Ashton had a cub scout activity that I absolutely loved! As a kid our ward did this same competition calling it a Men's Cake Bake for all the men and boys in the ward to participate in. The cub scout each made a cake to contend with. They received various awards like Most Creative, Best Use of Chocolate, Most Colorful, etc. Ashton won Best Use of Chocolate!
Jeep muddin'!
Jeep muddin'!
Yes, of course, Ashton had guidance from both Todd and I. But he did most of the work.
Caught these two cuddling/napping one evening. Precious little buddies!
Ashton's third grade class did an egg drop experiment/contest to see who could sufficiently protect a raw egg inside of a 2 liter pop bottle to survive being dropped off the top of the school. Ashton's egg sat in a nice rubber band bungie chair suspended by more rubber bands in the center of his bottle by tooth picks poking through the walls of the bottle. Then it was cushioned throughout with cotton balls and a little bubble packaging. The egg survived! And following the theme of white puffy cotton balls, he made it look like Olaf from the movie, "Frozen". This is a pic taken after the fact, so it help up well!
In February my friend, Lisa approached me about helping her CrossFit gym out. The gym has been in our community for a couple of years now, owned by two families. Both families are our friends. Lisa and her husband were more silent owners while the other family did all the coaching. There was some sort of falling out, and upon selling out their portion, the other owners walked away with all of the coaches. This left the gym members needing new coaches A.S.A.P.
I had just come back home from Alaska the day before and felt immediate stress at the idea of adding more to my plate. Especially not knowing when I would need to be of help to my family again. I wasn't really interested in working or doing more coaching than I already do for my friends. But I also have friends who attend this CrossFit gym and felt bad for them and for Lisa and her situation. Where both original owners were my friends, I was leary of getting in the middle of anything sticky. I said I would think about it and tossed and turned over the idea for two nights. Ultimately, I accepted to help for the following 5 weeks until the next CrossFit Certification course in Boise would occur so that some of their current members could become certified and take over the coaching. Two of my sister-in-laws were recently certified a few months prior and they chose to help as well.
This all happened during the 5 weeks of the CrossFit Opens competition. (This is a competition that sifts athletes out to then move on to the Regionals competions, which qualifies the few who make it to compete at the CrossFit games, sort of a world Olympics for overall fitness.) Because each person competing has to do the competition workouts with their own individual certified judge, I took the online certification judges course to help in that way. I participated judging in several pot luck parties at the gym where the workouts were announced worldwide via live TV and then the competitors of our gym did the judged workouts for the crowd.
I had just come back home from Alaska the day before and felt immediate stress at the idea of adding more to my plate. Especially not knowing when I would need to be of help to my family again. I wasn't really interested in working or doing more coaching than I already do for my friends. But I also have friends who attend this CrossFit gym and felt bad for them and for Lisa and her situation. Where both original owners were my friends, I was leary of getting in the middle of anything sticky. I said I would think about it and tossed and turned over the idea for two nights. Ultimately, I accepted to help for the following 5 weeks until the next CrossFit Certification course in Boise would occur so that some of their current members could become certified and take over the coaching. Two of my sister-in-laws were recently certified a few months prior and they chose to help as well.
This all happened during the 5 weeks of the CrossFit Opens competition. (This is a competition that sifts athletes out to then move on to the Regionals competions, which qualifies the few who make it to compete at the CrossFit games, sort of a world Olympics for overall fitness.) Because each person competing has to do the competition workouts with their own individual certified judge, I took the online certification judges course to help in that way. I participated judging in several pot luck parties at the gym where the workouts were announced worldwide via live TV and then the competitors of our gym did the judged workouts for the crowd.
It was a lot of fun to be in that size of a CrossFit community for that long. I have visited many CrossFit gyms in my travels, but was never a long term member anywhere except my experience at my old neighbor's garage gym. I went there for two years and they were my CrossFit family, but it was a very small family of 4!
I really loved being at this gym, but also struggled with the time cutting up my day. I didn't get much done back home. I'm just not that organized, I guess. And as much as I love CrossFit, I have not been able to participate in the workouts for so long that I feel funny about being a representative of it now. It's different with my friends. Outside their close friendship... it feels hypocritical.
If my health would allow, I would still thrash weights around every dang day. I miss it more than I could ever express. It is my personality to the core to broaden my limits and be strong. I miss feeling capable and powerful, ready for anything. I miss fitting those tiny clothes and feeling confident and just... sturdy! I feel so fragile now. And for that, it was actually somewhat harmful for me to be there any longer. It made me really sad. To have been at the level of health and strength I've experienced and have all the knowledge and discipline necessary to have world class fitness and yet be forced to sit on the sidelines for years... It made me kind of hard on myself. I've been through so much, physically, in the past 3 years. More than I let on. I can't risk losing any more health than I already have by pushing myself to participate and fit it. It's the strangest thing to have fallen so hard for this underground, unheard of fitness program, to have taught it to the community, spreading the word about what turns housewives into tigers, and now EVERYONE I know does CrossFit.... except ME. I pioneered it here. It kills me to sit that identity out now.
I made a lot of friends at the gym and even helped several athletes break barriers in their fitness or learn things they hadn't ever been taught. They were not happy with my choice to leave. I'll miss them. But back to routine and reality, I went.
But not without a new shirt!
These were pictures taken at a party Brielle hosted. I was asking them to show me what the "Whip and Ney Ney" is because I'm lame and apparently have completely missed a huge cultural icon of a song and dance. Woops!
Dancing led to breakdancing...
Dress up day for Dr. Suess' birthday. That Halloween wig was sure handy! We bought the last "blue hair root touchup powder at Sally's for Ashton's hair. All their blue spray on color was already sold out! There were lots of blue-topped heads at school that day!!!!
Lainey, reading me a story.
She is such a fantastic reader now! She LOVES to read.
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