Father's Day Challenge: Week One Report

Week #1 Goals

• 64 oz of water
• 8oz of Dt. Dr. Pepper per day (or less)
• 2 hours of excercise (taking it pretty easy at first and building up to harder exercises; not necessarily all at one time either.)
• No more than 1,200 calories per day
• No corn products
• Fruit and veggie snacks only

Day 1:  All goals met!

Day 2:  I worked and had band practice today so I had limited time.  I did stand all day at the school where I worked so I hope that makes up for only doing the bike for 7 miles which took me a half hour.  Everything else I met!

Day 3:  A bit frustrated with myself for not making the time to work out like I wanted. Going to try to do an extra hour tomorrow.  Still keeping the other goals.

Day 4:  I was proud of myself at my favorite restaurant, Macados.  I ordered a vegetable laden quesadilla (of which I only ate a quarter) and boneless buffalo wings.  Later Alpheus wanted to order pizza for our family movie night.  To be kind he ordered my least favorite brand.  I did have one piece of chicken pizza because it smelled so good, but I didn't eat the crust. I can't download my food to get a calorie count because Sparkpeople is down, but I think I stayed pretty close to my limit.  I was tickled to get the full two hours  in at the gym.  I was too tired to do more, but I work tomorrow at school so I plan to do a lot of aisle walking. :)  

Day 5:  Only half my water for the day and not any exercise.  I was in the most mentally and physically challenging class ever and decided to go for rest instead since the band had to play at 6:00.  

Day 6:  Spending the day with my sick girls.  Too much soda and not enough water. Cleaned house for a couple of hours will have to count as exercise today.

Day 7:  Official weigh-in day and I have lost 8 pounds.  Feeling very glad, but also very determined to do better this coming week at drinking my water and getting in my exercise!  Still have four coughing girls. :(

For those moments of victory this week over my flesh I give all praise to God!  

With All My Heart~

Vacation Day 7

Friday morning dawned brightly and I slept right through it!  Ah, the joys of vacation.  However, once I was up, I found out that Lydia was sick.  She complained that "her head was wobbly."  I moved her to my bed to keep resting and set about checking on the others. Uncle Bob and Aunt Debbie headed out to get some medicine while Rose fed everyone else breakfast.  What a great help they all were! The big girls were all fine and excited about going swimming on our last and warmest day at Nags Head.  

And it was warm inside and out.  I was a bit disappointed to discover that once we needed the air conditioning, it wouldn't work.  So while Alpheus and Rose took the girls out to the water, I called the company to report the AC problems.  They said someone would be right over.  I explained that it was only 10AM and already it was 78 degrees on the third floor.  Thankfully, the second floor had a separate unit and it was working fine.  I continued to keep an eye on Lydia and started some preliminary packing.  

Finally around noon a man came out and said, "Yep, you're right.  It isn't working.  I will call someone to fix it."  Oh boy, I knew we were probably in for a warm final evening.  Thankfully, there was always an ocean breeze and lots of windows to open if you could get the rusty things to work.  I suppose ocean air is pretty hard on those parts of a window. Overall we enjoyed the house, but the dishwasher wouldn't wash properly and the dryer took three 80 minute rounds to dry one load! 

After breakfast Hannah said the pelicans, ducks and dolphins were in the water again.  She asked if she could take some pictures so I let her use my camera under sworn oath of following all specified rules and full knowledge of the death punishment if camera was at all damaged. :)

At first I thought the larger figure was a dolphin jumping near the birds, but after enlarging the original picture I am certain it is a pelican.  You will have to take my word for it.

Here you can see two dolphins swimming between the birds.  Or should I say porpoises?  What ever they were, it was neat to see them.  

Just to give you perspective, they were not far from the shore.

After Lydia slept nearly all morning and afternoon, she finally felt well enough to get up.  We had planned to have dinner out again on our last night.  Bob and Debbie had heard several compliments about a restaurant called Fisherman's Wharf.  We decided to head down there for our last night. 

Sarah asked if she could take a picture.   In this picture you can see the large windows on the other side of the room from our table.  These surrounded the outside of the dining area and they allowed you to see boats coming ashore from fishing.  When they would be pulled in you could feel the whole floor of the restaurant shake.  That wasn't very pleasant, but seeing what they caught was very interesting.

This was a dolphinfish also called Mahi-Mahi.  It is not related to the dolphins of the porpoise family.  No one had mahi-mahi that night but I did try it at Captain George's and it was delicious, with no fishy flavor at all.

Sarah took this nice picture of Aunt Debbie!

I am not sure Uncle Bob knew his picture was being taken. :)  After dinner, we headed to our last item on the vacation check list:  putt-putt and go-carts!

Alpheus passing Sarah early on. 

Sarah having a great time!

Hannah was really enjoying it.

Probably no one was having more fun than Daddy though. :)

Then it was time for the junior carts.  This was Lydia's first time driving a cart.  She barely made it to the line.  I think her poofy hair helped her get in! LOL  She was so excited to drive instead of just ride.  She was going to ride with Uncle Bob if she couldn't drive herself.  I am not sure if Bob was relieved or disappointed. LOL

Mary caught on pretty quickly after a lap or so.  This was her first time driving too.  Two years ago, she chose to ride with Daddy.

Lydia was slow and looked like she was really having to concentrate, but you should have seen the smiles after she got out of the car.  She absolutely loved it.  I was relieved because she didn't appear to be having fun during the race.

There was one other driver with them.  You could tell that this boy knew what he was doing.   Mary kept trying to go around him and he kept cutting her off to the outside and inside.  Now I would have been willing to just let it all ride, but the boy's family was laughing and cheering him on, so like all normal parents Alpheus and I began to shout tips and encouragement to Mary.

Well, all is well that ends well.  As you can see, Mary was finally able to cut in on the inside and get ahead of the boy.  Oh my was he upset.  I am not sure if Lydia then passed him too, or if Mary passed her also.  I just know that Mary was thrilled to have won.  It is a good thing the girls had already spent all their trip money or I think we would have spent all that evening here. :)  Instead it was on to Putt-Putt!

Isn't the view behind this hole pretty?  So is Rose, who was also having a great time!

Hannah getting some advice from Daddy!

 Here is Mary preparing to hit her first shot!

Cheyenne hitting it across one of the traps while her dad, Uncle Larry cheers her on!

Can you guess who hit a hole in one?  She was pretty tickled with herself and so were Mommy and Daddy!

There is my golfing man at the head of the line! :)

Here is Aunt Debbie on her hole in one shot!

Can you guess why Sarah is jumping off the ground on this last hole?  Yup, another hole in one!

Such a fun group and fun times!

Thanks to Uncle Bob for taking photos with his camera and mine so I could play without trying to do both. I am so thankful that Lydia was able to go.  It wasn't long though before she was back in bed having taken more medicine.

This last picture is actually from Saturday as we traveled back home.  We started the trip with a meal at McDonald's and we ended it that way too.  Memaw Rose bought the girls happy meals as a special treat and Daddy let them take the soda in the van (a really special treat). 

What a wonderful trip!
Looking forward to where ever we may go in 2015!

With All My Heart~

Btw, all four girls were sick by Monday.  Prayers are appreciated for those who are still suffering.