Sports for exercise

Yesterday I was in need of some fun physical activity and needed to get myself and the kids out of the house, so I called up my Dad and asked if he wanted to do something. We decided on Tennis. Dad played tennis in high school, while I have only played a handful of times...but we both haven't played in about 10 years. I wouldn't necessarily called what we did "playing tennis", it was more along the lines of individual serving with the occasional volley. Because I knew I'd be doing a lot of running around, I wore my heart rate monitor. We "played" for little over an hour, and I burned around 700 calories. I think we're going to try to do it more often as it was so much more fun than doing a cardio machine for an hour.

I think the key to exercise is to find things you enjoy doing. What a drag to force yourself to workout if you hate what you're doing....you probably won't last long doing it. For me, the key is variety. I have LOTS of different things I like to do to get my workout in, and it rarely looks the same from week to week.

A great weekend (last weekend)...

Last Friday, the 13th, Steve and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. Despite it being Friday the 13th, we had a fantastic day. Steve took the day off, and we started out with gifts in bed. Aaron had made us an anniversary gift all by himself. He drew a picture of the 4 of us, then put it in a frame he had found and wrapped it. He was so excited to give it to us, and we were just tickled by his thoughtfulness. We then told the kids we had to pick up a "friend" of Grandma and Grandpa's at the airport, then we were going to our favorite restaurant in Grants Pass (Matzukaze). Well the "friend" we were picking up was Auntie Deanna, whom the kids adore. It was so fun to surprise them. Grandma and Grandpa were also surprised, although Grandma in all her wisdom had figured out that Deanna was coming. We had our yummy lunch, then Steve and I headed back to Medford, did a little shopping, then headed to the cottage in Jacksonville we had rented for the night. We had a great dinner in Jacksonville. The next morning we woke up (too early I might add), laid in bed, read, sent Steve across the street for coffee, then finally got up and went out for breakfast. Saturday was Lyle and Jean's (aka Grandma and Grandpa, shoe fairy, the bestest mother-in-law, etc) 40th anniversary and Jean's birthday, and we had planned a BBQ at their house with some of their friends to join us. It was a great evening. Then Sunday we all went down on the Hellgate Jetboats, which was just a blast. The kids had ear-to-ear smiles.
Here are some pictures. 1st, Steve and I on our 10th anniversary (notice my new Tiffany's necklace)


On the jetboats


Auntie Deanna and the kids at the O.K. Corral (the restaurant you take the jetboats to)

Some elk we saw on the river

What's real and what's not??

I found this video very interesting, and an eye opener/reminder on how you have to view magazine pictures with a grain of salt. Also need to be careful what my daughter views, and make sure she knows (eventually) that these pictures are not "real".



This is another example, which many of you have seen before, but I found it fascinating.

Calories burned with Wii Fit

My heart rate monitor/calorie counter watch has been out of commission for a couple of months due to a dead battery. I just put a fresh one in this morning and decided to see how many calories I was burning while doing Wii Fit. Here are the totals

Hula Hoop x 10 minutes (5 min going right and 5 min going left) = 70 calories
Free run x 5 minutes= 47 calories
10 lunges per side, 6 push-up plank combinations, 30 second plank= 69 calories
Total for 21 minutes of Wii time (about 25 minutes actual)= 186 calories

Not too shabby!

Very interesting article about maintaining weight loss

This article was very interesting to me because ever since my first Body for Life challenge, which was very successful and got me at an ideal weight, I have struggled to maintain that ideal weight. In fact, I am now about 10 pounds over what I would consider my ideal weight. I've always felt it was easier to lose weight rather than maintain weight and now I know why. It's a long article, but rather interesting.

God's Timing

We have some dear friends, Brad and Alisha serving God right now in Uganda. Our link group (bible study group) got together and made a care package for them and sent it over. It took about 3 weeks to arrive. About 2 weeks later, I sent another package to them with some stuff I REALLY wanted them to have. Well, 3 weeks came and went and the package had not arrived, then 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks. I so badly wanted them to get this particular package, so we prayed that it would arrive. When I had sent the packages, I got a receipt with a tracking number on it, but I hadn't been able to find the receipts in order to track the packages (kind of important). Today, I was sitting at my desk, tidying up a bit, when I found some paperwork about a warranty I needed to register online for. I couldn't find the receipt I needed so I was looking in my desk drawers for it. Low and behold, I find the tracking receipts for both packages I had sent, so I got online. Unfortunately, it only said that it had left the US on 4/14/08 and no additional information was available. So I called my MIL because she is a retired Post Master, to ask if there was anything else I could do to see what happened to that package. As she is telling me that there really isn't anything I can do, I get an email from Alisha, and I opened the email while still on the phone with my MIL, and the first line was "GOOD NEWS...Guess what arrived in the mail" . See, God does have a sense of humor, and such good timing!!
Thank you God for seeing that the package arrived safely!

OH, AND I then saw that Alisha was on Skype and got to talk to her, and since she had her webcam set up, I also got to see her!! Isn't technology amazing!!

Nose in a book

When it comes to reading, I seem to go in waves...come to think of it, so does my fitness routines! Hmmm, I'll have to ponder that later. Anyway, for the last 2 weeks or so, I have been reading a Christian Fiction series by Liz Curtis Higgs (Thorn in My Heart, Fair is the Rose, Whence Came a Prince, and Grace in Thine Eyes). It all started when my dear friend Jen got me an Evangel gift certificate for my birthday. Being the avid (read: anal) online researcher that I am, I scoured Amazon in search of the perfect book. After writing down a list of all the books that looked interesting and had gotten great reviews, I marched myself down to Evangel full of hope. Alas, they had NONE of the books on my list. So then I had to find some other strategy for picking out the perfect book, which is a little tricky because I don't read the back of books before reading them. I feel like it gives to much away, and I don't like to know ANYTHING prior to opening a book. So I carefully thought about how I might pick out a good book, and settled on finding an author that had several books out, and then something with an intriguing cover. Forget the "don't judge a book by it's cover"...that's exactly what I did. After carefully checking the book to make sure it wasn't part of a series, and finding no evidence that it was, I purchased the book. I rushed home and checked on Amazon to see what the book was rated, and discovered 1) it was rated really well...yeah, and 2) is was #3 in a series...drat!!! Anyway, I went and bought #1 at another book store since Evangel didn't have it at the moment. About half way through DH said he was ordering a book from B*arnes and Noble, so he ordered the #2 book for me as well. That was the week where it was raining and dreary for days on end, and I think I read about 300 pages in one day. So then I was in a quandry because I finished the #1 book, but the #2 book wasn't expected in for 5 days. Thankfully B&N had #2 in stock and said they would let me return the one coming in the mail. I finished that and started #3 on Saturday, which I finished today (it's 537 pages long). Thankfully, when I returned the #2 book to B&N this morning they had JUST received the #4 book about an hour earlier. So, I gotta go.... I'm anxious to start the last book, but also sad that it's the last book. It is an amazing series.