Back From Spring Break

Spring Break as come and gone in a flash of what seemed a day or two not a whole week. There was lots of quiet, cleaning, and bonding time with my little man. Let's start from the begining.

St. Patrick's Day celebrations started Spring Break. I took all the left over Lucky Rocks that I made before getting sick and we had a smashing party after breakfast. Connor enjoyed counting his gold coins over and over and over and over again.

Patty left Connor some Lucky Rocks

Alllllllllllllllllllllllll Smashed!

We were heading off to a party to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and I decided to make a Irish Cream Brownies. This recipe required you to make frosting from scratch. I never knew how easy it was. It tasted sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. Like the brownies were gone in 15 min good.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Playing with chalk and his new friend at the party

Once the week of Spring Break began, I started off with some deep cleaning around the house. You know... the cleaning you're embarrassed that you let slide until you realize how gross that area has become?! Yeah... I tackled those spots. Monday morning I dropped Connor off at daycare, went for a run at Ft. Smallwood Park and then started cleaning cleaning cleaning. By the time Connor came home from daycare, I was done. D-O-N-E done.... Monday was the only day last week that I didn't take Connor to the park.

A foggy run at Ft. Smallwood Park where I saw two huge deer.

Tuesday I wrapped up cleaning, caught up homework and when Connor was picked up from daycare we went for a walk at Ft. Smallwood Park with my friend Lindsey to help get her baby moving since she was almost a week past her due date. More than halfway through the walk we stopped at the playground so Connor could run around and play. I think his little legs were worn out because he was only interested in swinging.

We saw a beautiful swan on our Tuesday evening walk.

Wednesday turned out to be an AWESOME day for me. I have a group of friends online that I met through an online forum for mothers.Over the last two years a group of us has navigated to a group on FB so we can easily chat with each other and stay in touch. I was able to meet one of my friends from Maine for breakfast while she was in town for work. It was so great! People asked me, "Wasn't it weird". Honestly, no. We pretty much talk almost every day in our group so why would it be weird to talk in person?!

At The Grill for breakfast

After breakfast, I got a few things done around the house then picked up Connor from daycare early. From there, we ventured to Downs Park and met up with my sister for play time at the park.

Spring Fever!

On our walk at Downs Park Connor found that path that leads you to the dog beach.
He shouted... "A Clue! A Clue!" My kid watches too much TV :)

Thursday morning I woke up and realized that Spring Break was almost over but I just kept trucking forward. For the rest of Spring Break I was keeping Connor home from daycare so we could spend some extra time together.

Thursday at lunch we met up with some of my former coworkers that I hadn't seen in a while. Connor was quite the character at lunch and I can say that he's just not a fan of Chinese food. Sigh....... On the way home from lunch we stopped off at Olde Mill Park. That was one quiet park... no one was around and it looks like it could use a face lift. Connor kept trying to climb the bars up to the slide.... one day kid... one day.

Trying to be a big boy.

Friday we spent the morning lounging in our PJs and then decided to meet up with daycare at the park so Connor could play with his friends. The afternoon went by quickly and then Kevin and I found ourselves on a mini date night while Connor played at grandmas with his cousins for a few hours.

Saturday morning came and we made a trip to the neighborhood elementary school for Connor's first day of gymnastics!! He LOVED the activities but he hated waiting his turn in line. He cried and cried and whined over and over while we were in line. Once it was his turn the water works turned off and he was all smiles. Silly boy! He'll learn allll about waiting while in this class for the next 7 weeks! The class is a mommy and me type of class so I'm doing the activities with him. We did the Bear Crawl, Snake Crawl, rolled down the mat, hopped down the mat, walked the balance beam and swung from the bars. I can't wait for next week!

Total Monkey!

Sunday I ran around from place to place. First, I visited Lindsey's new baby boy who finally decided to grace us with his presence on Friday evening. Then I was off to Pandora Bracelet Bingo..... I didn't win a single thing! Boo.....

Spring Break is over and its back to the grind and hopefully more blogging!

C25K Week 4 and Biking!

Week 4 for C25K has been started! So far two of the three runs have been completed. Kevin and I were met with a OMFG feeling for the first run.
Week 4 has you:
Warm up walk for 5 minutes
Run for 3 minutes
Walk for 90 seconds
Run for 5 crazy long never going to end minutes
Walk for 2.5 minutes
Run for 3 minutes
Walk for 90 seconds
Run for 5 how the eff am I supposed to finish minutes
End with a 5 minute cool down walk

The last 5 minute run for Run 1 on Monday had me talking to myself, chanting Reiki symbols to give me strength and the occasional cuss word as well. It was TOUGH but I did it. Just knowing I completed made me happy regardless of how I got there.

The second run for Week 4 wasn't nearly as OMFG but was still a push for us. Kevin and I found the 3 minute runs fairly easy and we know by next week we should have the 5 minute runs down and ready to move forward.

This weekend we had our first family biking trip! In July we bought a trailer that would hitch to the back of my bike (Kevin's bike doesn't have the whatever bolt that is needed so it can't hook up). We've either been too busy or the weather too hot so we haven't used the trailer yet.

Realizing that beautiful weather is around the corner and is fast to disappear we're making an effort to "schedule" biking trips and put them on the calendar.

Sunday morning we packed up the bikes, helmets, lunch, water packs, toys for Connor and ourselves and drove to Downs Park in Pasadena, MD. We decided to do the shorter trail to see how I would do biking for the first time in YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS while pulling the trailer behind. I thought I would do better than I did. After a while I was huffing and puffing and needing a break. I'll only keep getting stronger if we keep going! Connor LOVED riding along. When I stopped for water or a breathing break he would start whining or saying, "Mommy mommy mommy, go!". I'm super glad this worked out.

The trail at Downs Park struck me very sad. After the hurricane Downs Park was closed for several days. We got to see why. All around the trail there were downed trees. There were parts of the trail where the asphalt had been lifted and broken from roots being ripped up as trees fell. Trees had fallen like dominoes on top of each other. Roots flipped up were EVERYWHERE. Some parts looked like a bomb had gone off. It struck me sad because I have been going to Downs Park for as long as I can remember. I've been walking that trail for as long as I can remember. To see it in such bad shape broke my heart. I wish I could have stopped and took pictures but my goal was to keep moving on the bike.

After our trip around the loop I decided that if I was going to run for C25K the next day I needed to preserve my leg strength and stop for the day. I took Connor to the play ground and Kevin was going to hit up the longer trail at the park. WELL.... that side of the park was STILL closed due to downed trees. Soooo Kevin looped the smaller trail again and then met us for lunch.

Getting ready to go!

Taking a break! Notice some of the trees down behind me.

Kevin waiting for me to get my breath back :)

Connor fell asleep on the way home WITH pretzel in his mouth!!
Someone had TOO MUCH fun.

Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was the last couple of days that Diva and G-Bill would be visiting.

Saturday was mostly low key during the day. My mom and Bill went to do some shopping in Annapolis while I got caught up on laundry and cleaning. Kevin tried to replace the shocks on his Jeep but kept hitting a brick wall and it took him and his friend 4 hours to replace the shock behind the back passenger tire. Between the dog barking in the basement because he wanted to be nosy and see what was going on outside and Kevin banging and drilling away at a rusted bolt on his tire out front, its amazing Connor got a full nap!

When Connor woke up from his nap and Kevin cleaned up from his his "day of shock replacing hell" we all left for California Pizza Kitchen. My mom and Bill treated us to a yummy dinner. Connor was surprisingly well behaved and had minimum whining.

After dinner my mom, Bill and I took Connor down to the community beach. Him and G-Bill built a castle and G-Bill got a working moat going. Connor loved putting his toes in the water and kept trying to venture further out but thankfully he listened when we called him back to us.

G-Bill gave Connor quite the ride home in the stroller. He ran him up and down the street and in circles in the driveway. Needless to say both Connor and G-Bill slept well Saturday night. My mom and I got the last of any desire to play Nertz out of our system. After one round into our second game, we determined that we were done, no more Nertz was left in us.

Sunday Kevin had softball in the morning so my mom, Bill and myself took Connor to Downs Park. We tried to see the turtles again but they weren't coming out to play even though we had bread. After the turtles we had a picnic lunch and then ventured to the playground. My mom and I enjoyed sitting in the shade eating snowballs while Connor showed G-Bill all the fun the playground had to offer.

We left the park with enough time to stop at Angels and pick up cucumber salad and german potato salad before nap time. Connor was all tuckered out when we got home and gladly went down for a nap. I grilled us up some yummy bourbon brown sugar chicken legs to go with the salads we bought and we had a very yummy bittersweet last dinner together. After dinner we packed up Diva and G-Bill and drove them to the airport.

It was strangely quiet in our house last night. Kind of sad and kind of relaxing all at the same time.

Pictures of this weekend will follow later.

Vacation Day #2!

On Vacation Day #2 daycare was closed so my mom and I spent the day hanging out with Connor. In the morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and then headed to Down's Park. My mom always took me, my sister and one of our friends to Down's Park on the weekends when we were growing up. It was great for both of us to take him and let him play.

First we walked down to the water to check out the beach. It was high tide so there really wasn't a beach and the waves were really rough.

It was such a beautiful morning. There was little-to-no humidity and there was a light breeze keeping the sunshine cool. The questions of the day were, "Are we in Maryland....what month is it?"

The Beach

Next we ventured to the "Turtle Pond". When we got there we realized we didn't bring any bread to feed the turtles. We could see a few from a distance but it was just their heads. Connor enjoyed running around the deck. About 5 minutes after we were wishing for bread, a woman and her grandson showed up with bread!! Hooray for turtles!!

Turtle!

Next it was time for the playground! My mom and Connor played on the jungle gym and went down a slide or two. My mom even climbed through the tube for Connor. We made sure Connor got a turn on the swings and one more trip down the slide before heading home for lunch and a nap. It was a very successful morning at the park!

"Come on Diva... its time to go home... I'll show you the way"