Holy Flying Saturdays Batman!

How can half the weekend be over already?!??!!? I'm a bit messed up this week as we had Andrew, Mandy & Mr Bojangles arrive on Thursday so that sortof felt like Friday when they got here. It's always fun to have company!

I've gone to the gym FIVE times this week! That MUST be an all time record for me. So far I don't hate it yet so maybe I'll be able to get there regularly. And to show all this hard work?? I've actually gained weight this week which isn't very encouraging! I even went for a few walks on top of the aerobics classes & weight lifting. Hopefully it'll show more next week on the scale...

Honey Bunny helped me test my lighting from the windows & struck many poses, most of which prominently displayed her "tats" LOL


This afternoon I went to do pictures for a friend from the multiples club. Her daughter is turning 3 soon. The twins could hardly stand it that the pictures were all of their younger sister. They were jumping around & kept running in front of the backdrop. It was funny to see them acting up a bit. Any time I've been there, they've been good as gold but it wasn't their turn this time & they were a bit mischievious!
Before I headed over there, I was able to get a bunch of pictures of Mr Bojangles who had just had a nap & some lunch & was pretty content!








Andrew & Mandy had a bunch of race stuff to do today so Mr Bojangles stayed with us and even had a couple of good naps! (how come we couldn't get our OWN kids to nap decently????) I asked Sweetie at bedtime if she wanted to help with his bottle & she was pretty excited about that!

Thursday Happenings...

I wanted a new desktop picture so hunted down some little flowers growing in the yard!





We went to gymnastics today & met Teena & Boo there. The lesson seemed to go really quickly & we were done before I knew it! They decided to come back to our place to hang out for awhile. I was expecting Andrew & Mandy to arrive sometime this morning & figured they'd probably get here around lunchtime. Nope. They were here when we came home at 10ish! They'd meant to come last night but had too much to do so decided to leave early this morning instead. Early as in FOUR AM!!!!!!! Insane!



The girls were excited to see Mr. Bojangles again and brought him every baby toy they could find and then ran off to play until Teena & Boo had to go. I went downstairs to check on them & found just Honey & Boo sitting on the couch, playing "jewelry store" !!

a willing subject!

After lunch, Mandy & Mr. Bojangles needed a nap so I decided that would be a good time to go for my walk & bribed the girls with popsicles if they'd ride in the stroller. Suddenly they were all very keen! We brought Marti with us and Lovey loved it when I let her walk him. He's huge, gigantic next to her actually, but he doesn't pull or jerk the leash or any of that foolishness that Murphy does all the time. He just walked beside her, unless she tried to run too far ahead and then he'd resist. He didn't seem to like getting too far away from me & that was fine with me! Everyone had a turn but Lovey definitely enjoyed it the most and seemed to feel pretty special being "in charge" of him. ;)

We Ran Away From Home!

Well, it was only for a weekend but it is a lot of fun to go somewhere else every once in awhile! We visited Nanny & Grampy and the kids enjoyed every minute of it (we did too but we know who's important around here!). We got in late Friday night but my "let them fall asleep in the car" plan didn't work at all. They were wide awake when we got there but did agree to go to bed without much fuss. It was a pretty late night though so I was a little nervous about how Saturday would go.

Just in case things went horribly awry, I made my escape early in the day & had Karen spirt me away to the land of shopping!!! She was a pretty willing accomplice though so don't feel too bad for her being dragged into my scheme : ))) I got to the craft store & picked up some cake decorating toys er I mean equipment with the handy 50% off coupons they had on hand there. Then we got to Sam's Club, a place I never get tired of! Some people aren't into the bulk thing but at the rate we go through supplies around here, it's never a problem for us. The place is generally busy but Karen & I have good shopping karma or something! We always find a parking space, usually near the doors (not this time though, long weekend=crazy busy), we can normally find what we're looking for & move through the line ups quickly. This time it wasn't looking too good though. Debit machines were down and the lines were backing up as people had to write cheques and deal with cash. I'd only brought my debit card so I was a little nervous about that but figured that by the time we actually got all through the store & up to the cash, it would all be back to normal. It wasn't. The systems were still down when we got up there. Except for one debit machine in the whole store. The line was waaaaaaaaay down the aisle when we got in it. Then they started directing everyone & suddenly, after a 2 minute wait, I was third in line. The 2 guys ahead of me were waiting for their wives to come back from the banking machine & waived me through as they smirked at my "fool hardy" plan to use my debit card. Muahahaha! see who's smirking now!!! I was through there & back to the car in jig time! and my love affair with that store lives another day! : )))

After this we met up with my former banking colleagues for lunch (and we weren't even late!) My 3 buddies all showed up & we ate and laughed our way through the whole lunch as we caught up on each others' news. I don't see them often but we seem to jump right back in where we left off and have a great time doing it. Karen came along but probably found us all bizarre as we cracked up over our own jokes and talked a mile a minute to pack in as much as we could in that hour or so. I thoroughly enjoyed it though!


When we got back to the house, it was time for Murray & the kids & I to head to Andrew & Mandy's place to visit them & Mr. Bojangles. The kids were quite excited to get there and kept talking about Crazy Uncle Andrew on the ride. They were a little shy when we first got there but were soon into the toybox and quite content. It was great to see our little nephew who has grown & changed yet again! We got to have a long relaxed visit and they had a bbq while we there so we even got fed! Can't beat that! We got home just in time for the kids to get to bed & Nanny read them their bedtime stories.

Murray had a race on Sunday morning & did realllllllllllllllly well!!!!! He came first in his age group & 5th overall. He tried a new strategy that seemed to pay off. He decided to hold back a little at the beginning & then build up over the remainder of the race. Due to his competitive nature, he hates for anyone to pass him when he could maintain his lead but he stuck with it. He ended up finding it more rewarding to be passing people at the end when he still had some reserve and they were spent. When it's the other way around, he gets discouraged when he's got nothing left & people are passing him & finishing ahead. He was hoping to finish within 3hrs & 10 minutes and he was successful and very happy with his time. He trained really hard, got a verrrrrrrry bad cold in the last couple of weeks but managed to still do what he set out to. Way to go Rocket Man!!!! :))))
On Sunday afternoon, I went out for a bit more shopping for cheap art supplies for the kids & made another run to the craft store so I can make this cake for the girls' bday. 50% off of course!! Then Karen & I headed for the airport to pick up Aunt Janet who was flying in to help Nancy.
Today I thought I'd be a good sister & accompany Karen to the gym. That girl pretty much kicked my butt! She hopped on that treadmill and ran like crazy! I set a mean walking pace but haven't done any running in FOREVER. Once I saw she'd switched from walking to running, I thought I'd better follow suit & keep up. After 20 minutes, I couldn't maintain it any longer. The charade was over. I am not in peak running condition! That I even managed for 20 minutes is amazing. We did 35 minutes on the treadmill & then she moved on to the cross trainer. I'd had enough cardio by then & thought I'd do some weight machines & work on the flabby arms a bit (because one day is going to make a huuuuuuuuuuge difference eh?) I remembered why I usually only go to classes. I get bored easily. I would do 10-15 reps at each station, get bored of that machine, go to a new one and made the rounds a few times. If I hadn't been there with her, I'd have quit loooooooooooong before the hour was up. The gym near our place had a special on so I bought a 20 visit pass & will see how that goes. I just got it before the weekend so haven't tried it out yet but will start this week. Walking up & down the street each night just isn't producing the results I want so I'm hoping some more intensive cardio will do the trick. The class schedule is kind of crappy in the evenings though so I'm not sure how many times a week I'll get there.
On the way home from the gym, Karen suggested checking Old Navy for kids' bathing suits & they had a good sale on. I, however, have no ability to guage size & had no idea what to buy! I ended up bringing home about 15 suits in a variety of sizes, of which only 2 fit. They looked waaaaaaaay too big in the store & were too small when I got them home. While I was packing the car, Karen took some back up & exchnaged for bigger sizes. (who's the good sister now??) I didn't want to get the kids all undressed again so we'll try them tomorrow instead. If all goes well, they'll each have 2 new suits, a regular one piece for indoor swimming and a Tshirt style 2 piece for outdoor to limit the amount of time & the quantity of sunscreen application required!

We finally got the car packed & everyone loaded by mid afternoon & got ourselves home again!