Fun With Vegetables

Since Rich was originally scheduled to be out of town at the end of this week, I had gotten tickets to take the kids to go see Acts 1:8 Ministry's presentation of Veggie Tales Live in Green Bay. Ironically, I kept putting off buying tickets because it was never at the forefront of my mind. When I did get around to booking them, some tickets had been "released" and we wound up in the fifth row just left of center stage. I honestly think Kyra's eyes were going to pop out of her head when she saw Larry up on stage larger than life. Seriously, if I didn't have children, I would probably still have gone to the show. I just love the Veggies and their message. Now of course, I'll be singing Veggie Tales songs well into next week, but 'tis a small price to be paid!

Where does she come up with this stuff?

Now mind you I had a gap in between my kids so I am "lacking" when it comes to memories as to when Ian did stuff versus when Kyra did stuff. BUT - this girl CAN talk and some of the stuff she comes up with just cracks me up. None of it is necessarily bad, but someone has to be saying stuff a lot that she repeats it (and sometimes even in the proper context).

So, back to my story. I cam home yesterday from the gym and the house was just beginning to wake up. I heard Rich upstairs with Kyra and it sounded like the two weren't exactly getting along (my little girl is SO not the morning person). Usually, I just let them settle it amongst themselves because Kyra will jump at the first sight of Mommy coming to the rescue. Finally, they started down the stairs, Rich looking particularly exasperated and Kyra stating, "Mommy! Daddy's not cooperating!"

Aaah, only three years old and already she's realizing that the men in our lives are never going to see things our way! My dearest Kyra, you are wise beyond your years!

He Just Knew I Had Too Much on My Plate

It's going to be fairly busy here in the next 10 days with preparations for the LM crop in Detroit. Ian is off of school on Thursday and Friday not to mention finding time to carve the pumpkins and trick-or-treating on Friday evening. In addition, I've known for about three weeks that Rich would be traveling the latter part of this week. So, I've been praying for calmness in the midst of chaos. Well, today Rich called me to tell me there was a scheduling "snafu" and his trip this week has been cancelled! Of course, this now means that I have to prepare something for his office's annual Halloween potluck, but I'll trade a batch of cake balls for having him home any day! Thank you, God!

Further Proof

In case anyone doubts my insanity, I made it official yesterday by participating in the Door County Fall 50. In a nutshell, it's a road "race" (seeing that we aren't ultra-competitive, we prefer to call it a run) starting at the top of the Door County Peninsula in Gills Rock and running down 50 miles to finish in Sturgeon Bay. The miles are split up into 10 legs and as a team of 5, we each ran two legs. I ran a 5 mile leg and a 6.1 mile leg. It was honestly the most beautfiul run I have ever taken part in and I truly was honored to be a part of this team and enjoyed spending time with such a great bunch of women.

This is our team bright-eyed and bushy tailed at the starting line. We stayed in Sister Bay, so we had a very short drive up to the starting line.
We also decorated our car with our team name. I don't have all the pictures back yet, but we had quotes from Forrest Gump on a side window and "We Run Like Girls" on our back window.
Here's Nadine. What a sweetheart! She ran our 1st and 6th legs! Not only is she the mommy of an 8-month old, but she ran the Fox Cities Half Marathon just a little over a month ago! And by golly, she did not let the woman in the tutu beat her!
This smiling girl is Miss Jennifer and I am so proud of her! She ran our 2nd and 7th legs. Prior to this race, the longest run she had ever completed in competition was an 8K (4.78 miles). Her first leg was 5.6 miles with two vicious hills! And she did it all with a smile on her face!
Miss Heather is our team organizer and most experienced runner. She took the longest leg of 7.3 miles and the shortest leg of 3.0 miles. She also had one of the most picturesque runs through Peninsula State Park. She also takes almost as many pictures as I do as a fellow scrapbooker.
If you think Ms. Hilari looks irked in this picture, it's probably because I snapped it right after she came up a monster of a hill. Despite that, she absolutely flew through her first and 10th legs! She is the funniest germ-a-phobe I have ever met!
This is me somewhere on the first of my two legs because I'm smiling. I don't think I'll be running time in the next couple of days though. Every inch of my leg muscles hurt.

As crazy as it sounds to run over 11 miles in a single day, there were over 60 individuals who ran the whole race SOLO. So, no, I don't think I've gone totally over the edge yet. The weekend was filled with lots of laughs and inside jokes, some of which I can't really post here. For those of you in the "know", I'll leave you with this parting image because you all know what we did!

Three Lousy Points!

Alright, this is going to sound really silly but it's also one of those "yay, God! Look how far I've come moments."

Every year, we have to take a health risk assessment for insurance purposes. We get slightly lower rates if we do and this year, they are actually "charging" more for people with risk factors such as smoking, obesity, etc. So now, in addition to just feeling good having lost all of this weight, we also have an incentive to keep it off! The assessments were last month but the follow up appointment to get results was today for me.

The one thing I really like about this test is that it shows your year-to-year progress. My first year, my score was 65 which isn't exactly great, but it's not where you want to be either. I actually scored negative points that year for being morbidly obese. Well, today I am a 97 out of 100! The only item that "held me back" was that my cholesterol ration was just a couple of tenths over the acceptable range of "excellent". UGH! So close! I always hated ratios in math class!

So, that's the good news of the day not to mention the fact that this year, I got a better score than Rich so I have bragging rights for the next year!

A Fruitful Day

It was a busy day today! I was reminded by Ian this week that we had not yet been apple picking this year. Kyra picked up on it too so we took a road trip to Hillside Orchard in Casco today. It was the perfect day today too! Here are the kids in the tractor-pulled wagon ready to set out for the orchard.


Even though Ian loves apples, I think he secretly loves apple picking because he has free reign to climb the trees. Of course, these trees were a little smaller than the orchard we visited last year so a few apples were knocked down in the process!


Kyra also got in on the picking! In fact, she had to have her own personal bag. I had a hard time getting a picture of her looking at the camera today though!



We also were able to do double-duty as the orchard also featured a pumpkin patch. Ian found a perfect pumpkin right away; however, Kyra was a little more picky! This one was too big, that one was still green, that one had a bug . . . and on and on. Finally, she settled on this one.


So, here we are with our harvest. It was a great day and I'm sure those kiddos will sleep well tonight!

Hug Your Loved Ones

Last night when I went into the office, I got an e-mail that the wife of one of our Milwaukee attorneys passed away very unexpectedly. Making it even more emotional, they had recently announced that they were pregnant with their second child. My heart is just breaking for the W family. Please keep them in your prayers

Waking the Dead

If you may recall, a few months back, we had a very loud incident with the smoke alarm. It has been quiet in our house ever since until the other night when I put a pot of water on to boil for some pasta for a recipe I was making. Apparently, the smoke detector is highly sensitive to steam (though I've never had a problem before) and it went off AGAIN! This time though, both Ian and Kyra were already in bed sound asleep. Rich was finally able to get the piercing noise to stop and I went upstairs to check on the kids. YEP! Sound asleep! I guess they inherited their ability to sleep through anything from their mom!

Happy Birthday, Kyra!

It's hard to believe three years have gone by since we welcomed our baby girl into our hearts and home! She makes me smile (and want to pull my hair out a lot of times, too!)

The big party is tomorrow, but she is in full birthday glory today!

If You've Gotta Work Out Anyway . . .

Make your workout count! Eric Harr, fitness pro and author of Goal Digger Fitness, will donate $5 to the humanitarian organization CARE for every hour you exercise and log here.

How cool is that? Now get out there and MOVE!

October Play List

Brrr! It's getting darn chilly for my morning runs! Time to get some more good tunes. I may add another list as I am training for the Fall 50 and I have quite a bit to do to be in shape to do it. Here's what is on the list for October:

Check Yes Juliet - We The Kings (yes, I brought it over from last month but it's just a great song to run to!)
Your Grace is Enough - Chris Tomlin
Unbreakable - Fireflight
Something To Say - Matthew West
Gotta Be Somebody - Nickelback
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Runaway - Bon Jovi
All American Girl - Carrie Underwood
Feels Like Tonight - Daughtry
Sin Wagon - Dixie Chicks
We Go Together - Grease Soundtrack
I'm Gonna Catch You - Laurie Berkner
Stay Strong - Newsboys
Definition of Me - Steven Curtis Chapman
Tell Him - Vonda Shepard