April becomes May

It is May already.  It is hard to believe we are already into the fifth month of the year.

So many things are happening just this month.  There is the end of the school year. There will be parties and field trips and goodbyes. For our niece, the end of high school and her birthday.  For our "baby" girl, her second birthday.  For Michael, nights have become days again. And we can't forget that his birthday is coming quickly too. For friends, this is the beginning of transfer season.  Already we have seen the trucks in our neighborhood, estimating, packing, and loading.  Wednesday night is the last night for AWANA.  The girls have loved participating.  I have enjoyed having a semi regular date night with Michael and the Duchess.  And then of course, there is Mother's Day.  My girls keep asking about and reminding me that Mother's Day is coming soon.  Lady A and Miss E have both decided to make cards for me and that I need to have a scavenger hunt to find all of them.  Perhaps I will take a nap while they set it up... Michael works tomorrow so Princess N has offered to assist.  There is more, much more, going on, but what happened to April?

April was a blur.  It was a challenge.  When you have 6 people sharing germs, it generally takes 6 weeks for those germs to go away.  There was someone sick pretty much every week in April.  I'm not sure if it was all the same virus because we all had different symptoms and we were each out of commission for different lengths of time.  Princess N had fever for a day and was fine.  Miss E had fever for 5 days, but was back to normal otherwise after 3 days.  Michael was sick for three days while whatever got me knocked me out for almost two full weeks.  Lady A and the Duchess seemed to escape unscathed.

I am hoping May slows down a bit so we can enjoy it.

Warrior Challenge

Princess N is involved in a class at her school called Leadership Development Corps.  On Saturday, she participated in what they call the Warrior Challenge.  It is consisted of a 1/4 mile run, a hill climb, hurdles, a rope crawl, a tire flip, box jumps, sit ups and pushups, carrying weights, and a final run to the finish.

Michael had agreed to participate with Princess N but Lady A really want to join in too.  We got them all signed in and in line to wait their turn to start.  They went in groups of four, starting with the run.

Michael gave them two rules.  Don't walk and don't give up.

Lady A took that to heart.

She started out with the rest of them, but soon was in the lead.  

 She waved briefly for the camera, but quickly turned her attention back to the task at hand.

Princess N was a little more relaxed about the run.

She smiled and waved until I reminded her to pay attention to where she was going.

She put her head down and focused on her running.

 I'm not sure if you can see, but in the photo below, Lady A is exiting the photo while Princess N is just barely coming into the right-hand side. (You can click the photo to make it larger)

At this point, I would guess that Lady A had a 20-25 yard lead on Michael and about a 30-35 yard lead on Princess N.

Then came the hill climb.  Lady A just didn't stop!

I wanted to get a photo of Princess N as well but Miss E decided to walk away from the long jump pit with another child's toy.  Plus, I wanted her to move quickly so she decided to walk slower.

 Both of the girls thought tire flipping was fun.

Of course, Michael thought it was easy.

 I am glad our girls are enjoying being active.

It was so much fun to watch them.

Then came the box jumps, sit ups, and pushups.  Each of the girls was determined to complete the challenges.

Princess N actually had fairly good form for her pushups.  I believe they had to do 10 sit ups and 10 pushups.

Lady A struggled through hers, but she made it!

Princess N was getting tired, but she ran while carrying two 10 pound weights around a cone and back to the start.  I'd guess it was about 20 yards total distance.

Lady A was carrying 15 pounds.  She was NOT going to give up! I love the determined look on her face.

Finally finished!  Princess N was exhausted and it shows!

Lady A was ready to go through it again. She made all of us laugh with her loud proclamation that she "wanted to do that workout EVERYDAY!"

All three of my "Warriors" and the three of them with a little girl who wanted to be in every photo. (If you look closely, you can see the corner of the hat Miss E is wearing in the bottom left corner of the first photo here)

 

Ewww!!!

I ate a bug!

Michael & I went for a bike ride last night and I was in the lead.  As I inhaled, I realized that I had just been hit by a bug.  Next thing I know, I felt the bug in the back of my throat.  All I could do was swallow... and try not to be completely grossed out.

BUT........


We rode for 29min and 53sec and went 4.32 miles!!

Mini-goals

I have a big goal.  I know when I want to make that goal, but along the way I have several mini-goals.

One of them was to ride my bicycle for 20 minutes.

I made it 10 minutes a month or so ago.

I made it 15 minutes a couple of weeks ago.

Today... I rode my bicycle for 30 minutes!!!

Guess I need a new mini-goal.  What do you think?

Replay

ONE MORE TIME!

(click the words above)

Solve your own problems!

First, my youngest sister bought the most amazing notebook for me.

I will post a picture sometime after I actually take one with my camera.

For today, the quote will suffice.

Dear Math,

I am not a psychiatrist.  Please solve your own problems.

After 10 almost straight hours of math, I am done.

I decided it would be a good idea to review for the quiz I needed to take. Four hours into it, I had only made it through two sections.  Five and a half hours later, I made it through all four sections.

I took a break to motivate the girls on the evening cleanup and took a very short bike ride.  At 8:20pm I sat down to take the quiz.  I finished and had missed one question completely and part of two questions.  That equalled about an 86%. 

The way our class is set up, the quiz is done online and we have 2 attempts.  We keep the higher grade.  So, since I figured out what I did wrong, I retook the quiz.

I finished at 10:43pm.

I'm going to bed.

Gluten Free

Since my dear sister has a child who is allergic to wheat, I've sent her websites/blogs that I run across that deal with that subject. I was reading a blog tonight and I have copied several recipes that look amazing.

I'm going to try these over the next couple of months. If anything turns out good, I'll share.

Hopefully we will be able to find some things that my nephew can eat when he comes to visit. Which I hope will be often!

Photo Challenge # 3

I realized that I had not posted my photo challenge during the last 2 weeks. Our challenge was signs or walls.

I liked the marker floating out in the water as we made our way toward either Ocracoke Island or Cape Hatteras. Not your typical sign, but yet still something that points us on our way. It makes me think of the signs that God places in our lives. The markers that tell us we are on the right path. How many times do we (I) ignore those signs?


As stated in a previous post, a Nova that "runs good" makes me laugh!

Photo Challenge Take 1

I promised I'd share the photos from the challenge, so here they are. Our first challenge was to find something abandoned, rusted or broken. I think I got all 3 in these photos.

Anchors seen behind the museum at the Bald Head Island Lighthouse. This abandoned building caught my eye because of its condition, but also because of the small white cross on the side.