there have been a few times that she's sent me a message to tell me that she struggled during a run and I would come to mind and it helped her to push through her run.  Today also happens to be her birthday.  So, before my app told me I had reached 3 miles, I reached a decision...

It was time to pay her back.  She uses me as an inspiration to go farther, so to honor her birthday, I was going to use her as an inspiration to run my first 5k.  I kept running past 3 miles.  All the way to 3.35 (3.1 plus my .25 warmup)!

You guys!  I ran 5k!

And, let me just say this... I'm glad I did it today instead of next week when I'd be around a bunch of people.  Because I cried.  I cried walking back to the van.  I cried on the way home.  It was like an emotional enema.  Lovely imagery, right?

So, now I know for sure that I can run my 5k next week.  And I'm soooo excited.  

I'm going to run 3.1 miles Tuesday and Thursday, and I'm going to dedicate each run to someone, like I did today.  =)

After I got home and got showered, we threw together a picnic lunch and headed out to take a hike.  We ended up on a 2 mile hike... way more than one of us (ahem, Zoe) wanted to go.  She started whining and crying about half a mile in, so it was a looooooong hike.



She's lucky she's so pretty or I would have left her out there.  Not really, but after a while the crying was pretty nerve wracking.



Isabelle was pretty ticked off for most of the hike because she wanted to go climb the mountain.  But Olivia wore flip flops... not good hiking shoes for sure, but definitely not good for climbing the mountain.



Olivia was pretty easy-going, for a change.  Usually she's the loudest protester during our hikes.  I love her upturned nose.  =)

I'm pooped now.  Very active day.  16,000+ steps on the ol' Fitbit today.  I haven't hit a number that high in a while.