it's my anniversary

Today my hubby and I have been married for five years. It's truly flown by, and when I think about how long we have actually been together, it literally blows my mind.  I can honestly say that we are in a better place now than when we first got married. Although it was fun being newlyweds, we were still learning how to exist in the same space together. I remember being horribly offended or hurt by things that Justin said or did or didn't say or didn't do, and he didn't know he was even doing stuff wrong!  Then we started having kids and life took a turn for the busy. Suddenly we were so immersed in bottles and diapers and late nights and naptime that we forgot about each other. I don't know if I looked my husband in the eye for two years. Seriously. We were not working on our marriage. We were just "existing" with each other, living life taking shifts with the kids.
Now that we are out of baby mode forever (promise), we have started taking time to get to know each other again. We have been going out on dates. We have been staying up and watching movies together after the kids are in bed. We have been looking each other in the eyes again. This time, though, we know each other much more than we used to. And that kind of comfort is fantastic.
We are going out of town for the weekend to celebrate. No kids. I am sure the first few hours will be weird (what do you talk about if it isn't about your kids?), but we will quickly remember why we liked hanging out in the first place and have a great time.
No exercise this weekend...just fun. I'll catch up next week!

4th of july fun

Happy belated 4th of July! I hope you all did something fabulous for the weekend. It was so fun having the holiday fall on a weekend...it just seems more fun that way, doesn't it? Birthdays, Christmas, you name it. I would rather have them fall on a Saturday or Sunday than a Tuesday.  Of course, my birthday is usually a week-long celebration (tee-hee), but it is still nice on a weekend. I figure if I have to keep having birthdays, I might as well get to stretch them out!

For the 4th this year we went to St. Louis. Let me first say that St. Louis is a fabulous place to visit. If you have not been, I highly recommend it. There is so much to do for people of all ages.  It's impossible to get bored there.  The first day we went to Six Flags. I hadn't been to an amusement park since I was a teenager (many years ago), and as soon as I walked through the front gates, I was excited. Just seeing all those amazing roller coasters, hearing the music playing all over the park, and smelling all of the yummy (albeit horribly expensive and unhealthy) food from the vendors made me want to board the fastest coaster right away. The best part...there were no lines. I don't know how this was possible on the July 4th weekend, but we literally walked on every ride. Amazing. My favorite ride was the Evil Kneivel roller coaster.  It was a classic, wooden coaster, and it was fast and FUN. There was also an amazing section for little kids, with a water feature and some log rides and teacup-like rides. The kids all had a great time, and it was a great day.

The next day was just as full, as I went to the Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, Missouri with my sister in law and some of her family members for lunch and a wine tour. The winery is German, and so the restaurant food was quite meat-intensive (and by this I mean sausage). They had a "sausage sampler" appetizer that my husband would have cried over. I did not have it, but instead opted for the bacon, ham, and cheddar quiche. It was yummy, but I would have rather had some veggies in my quiche instead of meat. I ordered a side salad to counteract it.

The winery tour was really neat. If you haven't ever toured a winery, I would highly recommend it. It is so interesting to see how wine is made. It is such a rustic science, and a really beautiful sight to behold aged wooden casks in mold-lined cellars. After the tour we got to taste some of the wines, and the clear favorites were the sweeter white wines. I tend to like Chardonnays and there were not any wines like these available. The whites were more like a Reisling or a Gewurtstraminer; very sweet, but on that hot day, they tasted great! After the tasting, we all split a bottle of the Vignoles and listened to the live band that was playing in the courtyard.After the winery, we went back to my SIL's house for a catfish fry, which are apparently Missouri tradition. My brother in law fried up catfish nuggets in a cornbread batter, and they also made some eggplant and other things. Fortunately, they also had a veggie tray to accompany all that fried food. It was delicious. I ate and drank way too much that day. It was totally worth it.

Finally, it was the 4th! We spent it at Lake St. Louis, a private lake that my SIL's grandparents live on. We spend the afternoon boating, swimming, fishing, and having a great time. We ate burgers, hot dogs, tons of different salads and sides, and watched the fireworks once it got dark. It was a really great day and weekend, but my poor family is still tired from the weekend!  We would do it again in a minute.

the mama's way to shave those mile times...

After my youngest son was born, I decided that I would start running again. Since I had two babies that I had to take care of and I didn't want that to be an excuse for me to not run, my husband and I decided that we would spend $550 on a Bob Revolution Dualie Stroller. It was spendy and a tough decision, but in the end it was probably one of the best baby purchases we have made to date. The stroller has large wheels, so running with it is an absolute breeze. That first summer, the boys and I just ran all over town. I would figure out my runs so that we would finish at the park so I could feed Austin and Aidan could play on the slide or swing. It was great. I also think it helped kick-start me into fitness, as the stroller with both of the boys weighed about 60 pounds. Once I started running without the stroller, my mile times really improved. I loved the Bob Duallie!

Now, fast forward two years.  The stroller weighs the same, but each of my boys is now about 30 pounds. That makes my stroller, with both boys inside, 95 pounds! And just so you get an accurate picture of how heavy this is...I weight about 120 pounds. OMG that is one tough run! The unfortunate thing (for me) is that the boys love going running in the stroller. And, why shouldn't they? They have done it for the last two years now. That is kind of our thing; we even have a usual running path and landmarks that we look for, like the snail mailbox and the big rock. The boys sit and visit with me the whole time, and it's really just good, quality time for us.

I fear, however, that my days of running with the boys is almost at an end. After running 3.5 miles pushing them last night, my back is horribly stiff. Where it used to be so easy to turn the corners and steer with one hand, now that I have 95 pounds in front of me, we don't corner on quite the rail we used to, and my poor, little wrist can't handle balancing all of that weight. I don't know how I'm going to break it to them. I will just have to get up early and get my runs out of the way before they get up.  Or, maybe the stroller should meet with an unfortunate accident. At any rate...I bet I shaved some seconds off my mile times last night.

back in the saddle

I finally was able to run for the first time since the marathon on Sunday...and it felt great. Scary awesome. I even had the jogging stroller and my two year old (about 70 pounds altogether) with me, and it still felt great.  Thank goodness.  My knees were very wobbly all last week, and I was afraid I had an injury or something.  It turns out, running a marathon is just hard on your body. Plain and simple.  Who knew?

I am still going to take the next couple of months and do more cross-training.  Saturday I did my yoga again. I have really missed that, and am going to really try to get back into it. Next week I start a boot camp that runs three mornings a week. There is something so wonderful about having to just "show up" and that is it. Somebody tells me what to do, and I do it.  I don't have to rely on myself to push it. Someone is yelling at me, and all I have to do is sweat.  Right on.  I guess that is why personal trainers are so fabulous.  I get it. 

I still don't have any kettlebells, but I am getting closer to making the purchase.  There is no real reason that I haven't gotten them yet, other than I just haven't had the time.  Stay tuned, though...they're as good as purchased!

This Sunday my family all went to watch a minor league baseball game. It was crazy hot outside. I think our section was seated just left of the surface of the sun.  Seriously...people were sweating so much that the backs of their shorts/pants/skirts were soaking wet (mine included). What a great look.  Good thing it was universal.  We decided to buy snowcones at the park to cool us off, and they were tasty. Have you had a snowcone recently? I highly recommend them. Very refreshing. My kids all loved the game, and it was a great way to spend some time together. Now that summer is upon us, we will be looking for more ways to spend time as a family.

shakti mayhem

I have been reading a lot lately on the symbiotic relationship between yoga and running.  I love running. I am an avid runner.  I feel so much stronger and healthier since I got back into it, and I love that I can pull off skinny jeans at least three out of every four weeks every month.  Something that I am really not good about, though, is the post-run stretching.  I know that this is really important in preventing injury, but I have to say that I have so many things going on in any given day that I can barely make time for my running, let alone a nice stretch afterward.  So, I thought that if I started to incorporate yoga into my days off and/or an evening ritual, I would get the benefits of increased flexibility and strength.  After consulting numerous yoga blogs and reading several articles, I decided to take the plunge and try my first DVD, Yoga Shakti, which claims to be good for beginners.  We will see! 


One cool thing about this journey is that I have a ten year old daughter who is very interested and excited about getting up and doing yoga with me in the mornings.  I think this is a fabulous introduction into healthy living, and this morning was a really fun and special time for us. The video started off with some deep breathing exercises, and honestly, I was a little worried that I am not "zen" enough for yoga.  It was like four minutes of deep breathing, and I started to get a little bored and wanted to move onto the next step.  Elaine was so funny, because we both looked at each other after about three minutes of this and she said, "Are we going to just do this for like 5 minutes or something?"  Too funny.

Well, the deep breathing finally ended and we moved onto the next part of the video, the "Salutation to the Sun".  I now understand why all the deep breathing was necessary, because this was tough!  I have never been the most flexible person in the world (remember the sit and reach test when you were a kid? I was always like a -1 or 0), but I was surprised by how inflexible I was.  While it was a little discouraging, it really demonstrated the fact that I definitely need to be doing yoga!

Moving on, the next section that came on was entitled "backbends".  The thought of doing a backbend scared Elaine and I at first, but as we started doing the exercises, we realized that we wouldn't actually be doing any backbends (yet), but just getting our spine and muscles prepared for them sometime down the road.  This was intensely challenging, as I don't remember the last time I leaned back far enough to see behind me. Also, about this time my one year old woke up, and did not like Mommy doing yoga, so was yelling, "No, Mommy. Stop it," at me and grabbing my neck, adding another level of difficulty to my yoga.

The last section we did (since both boys are up by this time and Mom can't do anything but tend to their needs) involved stretching our legs out.  This felt really good, since I have tight hamstrings from running. I can definitely tell that this will be helpful to me.

All in all, I absolutely loved yoga, and will most definitely do this several times a week. Since it is my first experience with yoga I am not familiar with the pose names, and so had to keep looking at the t.v. to see what Shiva Rea was doing.  I would definitely recommend just watching the video once before doing it, so you have some idea of what the poses are.  The video is great, though, and Shiva Rea does an excellent job of showing both the beginner and more advanced pose options.  I would most definitely recommend this video to anyone wanting to try yoga out for themselves.

Elaine did a fantastic job this morning, and she is excited about continuing her yoga workouts.  Since she is getting older, it is getting more and more difficult to spend quality time together.  Plus, she is not a natural athlete, and so is really uninterested in being involved with sports.  This presents an interesting (but very common) challenge when trying to teach your kids how to live healthy lifestyles.  By doing yoga together, she benefits from physical activity, and we get to spend some really great time together.  Once we are a little more familiar with our poses, I envisioning us taking a lesson from an actual teacher, so she can evaluate our forms and let us know how we are looking, maybe followed by a pedicure.  It could be a fun girl's day!

return of the cookie mom

I am the official "cookie mom" for my 10 year-old's girl scout troop, not so much because I love the job...but more for the fact that I love my daughter, and also I got suckered into it last year and nobody else's mom stepped up to the plate this year. While the title, "Official Cookie Mom" sounds like a fun (and yummy) title; it is not nearly as fabulous or glamorous as it sounds. Plus, you don't get any extra cookies. Darn.



I don't know if the general public appreciates the supreme organization that is the Girl Scout Cookie Sales. I mean, you think you're just buying a box of thin mints from a cute girl, right? Think again. The cookie sales are a highly organized and complex process, complete with cutting-edge software for ordering and distribution, relying entirely on the free labor of ignorant moms (like me) who have underestimated the organizational awesomeness of the Girl Scout Council. Let me walk you through the process:

1. Cookie sales begin. This is the time that you will see cute, little girl scouts popping up all over the place wanting you to buy some cookies from them. This usually lasts about three weeks.


2. Cookie orders get placed. This is the cookie mom equivalent of "hell week". Cookie moms have to figure out how to navigate a complex ordering system that they have had no formal (or informal, for that matter) training on and ensure the appropriate number of cookies is ordered for each girl within their specific group (which, in the case of my daughter's troop, is thousands). We generally have to have this done in three days.


3. Cookies are delivered. Usually about three weeks after the orders have been placed, they are sent out on a truck and delivered to the different troops for pickup. Again, this day is ridiculous, since they don't tell you when the truck will arrive, exactly; just the date, and that the moms will receive a call when the truck gets close to town. What this equates to is an entire day where I can't plan anything so I don't miss the cookie truck.


4. Delivery saga, continued. Once the truck arrives at the drop-off point, mass chaos inevitably ensues, as every cookie mom and/or volunteer waiting undoubtedly knows the fastest, easiest, and best method of getting the cookies unloaded. This usually amounts to a bunch of people running around doing a bunch of different things and wreaking total havoc, while the cookie truck drivers sit and watch with big smiles on their faces (they're the drivers, after all. They don't need to do anything else). Eventually, though, the cookies are delivered to the troops, the parents pick up the cookies, and we all go home to deliver our wares to our customers.


5. Money turn-in. A couple of weeks after the cookies are sent with each girl to get delivered, each girl is responsible for turning in the money that she collected from her customers. By this time, just about everyone is sick to death of girl scout cookies and everything that goes with them, so it is sometimes necessary for the cookie mom to make some phone calls to the girls to round up the money. Fun. Then, it's back to the cookie ordering system to account for the money, order incentives (prizes equivalent to Chuck-E-Cheese tokens for all the work these girls have done up to this point), and deposit the money in the bank. Whew.

One thing that I do have to say about the entire Girl Scout cookie process, though, is that the girls and their troops do benefit quite a bit from cookie sales. The money that is raised stays within the organization, and the troops get to use it for things they want to do. For instance, my daughter's troop decided they would like to go camping this summer, and the cookie money allowed them to do it, including paying for the campground, food, and fun activities. I was lucky (or, again, insane) enough to be a chaperone for the camping trip. But, that's another post....