"...And Snap, the job's a game!"

After a summer of "I should do something to get into better shape" and weeks of "I should join a fitness center," I joined Snap Fitness in Cottage Grove on Thursday. Not only did I join, I enjoyed my first work out. I did some cardio and a full circuit of the strength training equipment. Later in the evening, Nick and I went for a walk. Lots of exercise in just one day. (To be fair, we have been walking most evenings.)

Friday I also enjoyed a work out. My muscles were pretty sore, but I pushed through and did it anyway. We also went for a walk in the evening. I felt bad because I was kind of lagging behind. I almost felt like Nick had to pull me along.

Saturday I decided I would go and only do some cardio. My muscles were very sore and weak, so I decided to give them a rest from strength training. Today was a tough day to get out the door. One of those days that could make or break your week. I wanted to nap on the couch, but I went. I did my cardio and then I focused on an upper body work out. Amazing how not strong my arms are. For someone that used to do an awful lot of dog and cat wrestling, my upper body strength sure has faltered over the past 9 months. (Has it been that long since I have worked in a practice??) Anyway, I feel much better having worked out. My plan for tomorrow is cardio and legs. In high school when I was a weight room user, I used to hate leg days. The machines they have make it a bit better these days...not so much just squats and lunges. Ick.

If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey.

Nick and I had the honor of hanging out with our nieces today while their parents both worked. I am amazed how much they grow and change even in the 1-2 weeks between our seeing them. Taryn continues to grow and do new things. She is a very active, one year old that walks, runs and babbles and of course, holds her own with her big sister. Micah is almost 3 1/2 years and with that has developed the habits and attitude of a 3-4 year old. This isn't always a bad thing and often leads to funny stories.

Today while Taryn napped Micah was watching a Bug's Life. She did get kind of scared with the big bad bugs, but Uncle Nick was there to protect her. When that was over she wanted to watch "Bob" (veggietales) so she looked though to see what she wanted to watch. Maybe singing Bob? She decided on Larryboy and the Yodle Napper. Micah was explaining to us that it was Larryboy. She liked watching Larryboy. Micah: "His name is Larryboy but sometimes I call him Rowl." Me & Nick: "Um, what?" Micah: "Sometimes I call him Rowl." Nick: "You call him what?" Micah: "Rowl, thats what I call him." It sounds like growl with out the G, not quite Raúl. It is just so funny to hear a 3 year old tell you so matter of factly that she calls him a different name. Its almost as if he was a life long friend of hers. Which, I guess in a way, he kind of is. He is among the first movies/shows she watched.

Celebrity gossip

I will admit that I do enjoy a good flip through of People Magazine now and again. I will also admit to actually reading People Magazine while on lunch breaks "back in the day." Over the past 6-9 months, however, I don't tend to pay much attention to celebrity gossip. I do hear some, as people are prone to talking about it. I also usually have an opinion, regardless if I know anything about it. (That is just my nature though) All that being said, when a household lacks cable television, as ours does, weekend options for watching are pretty slim pickings. Celebrity gossip or "news" is usually what I default to. Tonight I happened to turn on the TV guide channel or perhaps Access Hollywood. The "story" they spent a fair amount of time talking about was one of the affairs of Jon from Jon and Kate plus 8. This girlfriend Kate somebody was appealing to all the gossip shows and magazines regarding the affair he claims didn't happen. So, ok, really I don't care. The part that makes me a little crazy is her playing the roll of the victim. "I never thought he would hurt me like this." "We were falling for each other and he broke my heart." "I gave up so much for him, and he turned out to be a liar and a cheater." Ok, here is a little lesson that I have learned by paying attention: If you are the "other woman" that means he is cheating on someone he married, exchanged vows with, had EIGHT children with and you are surprised that he is a liar and a cheater? Really? Really? The man cheating on his wife with you turned out to be less than a stand up guy? Shocking!

I think I need to find other things to watch.

My dad is a funny man

So, I don't know the "details" because my dad told my mom who told me...but dad and Punky (one of his sisters) were watching (insert name of golfer here) during his practice the other day. He was sitting "so close, as close as I am sitting to you" (he says to my mom) and I tried to take a picture of him. (He does not know how to work the cell phone camera, therefore did not get the picture) So after he sunk the ball my dad says "great shot" the golfer says thanks. My dad says "I have a question for you if you have a moment." Guy says sure. Dad continues to tell him about his son-in-law being a cancer survivor and how we are involved with the RFL for the American Cancer Society and asked would he be interested/willing to donate $ or something to be auctioned to help raise money for our event. Guy says sure, just contact the following......yeah, dad forgot the contact info. He is sure his sister will remember though... This makes me laugh so hard. And really, my dad is always thinking. I wouldn't have thought to stop the random golfer who's wife is battling cancer to make a donation for our Relay, and I am a co-chair! Go dad!

After a little bit of research, I am guessing this golfer was Phil Mickelson. So far, I still haven't heard word on the contact info. Come on Punky!

The long awaited update...

When people chat it is pretty often the question comes up "what's new?" and most often people (including myself) reply "not much." Well, that may be the answer you get, but it is far from true.

I don't think I can reasonably update my loyal readers in chronological order, so I will instead just ramble on about a few of the things that have been happening lately.

Of course Relay For Life is a big event that recently happened. Our humble little event managed to pull out 16 teams, 200 participants and right now we are hovering right around $35,000 with an expected total of $40,000 when all of the sponsorships come in. This year I was not only on a team, and not only part of the planning committee, I was a co-chair. Cyndie and I worked pretty hard to make it a successful event. Our measure of success was not the number of people or teams or funds, our measure was - did people enjoy the event and will they come back. Overall, I think people enjoyed it and the opinions I have heard said they will be back. This is great news to me! Those of you that are familiar, last year we canceled the event at about 8:30 due to storms containing lightning and tornado warnings. This year we had nearly ideal weather. It was a tad windy for the start, but that died down. We did get a bit of rain for about 2 minutes and then for another 2 minutes right around 10 pm and 10:45. I did stay awake all night. I had speaking rolls in all the ceremonies (6pm, 9:30 pm and 6am) so rather than be groggy and crabby, I just stayed awake. If you are interested, there is still time to donate to our event. Just click HERE.

Nick's family was in town last week. It has been two years since all four of the kids and their parents have been together. (Steph's wedding was the last time - in 07). Of course, now there are three grandkids too. We hadn't seen Aaron for almost a year. It was great to see all of his siblings and their families again. What a blessing we were able to work our schedules to be able to get a little time with them. We got to celebrate our anniversaries (yes, 4 anniversaries 6/30, 7/10, 7/15, 7/19) and the first birthdays of Aaron and Taryn. Lots to celebrate!

In the past four weeks I have been to 4 baby showers. Yes, it does seem that everyone we know is having a baby right now. Crazy. That does bring me to an interesting topic. Nick and I have started the very beginning of the process of adoption. This is much like announcing we're pregnant the day you pee on the stick, but even worse. Basically we have signed the paper and paid the registration fee. That just means we have signed up to be able to fill in the paper work for the application. Once that is approved we will being the home study process. Once we are approved there, we start the process of being approved by the US and the other country to approve us. Then there are more and more steps to follow. There sure are a lot of hoops to jump through to adopt. After a fair amount of research, we are following an international route rather than domestic. Our country of choice at this point is Korea. While the process is long on its own, we are taking our time to try to match up the expected placement date for after Nick is finished with school. Two years to go..... Lots of prayers for all of this would be great!

We are on week two of our "early fall" quarter for school. I am teaching 3 classes this quarter. So far I am enjoying the classes. This quater is shorter (10 weeks rather than 12) because they gave everyone a 3 week summer break. It was great to have 3 weeks off, but some of the classes it is tough to cram into 10 weeks. I am enjoying this teaching thing though. Next quarter I plan to resume taking classes in persuit of my bachelor of science in veterinary technology. Yup, I decided to switch out of the career path towards human medicine and stay working with the furry medicine. It was after much thought, debate, consulting with peers and instructors and of course a pretty good amount of prayer that I decided the veterinary field is where I should stay.

Nick is working hard. He is currently working in a "research assistant" position. He does a lot of different things. Doesn't that just explain it all? He is also working every other weekend at Walgreens.

I think this is where I will end my updating for tonight.

Making the history books...

...literally.

Today the Alley (our church) was officially welcomed into the LCMS, MN South District. The District president came to welcome us and present a plaque. The congregation president and the secretary also sign the "official book" that records the churches with the dates they were accepted into the district. This book dates back to the 1950's and now includes my name! I am, after all, the official secretary for the Alley. How cool.

We have lots of babies!

Over the last few weeks we have been doing some "yard work." I say that with quotes because we live in a townhouse and don't really a yard to speak of. We do have yard outside our door, but it is yard that is "cared" for by the association. I saw that with quotes because they don't really take care of it. The last few years the association has been struggling financially, so they prioritize the projects they spend money on. Apparently maintaining the lawn in anyway more than mowing is too expensive.

So we came to the rescue! There were several large patches of lawn that were brown and dead. I blame the dog, ice melt and lack of care. I took a jaunt over to our friendly neighborhood Mendards and talked to the nice man in the grass seed isle (yes, a whole isle with nothing but grass seed). I told him what I was looking for, the sun/shade conditions, the fact we have a dog, and I showed him using arm spans the size of area we needed to cover. The guy was very helpful and didn't try to sell me the $50 bag of grass seed. We agreed on the $7 bag of "turf builder" type seed where the mulch and moisture helper come right along with it.

We raked the areas and then used the metal rake to break up the soil a bit. Then we laid down the seed mix. It felt a bit like laying cotton down on the grass. I took up the task of watering it every day - mostly. I have been watching it everyday. I was so excited when last weekend we started to see little baby grass blades appearing. Today we are starting to see the results of our labor with large patches of grass growing in. Yup, I am beeming like a proud parent over my grass seed growing in. :)

This year I am also determined to have tomatoes. In years past I have had a plant and harvest maybe 3-4 tomatoes. This year, I have 3 large pots with plants and again have been watching and watering daily. So far so good, my plants about doubled in the last two weeks! I am hopeful with the plants doing well the fruit will also do well and I will have tomatoes this summer.

Before-its hard to see, but the planter box is looking pretty shabby and starting to sag apart.

I am also taking great pride in my new planter box. My brother-in-law surprised me by building a new planter box for me for my birthday. We have talked a few times about what it would take to get a new one...and surprise, it happened. YAY. So Michael and Nick worked for an evening to build it. (While I watched my nieces and watched the American Idol Finale!)

The guys hard at work on the planter box. What an improvement. And they made it work with out disturbing the plants. I have some of my Grandma Blanche's Fern Peonies that I would really like to keep alive.

Memorial Day weekend my parents came over and helped to fill the rest of the box and plant some more plants.Here is the finished product with the tomato plants. It's hard to see how fantastic everything looks, but really it does look great!

Adding to the list of things we are growing, Nick has Rhubarb that apparently LOVES where it is planted. Here is the pre-harvest picture of the "plant" that has taken over the rock patch.

Kris who?

I have been reading a few "news" articles about the new American Idol being crowned last night. Funny thing though, if I hadn't watched the show, the only thing I would know is that Adam didn't win. So, if Adam didn't win, who did? See, there is this whole other contestant named Kris Allen. He DID win. I have read more about Adam in the last 20 hours than I have about Kris. "Adam was robbed." "Adam deserved it more." "Everyone liked Adam better." If all of that is true, why didn't Adam win? I don't think it is because America isn't ready to crown a "rocker." I think it's because people didn't like Adam as much as "everyone" thought. Sure, he was fun to watch for 90 seconds. I wouldn't buy any of his songs. I would buy songs by Kris and Danny, maybe even Allison.

I do know there is always a lot of discussion on who it should have been, but it's gotten a bit out of hand when the winner doesn't get recognized as the winner. If I were the voting type, I totally would have voted for Kris. Go Kris!

The most precious thing ever!

This evening my nieces came over (with their parents) to wish me a happy birthday. It was so cute! Micah brought me flowers and a princess balloon. She was pretty sad that she couldn't keep it. Micah sang Happy Birthday to me, all by herself. It was so cute. What wonderful nieces (and in-laws) I have!

Damnit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a physicist!

This weekend is our "birthday weekend." My Birthday is tomorrow, while Nick's is next Sunday. For the past three years we have celebrated our birthdays together. It is already May 16, and we haven't planned a birthday party, nor do we have the time during the month of May. Since Nick finished finals yesterday (yay! for the end of year #2 of 4) and our birthdays are coming up, we decided a hotel get away was in order, so we are in far-away and exotic Burnsville. Thanks Marriott rewards points!

Friday before leaving we discussed getting a laptop. Happy Birthday to me! We purchased a pretty inexpensive lap top yesterday. Since we made this purchase, I agreed to go see Star Trek with Nick in celebration of his Birthday. Yup, laptop for me, Star Trek for him-sounded like a fair deal to me.

Honestly, I did enjoy Star Trek. I have never seen an episode of Star Trek or a movie. I knew the very basics, likes there were guys named Spock and Kirk and Scotty, there was a lot of space involved and things blow up. Oh yeah, and Scotty "Beams people up." So I went in with pretty low expectations, virtually no knowledge and hopes of not being bored for the whole movie.

I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it. They made it so that a person knowing nothing about it could follow along, for the most part, and true fans would still be entertained and kept interested. The humor was pretty good. Some of the characters were pretty hilarious! The movie really did combine character development and blow-stuff-up plot. It was a good mix that did keep me entertained. Many of the "old school" lines were brought back and well placed. I laughed a lot.

I did not feel like my matinee ticket was wasted. Even if we had paid full price, I think it would have been worth it. If you like action movies, I think you will enjoy Star Trek.