I spent part of the day working on contacting people to send Tom cards, emails, etc. for his birthday.  His sister Leslie came up with a fabulous idea for people to contact him so he gets at least 50 cards/letters/emails. I sent her email onto people in my contact list, Facebook, et.  Tom hasn't been reading my blog for a while so it will be my luck he reads this and it ruins the surprise!


Maddie came home from the White Water Rafting trip starting a cold, poor thing.  She stayed home from church yesterday and still feels a bit puny, although she did work on her pre-algebra and did some reading and drawing. They boys did some cleaning chores for me and some reading and school work too.  The day seemed to fly by so we didn't get any extra fun stuff in.  Now that we're caught up on chores we'll do more of that tomorrow.


Today's workout:  Yes, I have one to report, yippee.   I did Erin O'Brien's Postnatal Rescue (I understand that my youngest is 11, lol, but got this from www.swapadvd.com and love it.)  It is mostly pilates based and is really good for rehabing the abdominal and hip areas~actually it's a great warmup for other workouts and teaches really good body alignment.  This was 12 minutes.


Next was 25 minutes of mostly seated upper body work from Leisa Harts Arms of Steel (the new one released a few years ago). I then did the 10 minute yoga section of the dvd and ended with hip openers and some foam rolling for my hip/ITB band area which felt great.

Yesterday I seemed to turn and corner and today I've been walking pretty normally and am ibuprofen free.  I'm so glad that my leg is healing, to God be the glory.  Now I can go to church tomorrow and be with his Body!


This week the kids and I have studied some planets, comedy, nutrition, Proverbs, the scientific method, grammar, and quizzed one another on how quickly we can make change!  All in addition to the "regular" things.  


Exercise~yeah, right.  I've done some light stretching and that's about it.

A lot of you know I've not been posting lately because I've gotten hip bursitis. It's painful, annoying, and keeping me from exercise. That's not a good thing because I'm nicer when I can move and sweat, lol.


The kids and I are still plugging along with school and enjoying fun little challenges and discoveries each day.

I'll try to write more later in the week, when I feel like sitting at the computer!!


Friday I did workout, Skinny Jeans Workout. After that my hip blew up, so to speak.  So no exercise since then.


I read The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen (http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Queen-Random-Readers-Circle/dp/0553384848/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313541134&sr=8-1)and it was a good novel that a friend recommended.

Okay, small rant coming.  I try to be grateful and not complain because, by nature, I am a complainer.  A glass half-empty kind of gal.  So I am trying to fight that.  BUT, I'm frankly sick of the weather being so dark and foreboding a great part of each day this week, very humid, and not raining.  Sigh.


Okay, if that is my greatest complaint at the moment I'm truly blessed.


Today we did some work on stars and black holes for science. Each of the children looked up information and wrote a report.  Tyler has some glow in the dark stars he put on the wall of his room and he explained how he made various constellations with them.  Wes and Ty played some matching games and learned about 17 different constellations.  We all confessed we would never have gotten a bear, etc. out of the star patterns if it had been left up to us.


The cool thing we found was a site that showed what the night sky at various latitudes look like this time of the year~very interesting to try to find the constellations that way.


We also read about Samuel Champlain's settlement of New France in Quebec and studied paragraph writing(particularly topic sentences and supporting sentences) and writing in active versus passive tense.  All this in addition to our "regular" seat work.  It's always amazing to me what you can get done with three children in a concentrated amount of time!


Okay, God totally has a sense of humor.  I just looked out the window and guess what~it's raining, LOL. God, you are truly so good to me.


Today's workout:  Cardio!  I'm trying to increase my endurance and aerobic capacity doing about 45 minutes of cardio three times a week. Today I did about 15 minutes of medicine ball cardio and 30 minutes of Firm Cardio Sculpt Blaster.

Tucker the pup had his surgery today.  He did really well and now we don't have to worry about him becoming a daddy, lol.  I got up early to exercise and got him taken in and then got my hair  cut.  The kids slept in until after 9am due to the late night at the pool party.  


After the kids got breakfast we practiced piano, did regular school work, etc.  The fun part of the day for me was watching them get excited about their creative writing projects.  They each had to write about a special place they'd like to go.  Tyler created Tylerina, Wes wrote about Middle Earth from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Maddie will unveil her special place tomorrow.


Maddie and Tyler had piano and Wes and I picked up Tucker and then ran to the grocery.  I'm looking forward to a less busy day tomorrow where we can get some fun projects underway.


Today's workout: Slim Series Tear it Up 

Quick post for me today.  We did some math and other regular school work. The kids finished their writing assignment on something fun they did over the summer.  Then we played on a website featuring a lot of quizzes. It was fun~we did quizzes on Greek History, US History, State Capitals, US Geography, Bones of the Body, Chemistry, Electricity, SAT English Prep and many more.  Oh, the kids felt good that they could do the easy French, Spanish and German quizzes since they can count to 10 in each of those languages.

This afternoon Wes finished watching Gods and Generals about Stonewall Jackson and the Civil War while Maddie and Tyler watched a short video on the Boston Tea Party.  That way they felt like they got some "TV" time in but it was on thing we are studying or will study in school this year~and they were short.

Tonight is a swim party for the church at some members' home.  But, I've been fighting a sinus headache all day~it's looked like rain~so I stayed home. And now, I think it's going to rain, lol.  Oh well, the food will still be awesome, as will fellowship with other believers.

Today's workout:  Leslie Sansone, 3.5 miles.  2 Mile AHA Walk and Walk and Firm.

We're back from our vacation. The lake house was a blast~plenty of boating, swimming, tubing, etc. We were totally unplugged~no cell coverage, Wi-Fi or TV so we relaxed, read a lot, played games, etc. My dogs had a ball~they played in the lake, rode the golf carts and went for boat rides, lol. Friday and Saturday we spent time in North Carolina and went river tubing, mini golfing, etc. We decided to stay in a hotel the last two nights that kept dogs and that was nice~we didn't have to drag tents and stuff and deal with all of that.

Today we began school again~where in the world did the summer go?  We eased into things with some reviews in math, writing about a favorite summer memory, getting our work spaces cleaned out and ready, etc.  This afternoon Wes had an orthodontist appointment and he's doing really well.  They're estimating that his braces will be off in about 8 months or so.

Wes has also been reading his Driver's Ed book and taking some online tests to prepare for getting his permit.  How in the world did my child get to be 15 so quickly?

Tonight Wes has scouts so things are gearing back up from the slower days of summer.  Now, if the heat would just slack off a bit.

I'll have some pictures up of our vacation as soon as I can!!

Workouts:  I did an hour of Powerfit workouts last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but no other formal workouts last week.

Today was Slim Series Express Cardio Core and Cardio Sculpt. Tonight I'll walk Tucker and do Slim in 6 Slim and Limber.

What I read last week:  Everything Homeschooling (parts); part of  The Dirty Life; part of Mary Daheim's The Alpine Christmas. (http://www.amazon.com/Alpine-Christmas-Emma-Lord-Mysteries/dp/0345382706/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312833469&sr=1-11)