A Week of Wonderful Weather

What lovely weather we've had for the last week! Some of the days it was almost too warm, but we managed to get out a do a number of things outside the apartment and enjoy some family time.

Saturday we all went out to the movies. The kids had gotten theater gift certificates for Christmas and The Big One chose to use his to see "The Croods". It was a decent enough kids movie. The visuals were really nice and inventive, and the story was a neat idea, but overall it was a lot of the same kinds of things happening over and over. Even the kids felt that way. It was family friendly, though, and had some cute moments. I may have cried, a lot, at the cheesy Disney-like ending.

With his Christmas gift certificate was also a coupon to have dinner out, so The Big One picked a great local seafood joint called "Red Lobster". It was a fine choice by me for the cheddar-bay biscuits alone.

We had a couple trips to Fort Fun this week, which is the kids favorite park here so far. One evening we went after dinner so Matt could also come along. Tuesday was (or would have been) my grandmother's birthday, so in her honor I wore sparkly earrings and a necklace she'd given me and we went to walk on the beach. The Little One wore sparkly jewelry as well, "So I can be beautiful like you, Mommy!" I thought about how much my grandmother and the sassy Little One would have gotten along.

Fort Fun and Huntington Beach

Grandy, me, and Poppy, circa 1986

Wednesday and Thursday we had our first full two-days with Matt that didn't include 4-8 hours of driving, since he left for job training mid-January. The weather stayed sunny and went from mid-70s temperatures to mid-80s, so we went to Virginia Beach. Well, we didn't really know we were going there originally, but we wanted to go exploring. We drove down to downtown Hampton, didn't see anything to do, and so decided to keep on going. The kids were not thrilled about our "adventure". Luckily, I had packed snacks.

At the beach we played tourist and walked along the boardwalk and the main street, getting salt-water taffy at Candy Kitchen and frozen custard at Kohr Brothers. We were not the only ones who had the idea to go to the beach. I wondered if people took off work or school just to go outside. It looked like it must have been mostly locals out, and I quickly learned that the beach magazine we were handed was a marker for people from other shops to come out and try and sell stuff to "the tourists". So next time, we go as locals.

On the way home we decided to get dinner before making the trek back to the peninsula, as we've heard retched things about the bridge-tunnel traffic at rush hour. We figured if we were stuck in an hours-long back up, at least we wouldn't be hungry. We went a little out-of-the-way and stopped at a place my cousin recommended called Woodchicks BBQ. I love barbeque, and it was totally worth the stop. Yes, I eat mostly vegetarian, but for barbeque, I make an exception. I got something called a BBQ Sundae, which I ate until I made myself quite sick. I took the picture in the collage below after eating off the top layer of meat. It was really packed in there. Not even The Little One complained about her dinner, which is truly rare. Thanks for the recommendation, Ryan!

We took a kind of backwards way home and had fun trying to hold our breath through all the tunnels and make wishes. I made it through two tunnels with my breath held the whole way, so I get two wishes!

This week's homeschool park trip was to a new (for us) park called Deer Park. They had some equipment I hadn't seen before, like this giant nest-like swing, and some classics I haven't seen in awhile, like a merry-go-round. I managed to spin Brodie until she flung off and bit her tongue, and reminisced about the merry-go-round my cousins, brother, and I used to play with at our family's farm. If someone didn't fling off get hurt, you just weren't trying hard enough.

Matt and I also got a bunch of little paperwork type moving things done. We got new licenses and plates for the cars. We really live here now! It was a bit of an ordeal, though. Thursday I got up early to be at the MVA when it opened and sat and waited until they announced that their computers were down and we were welcome to wait but they had no idea if they would come back up. So I left and tried another MVA. I followed the directions on my GPS, parked, and followed the signs with arrows pointing "MVA this way", but after 20 minutes of walking around I never found it. I decided to give up and just go home. At that point it was late enough that even if I found another MVA location, it would probably be mobbed. I laughed at myself for wishing in the tunnels for "patience" - like in story books, you have to be very careful with your wishes and the way you make them, as they just might come true, and not the way you want.

I got it all done the next day, though. I always have a chuckle at people who have to take pictures for IDs, as they always repeat mine looking to get a better one, and it just doesn't happen. This lady advised, "Try to keep your lips together." Of course that can't really happen. When my picture still wasn't good on the second attempt, she looked down at my old ID and I guess saw that that's just how my picture is and gave up. Sorry, lady.

After the successful MVA trip I played Super Mom and baked chocolate banana oatmeal muffins, made a big salad, cleaned the apartment, washed everyone's sheets and my laundry, baked hot dog and hamburger rolls, and did school with the kids.

Somewhere between the heat and the sketchy amount of exercise I've been getting lately, I ended up with a couple of migraine days this week. One night, to try to calm my head before bed, I decided to paint. I started just painting random warm and cool colors, and then kind of ended up with these bison walking on water. The one is a little stumpy, but that's okay.

I really need to add more cardio to my exercise routine. I think the improved blood flow and cardiovascular fitness really helps my headaches. I had been doing sets of jumping jacks, high-knee marching, and running in place in between my weight sets with my previous routine, but with being in an apartment now I can't do all that banging around. I've been too scared to go to the community fitness room, so today Matt checked it out and found there was no one there. I ran on the treadmill for a bit. I've read good things about tabata training, so I'm making my new goal to be able to sprint for all 8 rounds. Today I got through 5, but had to take a break before completing the last 3.