Coming on vacation had me a little worried about staying in a good routine. Running would still be relatively easy if I could get myself out of bed. However eating proper had me concerned.
So far that hasn’t been a problem. We’ve been packing lunches and coming back to the cottage for supper, so it’s been working out really well. In fact I’ve likely been snacking a whole lot less because of it. This morning I went for my first run and did 5k around the neighborhood our cottage is in. It’s a pretty nice area and running is a good way to get to see some of it.
The other thing that bothers me is that this is going to be the first Wednesday since New Years that I haven’t weighed in. I could of course find a scale, but I’ve used the same scale every week and I’m scared another one wouldn’t be calibrated the same.
Hopefully when I do get home and step on I’ll be at my goal. It very well could happen I’d say.
We did a bit of shopping yesterday and I bought a pair of size 32 shorts. I can’t believe I wore size 44 at one point in time.
We had quite the day of traveling yesterday. We had the alarm set for 4:30am to make sure we had everything ready to leave the house by 6:00am.
Things went pretty smooth except shortly after leaving the house we had to turn around because I forgot the laptop. However, we made it to Yarmouth right on time to catch the ferry.
The NovaStar was overall a pretty pleasant experience. The kids all enjoyed the fact that they could move around and not be trapped in the car for that long portion of the trip.
Everyone of the staff members we interacted with was extremely nice and helpful.
One of the activities for the kids was a scavenger hunt. Part of it was to find three different ways to say “hello” by talking to staff and finding out their first language and how to say hello in it. They all dealt with the kids like pros.
If I had two suggestions to make it would be to have more in the kids area including places for parents to sit, and a wider array of movies. The other would be to have places to charge your devices. All outlets were European and needed adapters. They did have some to borrow but they seemed to run out quickly.
It was a long ride though and we didn’t get into Portland until 7:00pm local time. By the time we got off and through customs it was after 8:00. We rushed to the mall and to the T-Mobile store to setup a prepaid plan.
From there we set out driving. With my sister following behind in her car we purposely neglected to tell her that we would be driving through the city of Boston to get to our cottage.
She was pretty nervous about the trip in general, but was a champ the whole way. We made it to our cottage in Wareham MA by about 12:30am and had everyone unloaded and in beds by 1:00.
It’s the night before our family vacation and the stress is starting to set in. I’m not entirely sure why. We’ve gone on a number of big vacations with the family and they always turn out fine.
This one feels different though. I’m not sure if it is the driving distance, it’s not much further than we’ve gone before. It might be the destination. We’re planing on several day trips around where we are staying and one of them is to go into New York City for the day. I’ve been there once myself but this time we’re going with the whole family. This includes my sister and her three little kids. Maybe it’s because I just don’t feel prepared enough.
Usually we spend a great deal of time planning out almost ever part of our trip months in advance. Due to certain circumstances we had to change up our plans and shorten the trip a little. This means that things were done more hastily than I’m used to. I used to love having no set plans and just going, but thanks to my wife I learned that things with kids go a lot smoother when there are some plans laid out. I think I’ve come to need that planning.
This is not to say that we don’t have plans. Things are still well planned, and I think they are even better planned in my wife’s head than they are in mine, so that does give me some comfort.
I know once we arrive we’re all going to have a great time so I just need to relax now and start enjoying. I’m going to get to spend lots of time with my family. We’ll be making lots of special memories and seeing lots of exciting things.
Just writing these feelings out, and reasoning them through, is already starting to make me feel better. So I’m off to finish packing and hopefully make sure we don’t forget anything important.
A couple weeks ago my nine year old daughter sort of limps up to me. She takes her right leg and moves it back and forth and says, “when I do this it hurts my leg”. She then proceeds to do something very similar with her left leg but moving it in a different fashion, “and when I do this the other leg hurts”.
I asked her a couple questions about whether she had done anything to hurt it, how long it had been happening and so on. Her response:
“I think they just hurt because I’m getting so old.”
I’m one of those guys who has a once typical Monday to Friday 9:00 – 5:00 job, so I look forward to the weekends.
With four kids we usually keep pretty busy but it’s usually doing something fun with the family which is always nice, but weekends are also the time to get nagging chores done. This weekend involved starting to get things ready for an upcoming family get away.
About three years ago, against my better judgement, we adopted three cute little bunnies. One for each of my daughters. We made sure we picked three females so that we wouldn’t get over populated. I’ve heard stories where people weren’t as lucky as us where mistakes were made and one of the females, wasn’t. We were told they were mini lops. Our first clue was when we saw their parents and they weren’t so mini, but we had driven over an hour to pick them up so we took them anyway. Sure enough there is nothing mini about these things now that they’re grown.
It didn’t take long before the youngest two gave up on looking after their bunnies, which was expected they were fairly young. Luckily our oldest still does almost everything for them, although there are lots of reminders and prodding along the way.
We have two homes for them, one in our shed to keep them sheltered and warm in the winter, and one outdoors so they can have more exercise and fresh air. We take them in every night and let them out every morning as long as it is nice out. This way we don’t have to worry about them while we’re sleeping. But we’re getting ready to go away and it would be a lot to ask of someone to let them out every morning and bring them back in.
So I was tasked with building an enclosure that could sit inside their outside home that would keep them more protected from weather and just in case, any predators thought they might try to get in.
I’m not a fan of these rabbits. From what I can tell they are more trouble than they’re worth, but my kids love them and I love my kids. So in spite of the fact that I am far from a handy man I set out to build this enclosure. There is nothing fancy, four walls, a roof and a little door way to get in. I managed to get it all staying together but it doesn’t look pretty.
During the process I somehow managed to get a big scratch right down my nose and ripped a big piece of skin off the palm of my main hand.
So now the bunnies have a place to stay outside overnight and my In-Laws who are looking after them don’t have to cart them back and forth, but I like them even less. If I didn’t love my kids so much I’d consider rabbit stew and cook them on a bonfire made of the wood from their home I just built.
OK I really don’t have it in me to do that, they are our pets and I prefer my meat anonymous and already in the grocery store, but that doesn’t stop me from threatening it every once in a while.
Running for me has been a solo thing to do since I started. It’s great I don’t have to depend on anyone I can just go. Put in some headphones and run. I can go at what ever pace I want, I don’t have to worry about holding anyone up or slowing myself down to try and match pace with anyone else.
It’s also that time alone where I can really just clear my head and not think about anything at all for the most part. Take in the scenery around me and just run.
Now that I’m a little more comfortable with my running ability I’ve been doing a bit more of the social running. And you know what? I really enjoy it too. I’ve only done about five runs with other people, but they’ve all be enjoyable.
Lately we’ve been doing some trail runs and they are really fun. So much different than the flat groomed routes I’ve been taking. You have to pay attention to where you’re feet are landing, there have been lots of fallen trees climbed over, and a fair amount of hills involved as well.
I’m still pretty self conscious as I’m the slowest one typically when I go out. So I really do feel that I’m holding people back, but I’m getting over it and getting better as well.
Having other people to run with helps push me along and I’m even getting pretty good at holding a conversation when out of breath.
So there is room for both, my solo runs where I can have some time in my own head, and runs with other people where I can share the experience with others as well. I guess I just like running.
My youngest, and only boy, was quickly growing out of all his cool pajamas that are good for hot summer nights.
So my wife picked him up some boxer type shorts and tank top style undershirts to use. He was thrilled.
The first night after he got ready for bed, we came back downstairs on the couch for a while and something kept poking out of his shorts.
He thought it was awfully amusing and said
Yesterday I ran a somewhat new route. I’d covered most of it before but just combined it a different way. I was really happy with it. It had some pavement, a couple hills in the beginning, but relatively flat.
I decided last night I was going to do the same route again and when I woke up this morning I decided I was going to try and push myself and see how fast I could do it.
There were a couple points I wanted to stop but I pushed on and was able to stay below 5 min per km for the first time.
Sandy McFadden 