Update Time

Lots going on at the moment with not alot of time to blog.

• Exercise - Today finished the first week of Couch to 5k. First two days of running not to bad but this morning was not fun. Pain in my calves and shins. Next week I will probably repeat week one of 5 minutes walk  then 60 seconds run/ 90 seconds walk. No jazzercise this week because of holiday on Monday and doctor visit on Wednesday. Hoping to go in the morning as along as shins and calves are better. Not sure if the Jazzercise challenge will work with the Couch to 5k challenge, it would mean exercise 7 days a week and not sure if this 45 year old body can take that, but I am going to try. Grace is participating right along beside me and no problems to report on her part. Ahh.....to be young.
• Health - Took my mom to her three month appt yesterday for cancer screening. The week before she did bloodwork and a petscan. Petscan shows brightly lit up nodules in the lungs (metathesized from thyroid cancer). This means probably within the year she will require some type of treatment. This is like our 12th year of living with thyroid cancer with no treatments for the past two years.
• Drama - Gearing up for performances next week of The Jungle Book. One regular practice tomorrow then Monday - Thursday will be 10 - 3 each day with performances on Thursday and Friday night. Looking forward to some down time. Pray for us, we are no where close to performance ready.
• School - School has been out for us for a couple of weeks. Still lots of activities and discussion going on. For the summer I want her to do a daily devotion, read for 30 minutes, do some creative for 30 minutes and something physical for 30 minutes. If I can get her to accomplish this each day I will feel good about the summer break.

Some upcoming activities are : drama performance with a one week drama camp, volunteering for two weeks of art camps, and lots of exercise.

Summer Bucket List

We just joined the Happy Family Movement's Summer Bucket Challenge. Of course our bucket list might be a little different than others with having only one child that is turning 13 in two weeks. If you would like to join up visit www.thehappyfamilymovement.com or click on the image below.

• Sign up for library summer reading program
• Couch to 5k jogging challenge
• Jazzercise June and July challenge
• Go Fishing
• Swimming at the river
• Trip to the big library and farmer's market in Spout Springs
• Ice Cream and Miniature Golf
• Read Aloud one fun book together
• Have friends over for a sleep over
• Volunteer at 2 art camps
• Volunteer for VBS at church

Baby Chickens Growing Up

I just realized last night that I haven't posted any updates of the babies. All seven are healthy and growing in two separate nurseries. Just switched the chicks to non-medicated chick feed so that in two weeks I can move both moms back in the main coop and combine the 7 baby chicks in to one nursery. Hoping everyone gets along.

New Exercise Goals

  Me and Grace have set a couple of goals to challenge ourselves over the summer. I have always wanted to run but never really got past the shin splints and pains of the beginning to go any further. A couple of the blogs I read mentioned the Coach to 5k program. I really have no interest in running in a 5k but would like to be able to run 3 miles a day  a couple of times a week. This program gets you started slow with increments of jogging and walking to eventually build up to three miles of jogging in just 9 weeks. The other challenge is through Jazzercise, for the months of June and July. Grace and myself will team up and if we get a combine total of 60 classes attended we will win t-shirts. I mostly want to do the two challenges because I have been at a plateau of 169 pounds for 2 months and really need to step up my game. I hope by August to have lost another 10 pounds which is only 2 pounds a week. I think Grace would also like to loose the same. Wish us luck!

Notgrass Review - Olympics Unit

   
About 6-8 weeks ago I made a purchase from the Notgrass company that I was very happy with, A Record of Learning Lifestyle Journal. I contact the company to let them know I would really like to review some of their products on my blog. Within 1-2 days I was contacted and they graciously emailed me the Olympic Games Ebook. The ebook contains 40 lessons about Olympic history and events of the summer and winter games. I would say the age recommendation is right on the money. Grace is 12 and the puzzles, etc. seemed a little easy and young for her, but the text was informative and she learned alot. I would say her favorite parts were learning about the different events and the host cities. We live close to Atlanta which was a former host city of the Olympics. This opened up many discussions about how the city is picked, etc. Also I was able to point out the Georgia Tech dorms that were once part of the Olympic Village on our last trip down to the home school convention. As a family we had also visited Centennial Olympic Park but Grace didn't realize until the unit that it was also built for the Olympic games in Atlanta. This would be a great unit to familiarize students with the Olympic history for the upcoming games in London. You can purchase this as an ebook ($4.95) or print ($9.95) from www.notgrass.com.

*The Notgrass company graciously sent me this free ebook for my humble opinion.

Another Fellowship Opportunity

Today was another fun day for Acts of Faith.

The family of one of the members of our group owns a horseback riding and zipline center. So today was all about some quality time together for the group. Only one member of the group was not able to attend. Later it was pizza for dinner and a game of barn tag for about 4 hours.

The Biggest Loser

Grace has become obsessed with watching past seasons of Biggest Loser on Netflix. I was hoping it would inspire her a little to add more exercise and better eating habits, but so far that has not occurred. But the episodes that I have watched have really inspired me. As I have mentioned before both me and Grace attend Jazzercise classes three times a week. For the longest time that was really all I could work into my schedule and my health was not the best either. But now that we figured out I was anemic and have brought my blood count back up I feel really good. So last week I decided we would add at least two more exercise days to the regimen. Those two days would consist of walking/jogging in our neighborhood. Of course I make Grace go as well. With school being finished I feel we can really accomplish some good work with our bodies and health throughout the summer. Grace's birthday is coming up and I know she would really love to get a wii. If the money materializes I just might do it and get the wii fit plus with the Biggest Loser games. She would be so surprised.