108

When my yoga studio announced a 108 Sun Salutation Challenge, I immediately knew I wanted to do it. I don't run marathons or even 5Ks. I don't want to crawl through mud with my friends or swim across...well, anything.  But yoga in a park, I can handle that.  Of course, it was two hours straight of vigorous yoga (no laying around and just stretching).  Doing a Sun Salutation is like a complicated push up.  It's a lot of arm and ab strength.  The instructors (we had four taking turns leading) included a number of other poses too.  Doing 108 Sun Salutations was daunting.

It was cool and overcast at the park this morning.  We were at Ortega park, which is one of my kids' favorites.  I went over there for the 8:30 start time and Tom brought the kids over about 10am.  We were getting close to the end by then.

A lot of time was spent like this (Downward Facing Dog).  My shoulders are sore.

Warrior two.

Reverse warrior.

There was a pretty good turn out.

We practiced on a patch of tan bark, which was probably chosen since the grass was wet, but wasn't a great surface to do yoga on.  I ended up creating a pretty serious divot where my feet were which made things challenging.

Here's most of the group that did it.  Some people didn't make it through the whole thing, and some people left immediately and didn't stick around for the picture.  I heard two girls talking about how they wanted to go immediately to their favorite ramen restaurant.

The kids thought it was pretty neat to see mom do yoga and it was great to see them watch me.  It gave me the extra boost to get through to the end.

Here's one of my teachers, Joan.  She's a favorite.  The first class I took at the yoga studio was with her and it reminded me why I love yoga.  She really liked meeting my kids.

Riley's 3rd birthday, Glasses and more

We celebrated Riley's third birthday today at a breakfast party at a park.  She doesn't look too happy in this picture.

Oh well.  Here's a happy kid (Max).  

And another one.  

Looks like she cheered up.  Maybe the giant plate of birthday donuts made the difference.  

My kids were ready to dig in.  

Daddy and Serafina hung out in the shade since it got pretty hot there. 

After the party, I took Leo to the eye doctor.  He has mentioned a few times his vision is blurry, but he hasn't been rubbing his eyes or having too much trouble.  The last time he had his eyes checked was two years ago and he tested a little nearsighted.  I just wanted to see how he was doing since I'm extremely nearsighted and I figured he may take after me.  

Leo was a good sport during the whole appointment.  He was cooperative and didn't get worried about anything, not even the dilating eyedrops.  It was pretty clear he was having issues though when he was reading the eye chart.  Turns out he isn't nearsighted like me, but instead has strong astigmatisms in both eyes.  

Everything else was healthy, but the doctor said he should be wearing glasses.  

I really like my eye doctor and he did a great job with Leo, but his frames selection stinks.  I almost made my kid look like Buddy Holly.  

When I got home and showed Tom that picture, he suggested we find something better.  We went to a different eye place with a nice staff and a better selection.  Here's what we picked.

They are "flex" frames so hopefully they won't break.  Of course, he's five so there is a high likelihood these glasses are going to get roughed up.  I know he'll try to take good care of them.  They won't be ready for a few days and we're going out of town so we won't get them until we return.  He'll need to wear them almost full time, so you'll be seeing a lot of them in his pictures.  He seems excited about it and I'm glad he has such a good attitude.  I'm feeling a little guilty because, even though he doesn't have the same vision problem as I do, he most likely has a vision problem because of the bum genes from me.  He'll have a check up in six months and I made an appointment for Serafina too.  I want to stay on top of her vision too.  

After all the party and glasses stuff, it was time for the pool.  Here's Serafina being very brave with her dad.

Here are a few pictures from Thursday that I haven't gotten around to posting.  We visited the frog water park.  Serafina really liked it.

Leo and Doug played in the muck.

After the park, we went to Tom's work for family fun day.  Honestly, it wasn't very fun.  Here's Serafina playing one of the carnival games.  She wasn't good at tossing the rings, but she did it with flare.

Leo liked the games because he won cheesy little prizes.

Summer cold

We've had one full week of summer break.  We are having a good time, seeing friends, swimming a lot and still trying to practice reading and writing.

Unfortunately, they both have colds.  Leo has a little bit of a sore throat and the sniffles.  Serafina has both of those and a really bad cough at night.  In the wee hours this morning, she had a coughing spell that lasted over an hour.  It was a huge bummer and I decided to take her to the doctor today.  During the day, she seems just fine.  She sniffles a lot, but she has tons of energy and appetite.

See...happy girl.

But all that coughing was freaking me out, so I took her to the doctor.  Office policy is that coughing kids wear a mask.  That lasted all of a hot minute.

It's just a cold.  Not much we can do but ride it out.  The doctor did say we can give her a little Benadryl to ease the symptoms at night.  I gave her some before bed, but I can still hear her coughing.

Happy Father's Day, Super Dad!

I think Tom had a good father's day. I had to ditch him for a couple of hours to shop for supplies for our upcoming trip. He survived and I still had plenty of time to make him a special dessert - fluffy vanilla cake with strawberry whip cream and fresh strawberries.

We also got him a little present.  Leo wrapped it himself.

I think Leo was more excited than daddy.  It was just a little clock radio, so it really wasn't very exciting.

The handmade gifts from school were more exciting.  Leo made this painting for his dad.

It says, "I am in good hands with my daddy."

Serafina gave him the shrinky dink key chain she made.

She was a little grumpy about taking a picture.  Such a typical face for her.

Diving board day

Today was Leo's last swim lesson.  

 Serafina brought her camera too so she could take some pictures of her brother.

 Leo enjoyed the lessons, so we might do some more later in the summer.

He told me today he wanted to be in the Olympics, not for swimming but for diving.  Here he is on the diving board at swim class.  

Fun at the Fair

Today was the first official day of summer break. Serafina must not have received the memo because she was up very early. Oh well, at least we didn't have to rush to get out of the house.  I decided we might as well have a big outing for our first day of break, so we headed to the county fair.

We usually go with friends, but their kids were having their last day of school.  We were there shortly after the fair opened and it was very mellow and uncrowded.  We started by seeing some classic cars.

Leo was checking out a dragster when the guy supervising asked if he wanted to sit inside.

So cool.

Of course Serafina needed a turn.

We watched the pig races and visited the culinary arts tent.  I always say I want to submit some baked goods for competition but I never do.  We also looked at the Youth Competition tent and there was a Lego building contest.  Leo wants to enter next year.

Then it was time to visit the animals.

What a sweet bunny.

This kid is a 4H member and was helping out at the fair.  He asked my kids if they wanted to pet one of the bunnies and he got his sister's rabbit out of the cage.  It was so incredibly soft.

I sometimes think it would be great for my kids to be "farm kids".  Working hard, raising animals, wearing cowboy hats, participating in 4H or FFA.  Of course, when I think about the reality of that scenario and that I would have to be a "farm wife", it's a lot less appealing proposition.  In fact, it would probably be pretty awful, and smelly, and what would happen once they raise their animals to full grown.  Do we eat them?  Sell them to someone else that will eat them?  Hmmm....never mind.  Let's look at a weird chicken!

Pedal tractors.  Leo was looking forward to these.

Box of beans to play in.  Serafina kept asking to go back to the beans after we had moved on.

Milking the plastic cow.

Saddling up.

I gave my kids the choice for their fair treat.  Of course, I was hoping they would pick funnel cake, but Leo wanted cotton candy; Serafina wanted what Leo wanted. Neither had ever tried cotton candy.  I agreed as long as it was fresh.  And it was.  They had just spun it and it was still slightly warm.  It was also ridiculously overpriced.  The kids dug in.  

They were surprised by just how fluffy it was.

And...they hated it.

Oh well.  Mom came through with a much more enjoyable treat.

Tomorrow we are taking it easy.