Summer = Swimming

This summer, one of our family goals was to have the girls learn to swim. Last year we were too busy traveling to take any classes and the year before Sarah and Natalie basically just had that class where the kids get used to the water. I've felt like we were a little behind and this summer we are catching up. We've been at a local pool almost every day for the past two weeks. It has made a huge difference! Sarah and Natalie have taken turns doing private lessons with a friend of mine at her apartment complex. It has been fabulous because while one is having lessons, the rest of us swim in the other side of the pool. And many of thier lessons have been sandwiched between other friends' lessons. It's been a pool party every morning! We've started going more as a family too and the last six weeks of the summer, Sarah and Natalie have private lessons (just the two of them) at the Rec Center. Hopefully, we will have some good water skills by the time school starts!

Natalie has been more resistant to trying new things, but as she's watched Sarah try new things every day - and have fun doing it - she has been inspired to do new things too.

Sarah has really taken off. Once she got over the hesitancy of putting her face in the water - just a few days ago - she has learned quickly. She is learning the front crawl and just started learning the side breathing method. I am excited to see the girls getting more confident, having fun and most of all, learning skills that will help keep them safe. Angela, in the mean time, is revved up and ready to go - she will do awesome when she takes swimming lessons next year. (If I can get her potty trained by then!)

One funny side note ... Sarah found something that helped her feel more brave. It wasn't goggles, but a swim cap of all things! She loves not having her hair in her face and thinks it makes her float better! She even wanted to wear her new cap at home today - what a nut! She was being pretty silly this afternoon pulling it down over her face. (o:

We are Sowing....

In preparation for the big swingset installation, we had to relocate the garden bed we inherited with the house from the previous owners. I enjoyed the raised garden bed and wanted to keep it. We moved it to the east side of the house where we had more room, so we decided to take some measurements and create a duplicate raised garden bed. It turned out really nice and I love how they look in the middle of the grass. It is so easy to get right in and check on my little "babies" growing in the backyard. They are thriving in the good soil, except for one goofy tomato plant. I LOVE having my garden area. The whole east side of the yard is dedicated to our vegetables and fruit gardens. We have our fruit trees over there, our new raised garden beds as well as a section dedicated to raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. Yeah! I've been wanting to have a big garden for years. Our raised garden beds contain four tomato plants, several lettuce plants and cabbage plants, a zucchini, a cucumber, 2 green peper plants, sweet basil, cilantro and 6 or 7 green bean bushes. Not to mention several marigolds and a praying mantis egg (I hope it will hatch soon) to help with pest control. I think that's everything. It is so fun to check on my little garden every day - I have a cucumber nearly ready to be picked and we've already enjoyed salad from the fresh lettuce leaves. There is something so satisfying about doing a vegetable garden. I love it!

4th of July Review

We had a fun fourth of July, but we sure missed the Clarks this year when it came to the BBQ and fireworks! For the past 4 years we had the luxury of having family in town to celebrate this fun holiday. Thanksgiving and the 4th of July were often spent with Jeff and Kelly and the kids when they were going to dental school out here. We still had a good time, it just felt more lonely without them - we miss you guys!

We enjoyed good food - potato salad, BBQ chicken, fruit pizza and we even made fresh lemonade. Sarah helped me on this one and thought it was fun (and hard work) to squeeze all the lemons. We didn't get to set up the pool like we usually do because it was only around 70 degrees and sprinkled on and off during the day. Kind of weird 4th of July weather - I swear that summer doesn't really ever start in the northwest until AFTER the 4th of July. Then it's gorgeous through the end of September.

While the food was being prepared, the girls were being so cute and doing bubbles in the backyard. Angela was prancing around and laughing hysterically as she tried to pop the bubbles. It was so cute, I stopped my food prep and grabbed the video camera. Before I got outside the laughter turned to screams of terror. A dumb yellow jacket ruined the perfect moment. Natalie was the little hero - Sarah screamed, "get it off her" and apparently Natalie was the brave one who ran over and swept the dumb thing off of Angela as she screamed in horror. Unfortunately, it was too late, but I was proud of Natalie for forgetting her own fears of the dumb things and helping her sister out. She really is my little "mommy" in the family.

Angela was actually very brave once the yellow jacket was gone - the sting looked painful, but she just wimpered a bit while she held a little ice cube on it.

After dinner, Angela was all better once daddy put on his big firework show purchased from Costco. He loves fire and fireworks - such a boy. (O: I told him it would be faster to just light a bunch of money on fire we when purchased it, but he said it wouldn't be as fun. He was right. The girls got a little freaked out by a few of the bigger ones, but we had a great time and dad deserved a standing ovation for his skill in lighting more than one firework at a time and stacking them on top of each other to make them taller. (o:

One other fun highlight of the night was watching some of the Olympic swimming trials. We watched Phelps set a new world record in the trials! He has a new American competitor who really gave him a run for his money - they just pushed each other so hard - both several feet ahead of everyone else. It was very exciting. I can't wait for the Olympics!

Favorite Running Songs

I have a few people to thank for my accomplishment of running 3 miles (3.5 this week) as mentioned in the previous articles.

#1 my husband - for getting the treadmill and cheering me on
#2 my cute pink iPod nano
#3 Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford (my good friends - just kidding, they are the guys who wrote "Holding Out for a Hero")

Seriously, that last song is the best running song! (o: When I was about ready to quit running last Friday at around 2 miles, Bonnie Tyler came on singing this song and got me through the next mile! (o: Dorky, I know.

A couple other favorites - Weezer's "Perfect Situation" and Celine Dion's "I'm Alive"

If anyone else has favorite workout songs - I'd love to hear them. Having some good songs to listen to REALLY helps!! (o:

One other little tidbit - Wanting to find tips on running, I checked out www.livestrong.com today - it's an awesome website with information on health, exercise, etc.

33 - Reinventing Me

Above are two pictures of things that I never would have defined myself with even just a couple years ago. I turned 33 this summer and life is great. As I get older, I have more courage to try things I didn't think I could do when I was younger. I had a limited definition of myself and just assumed that certain abilities just weren't my God-given talents. Now that I am older and wiser, I figure, who cares if I'm not a natural at something - I can still try. Five, ten, twenty years more are going to pass by no matter what I do. If I fill the time trying out new things and working on goals - maybe I'll discover and develop completely new abilities I wouldn't have if I just do the same old thing.

One of those abilities I am specifically speaking of is playing the piano. I never really had piano lessons growing up and for my teenage and early twenties I figured that meant I'd never be a pianist. I did take lessons for a short while in my twenties, but it was a time of transition and didn't last. Then came babies and motherhood - I had no time to think about developing a new talent from scratch. Then a year and a half ago, I decided I was tired of wishing I could play and envying the ladies who could sit down and play a song at church. I was in young women's then and there was not a single person - leader or girl - who could play the accompanyment for the hymns. I decided that even though it wouldn't solve that immediate problem - sometime down the road if that ever happened again, I wanted to be able to say, "I can play".

Now a year and a half later, I actually own a piano - something that was beyond what I ever imagined. Why spend thousands of dollars on something you can't really use? I had no idea how much I would LOVE playing the piano and how much I would LOVE hearing the sound in my home. It has been the best purchase - besides our house and maybe the van - that we have ever made. It has brought so much joy into my life. When I sit down to play - even though I am still quite a novice - I can't believe that it's me making the music and playing the notes. I am learning a song now that I heard over 12 years ago at a sorority talent show. I still remember the room we were sitting in, my friend Angie who played it and how I felt when I heard it. I was so envious that Angie could play something so beautiful. I don't know if I'm learning the same version she played (it's probably much easier (o: David Lanz "Return to the Heart" if your curious) but when I play it, I can't believe how far I've come. I can't wait to keep getting better and list "pianist" as one of the things that defines me.

"Runner" is another word I never identified with and never really cared to. My experiences running growing up were miserable - I hated running in gym, I never passed off running the mile in jr. high and any time I put forth an honest effort, my side would be in stitches. A few weeks ago, for father's day, Jayson decided he really, really wanted a treadmill. I thought that was great - something to help keep him healthy sounded good to me. Then a few days later, I decided to give it a shot, just for fun. I put on my shoes, but didn't even bother to get out of my pajamas - I was just trying it out. The first little bit was miserable, but for some reason I just kept going. After a little while, it wasn't so bad. I focused on breathing in a rhythm and soon I realized I had almost run a mile - hey!, something I hadn't ever really done before - so I kept going. When I finally had to stop to get Sarah to piano lessons, I had run 2 miles and felt like I could have kept going! This was a huge accomplishment for me! I could not believe it. The next day I wanted to see if I could go farther. 3 miles! The next day I ran 10! (Okay just kidding on that last one. (o: ) I literally cheered out loud after 3 miles - I had no idea I had that in me. I guess my workouts with Gilad (my personal trainer via FitTV) and my visits to the gym were doing some good.

I still don't love running - and don't know if I've completely felt the "runner's high" that everyone talks about unless you count my elation upon discovering that I could run 3 miles - something I never thought I could do or really had much desire to try. But after about three weeks of running 3 times a week, I'm starting to think about trying a 5K. I even have a friend who just did a local triathalon who is encouraging me to join her next year. A few weeks ago I would have laughed out loud. Now, I find myself asking her all kinds of questions about it and imagining what it would be like. Maybe I could actually do it... Above you see my new "running shoes" - who knew I'd ever consider myself a runner? I can't wait to see what other barriers I break in the coming years - what other things will I add to my definition of me? Opera singer? Auto mechanic, sky diver? (o:

Potty Training Woes

Well, we've reached that ripe old age of 3 - when I start thinking that enough is enough with the diapers. Angela has a late birthday and has another deadline - besides her third birthday. She needs to be potty trained for preschool in September. So, while I love the convenience of diapers and hate cleaning up all the accidents and spending lots of time running back and forth from the potty - I finally decided it was time to dive in to the potty training adventure once again.

In this picture Angela is holding her new Cabbage Patch doll that pees - an important element of the "Potty Training in a Day" method. (She is also sporting her new My Little Pony underwear - soo cute, but I didn't want to post the full pic on the blog.) Angela loved the dolly and all the hoopla that went along with her successes. Everything went fairly smooth for the first little bit. She did have a HUGE and I mean HUGE accident the first 30 minutes of training. The program instructs you to give your little student lots and lots of fluids for obvious reasons. I cannot believe just how much Angela's bladder could hold when the puddle beneath her kept growing to gallon-sized proportions. Okay - it probably just looked that way, but I was amazed and thought that we'd never get her to pee again because she must be totally dried out inside. Nevertheless, we did have success after the pee tsunami and things went well the rest of the day. She even pooped on the potty the first day!! Wahoo - Sarah and Natalie were freaked out about this at first when they were training. I thought we had the whole thing in the bag. Easy Peasy.

It's dangerous to think that way. Don't ever think anything with kids will turn out so easy - you will be disappointed about 96.4% of the time. I should never allow the thought, "Wow, that was easy" to cross my mind. Because then the next day came. Things went well until the #2 came. It hit when we were outside - Angela was riding around the garage and driveway on her scooter. Natalie came running over and informed me that Angela ran over some dog poop. You'd think I would have clued in earlier, but I was seriously mad and disgusted at whatever dog left us a little present in our yard. It turned out to be an imaginary dog. I don't know why it took me so long to put two and two together. When I started finding little droppings around the garage I started thinking, "What in the world was a dog doing in our garage?" Then the lightbulb turned on. Duh. It was MY little pet, Angela. The funny thing is that Angela got a little confused and was talking about the dog poop the rest of the day. I had to clarify that it was not a dog, but herself and wasn't that yucky pooping on the ground like a dog? She agreed, "Yeah, it's 'lily' yucky" (Angela says Lily instead of Really)

So, we are on day 4 and haven't had a successful #2 in the potty since day #1. I am getting tired of finding surprises upon inspection of Angela's Winnie the Pooh's. (Ha, no pun intended) Angela HATES the practicing we have to do as her punishment as prescribed in the "Potty Training in a Day" (HA - try multiplying that by 4, 5, 20) After an accident, the potty student has to help clean up and then "practice" running to the potty from the spot and various other locations when they get that "feeling". Here's my favorite "practice" Angela did with daddy yesterday. It went' something like this, Daddy: "What do you do if you are trying on a sombrero from the dress ups and you get that funny feeling?" Angela: "Oh man.." and some dramatic sighs. Daddy: "Angela, what do you do?" Angela: "Run to the Potty". (She used to say this with such gusto, but after practicing around 100 times the enthusiasm is gone.) After an accident when we've practiced 3-4 times Angela usually tells me, "Leave me alone." or exclaims, "Oh Dahn-it" (darn it). It is good that she doesn't like practicing - I'm hoping that will be motivating enough to stop having accidents. Oh please let it motivate her...

Wish me luck!