The Boys of Summer......The Series

Spending a July afternoon on the screened porch with two ceiling fans and a new water table .... watching boys play..............priceless!

That Bear!

Hope he'll be potty trained soon.

Just call me a Shred Head

Another attempt in my never ending quest to take better care of myself. I need more ENDURANCE! I need to be STRONGER! I want to be able to keep up with the little people in my life.

So, when one of my blog "friends" decided to join a " friend" of hers, Vicki, who was doing the Thirty Day Shred I followed her link.... found a new "friend" and bought the Shred.

In case you haven't heard of The Shred, it is an exercise DVD by Jillian Michaels, the she-devil trainer on The Biggest Looser TV show. She regularly pushes grown men until they cry. She is tuff stuff. Each of the three levels is more difficult that the previous.

I was able to do "most" of level one. The first few mornings after starting level one I awoke with what I thought was a severe cramp in each of my limbs............... Apparently level one is all about arms and legs. I managed to push through and was able to forgot the pain after a week or so. I did a little more every day and suffered a little less each morning.

I followed my new "friend" Vicki's progress online as she told of losing inches and being so energized. So I kept going, losing nothing. But I could feel a difference in my energy level.

After encouragement from the on-liners I moved on to level two........ which was a killer for me. I was great on the warm ups. And the cool downs are always my favs. But all of the in between moves were too much. At first my body just refused to do the jumping jacks and the walking planks.......... I may have some kind of processing problem ....... while I was watching Jillian and thought I understood what she was asking me to do............. the information could not seem to translate into a movement. My heart was willing but my other parts would not move. We lay on the floor in an immovable mass thinking really bad thoughts about Jillian. Her outfit was not even cute and her hair.....PLEASE! She probably doesn't even have friends. But after several tries I managed to do a few moves and finally managed to get through most of the moves following the beginners' path.

After reading several comments that stated that level three was actually easier than level two, I limped on to level three and found that it was more "do-able" for me, but surely not easy. At first major muscle groups were sore but as time went on I developed rare diseases. First I hurt around my ribs and all around my back. I thought I must have shingles because I had heard how painful they were and I. Was. In. Pain. No shingle blisters appeared and soon I noticed different pains. My waist hurt. How can your waist hurt? I decided I must be allergic to the detergent I was using because my skin hurt. Or maybe I was allergic to my exercise mat. And whatever is just under my skin hurt. Then the most extreme pain moved to smaller muscles. While the glutenous maximust hurt the minimust glutenous hurt also. You know the smaller muscles under the glutes.

Some of my pains ended up being something else. A real illness that knocked me off my regiment for almost two weeks............... but now I am back on board doing jumping jacks AND planks. Jillian is back yelling at me " Do. Not. Stop!...If a four hundred pound man can do this so can you!"
As my friend Vicky said, I wanted to climb through my lap top and slap her silly.

Shredding

Bennett joined me in my Thirty Day Shred. Notice he's a little behind Jillian. I think he liked the dreaded mountain climbers. Ohhhhh............More shredding to follow.

Just a Laid Back Kind Of Day

Our Fourth celebration was nice and very relaxed.

An evening of traditional grilled burgers and all the fixin's
with Jay, Lela, and Hannan.




See how laid back it was. Just kick your feet up and relax.


Lela's brother Jason, his sweet wife Lindsey, and cute
little Grayson celebrated with us. Good food, good times, great day.
Hope yours was too.
Jason, sorry the big one got away. Twice!

Happy Fourth!

My sister and I traveled twelve hours to visit our aunt and cousins and had a wonderful visit. I am still processing all that I saw and heard. But, one place we visited I want you to see now .


It was so beautiful and peaceful ..............................

with interesting lines

and patterns.


This is Uncle Larry's burial site at the National Cemetery. Notice the straight line from each plot to the flag. It is a beautiful place. A great tribute to those who served our country.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! Hope it is a great day for all.

CUP CAKE WISHES

Laurie made these cute sunflower cup cakes for a mission trip bake sale at church. They were also delicious, Paula Deen's Lemon blossoms. KK this picture is for you to say : HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!