Happy Halloween!

What Coach has Taught Me...

I have almost completed my 7th week of Shocker Fitness. I have really enjoyed it. I am faster and fitter. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the things Coach Bolt has taught me.

Coach has taught me that it's okay to alternate running and walking. In fact, it's better.

Coach has taught me that I can exercise in the cold and my asthma doesn't get worse.

Coach has taught me that running hard is good. And it feels good.

Coach has taught me to push myself harder each session and encourage others to do the same.

Coach has taught me to be accountable and thus I have shown up to every session I've been in town for (missed 2 sessions).

Coach has taught me I can run a 1/4 mile in 102 seconds and live.

I really appreciate all the things outside of exercise that I have learned. I feel like I have a good foundation to continue my fitness even after this 10 week session is over.

Thank you, Coach.

Ice Cream Buddies

My two favorite people love ice cream. Every time he can, Jeff gets an ice cream shake. Tuesday night it was pineapple. L loves to share the ice cream and whipped topping with daddy. She thinks it's cool that she gets her "own part" as she eats the extra ice cream.

Two Sweet Girls and a Dog

Chili Cook-off

Sunday afternoon, we headed over to Kay and Peter's for a chili cook off. They've had this cook off a couple of years, but the first time at their new home. RKO played a few songs to get everyone rocking. L loved the music. The chili's were all in the garage (under the basketball hoop). There were many good chili's. Pat won people's favorite and best overall.

The best part of the night was all of the yummy desserts Kay made. I sampled almost every one of them. The chocolate cake and caramel apple fluff was my favorite.

If you give a....

Saturday we went to Watermark Books and met the author of 'If you give a ..." series. You may be familiar with the book 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' . Same author. She's made several in this series and she's very good. Her new book is 'If You Give a Cat a Cupcake'. It's cute and sweet. I picked it up this week and found out the author would be in town.

So we three and a hundred other people were there to listen to her read three of her books, tell some stories about herself and then sign books. She was very nice and talked to L for a few minutes.

Can you see L in the pink shirt? She's wearing a chef hat for the book.

More halloween pictures

As I mentioned in my early morning post, the Wenzel's party rocked. They love Halloween and go all out for the holiday. The basement, garage, entire house and even the backyard are done up. Here's the grill. I feel bad for the guy's hands...
Bob is mad that his head got cut off and Babs doesn't look good either.

The mini haunted house in the basement. There are little people in the rooms...quite entertaining.

The wet bar. The dude on top of the bar dances if you step in just the right place on the floor.

The happy couple...looks like Beetlejuice has been back.

We won this for the third time because....
we dressed as Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne. But we got the call someone needed help...

and then we were Batgirl and Batman.

Great party Terri and Doug!! We had a wonderful time!

Friday Night Football

We went to the South-Campus game last night. It was a little chilly, but after running in the morning in 45 degree weather, the temperature always seems relative.

For some reason, the pictures are backwards in this post. They shot off fireworks during the game. It was a really nice show.

L found a new friend and the girls had fun watching the fireworks and screaming (man, they do scream a lot and very loudly).

Jeff got her a South t-shirt and she loves it. Last night she was dancing to the band and was doing cheers like the cheerleaders.

It amazes me how much she's grown. She made it through the entire game last night and didn't complain.

My 300th post and a treat for grandpa Ed

I can't believe I've been blogging for almost 1 1/2 years and finally hit the big 300. I love blogging and reading everyone else's blogs. Sometimes it gets a little addicting and distracting.

Here is a video of L last weekend at our friend's house. She was being feisty and had something funny to say...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgNiV0iG0s

and for grandpa Ed....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGPuc9cR_8

Elk at Estes Park (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5gHQrq1vyk

This is a cool video I took of the elk at Estes Park. There was a huge group of elk at sunset. We even got to see two of them get into an antler fight.

The beautiful scenery in Colorado

This past weekend we drove out to Colorado with the Konda's to watch KState lose to Colorado. The game was boring and uneventful, but the trip was well worth it. Most of the time, we don't make it to Colorado until November, so it was nice that the weather was warmer and we saw some of the leaves turning.

We spent one day at Estes park. Check out Lori's blog.
(we did not go together, but she also has some cool pictures. We shopped downtown and then went into the National Forest. This was one cool bridge that L ran across.

It had snowed earlier that week, so we drove high enough for L to get her first taste of snow for this season. She's very excited about making snowmen again this year. Beautiful fall foliage. The game...6 pm kickoff. The weather was beautiful. Couldn't have asked for a better day. The sunset was gorgeous.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

So I'm almost five weeks thru Shocker fitness. I am starting to feel fitter. I can run faster and don't get so winded. I am a little disappointed that the scale is not tipping in my favor. I've been trying to eat better for the past 2-3 weeks. And succeeding (except for the Dillon's chinese I had tonight). But the scale hasn't moved. Maybe it's the muscle I'm building (I can hope).

I am so looking forward to my long weekend to Colorado. We're going to watch KSU play Colorado Saturday. We're staying with Kurt's dad who is the best cook in the world. I can't wait to eat his meals. Hopefully there's some biscuits and gravy on the menu.

As I type this, Reggie is resting her chin on the laptop. She's so cute!! I wish I could take a picture, but she'd get up and it would be lost. There have been lots of "wish I had my camera right now" pictures this week. Oh well...someday I'll be better organized.

Our Weekend at the Park

L and I spent the weekend with the Chittum's in KC this weekend while the guys were fishing. We did lots of things this weekend, but it seems like all I took pictures of was our park adventure. Jill and Adam live within 6 blocks of three parks and we visited two. The first one was very cool. It was a Little Tike commercial play system and it was a pirate ship. L loved it!! She played on everything! She had fun playing on the whale. These are toys we don't have at home.
Then she steered the ship and checked out the treasure map at the front of the ship.
On Sunday, we visited another park which had lots of challenges for L. She got to climb across a bridge rope and slid down the pole. I think she was worn out at the end.
We also went to a yummy chocolate festival and had lots of good desserts. Jill and I went knitting and scrapbook shopping. Adam fixed us a couple of yummy meals and we went to one of my favorite places to eat...Chick-Fil-A.

Remember the name...

So yesterday I was running an errand for Jeff, when I parallel parked and ran my tire into the curb. Not a big deal, except the curb had a metal bar, so I lost a chunk out of the tire. I was so mad! So I called the tire place where we'd bought the tires and bought the road hazard and explained my situation and he said, "it's totally covered. If we need to replace the tire, there would be a small fee." Great!

So I drove there this morning and the guy helping me this morning said, "um, ma'am, that's considered an accident, not road hazard." Poop. I replied, "well, Dan said it was covered." And the new guy said, "all right. I'll consider it a snag". YES!! So I got a brand new tire for 1/3 of the cost. Don't forget to remember the name of someone when you talk to them on the phone. It could save you a lot!

Not Me Monday

Continuing my tradition....

*I did not leave a sink full of dishes three times last week. That would be disgusting.

*I did not enjoy a glass of red wine at Johnny Carino's last week and I did not think that I had just finished an incredibly long week.

*I did not put L to bed Sat night without a bath since she was all dusty from the pumpkin patch.

*I did not laugh out loud when L told me she had no short sleeved shirts and when I went into her room, found all the shirts scattered on the floor and she's pointing to the drawer where they should be.

*I did not get anxious this weekend for no reason and I did not get mad at myself for doing so. Life happens.

There's my "did not's" for the week.

A fun day in Lawrence

Yesterday we drove up to Lawrence to see our friends, Mandy, Will and MK. Craig was off truckin' over some rocks, so he missed out on all of the fun. We spent the first half of the day watching Pele and Pele, Jr. play soccer. Now L wants to join them!! We had a wonderful lunch and headed out to the pumpkin patch. You may ask, why drive 150 miles to go get a pumpkin? Well, it's the Schaake pumpkin patch, a place I've gone to my entire life and went to school and did 4H with the Schaake girls, so it has lots of memories for me. Since we were early this year, it wasn't really crowded and there were lots of pumpkins to pick from.
The girls each found a little pumpkin they could hold themselves. They loved running around, but it was awfully dusty and dry out there.
After picking all of our pumpkins, we sat in the snack area and feasted on apple cider slushes, homemade chocolate chip cookies and popcorn.
As a tradition, L gets her picture taken to measure her. This was the first year that she didn't have a meltdown when we were there (we usually go at naptime).
Posing together for a nice family picture. It was so nice outside...sunny and not too hot.
My favorite picture of the day. Labeled, 'Scary Faces'.

My sweet girls

Star of the Week

This week, L was star of the week. That means she gets to carry this bag around and we made a collage of pictures. We included pictures of mom and dad, her best friend, painting and an old Halloween picture. She got to show and tell her Dora doll. It was a very exciting day.

L has really gotten into preschool. I knew she'd like it, but it's amazing all the things they do and how much fun she has. This morning we were a little early and she was telling me all the kids' names as they walked in. I was impressed. Parent-teacher conferences are in a few weeks.

Fitness update

Two and a half weeks down with Shocker Fitness. So far it's been fun. Gradually, it's getting easier and I'm feeling less sore. I ran 1 1/2 miles this morning and felt good. Coach has been talking to us each session that we must exercise outside of our thrice week sessions. So here's my plan. Monday, Wednesday, Friday-shocker fitness. Tuesday and Saturday-weights and core training. Sunday-2 1/2 mile walk/jog. Thursday-off. I think I can stick with it.

The other part is really curbing my eating. I love to eat and always have. But now, I'm 33 years old and my metabolism is not like when I was 16. I eat when I'm not hungry, I eat more than I should at times... the list goes on. So I'm trying to do a better job at watching what I eat and be better at eating in moderation and enjoy food. I'll check back in soon and let you know my progress.