Since October

What has happened since October? Let me tell you...

November:
I can't remember. Thanksgiving was in there. We had some turkey. I'm sure it was tastey.

December:
I got two kitties. Tesni and Ziva. Tesni is my little cuddle-bug, she loves to find an open lap, especially if it's mine. Ziva seeks attention by doing everything wrong. She steals things and breaks things and gets into trouble. Turns out Tesni does that too, but she does it when we're not looking – most of the time.

January:
We got a puppy! Her name is Bree. She's a Bernese Mountain Dog. She is currently 50 lbs and will grow to be about 120lbs.

February:
About a week after getting Bree, we found out... I'm pregnant! We are very excited. However, getting a puppy right in the beginning of the first trimester is CRAZY and not recommended. I got hormonal (ie very moody). Chris left for Texas for a week to do some training for work. It was a rough week for Bree and I, since I was the only one around to deal with her, and we weren't ready to tell anyone I was pregnant, so I couldn't easily ask for help. Now we know how to avoid certain situations that can set me off as I continue to learn how to cope with crazy hormones.

March, April:
Not much here other than doctors appointments and training for the Tulip Time 5k (yes, I had my doctor's permission).

May:
We celebrated our 5 year anniversary by running the Tulip Time 5k (I was under 40 minutes!) and then attempting to eat 5 hot dogs together. Even with Bree's help, we couldn't eat all 5 hotdogs (baby did not pull his/her weight in this eating challenge...). We (let's face it, I) wanted to eat 5 elephant ears, but that seemed even more daunting than the 5 hot dogs.

So there's your quick life summary.

I love my cargo bike.

Check out more here.

Discipline

As usual, life is crazy and I forget to update this thing. There's nothing much new in our lives. We're wrapping up RIOT for the year and for whatever reason I decided that we shouldn't have downtime this summer so Chris and I offered to lead a Financial Peace University class this summer at our church. I'm excited to share the knowledge, I just know it would have been good to have some downtime. Oh well, you can't make an impact if you're just relaxing, right?

Speaking of relaxing, I've got Chris inspired to join me in P90X this summer.

I've started the program twice, but never quite finished it. The biggest frustration for me? Lack of discipline.

I want to make that time everyday to work on my spiritual health and physical health. I want to read my Bible (getting better at that) and spend time in prayer. Every day.

I want to eat better so I can not only feel better and play more, but also so that I can inspire my dad, so that he'll commit to succeed in his own weight battles.

I know, I know I don't have much weight to lose. And I don't. I'm a healthy weight, but I can safely shed a few pounds (about 10) and still be very healthy.

It's a fitness plan. I don't want to just lose weight, I want my body to be fit, to be toned, to not limit me when I want to try new things. I want to keep up with my middle schoolers when we're outside running. I want to feel as beautiful as Chris already sees me. I want to climb Wall 8 at Geneva and not have to have my belayer pull me up...

Anywho, Chris has done his best to support me when I try to do P90X, but unfortunately, I just love spending time with him so when he stays up late to watch tv, I stay up even though I need to go to bed so I can work out or spend time in the Word. He likes to make me martinis and margaritas, even though I know it's not in the fitness plan... So how do I get him to stop being a stumbling block?

Ask him to join me.

You may be thinking, isn't Chris a landscaper? Won't he be too exhausted to work out?

Yes, it's true. If we tried to work out every day once Chris gets home, it won't work. The plan? Get up at 4am every day.

It's a commitment. I know it can work. A guy I know made it work. And his 0-30-60 day photos were the extra motivation Chris needed to commit.

I've set up the calendar so we'll start May 16. This way I can wrap up the running schedule I'm currently in, plus give us some time to get a few things done before we start...

So there you have it. I've structured the summer as a big test of commitment and discipline. Which made me appreciate even more one of David's most recent posts:

For Round 2, I wanted to be different. I wanted to be weird, crazy, completely committed, no hollow victory this time. Sure there are times when I want to give in. You can skip this move, you could just eat some of that. It wouldn't be that bad. Get behind me Satan! But really, temptation is temptation. Now I am not saying you are sinning if you don't go crazy and see if you can get absolutely ripped. What I am saying is, if you make that commitment, it is a one time thing. You never have to go back and recommit. You are going to workout for an hour a day, six days a week, for 90 days. You will eat only things that fit into your day and fulfill your macro needs. Making that choice once and for all, you remove the thought of breaking your own covenant. Decide, COMMIT, succeed. You can do it.

Pray for me this summer as I strengthen my discipline.

Drive to Connecticut

As some of you know, Chris' aunt Gail (his mom's sister) passed away last week. She lived in Connecticut. Chris and I planned on going to the funeral, so we packed up my dad's car (better for traveling than the cars we own), drove to the farm to get Chris' dad (his mom has been in CT with her sister for the past 3 weeks) and headed out early Sunday morning.

Chris and I planned to leave the farm at 6am. At 6:15am...we had been ready for 15 minutes... Our third passenger was still in bed... Oh well. We hit the road at 7am.

I tend to get motion sickness, so I prepared for the trip by taking Bonine. It's a "less-drowsy" formula than Dramamine. I am one who tends to fall asleep in cars. Growing up we would drive to Pennsylvania to visit my relatives and my natural defense against car sickness was sleeping during the trip. Now that I'm an adult, it's still a natural habit that I can't seem to break - I just get drowsy in cars. That paired with my body's inability to cope with drugs (normal Tylenol knocks me out for crying out loud), I was VERY groggy the whole trip. I took a turn to drive and couldn't figure out why I was so tired. As we neared the end of our 17 hour drive it dawned on me that the Bonine was a "LESS" drowsy formula, not a "NON" drowsy formula. So...I won't be able to take that on the return trip, because I'll need to be able to help Chris with the driving, since it will be just the two of us on the way back (Chris' mom and dad will take his mom's car home).

Luckily I have several other methods to avoid car sickness. We'll see how well they work. It involves those old pressure-point wristband things and ginger snaps. Ginger is good for nausea, so I'll see if the ginger snaps help me out in this.

Anyway, we made it safe and sound to Old Saybrook, CT late Sunday night. About 12:30am. That's better than I expected, given one traffic jam, a late start and plenty of food/bathroom stops. Definitely doable in one day. But I may just feel that way since I slept through most of the trip.

Yesterday we slept a lot due to the exhaustion of the trip (and I still had the less-drowsy Bonine in my system). We had lunch in a little pub downtown and then spent the rest of the evening with family. Gail had a husband Peter (from England), a daughter Sharon (a little older than Chris and I) and a son Kevin (a little younger than Chris and I). Kevin is recently engaged to Liz.

So we hung out with them. This was my first time meeting Kevin and Liz. I think I meet Peter at our wedding 3 years ago. Sharon I've met a couple of times in Michigan and in Florida (where she used to work).

Today's plan is to go to the town of Avon. Apparently it's quite a cute town with cute stores and such. Chris and I have been ready to go and awake for the past few hours. We have yet to see his parents. It may be a quick drive there (er...1 hr drive), eat lunch and then head back, because we'll need time to get ready for visitation tonight.

So that is my update so far. Hopefully everyone back home is holding down the fort okay with the responsibilities we left behind for the week!

Frank's

My parents' friends, Buzz and Marinan, came up to visit and check out Michigan a little before they and my parents headed out to Chicago to do part of the Ride for the Relay Route 66 motorcycle trip.

So we gave them some good old family dining at Frank's. Did you know that place has been around since the 1920s?!