Running late...

As usual...

Lost another 3.2 pounds this week.
Busy weekend, company visiting.
Kitchen Chemistry Summer Camp starts at the Y today.
Gotta go!
Have a good Monday!

Writer's Workshop... Interview a child

It's Thursday's Writer's Workshop with Mama Kat again today. I liked a lot of the prompt choices but decided on the one that suggests interviewing a child. I thought The Son would think this was really cool and be more than happy to help. I was wrong. He helped me, but was less than enthusiastic.

I decided to interview him on jobs since I always find children's take on jobs and what adults do amusing. Here goes...

Me: What does Daddy do for a job?

The Son: Work.

Me: Well, I know but what does he do for a job?

The Son: He's a dean.

Me: Well, what does that mean, to be the dean?

The Son: He teaches

Me: Is that all he does?

The Son: I think so.

Me: How much money does Daddy make at his job?

The Son: A lot .

Me: What does Mommy do for a job?

The Son: Work at the YMCA.

Me: What exactly do I do there?

The Son: Teach and have meetings.

Me: Do I do anything else?

The Son: Well, not that I can think of

Me: How much money does Mommy make?

The Son: Some.

Me: So, what are you going to do for a job when you grow up?

The Son: Be a paleontologist.

Me: At what age do you think you'll become a paleontologist?

The Son: (thinking really hard) I don't know.

Me: Well, what do you think? Take a guess.

The Son: Hmmmmm, I don't know, a teenager?

Me: OK, and how much money will you make as a paleontologist?

The Son: 120

Me: What do you think best job in the whole world is?

The Son: Well, there's 3 best jobs... a paleontologist, a marine biologist and... (thinking) what's the one that studies bugs?

Me: an entomologist?

The Son: Yeah, an entomologist, do you know how to spell that?

Me: Yes, I know how to spell that. What's the worst job in the whole world?

The Son: Going to work when you have kids and you're a dad.

Me: OK well, is there anything else you want to tell me about jobs?

The Son: Well, let me just tell you something before I tell you stuff about jobs, your hair's all messed up.

Me: I know, anything else about jobs?

The Son: No, not really, my stomach's growling.

Me: OK then, go eat breakfast. Thanks!

The Son: (as he runs off) You're welcome...

So, there you have it folks... an interview with my five-year-old on jobs and work, enlightening, huh?

Oh the lies...

and the deception... and the sneakiness...

The Son is growing up. And not in a good way. The Husband and I recently had our first ever "caught him in a lie" experience. It through me for a loop and although it was and is pretty hilarious, it still made me realize that my Baby Boy is growing up fast.

"Parent's Night Out" (PNO) at the YMCA, is The Night we look forward too all month. Free babysitting at the Y for three full hours! The Son loves it too and never forgives me if I forget to sign him up. I don't know exactly what they do with the kids while we're gone but it must be shangri la up in there because he doesn't want to come home when it's over.

So this past Saturday we got all prettied up, and proceeded to drive The Son over to the Y so that The Husband and I could go out on our date. The Y has rules that children are not supposed to bring items from home when going to Kids' Corner (when the parents work out) or during PNO. The Son knows this rule but doesn't like it. In all fairness to him, not all the parent's obey the rule so he does see other children bringing personal items from home but... not. my. kid. Generally, I am a rule follower AND I don't want to have to deal with the aftermath if he takes something and it gets lost or broken. So anyway, as we're driving over there, the Son says,

"You know, the great thing about PNO and the Y is, I don't have to bring anything but myself!"

That should have been our first clue that something was up. We get to the Y, I get him out of the car seat and he skips on into the building. As I bent down to say goodbye to him, I noticed that his hand was pressed up against his belly in a strange way and I instantly realized that he was hiding something under his shirt. A Bakugan card! The same Bakugan card that we told him he could not bring to the Y! I was shocked! The Son had never lied to me before, well, at least not this kind of lie that required planning and a set-up and down right devious behavior on his part! As soon as he was caught he started to cry. I told him I was very angry and disappointed. I knew I should march him right back out to the car and turn around and drive home but I just couldn't do it. The Husband (who was waiting in the car for me) and I really wanted to go out on our date. We really only get this one short date a month unless The MIL is visiting. So, I told The Son, who was still crying, that he was very lucky that Momma and Daddy wanted to go out on our date so badly and that he had to pull himself together and we would talk about this incident later. I took the offending Bakugan card, gave him a hug and sent him on his way.

When I got out to the car, I explained it all to The Husband who was equally shocked. Eventually, we got a big laugh out of the whole thing especially the "You know the great thing about PNO..." set up that The Son had tried to lay on us eariler. At least he's smart enough to lay his ground work, right? We didn't deal with the incident that night because it's pretty much bed time when PNO is over but the next day, we took away all his Bakugan toys and tv shows for two days which, for The Son was like a lifetime. I think he learned his lesson.

This time.

I'm sure there's much more to come and we'll be learning right along with him. Give me strength.

Sneaky? Who me?

The Big Five-OH!

I know I am very late with my Healthy Living post but I've been busy this weekend, busy doing nothing but busy nonetheless. ;) So... here ya go!

Healthy Living with
CityMomma/CountryMomma

Yep! I did it! I have officially lost 50 pounds. My total loss for this week was 3.4 pounds and I have to wonder if it had anything to do with Jillian Michaels and her "30-day Shred." I know I posted about that last week. I've been faithfully going strong with it since June 6th. I think you're supposed to do it every day for 30 days, 10 days each level but honestly, I just can't do that. I also do about an hour of cardio 5 or 6 times a week and I need a day or two off each week. Anyway... I am up to Day 12 which means I'm on my second day of level 2. Wow! It's a toughie and thank Goodness I am doing it in my basement by myself because I am cursing audibly after some of those moves. I got to the gym this morning and did 45 minutes on the AMT machine for a total of 700 calories (according to the machine, I know that's not completely accurate) and then I did my shred. I'm feeling fit as a fiddle today! It's interesting to note that I am still considered obese according to my BMI, a couple more BMI points and I'll "only" be overweight. Who would have thought I'd look forward to just being "overweight?"

Incidentally, if I look back at my weight loss from June 6th when I started, I have lost a total of 5.8 pounds! Not too shabby! I took measurements but won't take those again until the end of the 30 days. I'll keep you updated.

I am teaching swimming tonight in about an hour so this will be a short post. Tonight should be fun because it's something a little different. Our regular students have off for a week and we're doing a special "SPLASH in the Pool" event for the community. S-P-L-A-S-H stands for something, I guess I'll find out what it is after tonight. I do know that it's a free safety program for kids to come learn basic pool safety. Should be a good time. We'll have a lot of kids over the three hours that I'm there! Fun!

Hope you're all having a great Monday, I'll be back with some more posts this week. One on our strawberry picking adventures and another on lying by The Son... CCMomma was thrown for a little loop this weekend! I also want to show you what we gave to The Husband for Father's Day. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Writer's Workshop... Solicited, Unsolicited Parenting Advice

It's Thursday and I really liked one of Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop prompts this morning. I haven't participated in a while but I have been thinking of telling you all about this for a while now and this presents me with the perfect opportunity:

Share a piece of unsolicited parenting advice...only I'm soliciting it.

Mama Kat writes a lovely piece about getting her day care children to nap every day, this includes her own children of course. She offers some great ideas which she guarantees work with the children she takes care of. Solid advice, you can be sure. My solicited, unsolicited parenting advice is somewhat different...

There are many theories on child-rearing and parenting, "Parenting by Loving Guidance and Firm Boundaries," "Parenting by Using Natural and Logical Consequences," Parenting Using Mutual Respect and Listening," etc., etc. I'm sure they're all fine, but ultimately our goal as caregivers is to get those in our care to do what we want them to do, when we want them to do it. That brings me to my theory of parenting...

"Parenting by Competition" *

My theory works especially well for boys and I say that because I have no experience parenting a girl. If you are the parent of a female child, well, you'll have to modify these competitions to suit your purposes. It's really a very simple strategy. Just turn everything into a competition. Everything. Your child will want to win so much that they'll complete any task you ask of them, and they'll do it quickly. The key here is that you must allow your child to win pretty much all the time. Allow me to offer a few examples:

1- Cleaning up their toys...
When your child has toys that need to be cleaned up, all you have to say is, "I bet I can clean up more toys than you can AND in a faster time." Your child will instantly begin cleaning up so that they can beat you. Remember, you must allow them to beat you.

2- "Trying" to go potty when out at the mall...
This works well when your child is completely potty trained and is able to go into a bathroom stall by themselves with you in the stall next to them. It's great for those kids who say, "I don't have to go" when you know darn well that they do. Simply tell them, "I bet I can pee faster than you can." Works. Every. Time. I used it when The Son was younger, in the process of potty training, and we had to go in the same stall by telling him that I could pee longer than he did and pretending to time it, with him winning of course...

3- Going upstairs to go to bed...
Simple... "I bet I can beat you up the stairs." This one has been used in our household when the theory of "Parenting by Competition" is starting to lose it's effectiveness, this is when YOU actually win the race up the stairs. It WILL make your child angry to lose but it will also give you the upper hand by making the winning next time all the more desirable. You can quickly alleviate any anger by moving on to the next competition... "I bet can put toothpaste on my toothbrush faster than you can."

4- At the Y or beach or swimming club...
"I bet I can get dressed (or undressed or changed into my swimsuit) faster than you can"

Try it! You can add, change and modify the competitions to suit your many parenting needs. I guarantee my "Parenting by Competition" theory WILL work. If it doesn't, I suggest you research my other parenting theory... "Parenting by Bribery."

*disclaimer: This theory of parenting is meant to be taken with a grain of salt, rest assured that The Son, is truly a loving, sweet, good boy with whom we only need to resort to "Parenting by Competition" with on rare occasions. On those occasions however, it really does work. ;)

The Amish are coming, the Amish are coming...

We live less than an hour from "Amish Country" and we have lots of Amish folks living in nearby towns. We have Amish at our farmer's markets and Amish Corn in the summer. (Amish corn isn't really any different from regular corn, it's just fresher than you would buy at the grocery store, and therefore, seems to be tastier.) Some of you may remember my "Dear Amish Man" posts from last summer. I don't know how to tell him this year that I won't be able to eat as much corn as I did last year because of my new Healthy Living lifestyle.

Anyway, I digress... last Sunday I learned that the Amish go out on dates, or "go visiting" and then ride up and down main roads in their buggies pulled by horses. I witnessed this up close and personal recently as I was driving home from some outlet shopping. I have never seen so many Amish at one time. Honestly, I passed about 50 or so buggies. Most of them were teens out together for some evening fun. They looked as awkward as any average teens you would see out on dates but riding along in a buggy instead of a car. Some were in groups and some were just on boy/girl dates. I saw a few older married couples out enjoying a lovely evening as well. It was a little irritating at first since I had difficulty passing some of them safely with so many on the road but then I realized, I was actually pretty lucky to have witnessed (get it, "Witness?" I crack myself up!) such a cool thing and I started to enjoy it.

I took a couple pictures of the beautiful countryside as well as a picture of something I found very amusing when I first moved here. I didn't take any pictures of the Amish people because I felt like that would be kind of rude as I was driving and taking pictures of them like they were some kind of tourist attraction...I didn't want to be like some crazy Amish paparazzi after all.


This is a parking spot at our grocery store. A big, normal, every day grocery store. I will admit that I have NEVER seen an Amish buggy parked at our grocery store but they could park here or in one of the three spaces reserved for them if they wanted to. Interesting, huh?

So, I continue to look forward to that first ear of delicious, nutritious, corn on the cob this summer, should just be a few more weeks. The corn stalks are as high as a baby elephant's eye... keep growing little corn, I love you!

Today was my last day of morning care at the elementary school. I am so happy and can hardly believe I made it through the entire school year. It was not a fun thing to get up that early each morning. I'm glad it's over... for now.

Have a great Wednesday everyone.

I never learn...

Here it is 11:30 PM on the day that I complained that I was SO tired and here I sit, still goofing around on the computer. I wanted to say that my day did turn out a lot better than I thought it would when I was writing my previous post. Once I got myself together and got out and about to the Y, I ended up having a pretty good night.

I could not manage to get in a good run on the treadmill. I think it's because I did two Jillian Michaels' videos yesterday and my legs were sore... really sore! I ran .75 mile and then ended up switching to the AMT machine for a half an hour. Got a good work out in, not a great one but a good one. I'm going to swing by the Y in the morning after my second to last day of my morning job. (hooray!) and hope that I can do the run then. I took off a day from Jillian to give my poor legs a rest. I'll be back on the 30 day shred tomorrow for day 8!

The Husband made a really interesting pork chop and rhubarb recipe for dinner tonight and I made "Hungry Girl" glazed carrots in the crock pot to go with it. I say "interesting" as opposed to delicious because although it was actually kind of delicious, it was sweeter than I tend to like for a dinner entree'. It kind of tasted like pork chops seasoned with rosemary and served with an apple stuffing. There was not one apple in it but that's what it tasted like. I liked it, The Husband loved it, The Son had a peanut butter sandwich. But seriously, give it a try, it was good.

So, there you have it, my day got a bit better, it's 11:41 now and I'm still awake. I am really getting off this computer and heading to bed. Good night all... hope your Monday turned out better than you thought it would too.

Sleep.

Can I just tell you how much I need my sleep? We had a friend over last night for a couple cocktails (cat-tails as The Son calls it) and I ended up staying up until 1:30. I didn't drink a lot and our friend was gone around 11:00 but I just couldn't sleep.

I had to get up to go to my morning job (2 more days!) and I was nervous because I knew that my usual coworker wouldn't be there this morning, she started summer camp and I was afraid that if I overslept, no one would be there for the early birds. Stress about over-sleeping = no sleep. Ugh! Tomorrow I'm setting my cell phone too.

Consequently, I can't organize my thoughts on any clever or witty posts, I don't want to work out and I can't seem to get my summer camp plans OR swim report cards together. I have swim lessons tonight and those report cards are complete but I still have to do Wednesday's report cards. I am skipping my Jillian Michaels' 30-day Shred today and just running at the Y. I know I'll feel better once I get going... I just need to get going...

I hope you're all having a better day than I am. Happy stinkin' Monday. Blah.

Here's a picture of me and The Son at his Mother's Day Tea back in the beginning of May. This way I'll leave you with a smile and some cuteness (his, not mine) instead of being so grumpy.

Feeling Fine Friday!

I can't remember if I'm supposed to do my living healthy posts on Thursday or Friday anymore. I think it's Friday... I didn't do one yesterday anyway so I guess it's a "moo" point. You know, like a cow's opinion? (Remember that? Gosh, I loved "Friends") So here we go for today...

Healthy Living with
CityMomma/CountryMomma

I lost another 2.5 pounds this week! After no loss last week, it was a great feeling! I was very diligent with my food tracking this week. I really watched my intake of processed foods and I honestly tracked every, single, morsel of food and every single drink that I put in my mouth. It can get exhausting but as we can see, I had a 2.5 loss so it's worth it. By the way, that puts me at a grand total of 47 pounds! Can I get a WOO HOO!?

I discovered a free program on line that I am loving. It's www.fitday.com. It's free and you can track all your food, enter custom foods and even track all the protein/fat/carbs that you're eating. It's easy once you get it all set up and interesting to see the actual nutritional facts broken down for you like that. I've been on it a week and will definitely stay with it. It's a great tool.

I've also been trying some new recipes. Summer is a great time to do that since our farmer's markets and Amish markets are in full swing. I picked up a copy of "Eating Well" magazine and have been thrilled with everything I've tried in there so far. I felt very proud of the dinner I made last night, Braised Broccoli Rabe with Rotini pasta, it was topped with toasted walnuts and served with turkey Italian sausage that The Husband grilled on the grill. Wow! It was SO good! The Husband enjoyed it as well. It's fun to to try new recipes that are healthy and wholesome!

I also started the Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred this week along with my regular cardio. Have you heard about it? I first heard about it on Suburban Turmoil, one of my favorite blogs. (I linked to Lindsay's "Shred" post there for you.) She links to a few other blogs and articles regarding The Shred. It's worth a read. It's also worth checking out the rest of Lindsay's blog, she's very funny, talented and timely. Anyway... I am on day 5 of The Shred and it's going pretty well. I combine it with my running and other cardio but for now, I've stopped doing my weights at the gym. Trust me when I tell you that Jillian's program seems like it will more than cover me weight-wise, at least for this month. If you've tried this program, or want to start, leave me a comment, I want to know what you think!

Lastly, I finally got into the gym for a great run this morning! I did 4 miles on the treadmill and I am definitely improving my pace. I used to run at a 5.0 pace exclusively and that was hard for me but now I rarely go below 5.2 and I try to stick around 5.4/5.5. I even manage to get some 6.0s in there. As the weight comes off, the running gets faster, that's for sure! Most of the time, I might actually find that I like it too. Go figure! ha ha!

We're busy this weekend with a birthday party, household chores, working out, planning for summer camp weeks that I'm running and completing the dreaded swim instructor report cards. Hope you all have a great one! Live healthy!

Hey Toto...

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Yesterday, I was spending too much time on facebook working on my computer, getting ready to take The Son to Toys R Us and he was watching "Noggin." Yes, he's going into Kindergarten next year and he still watches "Noggin." He'd much rather watch Cartoon Network but CCMomma picks the channels around here and The Son watches what I put on! Anyway, he comes running to me crying that he heard a tornado warning. We don't get many tornadoes here in this part of Pennsylvania. I'm close to 40 and I've never seen one (knocking wood) so I wasn't that alarmed. The Son was. I went into the family room, turned to our local news channel and lo and behold... there was a tornado warning for our county. Just. Our. County. The weather chart had purple on it, I have never seen purple on the weather chart and the purple was centered over the town in which The Son takes karate! A town away from our town.

I was beginning to get a bit scared and The Son was heading into panic mode. Sometimes he's too smart for his own good, my kid. I decided to close all the windows because the rain was coming down fast and I asked him if he'd feel better heading down to our finished basement to watch TV there. He said he would. I sent him down with the dog and quickly ran upstairs to close the windows. When I headed down to the basement, I found The Son curled up on the floor behind the couch and the chair, shuddering in fright. I was feeling bad for the poor kid. We decided to watch "Ellen" and he snuggled up next to me. I assured him that he was safe and the only reason I suggested heading down to the basement was so that he would feel more comfortable. The tornado warning was over at 4:00 PM, we watched the weather and he heard that there was no more tornado warning and as far as I know, none touched down. (Phew!) He was feeling so much better and was ready to head out to Toys R Us. Problem was, now it was thundering and lighteninging. (Is that a word?) We live in the country so we practically have to drive to another state to get to a Toys R Us and by "practically", I mean we do. I hate driving in the rain let alone the thunder, etc. so we didn't go. I'm a bad mom. Sorry Son. We're heading there soon today and I'm guessing all will be alright with his world again.

After TRU I am heading to the Y to work out. I'm still having trouble getting my summer schedule down now that The Son isn't in preschool. I know it will work itself out one way or another. The good thing is, I'm still getting there, just not feeling very organized about it. Swimming lessons tonight... as long as there's no more thunder storms... that remains to be seen of course. Have a great day everyone. We're off to buy a new Bakugaan toy.

The New Girl!

I don't know how I forgot to post these. Since The Sister seems to have abandoned her blog... can't imagine why, I decided I will have to be the one to post pictures of my newest niece. I can't quite figure out what to call her on here so I think we'll just have to settle for The Baby Niece to go along with her big sister, The Niece. They're making it very complicated, these girls...

Beautiful, huh? The Sister thinks she looks like our mom, I would have to agree...





Thanks for stopping by! The Son and I are running some errands today. Errands that involve Toys R Us so needless to say, one of us is very excited. Have a great Tuesday.

Pre-K Graduation... I hope you like pictures!

Last Wednesday, The Son "graduated" from Pre-K. I'd like to start off by saying that I am really not into the caps and gowns for Pre-K or Kindergarten graduation. Personally, I think they should be saved for high school, college and graduate degrees (of which The Son will surely have many ;) ) That being said, his school does the cap and gown thing so I had to embrace it... they do look awfully cute.

I started off with a few pictures on our front step. It was kind of sunny so he's a little bit squinty. The Son has very sensitive eyes. (rolling my eyes)



Here he is on his first day, back in September. See, he was a little squinty there too...


A few more inside pictures before we headed out. This Boy is obsessed with giving the "thumb's up" sign in every. picture. You know I had to get one of these...


The graduation was held outside in the camp pavilion which worked out beautifully. Here's The Son as they entered and sat down. He looks a bit nervous and I could tell he was scared. His teachers, both on separate occasions had told me what a good singer he is and how he was definitely "the leader" with the songs in the class. I came to realize that by "the leader" they really meant, he is the only one who is going to sing at the graduation.

...I guess he felt the pressure.

The Pledge of Allegiance was said...

And numerous songs were sung...

...with great emotion...

Certificates (let's not call them diplomas, shall we?) were handed out...


And much love and proudness (yes, I know that's not a word.) abounded.



The Son was given a few gifts, the most exciting being a Hot Wheels car that changes color with hot or cold water. He's already gotten another one and keeps forgetting that he put them in the freezer to change color. Silly kid...

The families had snacks and chatted and good times were had by all. I was very pleased with The Son's schooling at our YMCA and would recommend the program to anyone. His teachers were wonderful and I'm very glad that we'll still be able to see them since we're at the Y all the time. They would be missed otherwise. It was a great year! He's ready for Kindergarten... I'm not sure I am, but he certainly is.


Let the summer fun begin...

A German Shorthair Pointer break...

It's been a while since we had some cute pictures of our German Shorthair "Pup" on the blog. I thought it was about time.

Ziggy enjoys fruit. When I have fresh pineapple, he wants the core, he eats the whole thing, and I've recently discovered that he also loves watermelon. Here he is devouring the remains in the bottom of a "personal" watermelon that I scraped out for him. He slurped and slopped this thing right up. As you can see from the photos, he's not the neatest eater as is evidenced by his regular food strewn all about the mud room.



Thanks for stopping by... hope you're enjoying your weekend!

A mini-tri report and Healthy Living!

Well, it's been almost a week since I participated in our YMCA's mini-triathlon. It was a good time and I'm really glad that I did it. It wasn't a traditional triathlon where you competed against other participants but really a challenge that you simply complete the tasks and I guess in a way, compete against yourself for your own goals. We were asked to: swim (in the pool) for 20 minutes, Complete a 40 minute spin class, (Some participants rode bikes outside for 40 minutes) and run a 5K at the park across from the Y.

I knew that I could do it and my main focus was to run the entire 5K... no walking. Because I usually run on the treadmill, it's definitely a challenge for me to run outside, I really need to work on that.

I was in the third wave of participants. I had a swim lane to myself because my neighbor who was supposed to "race" with me was unable to get off from work. (She's a nurse who we've come to realize took care of my mother in the hospital before she died, we never met each other since she works third shift but I find it very interesting that we moved across the street from each other just a few months after my mom's death... anyway...) I knew that I had to take it easy during the swim so as not to burn myself out. I am not a swimmer, I am a swim INSTRUCTOR and I can swim well, but I don't have the stamina to swim lap after lap after lap. I did a little freestyle and just about every other stroke there is, just to keep swimming the full 20 minutes.

They blew the whistle to signal the end of the swim portion. I hopped out and ran to the locker room. Some people kept their wet swimsuit on under their biking/running clothes but... yuck! I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on doing my best if I was uncomfortable Can you say "high maintenance?, I had to put on dry clothes. I had purchased a super absorbent swim towel (kind of like a "Sham-Wow) and that was very helpful to getting me changed in approximately 2 minutes.

I ran up to the spin studio and hopped on a bike. I have tried spinning before and I have to say, I just don't think it's my thing. My butt bones hurt SO bad. They tell me this gets less and less as you continue to spin but I certainly haven't experienced that yet. I'll keep going once in a while as I like to switch things up in my exercise routine now and again. The instructor and the other volunteers in the spin studio were SO helpful in getting our bikes adjusted and even though I'm sure they knew I wasn't really a "spinner" they didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all. It was great!

When they gave us the signal to get off our bikes, my legs were really feeling wiggly. I decided that I would walk over to the park instead of running, just to regroup. My ultimate goal was to run the full 5K at the park. I made it over and started running. It's a nice path to run on. A little bit of hills, but nothing major at all. Each loop is .5 miles so I knew I had to do six laps around. I managed to run the entire thing. I did stop very briefly each loop around to get a sip or two of water but that's only because I'm clumsy and I can't run and drink at the same time. As I ran, people who had finished in waves one and two were clapping and cheering us on. It was a very supportive atmosphere. I was feeling the love and all the supporters certainly helped me keep running even though I really wanted to walk.

The Son and The Husband showed up at the park when I was heading into my fourth loop around so they were able to get some pictures. When I finished, I decided to walk one more lap around for a cool down and after that, I headed into the center of the park very pleased with what I had accomplished. It was a great day! I went home and took a three-hour nap and we celebrated that evening with dinner out and a family movie. Good times had by all!

So not cute but here you go...





So now onto my...

Healthy Living with
CityMomma/CountryMomma
report for the week...

I didn't lose any weight this week! WHAT? I just about died when I got on the scale... this is the first time since January that I haven't lost a little something. It's OK though because I didn't gain either and I know that I didn't really do anything wrong, and it's gotten me back in to really focusing on the things I am putting in my body. I will admit that although I am pretty strict, I have been getting a little lackadaisical with the measuring and weighing. I also haven't been tracking my foods, so those little tastes of treats here and there might be getting out of control. I've recommitted to writing it all down! Also, I think that there might be days when I'm not eating enough. I know that I need to stay consistently within my target calorie range. I know that I'll have a much better week next week and I'll show bigger numbers on the scale. It's all good!

Today is The Son's last day of school. I will be heading to the gym for my weights, my run and some extra cardio today. Our schedule is going to be changing and the next few weeks might be a little tricky as to when I can fit in my work outs. They'll be fit in for sure but I have to get my new summer schedule going.

Have a great Friday everyone. Enjoy your weekend!

Slacker McSlackenstein...

Yes, I know, I know, I've been a blog slacker this week. I have SO many posts in my brain but I also have SO many pictures for said posts on my camera. As I have mentioned countless times, uploading photos is an effort for me, I will do it tomorrow no matter what. I promise.

Today, The Son is graduating from Pre-K. Evidently this involves mini caps and gowns (rolls eyes... I hate that for little kids) and lots of cuteness and singing which of course, I know I'll love. So you see, I'll be taking more pictures that I'll want to share with you and then I'll have to upload those too. Better to do it all at once, don't ya think?

I already hit the gym today, ran my 5K on the treadmill, did my full body weights and did a 15 minute interval program on the AMT machine for a grand total of 800 calories burned! (at least that's what the machines say after entering my stats... I know it could be off somewhat) So, I'm feeling pretty good right about now. Tomorrow is weigh in, here's to hoping I'm still feeling good after that.

I must go shower and get ready for this afternoon's festivites and then I have to teach swimming tonight which will mean that I am taking three, count 'em, THREE showers today. Thank Goodness I often shower at the Y, our water bill would be out of this world if I didn't.

Have a good Wednesday, bloggy friends, I'll be back in the bloggy swing of things soon! MWAH!

Disney Trip: Best souvenir ever... IMHO!

Yep, still more Disney... honestly, we'll probably have a couple Disney posts a week for oh, let's say the next month or so. I've got lots of pictures but hey, you already know that.

I've been excited to tell you about what I think is the best souvenir ever at Disney World. It's not emblazoned with Mickey and his cohorts, it doesn't say, "I survived the Tower of Terror" or some other equally thrilling ride and you can't trade it with a cast member to build your collection. But... it's a great memory, especially if you have children, you get two for the price of one AND it's very inexpensive. (Ours was $8.52... for two, remember!)

What in the "World" am I talking about? Why, a silhouette of course!

Here is The Son sitting for his to be made. It takes the artist all of 2 to 3 minutes to complete it so it's fine even for squirmy kids. You can have them made of the entire family which of course increases the price but they're still very reasonable.



The silhouette cart is located at the Magic Kingdom between Frontierland and Liberty Square, kind of on the way to the Haunted Mansion. I know I saw other carts throughout The World too but we like to visit the one in the Magic Kingdom. It's important to note that they are contracted by Disney World, not actual Disney World cast members, and therefore, you cannot charge the silhouette to your room but they do accept major credit cards and of course, plain old cash.

Here's our silhouette from The Son's first trip to Disney when he was one. I apologize for the quality of the photos, The Husband took them with his iphone at the last minute so that I could get this post finished quickly. You get the idea.


...and here's the one we had made on this past trip. I really thought I had one made when we took The Son for his third birthday but for some reason, can't seem to find it. Strange... maybe I didn't have it done.

So that's it... my favorite souvenir at Disney. I plan on having them made every time we go and displaying them all together to show the progression and growth of my handsome boy. It's not very "Disneyfied" but that's quite alright by me. I'll save the toys, t-shirts and pins for the kids!

Tomorrow, I'll give you my triathlon report. It was great, not much to report but I do have a few pictures (very few) to show you. Good times, great accomplishments. It's back to the gym today and I'll be starting to work on improving my speed while running. I'm not training for anything specifically but hope to do at least one more 5K this summer...

Have a great Monday everyone!