Watching the Rain

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Advent Calendar

December is here! In preparation for Christmas we use an advent calendar....or two.

One calendar contains little doors for each day. I put a note in each door that tells the boys what activity we'll be doing that day. Our other calendar is the Playmobil lego-like type. Each day they open a box of lego-like pieces to create an entire scene by the end of the month.



Dec 1 - Eat dinner at Chick-fil-a and enjoy their Christmas lights and snow

Thanks for the pics Kelly!

Fishing with Grandpa

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Masks

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Boy's Best Friend

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The boys with our dog Bella. Such unconditional love. She's the best pound dog ever!

Brothers

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Musical Monday - I Do

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With my step-son's wedding yesterday, it got me thinking of my own wedding 9 1/2 years ago. BTW - my DH is old enough to have a son of marrying age but I am not...just to clarify. ;-)

I had a hard time picking the "perfect" song and my DH was no help. Our song had always been Still The One by Orleans but that wasn't right for our first dance. Back in the day, DH listened to, what I called in high school, dirt rock. Bands like AC/DC, Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne. Thankfully he's listen to new genres now. Anyway....back to the first dance song.

A friend suggested I Do (Cherish You) from the movie Notting Hill. I went home, listened to the song, loved it for our first dance and the rest is history.


Our first dance was to 98 degrees' I Do (Cherish You).

98 Degrees - I Do (Cherish You)

My 8 Year Old

Happy Birthday to my Jared. It's hard to believe you are 8 years old today. The years have flown by. I guess that's why parents of college aged kids say treasure every moment because kids are grown before you know it. *sigh*

Eight years ago I went to the hospital to be induced. You were due on August 8th...it was now the 20th! After a day of labor, you were finally born via c-section. 8 lbs 10 1/2 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. You were an adorable baby right from the start. Now you're a handsome young man.

7 months old

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7 years old

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I love you sweetheart!

Wheelie the Wonder Pig

Ride Like the Wind

We had an excellent ride on Monday night. This is the first time we’ve had some real wind resistance. The air is usually very calm and still here in the summer. You get a nice breeze while riding but no real wind resistance. Wow, I was feeling the drag on Monday. Maybe we were getting some residual bands from Tropical Storm Claudette. It hit Florida Monday morning.


I still need to buy a water cage and bottle for my new bike. I’ve been putting water in my mailbox but then that means a stop in my momentum. My DH uses a camelback but those things give me the skeeves.

Miles: 9.89

Time: 45 min

Avg Speed: 13.2mph

Animal Sightings: suicidal black cat (he needed a reflective vest)

Green Day

So many great bands are coming to our area this year. Mike and I just went to the Green Day concert. It was our first in awhile but we’re going to two more concerts before the year is over.

For Green Day we bought the cheap seats on the third level. I guess the show didn’t sell that well because the entire third level was closed. They moved us all to the 2nd level. Score!!

Green Day put on a great show…more specifically; Billie Joe Armstrong is a stage show rock star. BJA bounced all over the stage with the energy of a child on a sugar rush. He blasted the crowd with a super soaker water gun, customized blower that unraveled toilet paper and a t-shirt launcher. My 5 year old loves Green Day and very much wanted to see the show with us. He would have been right at home with all the other kids at the concert. BJA pulled 4 young kids on stage and plenty of YAs. Three fans got to sing Longview. One lucky guy got to play Jesus of Suburbia on guitar and perform a stage dive. I bet those were dreams come true.

Here are my youngsters putting on their own concert.

Ok, so they need some work and real instruments but they have fun trying!

Thursday's Ride

My two riding partners got their road bikes this week. Tonight was their inaugural ride. I must say...we were on fire! It was a great ride! It's so much easier to GO and GO FAST on a road bike after riding a mountain bike. No wipe outs to report. I do need to review the directions for my bike computer. I tried to clear out the last ride's numbers and ended up wiping the entire thing. D'OH!

Miles: 10.2

Time: 40 min

Avg speed: 15.3 mph

Animal sightings: big owl in the middle of the road, toads

Love of Legos

Trek is the Word

I love biking....have ever since I was a kid. I usually ride a mountain bike for recreation. I've never done any races. After running a couple 5k races, I've got the race bug. My hubby, cousin and I have talked about doing a sprint tri this fall. So recently I purchased a road bike.



Here's my new bike. Maybe I'll call it The Blue Blur. ;-)

It's such a smooth ride compared to my mountain bike. Tonight's ride around the neighborhood with 2 friends....

Miles: 9.7

Top Speed: 21 mph

Not quite a Blue Blur, but I'll work on it!

Life's A Beach

Gasparilla 5K

I have never been a runner. I always wanted to be able to run…more than 100 yards. I can bike for miles, swim, but I can’t run. Since my friend Denise had come so far in her running, it motivated me to give running another try. My goal was to be able to run a 5k without stopping to walk.



This all started in about October 2008.

I found a great 10 week beginning running program on line. It was perfect for my level of training. The first week was one minute of running, one minute of walking for 20 minutes. Second week was two minutes of running, one minute of walking, etc until you built up to running 20 minutes. I trained on my treadmill in the house. Well, I slacked on the training program and never finished past 6 weeks. I was up to running 6 minutes at a time. I knew I could do more but I didn’t push myself!

I decided to register for the Gasparilla 5k and either be ready or die trying. My husband also registered and committed to running with me instead of leaving me in the dust. He was a runner since high school. A 5k would be easy peasy rice and cheesy for him.

Two days before Gasparilla, my last day to run before a day of rest, I thought it best that I actually ran outside at least once before the race. I ran 1.84 miles in a strong wind before I gave up and went home. See what I mean…you runners are probably laughing at my 1.84 miles! It’s OK…I laughed at myself. I also thought I would die running Gasparilla’s 3.1 miles. In all my “training” I didn’t even make it to 3.1 miles.

I was nervous Gasparilla morning. My goal was to finish the race in 45 minutes or less, not puke or pass out. I succeed in all three! Mike and I finished in 36 minutes 9 seconds. I did have to walk a couple times, but limited it to only one minute each time. The race was fun and not nearly as bad as I thought.

Or was it like child birth….adrenaline and time dull the memories of pain and suffering. Either way….  I finished my first 5k!!

Christmas in Buffalo, NY

Being a FL girl, I do enjoy visiting the snow. I'm prepared with warm jackets, hats, gloves, snow boots, etc. and usually end up hot under all the layers. Here's the only snow fall while we were there.

Having never grown up with snow, I love playing in it! Fortunately, so do our boys! We visited Jodi & Bobby's new place on Christmas Day.






Bobby bulldozed through some earth to create a great sledding hill (it was done before we got there). I was ecstatic that the new house was just as much fun as the old.

Chrissy & Jared

Mike & Jared

Dylan with his sheet of ice

Tubing here we come! This was the first year the boys were old enough to go tubing on their own. Jared dove right in and loved it! Dylan needed to spend some time on the bunny slopes first but eventually made it to the big hills. I'm so proud of both of them!









Down came the rain and washed the snow away. On Saturday, it warmed up to a FL winter. We got a full day of rain. The snow pretty much melted where we were staying. I wanted to go to Niagara Falls that day. But we postponed the visit for Sunday. Mike wouldn't be joining us because he had tickets to the Bills game.


On Sunday came the hurricane force winds! It didn't seem that bad at the house so we braved the falls anyway. Whoa! The winds were 10x worse at the falls! I was afraid Dylan would be blown away.

Us in front of the Horseshoe Falls

Brett & Jen in front of the American Falls

What a terrific trip! A bit long but still enjoyable. Our pets at home were starved for our attention. We were all glad to be back in sunny FL.

Washington, DC

On our biennial trip to Buffalo, NY we decided to stop in Washington, DC to take in the sites. We stayed right in the heart of downtown within walking distance of all the activities. DC was an exciting city but bitter cold while we were there.

Jared's face and nose were cold. After much whining, he found a solution. He could see through the hat and walked around the streets of DC with it covering his face. That's my Jar!



Here we are in front of the Washington Monument. The boys obviously see something we don't.


The walk to the Lincoln Memorial. Little did we know, the individuals walking on the left of the reflection pond, chose their route poorly. Unfortunately we also chose the left and had to step over much duck doo. Blah!

One of Jared's friends from school and Cub Scouts was also in DC the same time we were so we met up with them for dinner and site seeing. What a small world.

The next day we hit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Such and amazing place with so much to see AND free admission. One of my favorite sections was the Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals which included the 45.52 carat blue Hope Diamond. *gasp, ooh, ah* It was gorgeous and ginormous!

Dumb, Dumb - Give me gum gum !

The White House at Christmas time...a beautiful site. Although for us, it's our only in-person site. Notice the sharp shooter on the roof. Jared saw that too and excitedly shouted it to the crowd. Gotta love his energy and enthusiasm.

We had a great time in DC. Off to the snow storms in NY!