Getting ready to go

I did 2 workouts today and something I ate disagreed with me. With that said, here are some bullets:

• We leave Friday for 10 days in Ohio. The kids are beyond excited about it.
  
• I had a flat yesterday that Ted helped change - that was cute.
• Ted pestered Mr. D enough that he finally gave him the DVD for his form, so he can work on it while on vacation. He is very motivated!
  
• I'm trying to get rid of baby things via craig's list. Today I left 3 separate things out for people who never came to get them. What is that?! It's FREE people! We're going to need to empty the basement when we return in preparation for the foundation work so I thought I'd get a head start. Geesh.
• Ted is having a blast at KHHS this week again. Sam and Mae are doing well with me - it's been really pleasant. Errands, some pool time, some Starbucks time ... Today I was resting and Sam sat with me and played with my rings, for about an hour.
  
• Mae and Sam had a lesson with Lily from Swim America to work on the dolphin kick (something Sam should have learned in Level 3, but he went right to Level 4) and they did great! Mae will move up to Level 4 this week, which should be interesting to have the two of them together in the same level.
  
• I have so much to do to get ready for the trip! Ah!
  

a typical day for Sam and Mae

We chose not to send Sam back to the JCC for camp, since that seemed to confuse Ted at that age. He will go to RMDC with Ted after our vacation. In the meantime, Sam and Mae are hanging with me, and we are having a pretty good time.

Today was a good example of a typical day:

First we dropped Ted off at camp at Martin Park so they could catch the Skip to Pearl Street and to the miniature golf place. The kids explored the tiny pond near the park for ages.

Then Sam wanted to go to NCAR again, so we did. That boy loves tornadoes. And hurricanes. Lightening. Vortexes. If it's a natural disaster, he's all over it. We did a mini hike too (flip flops don't make for good hiking shoes.)

Then we stopped at King's for fresh corn to grill tonight. Sam loves corn; luckily they had plenty (why does it always rain the night we grill?) The kids enjoyed the little penny horses and a donut (way better donuts at King's than at Safeway, btw).

Then I put them in daycare at Lakeshore while I took a swim class. It was much longer and harder than the Tuesday night one so I was wiped! We had lunch and then picked up Ted (soaking wet from the fountain) and hurried to the library, where Ted read to Timber the dog in their new reading program. SO CUTE!

Swim lessons and home for dinner on the grill (and a flying ant invasion). Phew. A full day.

Fun with G'ma & G'pa

We had such a nice visit. Sam warmed up by the time we got home from the train station and Mae, who knows they adore her, was fine from the get-go. Ted showed his typical affection for my mom (his hugs are multi-million dollar ones! Wish I got those hugs!) and they thrilled the kiddos with books that they loved. I think Sam's pop-up Peter Pan book was the biggest hit. The kids LOVE "big kid" pop-up books! I hope they had as much fun as we did and didn't get too tired schlepping around all day long. Can't wait to see you again in August!

Ted started 2 weeks of camp at HHS and is loving it. Mondays and Wednesdays they have camp at the temple, doing crafts, games, water play, stories etc. Fridays they bake challah for the oldsters at the nearby retirement community and take it over and sing with them (so cute!). Tuesdays and Thursdays are field trip days, on the RTD. Today they went swimming and Thursday they are going miniature golfing. Seth, Jaron, Bennet, Corbin & Max are there, so Ted is happy as a clam. What a sweet camp.

I've had a good week of training so far, but am perplexed as to the fatigue. I took Monday off and today I ran my 50 minutes in the am and did my 5:30 skills n drills swim class. I actually feel better tonight than I did most of the day. I am going to try and improve my diet, more protein and veggies and less carbs and fruits, and see if that help with the energy level. Tomorrow is spin class and Thursday morning we are supposed to do an open water swim workout. Yikes! That will be good for me. Then I'll have to squeeze in a run at night, which will be challenging because the kids have swim lessons til 5:15 and then we have the farm pickup. I might run Friday morning instead and fit the bike in later that day. All in all, week 4 is going well. I still am doubtful that I'll be able to do the distance in the swim (tonight's set of 4x100s at the end of class nearly killed me) but I'll keep at it. I bought flipper booties and that made a huge difference for my poor scabby heels and toes-hooray!

Red Belt!

Ted tested for his Red Belt Friday night. He was awesome. His form is 44 moves long and he needed no help. He ROCKED. He broke his board in one try and sparred the pants off a 9yo opponent. But the sweetest thing of all was when Mr. D asked him "Why do you want to be a Black Belt, sir?" and Ted replied, without missing a beat, "Because I want to be a gooder person, sir." I mean, seriously. Could he BE any sweeter?! I could eat him up! He did so well ... this is his 4th testing with K4K now and he's totally on board with being a big kid now. In only 4 more testings he'll earn his Black Belt! Amazing. We are so proud of you, Ted!

skills 'n drills

Tonight I chose to forgoe the open water swim at the rez with the group and attend an adult swim class at Lakeshore, called Skills 'n Drills. It was perfect for me. She works on a different stroke every week and today was backstroke. We did lots of drills and put it all together etc. It was a 45 minute class and then I swam on my own for another 15-20 to practice my freestyle. I'd never worn flippers before and they were awesome! What a difference! Can I wear flippers in the triathlon? Hmmm. It made the 25 meters easy. Rock on!
This morning I ran my 50 minutes with my new playlist I created last night. It made me smile. I have some Riverdance, some Pearl Jam, some Indigo Girls, some Peter, Paul & Mary, some Beatles....it's a fun mix. After Ted's camp we biked to the pool for a few hours and Ted had a major crash. Poor guy. I am very tired tonight! A good tired, though.
Tomorrow is spin class, with the teacher I really like. The pic is of the crazy hail storm we had Saturday night.

hmmm

My blogger update link was broken yesterday. How weird. Every time I would click on it, it would show me a little box with the word "new" in it. Hmmm.

I didn't have all that much to say anyway. Sunday I did another spin class and really enjoyed it. While of course it's nicer to bike outside, I didn't feel brave enough to go alone. What if I couldn't get my chain back on or I had a flat? Not that I can't fix these things, but it would be a whole lot easier to do so with moral support. I love Christa, the spin teacher. So that was fun. After Thursday's killer track workout, I swam on Friday and ran on Saturday. I think the long, slow run really helped get the kinks out. By Sunday I was ready for the bike and while I took today off, I feel fine again. I am already stressing about the open water swim tomorrow and the track workout on Thursday. Tomorrow I plan to run in the morning and am trying to sync my iPod to transfer the new playlist I created, but it's really having a hard time. It wants my total attention; when I go to another application, like Firefox, it stalls. Geesh!

This is an exciting week. Ted tests on Friday; my parents arrive on Thursday and Sunday morning is the sprint tri (not mine, but I will go cheer them on at 7am). I hope I can stick with the schedule this week (it's pretty mild) and not wimp out of Tuesday or Thursday's workouts. Now if it would just stop raining already, we could get on with the business of summer!

Rain, rain, rain!

Friday was a perfect summer day! We went to the pool at Lakeshore and all the kids had a blast. We all biked there (huge milestone! Mae is doing great on the tiny 2 wheeler and Sam is finally confident enough on the 16" to do it.) Mae is really swimming up a storm this summer (finally! hooray!) and the biggest issue is that she likes to go deep enough and that I *should* be with her in the water. We had lunch and came home for naps and the now-daily thunderstorm came crashing down. We had planned to go back and swim, but .... well, we couldn't. I went to my friend Lisa's bat mitzvah in Denver that night which was inspiring. I really should do that. Hmmm. Maybe when Mae is in 1st grade I'll have more time.
This morning I had a beautiful 9 mile run. Very muddy but cool, slightly drizzly, and perfect for a run. Then I had my bike fit, which was cut short because I need a shorter stem. They're ordering it and we'll finish up when it comes in. That's why my hand was falling asleep. So tomorrow I'll ride up higher on the handlebars, to compensate. Tonight the kids have Ninja Nite (we're bringing Despereaux, very cute but slightly different from the book!) and we're going to see Star Trek and maybe even have a bite to eat. Paul steam cleaned today so the house is squeaky clean. If we could just get Orestes to stop peeing on everything, it would be fantastic.
We have the Pre-Construction Walk-Through on Monday morning, so hopefully we can get moving on this house business!!!
Happy summer everyone!

Happy Birthday Paul!

Paul is the big 4-0 today! For his birthday, Sam greeted him in bed around 6:15am. The kids made him cards they drew themselves and, of course, Lego creations they made just for him. Cute! Black Bean & Corn Tacos, Chips & Salsa, a Caucasian, and Lemon Meringue Pie for his birthday dinner. Hopefully Ninja Nite will go on Saturday and we'll go to see the Star Trek movie.

I started this fine morning at 5:30am, getting to the track at 6:15 to warm up. Our workout was 6x800s. Now, for a newbie like me, that was SO SO HARD. SOOOOOO HARD. I am actually pretty surprised that my muscles didn't seize up and fail on me, because they sure were threatening to do just that. Especially after an interval spin class yesterday (not my brightest idea perhaps.) Tomorrow we're supposed to bike again but I'm going to swim instead. Then bike Saturday and run Sunday. Whew.

Hanging in there

This morning I got up at 5:30 to go to a 6am spin class. This crazy tornado weather is wreaking havoc with my running and biking (and open water swimming!) workouts. It's a good month to have the Lakeshore membership! Anyway, the spin class was hard, but not bad at all. I actually enjoyed it, once I was warmed up. I might do it again even in good weather! It was very surreal to look at the clock at 7am and be done with my workout. Kind of cool too. Tomorrow is the track workout at 6:30am, so another fun early morning. This is the first day I was able to get up so early and still function (cheerfully!) today. That's a good sign. After camp, I took the kids swimming at Lakeshore, then to Vision Therapy. He's doing really well with that. We were planning on going to TKD, but he has all 6 stripes and he was tired, so we just hung out at home. The boys took turns playing the violin and the guitar, all the while singing at the top of their lungs. Very noisy, but cute.

Tomorrow is Paul's birthday! The big 4-0!!!!!!!!!!

(I put the weekly training schedule at the bottom of my blog, mostly for my sake, but I know you were interested in what this looks like, Mom!)

I did it!

This morning I met Sylvie for a 12 mile ride up to Eldorado Springs and back. It was awesome. I did have my share of adventure; I threw my chain. A kindly older gentleman stopped to help us and I learned how to maneuver it, rather than force it on, which is what I'd done in the past. Note to self: don't shift to the lowest gear when already on the lowest gear on the other side. Now I know. We made it up, admired the GORGEOUS scenery and had some water (still not confident enough to grab water while riding on the road) and rode back. The last hill on Marshall Road was fine! I really like this bike. My right hand did fall asleep, so I'll mention that at my fitting next week; it just means my reach is too far. All in all, a fabulous ride that left both of us wanting to go farther. Next week we'll either start at my house or do something else. Woo hoo!

Then we ran, which was a weird experience. And we saw a snake - not a rattler, but still! It was much harder than I thought it would be, so we ran-walked it. I came home, showered and took a 2 hour nap (!), then went to my final rehearsal for the Jewish Festival tomorrow. It's been nice being alone all day, I have to admit. I love the quiet. Now, before my family gets back, I should fold some laundry. What a great day.

TGIF!

Our first week of Summer Vacation has come to a close. We have 2 more weeks of this same schedule (Ted in reading camp, Sam & Mae with me) and so far, so good. Noisy, but good. This morning I ran for the first time since Monday! I'd been running almost daily and I've missed it! It felt great and I get to do a long run on Sunday that I'm already looking forward to. After my run, the kiddos and I met Alex, Adam & Ariel at our park for a few hours, then went on to the neighborhood pool til about 3pm. Sam must have gone down the slide at least 100 times. RMDC was there, which made Ted very eager for his session. Now that Ted has so little body fat, I noticed that he got cold much quicker and took more frequent swim breaks to warm up than before. My poor skinny kid! Mae was a FISH and had a perfectly delightful time. She had her best day today, for sure. 

Tomorrow is chavurah up at the cabin which I have to miss because I have rehearsal for the House Band (we perform tomorrow at the Boulder Jewish Festival at 4pm!) I have my first official bike ride (and perhaps short run ... technically it's a brick workout, but Wendy assured me that I can start with just the bike, so I'll see how I feel). Another girl and I are going to bike from Costco to Eldorado Springs, about 14 miles round trip (we'll just let the crazy ones do their ride up the canyon. Good on you!) I am excited! Hope I don't crash or get a flat. My job for the weekend is to brush up on how to change a flat. Yikes! 

Following the Dr. Seuss phase Ted is in, I got him the book Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now! from the library and he read it a bunch of times today. Out loud. With dramatic inflection. Very cute. He also read Miss Bindergarten Has a Wild Day in Kindergarten to Sam. Even cuter. 

The boys are making a book. Sam paints ("I'm the illustrator" he says seriously) and Ted writes the text. Most of the pages of the book (they're up to about 10 pages) deal with houses burning down, falling into lava, or getting otherwise demolished. And then, "Ted and Sam move to a new house." They are thinking alot about that, I think. I love when they work on things together. During the school year Sam and Mae got very close because they were together so much, and I think Ted felt a little left out. It's nice that he and Sam are having so much time together. Hooray for the weekend! 

Hard day

I'm starting to actually enjoy swimming. I was the fastest swimmer in the slow lane at our swim practice this morning. Seriously, I am NOT fast, so these other two were S-L-O-W, but that's ok! Made me feel good. I got some good tips on the pull part of my stroke. It was nice to feel my lungs getting comfortable rather than gasping for air the whole time, so I think I'm getting stronger. 

The first lane is next to the window. For some reason, the way the light was coming in and reflecting on the pool water gave me a killer migraine. I got home and took Excedrin and ate breakfast. Then we took Ted to camp and I threw it all up (in the bathroom! I made it!) From then on it was the nausea/headache battle. We hung out at 29th street, went up and down the escalator a zillion times, played with the water earth ball and read books at Borders. We got Ted and went to Jack's house for a quick playdate/Pokemon trade before coming home for naps. That felt really good, to just lie down. Then all three kiddos had swimming with Swim America. Mae was in Level 3 and Sam in 4 (Ted is in 7, which from what I can tell is mostly butterfly and flip turns). Sam was completely fine - he's done the side crawl thingee with Judy so he was fine. His arms looked so good too, nice and long and strong. Mae was a little shell shocked and but fine. She wouldn't yell "Help!" at the end, when they do a safety drill (float on your back and call for help.) When I asked her why she wouldn't do it she said, "Why do I need to call for help? I'll just swim to the side." Heh. I didn't realize Ted's level was 45 minutes, so I took the other 2 outside where they played for another hour in the freezing outside pool. Ted came out when he was done and collapsed on a chair. "I'm so tired," he said. 45 minutes of butterfly would exhaust anyone, and he was the only one today, so it was one on one. Phew! Got home, had a little bit of playtime and then bed. I still feel mildly oogey and hope tomorrow will be better. I haven't run since Monday (I was planning to run today at noon) so I'll run tomorrow morning. I am uncertain if I'll join the group on Saturday morning. They are biking up to Ward on Lefthand Canyon. My car has a hard time going up that steep of an incline. I'll probably just bike around Interlocken. It's so pretty and the hills are rolling rather than just UP. 

I may feel terrible today, but I am very encouraged by the swimming. I will try to swim almost every day to build my lungs. My legs seem to be doing ok with it all and my shoulder is tolerating it. 

Wacky Wednesday

Today I left the house at 6:45am to go swim, just half an hour to do my drills so I can be at least somewhat productive swimming. I think I'm getting the rocking back and forth part now, which makes it a lot easier to breathe, for sure. Next I rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes, which was so unbearably boring I could hardly stand it. I should have ridden outside but I was sure it was going to pour on me, and I wanted to get the ride done in the am. After a luxurious shower, I headed home to take Ted to reading camp. Sam, Mae and I went to Starbucks (where I found 3 Venti cold cups, if anyone wants one!), to Michael's for sock doll stuffing, and then to the library. It happened to be story time, which was noisy, but we got some good books and Sam got a little computer time in. After picking up Ted, we went to Red Robin for lunch and then to the movie UP which was really sweet, cute, a little bit sad, and a little bit scary. A good one! Then we came home for naps, drawing, and Ted's homework. Then off to TKD. I was buckling Mae into her seat and left my phone on the roof. I got home around 7 and Paul suggested I return to the scene of the crime and look for it, so I did. I found it. Poor sad little phone. Home for a quick dinner of cold cereal and a mojito and now off to bed! I am so tired. Tomorrow I get up at 5:30 to go to a 6:30am swim workout. Oy! 

Day 2 of Summer Break

Can you believe it is cold and rainy? Still? What an annoying start to summer vacation. Oh well. This week begins the Tri Babes training, and also my free month at Lakeshore. Because of the weather, it's very good timing! Monday morning I ran for 45 minutes on the treadmill (conveniently, our HHS House Band set is 45 minutes) and this morning had a half hour swim lesson and then spent another half hour on what I had just been taught. Interesting stuff, this swimming business. Tonight we had a strength training session, which was mostly talk and very little strength, but the coach showed us all how to do everything and she'll mail out the drill for us to do at home a few times a week. Nothing I didn't tackle with Jillian, so I'm good there, if in desperate need of improvement nonetheless. Tomorrow is a bike ride. So, while I'd love to go out on my new road bike with the peppy Tri Babes jersey, I'll probably just wake up early again and go over to Lakeshore. I thought I could do a 30 min swim workout (if I last that long...my legs and lungs are not used to it yet) followed by a 50 min spin on one of the stationary bikes. We'll see .. it was amazingly difficult to even walk when I got out of the pool today. I felt like jello. I wanted to sit in the hot tub for a treat but I was afraid then I'd really not be able to walk!

Yesterday the kids and I swam at the inside pool at Lakeshore and Ted had TKD. Today we swam at Paul Derda with Jack and Jason and then more TKD. Ted is ON FIRE lately with the TKD. He knows his entire form (46 moves) already (testing is on the 19th and he is usually still struggling right before) and is totally confident. He's like a new kid! It all started when he went to brown belt. My parents will be out for testing, so I hope they'll want to see him. It's pretty impressive to see such a little kid doing all that. He also has been reading up a storm. I think his confidence has shot way up lately. He's very in Dr. Seuss and read Cat in the Hat and the knock-off Ten Apples Up on Top today, all the way through. Tomorrow he starts a 10 day Reading Camp at Horizons with this teacher from K/1 and three other entering 3rd graders. He is the only entering 2nd grader in that group, so that's encouraging. It's only 2.5 hours long so it should be fun. Now, what to do with the other two in the rain! I had planned to bring bikes and play on the playground. Hmph. 

It's 9:30 and I am wiped. Off to bed. Happy Hump Day! (They're fun, but summer days are loooong!)