Weekly Mileage Recap & Tapping Our Trees

This past week my mileage was a little lower than the week before, but I didn't do too badly.

Wednesday we were in town for some car maintenance and the weather was gorgeous, so we took the opportunity to hike one of the trails on that end of town. We got a bit of a late start because of the car maintenance so we only went about 1.3 miles up the trail rather than the full 2 miles. We stopped to play in a section of an giant old poplar and I got some good photos.

I knelt on the ground and looked up through a hole in the tree to get this shot- isn't it cool?

I pushed Ocean up the hill in the stroller while Sunshine walked and River ran back and forth. He wore himself out and hopped on for a ride back down the hill. I didn't want to move Ocean, so he River got to squeeze into the lower seat. He actually fit pretty well. The main concern is weight distribution- the heavier weight needs to be up in the front seat, so it's not something I'll do on a regular basis.

Several times River flopped on the ground and asked me to take a picture. He stopped doing that when he flopped down right in front of the stroller and I couldn't swerve entirely away in time and ran over a finger. At that point he decided it wasn't that much fun after all.

Friday I hopped on the treadmill while getting some work done. The babysitter couldn't come because she hurt her ankle, so I hit the treadmill while the boys were napping.

Sunshine in the sunshine

I had hoped to get on the treadmill again on Saturday, but the nursery crud got me. Last Sunday was Ocean's first official day in nursery and like River last year, he brought home a bunch of germs. Within a day or two he had a snotty nose and was sounding a bit hoarse. Friday evening I felt a sore throat coming on and it was worse Saturday morning.

River looking almost angelic- he was looking up and I was looking down through a hole in the tree

We had our pinewood derby Saturday morning though, so I got up and powered through it (I was running the computer again), but afterwards we came home, ate lunch, and took naps. I totally dozed off, which rarely happens. We had made arrangements earlier to have some friends come and help us tap our trees, so after our naps, we got up and got our supplies ready.

Ocean and his sticks. Seriously, if his feet are touching the ground, he's looking for sticks to pick up and carry around.

Yeah, I don't know why he's sticking a dirty finger in his ear either :)

We hiked around the property and tapped our three walnut trees and six maples. I was tired by the time we were done, but it was good to be out in the fresh air. Our winter hasn't been super cooperative (i.e., not very cold for most of the last couple months) While we had one cold snap when we got snow, it was too cold to tap the trees then, and when it warmed up it warmed up too much to tap the trees. It's been on the warmish side lately, but it's finally gotten below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, which is optimal tapping weather. We just haven't had the cold weather we need before that.

we got a little snow last night!

When we tapped the trees we noticed that the black walnut sap was flowing, but the maple sap was not. We're really curious to see how this pans out- do we only get black walnut sap? Will the maple sap start flowing now that it's colder at night? Will we get enough sap to do anything at all with? Only time will tell.

Weekly Mileage
Wednesday: 2.66 miles hike with the kiddos
Friday: 3.52 miles walked on the treadmill
Saturday: about .5 miles hiked around our property
      total mileage: 6.68 miles

hike #4 for the 52 hike challenge
20.51 total miles towards the 365 mile challenge- almost caught up!

Sunday Funny

Ocean was feeling peckish in the checkout lane at Costco. Broccoli doesn't taste nearly as good when it's still in the bag though :) He enjoyed it a lot more once it was cooked. He and River both love their broccoli.

Climbing to New Heights

 

Last week Ocean figured out how to climb on things, and now he climbs on all.the.things. We've had to resort to stacking the stools and chairs on the counters and table so he doesn't climb on the chairs and stools and then onto the counters and table.

While we waited for Sunshine's checkup at the orthodontist (she still doesn't have enough adult teeth to get braces, and the second round of baby teeth pulling has been beneficial to the adult teeth she does have), River amused himself with the game machine in the waiting area. Ocean decided he needed to join River, and he did what he needed to to get there. 

He almost made it upright the first time, but not quite. He climbed back down and for some reason River switched seats, so Ocean successfully climbed on the other stool.

So cute! He thinks he's such a big kid :) But kneeling wasn't enough- the little daredevil then decided to stand up to play the game.

This picture cracks me up. He climbed up on the stool and was pulling papers off the frig, but he had his (ok, River's) helmet on. Safety first!

And not to be outdone, the other day River swung himself on the freezer handle and stood on the freezer to get water out of the frig (ours is on the inside wall, it's not external).

I don't remember River climbing on everything as much as Ocean has been doing, but it's hard to be sure. Regardless, they both come by the climbing impulses naturally. Mr M's parents tell the story of him pulling out the drawers of a tall dresser, then climbing them like stairs to get to the phone sitting on the top of the dresser. He was less than two years old at the time.

Ah, the joys of trying to keep up with little boys :)

GAPS v.2017, Week 1 Intro

we're a bit waterlogged from all the rain we got over the weekend

I've known for months that I needed to get back on GAPS, but I've been putting it off. First there was Halloween coming up, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Years. All involve chocolate and yummy food that I didn't want to give up.

And I was still breastfeeding Ocean, and didn't want to mess with that. But lately he's been losing interest, and my milk supply has been drying up. He turned 18 months old last week, which is 6 months longer than Sunshine nursed and 2.5 months longer than River nursed. So I'm ok with him being done. This puts me at just over four straight years of being pregnant and/or nursing- not something I would have predicted happening even two and a half years ago.

I've also been gradually removing one food after another from my diet over the last few months: potatoes, rice, corn... Even chocolate had to fall by the wayside. I was becoming so sensitive to it that if I ate any after 3 pm I couldn't sleep that night :(

Having to give up chocolate was the last straw.

I was already so close to GAPS, that it wasn't that hard to start. The hardest part was talking myself into just starting. I only had to cut out sweet potatoes, my grain free bread (which was starting to be problematic as well), and dairy. I do miss cheese and yogurt, but I'll be able to add homemade cheese and yogurt back in soon.

I was reviewing my notes from the first time Sunshine and I did GAPS, more than four years ago, and it was a very different experience from this time around.

It's a lot easier this time.

Part of why I put it off so long was because I knew it wouldn't be easy and I wasn't looking forward to all the side effects: brain fog, crankiness, feeling crummy, food cravings, and so on.

So it was a pleasant surprise to realize that's not the case this time. I had a touch of brain fog early on, but nothing bad, which is really good since I've got lots of work to get done and need my brain working properly. I haven't had any real cravings, though I got close Sunday night when we got home late from church. I made the perfect grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids' dinner before starting on my soup, and I was so hungry that I was seriously tempted to snitch half of Ocean's sandwich. I restrained myself and made sure there was lots of fat in my soup, and I was fine.

Another thing that struck me when I reviewed my notes was that I didn't mention weight loss. I have no idea if I lost weight then. I must have since GAPS can be low carb and I mention at one point that I was struggling with the effects of being too low carb, but I didn't track that weight loss.

This time I am, since a major goal of doing GAPS is to finally lose weight. That will only happen if I heal the damage to my intestines and get my PCOS under control. GAPS will help with the first and should also help with the second.

In my first week of GAPS, doing Phase 1 of the Intro diet, I lost 5.8 pounds. Woohoo! I don't expect that to be the case every week, but it was definitely a good start. I'm sure most of that weight loss came from drastically lowering my carb intake.

I originally planned on just spending three days per phase of the Intro diet, but two days in I decided to stay on the first phase for a full week. I was feeling good and felt like it would be a good decision, so I did it. Last time we spent a full week on each phase, but I'm not sure that will be the case this time. I'll decide during each phase how long I want to spend on it; a minimum of three days but probably not more than a week.

Weekly Mileage Recap

follow the leader on a tree root

This week I was much more successful in my exercising efforts. Tuesday evening I hopped on the treadmill while waiting for the laundry to finish. Thursday we went for a hike. It was on the short side, but at least we got outside. I'd planned on us going in the morning, but River was having meltdowns over every little thing. I sent him to bed, where he took a nice long nap. So long that we only had about half an hour for our hike before we went to history club.

Lately River has decided to only take sporadic naps while simultaneously staying up for Sunshine's story time and waking up early in the morning. He wakes up to use the bathroom, and instead of going back to bed, he goes downstairs to start playing, turning lights on as he goes. Needless to say, he is one tired little boy.

looking at a tree with an unusual growth pattern

We hiked in another new-to-us park and we will be returning. It's a nature park- no running, horses, dogs, or anything else allowed. A lot of the trees have labels on them and it will be interesting to see how the plants change from winter to spring to summer to fall.

Ocean and I were there!

Friday I had a babysitter come in to help with the kiddos. I was able to walk on the treadmill without having to stop every 5 seconds to referee arguments or move Ocean away from the treadmill. It was glorious. I spent an hour and half walking on the treadmill while hammering out my blog post schedule and plan for my new blog (one of my online businesses), as well as making good progress on the posts themselves. Much more progress than I've made in awhile, especially in a short amount of time. Totally worth the money for the babysitter. She'll be coming back on a regular basis :)

interesting bark- we're not sure if that's how it grows, or if there's some fungus in there

Saturday my friend and I left our kids with her husband (7 kids 10 and under- brave man!) and we went for a run. It was perfect running weather: chilly, but not freezing, and a nice mist coming down sporadically. We had a great run and will be doing it again.

such a nice place to run

Weekly Mileage:
Tuesday- 2.00 miles on the treadmill
Thursday- .54 hike with the kiddos
Friday- 4.26 miles on the treadmill
Saturday- 2.32 mile run outside
          total mileage: 9.12 miles

Hike #3 for the 52 hike challenge
13.83 miles total miles towards the 365 mile challenge- slowly catching up!

Sunday Funny

River's trying to get his stick back from Ocean, who doesn't want to give it up- he likes his sticks too!

A recent conversation between River and me:

River: "Marmallows!" (he had one in each hand)

Me: "No marshmallows."

River: "Here Mommy." (hands me one marshmallow)

Me: "Are you sharing so I won't get mad at you?"

River: "Uhuh." (as he shoves his marshmallow in his mouth)

He knows how to work the system....

DC Temple at Night

Sunshine and River touching the temple

This is one of a number of drafts that were started, but never finished. I'm slowly working my way through the list as I have a couple minutes here and there to finish them.

Back in November 2015 (this tells you just how old this draft is) one of my sisters went through the temple for the first time, and the timing of the session meant it was dark when we came out. Normally we go during the day so we can get back before dark and get the kiddos in bed, but since there were several other family members' schedules to work around as well that didn't happen this time.

Not that I'm complaining- I'd never seen the DC temple at night. The stained glass is beautiful! Up close, the glass is thick and rustic looking, but I'd only ever seen it during daylight, which just doesn't have the same effect.

The moon made a good addition to the pics, though they would be more impressive with a full moon.

Weekly Mileage Recap

Monday I had a massive sinus headache, which derailed my plans to get much of anything done. I did take the boys out to play for a little while though and Sunshine got to do some more sledding with the neighbor boy (it was a snow day for everyone!).

I wasn't feeling up to chasing the boys around, so I put them on the trampoline. Turns out that the trampoline was a great idea- it kept them contained with no chasing needed! There was just enough snow to play with and do snow angels and make marks with sticks. Though it would have been better without all those leaves mixed in.

I guzzled water all day and by the time I went to bed, the sinus pressure and headache had lessened.

Unfortunately, the temps rose and it rained on Tuesday, so our snow all disappeared, much to Sunshine's disgust.

Thursday we went for a hike and it was 66*! So crazy since we were in the teens and twenties the week before, and just a couple days later it was so warm. We went to a different park for our hike since the ground was so wet and muddy. Our usual park is also open to horses and mountain bikes and they don't want the trails being used in wet conditions because the trails will get chewed up.

The park we went to doesn't have an extensive trails system, but we did manage to squeeze a two mile hike out of two connected loops. The difference in the single use trail was quite obvious. These trails were much narrower, steeper, and more twisty. They also follow the shore line of the lake, which was neat. We found a tree that had been felled by a beaver, but it had been there for a while and we didn't see any other signs of beavers. Sunshine was looking forward to seeing a beaver dam, so she was disappointed that we didn't see more evidence of them.

We also discovered that the lake we thought was just water was actually just a little bit of water sitting on top of a layer of ice. We thought most of the ice had melted and there was just a thin layer near the top, but when I carefully put my trekking pole in the lake, I discovered there was a very solid layer of ice still in there. Super cool!

I made plans to go running with a friend Saturday morning, but had to cancel at the last minute. I had the worst case of insomnia I've ever had. I went to bed around 10pm and didn't fall asleep until 6am! I only slept for a couple hours before the kids woke me up. I made it through the day, but I was ready to go back to bed at 6:30pm. I didn't, but I wanted to :)

I randomly caught this picture of River looking back with a funny expression

I'm not sure why- he wasn't upset or anything, I think the timing was just right :)

he looks rather upset, right? he wasn't though...

maybe he was concerned about being in front of all of us?

I'm still trying to improve my time management and didn't manage to get on the treadmill this past week. I did wake up earlier than usual several mornings so I could get an earlier start on my day. That was partially successful, in that I woke up and got going, but I wasn't getting to bed early enough, so I was super tired and not as productive with those early hours as I wanted to be. On the other hand, that insomnia bout is making it a lot easier to get to bed earlier, which also makes it easier to wake up earlier.

Posts here will continue to be a bit scarce while I concentrate on getting my businesses up and running. I'm making good progress, but still have a ways to go before things are established enough that they don't take as much time. Short term pain for long term rewards.

Weekly Mileage
Thursday: 2.01 miles
       total mileage: 2.01 miles

hike #2 for the 52 hike challenge
4.71 total miles towards the 365 mile challenge (I'm behind, but it will be easy to catch up since I will be training for two half marathons this year)

Sunday Funny

Last Friday we were out running errands when it started snowing. River stuck his tongue out to try to catch snowflakes, so Ocean stuck his tongue out as well. He didn't know why he was doing it, but brother was doing it, so it must be the thing to do :)

Weekly Mileage Recap

Ocean loved the snow!

This past week I didn't spend any time on the treadmill, but we did go on a hike (the first of this year!) and play in the snow. Yep, we finally got some snow Friday afternoon into Saturday.

We ended up with several inches that covered the ground, but it wasn't deep enough for snowshoeing.  Despite that, Sunshine insisted on trying hers out anyway :) She snowshoed to the neighbor's house to go sledding, then snowshoed back.

they may not look like it, but they had fun

The boys and I went sledding at our house in the morning. After naps I popped the tires off our bike trailer and put the ski kit on. We bought the trailer when Sunshine was about 2 and the ski kit was on sale so we optimistically bought that as well. Saturday was the first time we've been able to put it to use. Glad it hasn't been a complete waste :)

The boys were a bit crowded with their puffy coats and snow pants on, but they fit. This was the first time they've been in the trailer since we haven't gotten our bikes out since before the boys were born. I used to use it all the time with Sunshine, but it's been languishing in the shed for the last 4 or 5 years. I'd already planned on getting my bike and the trailer out when warmer weather arrives so Sunshine and I can go bike riding, and this was a bit of extra encouragement.

it's really hard to take a good selfie of yourself and the trailer six feet behind you

The harness system worked great and the trailer pulled easily, though we scratched the skis on the gravel under the snow in the places where the snow wasn't quite as deep. I just wore my snow boot and hiked with my ski poles and it was harder than I anticipated to pull the boys in the trailer up our driveway hill. If I ever have the chance to pull the trailer while cross country skiing I'll have to avoid any hills.

Thursday we went to our usual trails park and ended up on a trail we hadn't hiked before. Remember the old car we found on one of our hikes? This time we found the ruins of an old stone house. And, coincidentally, a geocache wedged in the stones of one wall.  This was hike #1 for the 52 Hike Challenge.

I'd love to see a picture of what this house looked like before it fell apart

For whatever reason, this hike actually went really well. They don't always- sometimes one of the kiddos is tired or grumpy, or we're short on time so I'm hurrying us along, but none of that happened. It was refreshing :)

cute baby alert!

Almost a month after we first got sick, we're finally over most of the crud- we're just dealing with a lingering cough or two in the kiddos and some sinus pressure in me. I'm drinking so much water to keep my sinuses clear I could almost float away. Hopefully it'll clear up soon.

Weekly Mileage
Thursday: 2.20 miles
Saturday: ~ .50 miles (not certain, so just guessing)
       total miles:  ~2.70 miles

2.7 miles towards the 365 Mile Challenge