What we've been up to and 5 things

Well, summer's in full swing at the Thayer household as evidenced by:
1. several loads of towels and swimsuits a week
2. bottles of sunscreen all over the house and in each car
3. flip flops and sandals everywhere you turn, from sub-miniature a.k.a. Daniel's size on up to adult size with a few different sizes in between.
4. Gracie's refusal to wear anything other than a tank top or sundress
5. Both the older kids' hair getting blonder already from the chlorine and the sunshine

I do love summer. I only wish I had more time to spend with the kids during these next few months. But without much cash for a vacation or vacation time to take off work, we'll make the best of it. On the occasional Wed, we will do the concerts in the park, on the occasional Friday we'll do the movies in the park. We'll go to the beach a handful of times and the lake a handful of times. Luckily they can sleep in on Tues, Thurs and Fri as they are home with Scott and that means we can be less stringent about bedtimes on most nights except Sundays and Tuesdays when he and I both have to be at work early. So with the late light we can go for bike rides and walks after dinner and head down to the park. We'll also set up our pool soon since the heat seems to be here to stay now. So the kids will be all over getting in the pool after dinner or while they're waiting for dinner. We'll BBQ and I'm going to try to convince Scott to spend some of our tax refund money on a new patio table. It's crazy, but we have terrible luck with tables, having had four of them damaged by windstorms, fallen tree branches and the like in the 12 years of our marriage. We're left with a nice abundance of mis-matched chairs and he is hesitant to buy another table as he assumes it will just get crushed, broken, shattered yet again. But if I can convince him, then we'll eat a lot of dinners outside as well. Even without the patio table, we can spread out a blanket and have a picnic out there too. Anyway, we plan to spend a lot of time outdoors this summer, one way or another.

The other sure sign of summer is swimming lessons. Swimming lessons are at 5:30 pm, which is nice. It was a pleasant surprise to find a few years back that the Paso pool had lesson times that actually fit a working mother's schedule. Imagine that. Something the other pools in the area had overlooked. So we're in the second week of session 1, then we'll have two weeks off, then four more weeks of swimming lessons, then two weeks off before school starts. Gee, when you say it like that, the summer sounds so short!

I love the fact that the Paso lessons are every day for two weeks. I know a lot of other pools ofter one or two lessons a week for several weeks. But in two weeks of swimming every day, the kids improve so quickly! Last summer, Gracie moved up three levels in 6 weeks of lessons...she started in 2, moved to pre-3, then moved up to 3 and at the end of the summer, they recommended her for level 4 this summer. It was crazy to watch her improve. By the end of the summer she was a little fish! Or a little mermaid, as she would probably prefer to be called.

Ok, enough rambling, I should get back to work. This blog is being read (dare I say followed? lol) by more of my friends and family now so I won't be focusing solely on fitness and exercise any more, but providing peeks into our crazy lives as well.

Oh, and I can't forget - my 5 things I'm grateful for today:
1. My nutrition session with Shelley - so helpful, and motivating and informational
2. body combat with Carey...love working out with that girl and love any of Lauren's classes
3. a supportive and loving husband
4. dinner with "the girls" tonight after work
5. 10 days off work in t minus three days

Ciao!

Five Things and Nutrition & Fitness Update

Five things I am grateful for today:
1. casual work environment that allows shorts on a beautiful Friday
2. a beautiful Friday
3. my housecleaner coming today!
4. going to Ventura on Sunday to see my family
5. good friends

I haven't posted in a while and I wanted to give an update on where I am with my plans for fitness and nutrition.

I signed up for Weight Watchers with a friend. We weigh in on Wednesdays so I'll try to post my progress here each Wed. I am trying to journal in my EQ journal: 1. because they want us to continue to turn them in on Tuesdays starting 6/30. 2. because I still want to pay attention to fat, protein, carbs, etc. I just added columns for fiber and points.

As for exercise, I signed up for a boot camp package which includes meeting with the nutritionist four times over the next eight weeks and meeting with the sports psychologist four times over the next eight weeks. I am trying to hit boot camp 2-3 times a week, rock bottom 1-2 times a week and occasionally throwing in a strength session out on the floor with a friend or two.

I'm trying to get my cardio in 5-6 days a week. I'm shooting for a mix of running, RPM and Body Combat. Running is 2 miles a few times a week. I decided to drop out of TNT as I just don't have the time to commit to the fundraising right now and my bronchitis was taking longer to go away than I expected so I was missing some of the training sessions and already felt behind. I am doing the City to Sea half-marathon in October so I'll post my training progress here. I'll be training with the EQ team starting August 8th.

I think that's about it. I am still trying to get my before and after pics to post here. I'll be meeting with my trainer from before the TC to see how much stronger I am and what my measurements are. She measured in a lot more places than they did for the TC so we're both anxious to see how that turns out as well as how much more weight I can do on my various exercises, etc. I'll have to do a post-TC progress post here soon. Just gotta get all my data together.

Happy Friday everyone! I wish everyone an enjoyable weekend!!

Here we go again...

This morning I went back to boot camp at the gym. I know, I know, you thought I was done with all those insane early morning workouts. But to be perfectly honest, I missed them! I felt like I was floundering a little bit since the challenge. I was trying to go in and do weights on my own and then I would do my cardio. And while I felt pretty good about the cardio, I still knew I wasn't pushing myself enough and knew I needed to start taking some more classes so I would push myself even harder.

As for the strength training, my team and I had chatted about getting some group personal training sessions going, maybe go once a week for four sessions or something so we know what we're doing when we go in on our own. But in the meantime, I needed to have a plan. So I signed up for the post-TC package #1 which includes:
24 sessions of Boot Camp (MWF at 6:30)
4 sessions with the nutritionist
4 sessions with the sports psychologist

Last night I hit rock bottom for the first time in weeks and I thought I was going to die. And then this morning was my first morning back at boot camp. I knew going into it that it was going to just about kill me. For three reasons:
1. I haven't done boot camp in three weeks
2. I got about four hours of sleep last night so I was exhausted
3. It was Lauren's day. Nuff said.

And even though I have been running on the treadmill and lifting weights and doing the machines these past three weeks....it....kicked...my....butt. And my quads. And my hamstrings. And my biceps. And my triceps. And just about every other muscle you could think of. By the time we were done, all my muscles were twitching like I had a dozen nervous tics! But it felt good. I'm sore already, but it feels good.

Sick, isn't it? 4 months ago if you would have told me that I would have liked getting my hiney kicked like that, I would have asked for you to share a little of whatever you were smokin'.

Ah, it's good to be back!

Family Photos

My friend Carey was kind enough to take some pictures of my kids. Here are a few of the pics. I can't wait to see all of them. I like that some of them aren't your typical portraits but more of the kids at play, etc. I haven't really been in any pictures of the kids for some time now and I can't say that I loved the shots of me, but at least it's documented - my children do indeed have a mother. If I were to die tomorrow, they'd have pictures of us together at least, right? LOL Anyway, just thought I'd share.

June Craziness and Five Things

Things have been kind of a whirlwind since the Transformation Challenge finished up. School is almost out and it’s been wrapping up Box Top contests and final issues of PTO newsletters and end of the year teacher and staff gifts and all that fun stuff. Gracie gets out on Thursday, and Ian finishes preschool the same day. Then it’s on to summertime – spending days at Janet’s and Grandma’s, swimming lessons, soccer, time in Ventura, time at the lake, concerts and movies in the park. Probably every bit as busy as the school year, but everything seems like more fun because it’s OUTDOORS! I love summer, love the sunshine, love the weather….love it, love it, love it!

First, let me list my five things to be grateful for. Thank you to Jean Steel for providing me with this idea. I think it’s great as it helps me to focus on the positive and not the things I naturally gravitate toward complaining about. Here we go, five things I’m grateful for today:
1. The last Box Tops contest of the school year is behind me
2. A boss that’s understanding enough to let me have a fairly flexible schedule
3. That Gracie won a Kookey in the Box Tops drawing. She watched enviously and patiently while I gave out six of them to other winners throughout the school year. So glad she won one fair and square!
4. A nice, cold diet coke this morning. I know, I know, not the best thing for me to drink, but I needed the caffeine today.
5. Two days off this week – Thursday and Friday!

I’ll post again soon, maybe later today, with my latest plans for fitness, diet, also with my official results and pictures from the Transformation Challenge.

5 Things

Here are 5 things I am grateful for today:

1. Sunshine
2. Living on the central coast
3. My husband and what a great job he does taking care of me and the kids
4. Lunch with "my girls"
5. My parents - happy belated bday, Daddy...not that he reads this, but... :)

Crazy busy right now with end of school, working out, etc, etc. I signed up for a half-marathon (what?!?). I know. Insane, right? I'm doing it through Team in Training and I'll write more about it later. I ran 1.5 miles on Monday, 2 miles on Tuesday, 2 miles on Wednesday. Today's a rest day and tomorrow I run 2 miles again, then 4 on Saturday. A tad nervous about the 4 on Saturday, but we'll see.

I'll post more later about my Transformation Challenge results and my post-TC workout plans.

Happy Thursday to anybody out there reading!