Sunday, May 26, 2013

Caboose Park



Hannah, Sarah, Lydia and Mary on the back of the caboose that sits in the middle of the park.  Not sure why they put it there, but it was a fun picture.


This past Thursday was such a beautiful day, and we decided to go to the caboose park to enjoy the weather since the girls were feeling better.  I took my camera hoping to get some great photos of the girls.  Unfortunately my battery did not charge like I thought.  So I didn't get any pictures of Alpheus playing soccer and frisbee with the big girls. Or any of Lydia showing her new friend all the things she could do on the parallel bars.  :(  But we still had fun!

This was the first place Lydia raced to climb and then pose. :)

This girl is happy when climbing.

Sarah offered to ride the tetter-totter with Lydia.

This is when my camera died.  

As we were leaving, Alpheus announced that we were going out to dinner to Macados!  
Me: "Who is the best dad in the whole world?"  
Big girls: "Our Dad!"
Lydia (who had not responded yet):  "God!"
Me:  "Great answer Lydia!  You are right."
Alpheus: "But you have to admit that only an omnipotent being beat me!"
Me (after I stopped laughing):  "You know this is going on Facebook."

Father's Day Challenge: Week Two Report

Weekly 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
Busy and bad week for meeting these goals.  I did hit 2 or 3 each day, but not very consistently.  I am thankful to say that I did lose 2 pounds this week!  That makes a two week loss of 10.  I really wanted to lose 5 per week so I am still on target but I know it will get harder each week.

I need to get back to recording my food choices on each day!  It seems so silly but it really does help motivate me to drink all my water and keep my calorie count in the target area. 

I also plan to get to they gym everyday this week except Monday since it is closed!  I only have one more substituting job for the year and I really do much better when I get to the gym.  The girls are finally better so I can take everyone two of the days!  

I am also so inspired by my mom and sister who have also been doing a great job with their goals.  Thanks for encouraging me!

I also appreciate my family who is trying to encourage me.  Memaw is such a big help doing the cooking.  Sometimes I even take my meals downstairs so I won't be too tempted to eat the other food.

Looking forward to a better week!

With All My Heart~ 






Friday, May 24, 2013

10-minute Upper Arm Workout


I love to ride the bike at the gym and walking the track or the treadmill is great too.  Unfortunately, neither of those  activities work the upper body, particularly the arms.  One of my favorite bloggerss Amy shared the youtube video above on her fitness Pinterest collection. I don't really care for the title of the video, but I appreciate the modestly dressed coaches. The workout was challenging without being too much.  The instructor, Holly Perkins, was detailed and encouraging without being annoying.  I also love the timer in the corner.  I am adding this to my daily workout!


Sunday, May 19, 2013

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~

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

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.

Vacation Day 6 (Thursday)




All the ladies had a lazy morning while the men went fishing!  I may add some pictures of that after I get them from Uncle Bob.

Around 11AM we headed out to see the lighthouses in the area.  We headed down the scenic route to see Cape Hatteras light house.  On the way we stopped at a couple of other sites.


This was the first light house called the Bodie Island Lighthouse.  They had a neat information desk where we learned that most of the catch that our guys had that morning were skates. We also learned that many people catch them and use the meat as artifical scallops.  We thought they were sting rays because they look very similar.  We decided not to climb this lighthouse since we were headed to a bigger one, but the girls did enjoy their gift shop purchases.


Do you see the trail mix snack cups they all bought?  We were stopping for lunch later, but they didn't want to wait.  Okay, it is your money. (After they had eaten all the M&M's out of it they agreed that maybe $4 was overpriced.)  Hannah was sketching the lighthouse while Lydia and Mary snacked.
Sarah was working on the Junior Ranger worksheet.  I think if we would have given them time, they would have all done it, but it takes a while and we weren't going back the next day for the ceremony.
 While at Bodie, a ranger told us to stop at the wayside a Pea Island to see the smoke stack of a Union ship from the Civil War era.  



After doing some research, I believe this is what we saw.
Oriental
A Federal transport during the Civil War, the steamship Oriental has been grounded in her present position since 1862. Local rumor has it that some of the area's largest fish make their home in the Oriental's rusty remains. You can see the exposed boiler and smokestack in the ocean surf off Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, opposite the Self-Guided Nature Trail parking lot.

Here is another interesting shipwreck during that war near Cape Hatteras.  It has been relocated though.

Did You Know?

This artist's rendering shows the U.S.S. Monitor foundering in a storm off of Cape Hatteras in December 1862.
The U.S.S. Monitor sank off Cape Hatteras during a storm in December 1862.  The wreck's location was a mystery until 1973 when a research vessel found the ship 16 miles off the cape in 230 feet of water.
In 1975, the Monitor  was named the nation’s first National Marine Sanctuary.

Just to the right of this picture is the road and the Pea Island N.W. Refuge.  
Sarah down in one of the breaks in the sand dune.

Hannah in the same break and you can see the shipwreck of the Oriental was not far off the shore.

Next stop was lunch.  We knew we needed some fuel before climbing to the top of the lighthouse.
 The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, completed in 1870, is the tallest brick lighthouse in North America.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, completed in 1870, is the tallest brick lighthouse in North America.  http://www.nps.gov/caha/historyculture/cape-hatteras-light-station.htm  If you would like to read more about the lighthouse being moved you can find it at this website.
The girls waiting for our turn to go up. 

We were at the top and way down in the middle of the largest green section, actually closer to the red brick path, is Uncle Bob taking a picture of us.  We were able to holler down to those on the ground and be heard easily.  It was not as easy for us to hear them holler back up though.  That would be an interesting study.

Uncle Bob had just finished taking our picture and was starting to walk off when I finally found him with my zoom! :)  

Here are the girls at the top.  We only had 5 minutes before the Ranger had to shoo us off to make room for other visitors.  That was disappointing because the views were really great up there.  However I was pretty busy consoling Sarah, who was feeling a bit sick, and keeping my eyes on Lydia the climber.

Here we are back at the bottom.  One of the girls suggested they pretend to be exhausted from the climb.  Hannah didn't want to so she is smiling.  They look the way I felt.  They really didn't get tired because their mom kept stopping at each landing of the twelve flights of stairs. :)

After a delicious spaghetti dinner we were ready for some more relaxing around the house.  Here is Lydia trying to cover Cheyenne with the bubbles in the hot tub.

This was probably the best I can do for an evening picture of the beach. I just loved watching the waves.  I could have done only that for hours!  Hannah and I both wished the swing had been on the top deck because the bushes obscured the view from the second deck.  

Now all the big girls were taking a turn.  They decided to turn off the jets so they could wear their goggles! Hannah was fussing at me to not take her picture with the shower cap on.  :)  I think she looks adorable and was very smart to wear it!
Time for S'mores!  After everyone was dressed and warm we headed out to the fire pit Alpheus had prepared on the beach.  Yes, my husband is the best!  There were skewers in the kitchen of the beach house which we were able to use.  
Here are Sarah and Lydia roasting marshmallows.  If you look closely you can see that each skewer has a double-pronged end.  This allowed us to do two marshmallows at once.  That was pretty neat.  
Then we sat talking and singing hymns and listening to the lapping of the waves. (Sarah, Cheyenne, and Sarah's new baby otter.) 

This was the night before Lydia was sick in the morning.  I should have known something was wrong when she wanted to cuddle on my lap for so long! :)
(Me holding Lydia, Aunt Debbie, and Sarah)

Daddy was playing music on his cell phone here.  Mary was enjoying a short nap.

Once the fire died out we all came back in the house for Mexican train or movies.  
Yep, I should have known!  She was going to sit on the steps until the girls finished their board game and she fell asleep.

It was another great day with some precious people!

With All My Heart~