Christmas 2011

Had a nice Christmas at Colleen and Steve's. It was great to be with the kids for Christmas although I always feel a bit like an aunt rather than a parent. I forgotmy camera so will post pictures after I get them from the girls.
Julie still hasn't had the baby! I really thought she'd have him before Christmas. Looks like he'll be here when it's time. Looks like they've decided to name him Soren. That name was in the running then dropped from the list. I can't say I'm crazy about it but I have no say in the matter! I wonder how many times they'll have to spell that in the future! Who knows, they may. Hanger the name by the time he's here! Stay tuned!
I did run a little today and went to swim. Swimming with the coach is a tough workout. Tomorrow I plan on running about 3 and then maybe a little Pickleball and biking!

Almost a new year!

Wow, it's been so long since I've posted, I almost forgot the name of my blog account! It is going to be my goal (again) to get back to posting updates to what is going on in my/our lives. I'm going to try to post something everyday but based on my track record that won't happen but at least it will be more frequent. I'm really looking forward to 2012 and making it a great triathlon year. I've just started swimming with Coach Kirk at the SCCL pool and he keeps telling me I'm a natural swimmer and have lots of potential. I don't want to wait to long to develop that as time is running out!
So, for anyone out there that still checks on this blog, keep looking. I'll be back!
Now, I'm on my way out the door for a quick 10 mile ride. (still can't run so I'll ride when I can) It's 60 degrees and warm! Not bad for Dec 22nd! Whoo hoo!!!!

Day 3

So far so good. I haven' t been 100% on the 17 day but have done reallk good and feel good. No diet coke, cut back on coffee, and no grain with lots of veggies. Breakfast yogurt with strawberries, lunch turkey rolled in lettuce with cube cheese. Snack vita top and yogurt with strawberries. Dinner chicken and veggies and salad. Snack frozen frui bar. Biked 15 miles and played Pickleball. I played poorly again a nd got all upset again. I'm ready to quit. I'm not sure how to relax and just play without getting all bummed out. Anyway, I've got to play as often as I can and get better.

Day 1

Day 1 so far so good! Ate yogurt and grapefruit for breakfast and salad with tuna. Ice tea and water. Ran 5 mikes then biked about 10 and went to the pool to do about 25 laps. Felt great to swim after working out so hope to do that regularly. Also did some resistance excersies for upper body, flutes, hamstrings and abs.
Hope to bike again tonight for second workout. (yes I count this morning as only one!). We're waiting for our new patio to be completed. It's going to be really nice.. We've invited a couple of friends over so hopefully it'll be done. It's really hot out so may be to hot to sit out there anyway. Now we need a pergalo.
I did give in to my after lunch craving (habit) for a coffee but no sweet with it. Not sure what I will have for a snack. Dinner will be chicken and veggies! Maybe I'll freeze some Greek yogurt for desert! Or maybe ricotta. I could make something with that, yum!

17 Day Diet, Day 1! (again!)

Tomorrow is June 1st and I have decided to try the 17 Day Diet again. This time I have to be serious and PREPARED! Hopefully I am. I am not where I thought I would be by now with just running and working out so I have to take drastic measures!
As an added incentive (as if wanting to lose weight and feel and look better wasn't enough) one of my new Sun City friends is going to do a Tri with me! Yikes, she's very good and competitive. I know that I don't have to beat her and surely can't but I do want to be respectable and not drown! It's been so long since I've blogged I've pretty much forgotten how to do it but will figure it out eventually and make this a great blog like so many of the ones I follow have. I'd love to inspire others so that is what I will attempt to do and that should also help keep me on the straight and narrow!

What is the 17 Day diet you ask? That's a good question. It's pretty simple which is why I like it. It's basically a high protein carb diet however, you can have 2 fruits a day as well as yogurt and lots of veggies, chicken and fish. Green tea and hot lemon water are encouraged and what a great time of year to drink more water. I do plan on cutting back on my coffee consumption but cannot totally go without. My plan is to only drink the magic coffee potion in the morning. I also plan to "give up" diet Coke. That may be even tougher than my extra coffee. However for 17 days I can survive, right? That is why I want to post daily. I need to be held accountable and this is the best way I can think of to do that.

So here's the plan! I will focus on both cardio and resistance training and will cross train doing at least one exercise every day!!!! Even if it is only to walk, yes that is exercise although it's hard for me to think of it that way. I will definately need to do cross-training with a couple of tri's coming up! Now that we're getting settled I'll be able to dedicate more time to working out (or should I say playing?!) I will be posting everyday with my workouts and my food diary so keep my honest.

So off to Pickleball tonight and am looking forward to Day 1 tomorrow. I plan to run to the pool, swim 300 yards and then run home! I hope to run about 8 miles. When I get home I will do some resistance training from the fitfabulousforever.com website. She basicially recommends doing resistance training 6 days a week incorporating most muscles only once in that cycle. Tomorrow will be upper body, hams and glutes and abs. Not bad. It'll be fun! I will post the links that I'm using as soon as I can figure out how to do that!

Cameron in Sun City

 

The house has walls!

 

Here is the latest picture of the house being built. I will update the blog shortly with all the latest details!

Getting motivated!

Now that we/re getting more settled we've started branching out. Yesterday we went to Ballantyne NC to check out the Ymca. They have 2 branches, each within 10 miles from us. When you join one you get to use both. One is for adults only and has lots of yoga, the other is larger and has an outdoor pool (for this summer) as well as a huge spinning room. They also offer a Triathlon training program this spring that I want to sign up for. Here in Sun City they have a personal group training program that I started last night. It's an hour of personal training and I loved it. The trainer is great, very bubbly and friendly. I'll do that on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 5:00.
We're really looking forward to running around here. Saturday we plan on going to a greenway called Anne Springs Greenways and it has miles of trails. There are a couple of running groups that meet there but we're going to venture there by ourselves first.
I did well on another day of Eat to Live and hopefully the scale will reflect my efforts soon. In any case, I love eating so many fruits and veggies and I know I'll reap the rewards soon.
Today we're going to go to a local mall. This should be an adventure. I'm sure I'll be in shell shock. There is so much shopping around here I don't know where to begin so we're going to start at the closest mall.
We haven't gotten to Charlotte to see the baby yet cause now that we're pretty much settled, Frank has a cold and we don't want to expose him to Cameron. Hopefully next week we'll be able to get out there and then on a semi-regular basis after that. I can't wait to see him. He is a real cutie.
Time to get ready to go shopping!
Have a great day!

Back online!

The computer guy came to fix my computer today so I'm back online or at least in the process of getting back. They had to replace my hard drive so I lost all of my files. I managed to find my external hard drive so will be able to reinstall my pictures. Hopefully I can remember how to do it. Frank got me the Photoshop software for Christmas and I've been looking forward to learning how to use that while we're in-between houses so I'm glad I'll be able to do that. Fortunately I had all of my music on my Ipad so I could transfer all those files back to Itunes as well as my Apps. That was scary. I was pretty stressed out thinking I had lost everything but thankfully most everything can be recreated, I just have to get creative.
Frank went to get his eye examined today and ordered new glasses. He broke his glasses about a month ago and has been wearing his old ones and he couldn't really see all that good. I don't know how he could stand that for so long. Anyway, he'll look much more with it once he gets those. His are pretty geeky!
I didn't get to run today because I had to wait for the computer guy but hopefully today was the last day we have anything pressing to do so no more excuses! I hope to run about 8 in the morning.
My eating is going really well so far so I'm really pleased although it's not 100%. Today I had my green smoothie, (yum!) and then soup and broccoli for lunch, an apple with almond butter for a snack and veggie chili and a huge salad for dinner. I will have my nightly Edy's Frozen Fruit snack for dessert. Got to lose about 20 pounds to be in fighting shape so I'm committed! I still am not willing to give up my coffee with cream though. Hopefully I can at least cut down but that is tough for me cause it's something I really enjoy.
Time for Idol! Yes, I still am addicted to it! Gotta Run!

Met with Pulte home supervisor

This morning we with Jim Klutz, the supervisor assigned to our house build. He's a really nice guy and we feel confident that he'll look out for us. Closing is scheduled for April 28, 89 days! Some of the options have changed since we made our selections so we were able to makes some changes. We were able to change to Kitchenaid appliances which was awesome! They had also added some additional color choices for the hardwood so we changed to a darker color. So all is ready to proceed. We did visit the sight and the slab is complete and the next thing is the framing which will happen Feb 11! It'll be fun to watch the progress. We'll be able to see the progress every morning as part of our run. Jims wife is a massage therapist who actually works here in Sun City. I'm hoping to be able get together with her and do trades.

We're now officially signed in to the fitness center and I'm looking forward starting a workout program. They have a couple of personal trainers that you can sign up with. Running is pretty good here so I think I'll be able to get into better shape. I've also decided to try a healthy eating with lots of fruits and veggies. So far I'm doing pretty good and want to drop about 20 pounds.

Tomorrow someone from Dell is coming to fix my computer that the cable guy crashed! Our warranty is up next week so it's really good timing! Can't wait to get back online although I'm really wishing I had a laptop! Ummmmmm!

We're in Sun City!

Wow! I'm not sure how we did it but we managed to pull it off and we're settling in to our temporary rental house in Sun City while we wait for our new forever home to be built! Last week was a blur. The movers came Tuesday and due to impending weather wanted to completely load us instead of just starting to load us and finishing on Wednesday! Yikes! We immediately went in to over drive! By 5:00 they were done and so were we. We went to dinner with Elsa and Joe at BoneFish! Kind of appropriate as we had gone to Bonefish the night we had decided to make an offer on our Pinehurst house! We went full circle. It was really fun to see them again and hope we stay in touch. We decided to spend the night with Valorie and Frank and really didn't sleep much at all. We got up in the morning and went back to our house to clean it. Wow! What a job. Frank and I worked non-stop for 6 hours. Exhausting. It looked great though and I think the new owners will be happy that we left it so nice for them. I hope they enjoy our house. We will miss it but I think the move is the best thing for us. About 2:30 we left for SC and got hung up in traffic. We made it to the landlords office about 5:30 to pick up the key. Now we're off to the new house. We found the house but there was no power. That was not good. It was getting dark and cold. We finally talked with the electric company and discovered that the main breaker had been turned-off. Power was on! We turned on the heat and went to find a hotel. Hotels were full or not dog friendly and we ended up staying at a dump. Really it was disgusting. I can't believe I didn't pursue at least switching rooms. The room we were in had had a microwave that had apparently had a popcorn fire. The smell was horrible. I couldn't wait to get out of there! It cost us over $100.00 to stay in a dump. Horrible. I hope I never tolerate that kind of treatment again. Long story, and I was tired. Another sleepless night! Poor Chico has been really stressed along with us. We were all getting grouchy!
We got up early and left to come back to the house to wait for the movers. They finally called and let us know they wouldn't be here until 11:00! The smoke detector was emitting an beep because of a low battery and that is horrible! Chico was really freaking out and didn't even want to go in the house. We didn't have a ladder or anything. I decided to put my MacGiver mind to work to figure out how to remove the detector. I noticed the large garbage can with lid and the recycle box. So I used the recycle box to step up on to the top and voila, it worked. I was able to remove the detector and the noise was gone. A little annoying that the landlord didn't get the house ready for us. Not a good sign.
Now, the movers finally show up. That was crazy, decisions, decisions. The garage is full and the house was full of boxes but we were finally in. The movers left about 5:00 and now we'd have to try to make sense of the mess. I realized that my yoga mat, bike helmet and swimming stuff did not make it in the house. They are buried and probably won't be able to be located. I hate to buy a new mat and bike helmet but we may have to if we want to be able to play.
Saturday and Sunday were finally a little less stressful. We had much of our stuff unpacked and put away, at least enough to be able to function. We even took a little time to go for a short run on Saturday and Sunday. We hit Costco on Sunday afternoon and our frig and freezer are full. I'm going to start the Eat to Live diet tomorrow which is lots of fruits and veggies. I want to lose some weight (that's nothing new) but I feel that I really have to drop a few pounds if I want to do better running and working out. It's a new place and a new opportunity to start a new. I'm going to Florida in March with Tate and Julie so have that as a goal date to reach by desired weight. It'll be fun! Huh! Green smoothies will be my new best friend!
Well it's time to get some rest so off I go to bed. I'm planning on posting about my success for the next 6 weeks with Dr Fuhrman.

After Alaska!

Before we begin our next adventure I thought I'd do a quick recap of what's been going on since our cruise!

We returned in the middle of August. We went to visit Tate and Julie and the kids for a few days and to celebrate Zella's 2nd birthday. She's really growing up fast.

Our next big event was to run Hinson Lake, 24 Hour Around the Lake. We made it to about 62 miles and decided that was enough. I wonder how I ever did 100! In October we ran the New River 50K. It was fun and I didn't get the leans this year and made the cutoff!

We've been thinking about moving from Pinehurst for awhile and started looking around to see where we might want to move to. We went to Wilmington NC, then to Charleston SC and finally settled on the Charlotte SC area. We put the house on the market thinking it would take months to sell but it sold within two weeks and we started to wonder if we were doing the right thing. It was getting to the point of no return. We decided to buy a home in Fort Mill SC which is about 12 miles outside of Charlotte where Erin and Josh live. We found another Del Webb Sun City community and decided it might be a good option for us. There seems to be lots of active people that live there as well as a fitness center, a pool, and lots of trails for running and biking. We are closing on our house on January 27th and will have to rent for a couple of months as we've decided to build a new place rather that a resale. This way we got to pick out all of our options as well as the lot. Our new home will be on Pinehurst Lane which we thought was appropriate for us.

Here's a picture of the model home that we're building.


So we're just about packed and the movers will come on Tuesday to load our belongings. It's scary to move and start all over again, but I think we'll really enjoy being closer to a city with lots more to do as well as to the newest member of our family, little Cameron. Here's his pic!



Here's a picture of Ella at Christmas!

Catching up!

It's been several months since I've posted to my blog so I think it's time to catch up. I'm going to go back in time and try to recreate what's been going on. As you will soon see, there has been a lot! I'm even going to have to change the name of my blog as a result of the latest events! But I digress, back to the past!

Back to our cruise! We spent the next day at sea with lots of relaxing. Spent time in the spa and taking in some shows. Our next stop was to be Ketchikan. We had signed up for an excursion to the Rain Forest to do Zip Lining and Adventure Rope Challenges. We met our bus at 6:00 AM and it was the first day of rain we had seen. The locals were thrilled with the rain because they had not had rain for about 15 days and they collect rain water for drinking and bathing etc. They love the rain! We were driven to the Rain Forest where we met up with our guides, they were just a couple of young boys so it was a little unnerving to trust them with our lives. They strapped us up for the Zip Lining and away we went. I'm afraid of heights but for some reason was not too nervous. I had survived the helicopter ride, so how bad could this be.
Here are some pics of our adventures that day!









The next part of our cruise was to Victoria Canada. We were only there for a couple of hours so decided to not do any excursions but to explore the town on our own. It was nice to just walk around and then we went back to the ship for dinner. The cruise was winding down and we were on our way back to Seattle. It's amazing how efficiently these ships operate. You could tell they've done it before!

Once back in Seattle we stayed a couple more days to finish up the trip. We did all the touristy things and really enjoyed the city. We had beautiful weather and unusually warm and sunny so all the stories about the rain and dreary days in Seattle didn't dampen our trip!