Soccer season ended with the close of April and a whirlwind of school activities have picked up in its place in May. School will be out soon and it's field trip season. Brielle's class went swimming last week and she and Ashton will both be visiting the zoo with their schools next week. Brielle's school is having "Camp Learn-a-Lot" week this week. They'll have tents in the room to read in, fake fire-pits sing songs around, and several games. She's super excited.
For one of our Relief Society activities we had recently, I taught a Fitness class. We talked about the benefits of strength training for women and then went over a few different kinds of interval/circuit training as a way to lose weight quickly or build muscle during cardio exercise. I didn't think it would be appropriate to sell them on CrossFit. Even if it was appropriate, my coach only has one opening in his class and I don't really teach a class. I just have a few of my friends come over, and I train my kids. But I did call my brother, Devan, a certified personal trainer with a bachelors in Exercise and Sports Science to prioritize some of the strength training movements I wanted to teach as far as what would be most health-beneficial and also most appropriate for someone to turn around and go do at home alone without additional coaching. In the class I went over how each of those movements can be modified to different strength levels. Devan also gave me a few great resistance training facts. Sarah Skeen's mom, a personal trainer, also relayed some fun facts for me to use. I did mention that I do CrossFit and that it was one version of what I was teaching.
I'm so excited to have heard back from several of the women that they are trying the things we talked about at home and even getting family members to join in. Did you know that 1 out of every 4 pounds lost on a diet without strength training is muscle? Did you know adults lose up to half a pound of muscle each year if they are not strength training? Did you know the most important exercise you can do for your health isn't necessarily cardio? Yes, the number one cause of death in the US is heart related. But most of those people couldn't do cardio for their heart because their bones, muscles, and joints weren't strong enough to do it. And they would have been had they considered strength training when they were able to at a younger age. Did you know that a 10-20 minute high intensity interval training workout burns up to 9 times the body fat that an average 45 minute jog does? And unlike the jog which burns muscle, the HIIT workout will build muscle. OK, sorry, I'm done.
A couple weeks ago, Todd and I broke out the "Cash Flow Game" to play with our friends, Cameron and Sarah Skeen. We used to play it all the time but hadn't in a couple of years. It's a pretty long game so we broke it up into two date nights. One of the nights we all went to dinner at Ogawas where they taught us all about sushi. What ingredients make it taste this way or that. What to eat with it and how. It's never been Todd or I's thing but we realized we've never tried good sushi until this. We loved the sushi there! We had a lot of fun with them playing the game too. Cameron was the winner.
Sarah and I were able to have a girls night out last week too when we went to see the musical, "Wicked" at the Morrison Center in Boise.
It was so good! I saw it two years ago in Hollywood with Todd and loved it then. It's just as good the second time. We sat next to Kerri, another great friend of ours, who came with her husband. I misunderstood what time it started so instead of eating dinner first, we opted to go straight to the play. Turns out we were REALLY early. But we'd already paid for parking and got a good spot. So we waited it out. We did buy several of the yummy chocolate truffles they sell there during intermission. I can never resist those when Brielle and I go there each year for the Nutcracker. Afterwards, most restaurants were closed and we had a little adventure trying to find a place that would still serve us! Fortunately, Sarah grew up in Boise and knew the area really well. We finally found a Sherry's still open that made a mean omelet. I LOVE breakfast for dinner! The whole evening was a blast.
Kerri invited me to go shopping in Boise with her last week as well and Todd was sweet enough to stay back with the kids a second time. I was living up all the girl time. We went to dinner- my first time eating at Cafe Rio. I've had their pulled pork several times when friends/family make that recipe, but this was my first time eating the real thing! It was very yummy! We explored the Boise Plato's Closet, then hit the mall. It was another awesome evening just getting out with a friend. I have wonderful friends :-)
The kids have had plenty of fun playing in the dirt over the last couple of weeks as the weather is warming up and the yard is getting an overhaul. Todd has spent most evenings after work using the skitster to level the back yard and create mounds of dirt in other areas. Ashton LOVES riding in it with him. It's pretty small so there's really only a tiny little space- barely big enough for him to stand in. If he sits, he's in the way of maneuvering. And he'll stand in there for hours without complaining! We hired a guy to oversee the landscaping so we get the sprinkler system in right and the right plants/design. Todd helped him all day this past Friday and Saturday digging trenches and laying pipe. It's almost ready for hydro seed and planting!
We had our school's Spring Fair a week ago. Brielle's class sang a few cute songs that they've been singing in music class at school.
She walked in the parade with her class. Ashton and Lainey watched with Todd and I and scrambled for candy thrown their way. We ate the famous BBQ chicken lunch they have at the Spring Fair each year and bought a dozen cinnamon rolls from the goodie booths to eat for breakfast the next morning for Mothers Day. We sat with the Gibbs as we ate. Some of their babysitters (2 sisters) came by and within moments, we had all cooked up a plan to hire those babysitters and go out that night together.
That afternoon I got to show our house to a family moving to our area looking for a rental home. We know the wife's parents well and were super impressed with this family. We hoped they'd pick our house, but they had another one to look at and said they would get back to us.
That night we ate at Ogawas on our double date with the Gibbs. We had more sushi! We planned to go see the movie, "Fast Five". After we had already bought our tickets we saw an advertisement for "Thor" and that it had just come out into theaters too. We still went to "Fast Five", though I think the guys were a little disappointed. Afterwards, I could hardly walk. I went a little too crazy at the track earlier that morning. We left trying to think of something to do since the night was still young. We drove two blocks and stopped at Walgreen's to buy some Ibuprofen for my knees when I decided all I was good for was sitting some more. Which the guys were ALL OVER and we somehow ended up right back at the theater just in time to catch the late showing of "Thor". MEAT HEAD MOVIE MARATHON. Both movies had Beth and I laughing pretty hard at the cheesiness. We had a good time, though.
The next day was Mothers Day. We had those yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I requested Todd's grilled chicken salad for dinner and it was delicious. We stopped by Todd's mom's to wish her happy Mothers Day and give her her gift. At home I called my mom and asked how her day was. It was a relaxing day for me, though having 1:00 church makes it impossible to get a nap in.
Last week I also had the fortune of seeing a good old friend. Melissa was a childhood friend of mine and her family was on vacation down from Alaska, visiting family in Idaho and Oregon. Fruitland is right off the highway en route to Oregon so they stopped by and had lunch here. It was great to see her and meet her new baby, Zoey. Ashton was at pre-school. Otherwise he would have had a blast with her 4 year old son, Elijah.
We didn't get a picture this time, but here's Melissa and I meeting up at Devan's wedding open house in Alaska a year and a half ago.
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