Swimming lessons!

As promised:



She is doing it!! Staying above water treading by herself with her floats!!


The Front Crawl!

The front float on a board!

And the back float! With assistance from lifeguard Jesse! We learned from this experiance Benjamin is a fan of Brunettes. There was a blonde lifeguard subbing one day, and Ben would not allow her to assist him only, Jesse!

Look at that arm span on the crawl! Use those ice cream scoopers!


And a 1!

And a 2!

And a 3! She is so proud of herself!


Ben loves to go under water and this is what he does the majority of play time after the lesson!

Jonna enjoys dipping her head back into the water! Two more nights to go! And Papa Doug is coming tonight!

Strengthen my Body - Strengthen my Soul

In the last two days, I have had some amazing workouts on my lunch. Amazing... meaning, I pushed myself till it hurt, and well, I kind of wanted to throw up. I have been sore, but it is the hurt so good feeling again. I know I did more reps and weight than I would have ever been able to do six months ago. I know I am stronger, and I feel it.
My arms are more toned than they used to be, but I want them to be more tone. Same with my legs and my everloving tummy. So practice, practice, practice on my goals at continuing to strengthen my body. I know I will never have the perfect body and will always be trying to attain that.

My diet. If I eat good clean, unprocessed foods each day, I am also strengthening my body. I am cleansing myself and feel that I am more healthy on the insides than I was six months ago.

The explanations above applies the same to strengthening my soul. I listened to a wonderful sermon at Church last sunday, and wanted to share it. It was one great reminder for me.

The priest explained how in order to feed your soul, you need to practice, practice, practice. The more you practice and feed yourself, the stronger you will get. And when you don't feed yourself, you will starve. That is simple enough. To do this, you go to church, you pray, you spend time with family, you practice service to others. When I do these things, my soul feels strong, I feel good about myself. If I don't practice these things, then, my spirit is starved. My relationship with God isn't close, like I know it should be. I know it is difficult in my daily life to get caught up in things that really shouldn't be important to me. So, the more I practice the things that are important to me, the less I get caught up in things that end with frustrations.
I had this blog post so perfect in my head on Sunday afternoon. But it has been a couple days, so I hope the overall point came accross.

Swimming Lessons - Day 4 this week

So, we had signed Jonna and Ben up for swim lessons. It was going to be a week, where Jake would be there two out of the four nights, but now he was only able to make it to one, which is Day 4 tonight.

I think he will be pleasantly surprised at how well the kids are doing in the water. After tonight, they will have four more nights next week.

Let's give a little recap back to Night 1. I thought I could handle this by myself. Right? I was in the "Parent/Child" class with Jonna on one side of the pool, and Ben was in Pre-K 1 by himself with his teacher on the other side of the pool. I spent the entire weekend prior and that Monday explaining how he is a big boy, Jonna is a baby, and I will have to go with her for the lesson, while he stays with his teacher. He seemed ready for the adventure!

So, Benjamin was the only child in his class that didn't have a parent/Grandparent standing pool side to cheer their kid on. Man, that made me feel great. Ben is attached to my hip at times too, so this didn't help. But, he really needs to learn a little bit of independence from me. I love my Mama's boy, but I got to draw the line, right? Well, I left him there bawling. Another grandparent saved me and soothed him so I could go over to Jonna's class with her. Come to find out. Ben sat there on the corner of the pool whining and pouting since his Mom wasn't there with him. He wouldn't even get in the water. I came back to find him pouting. Lesson is over. He lights up and says he wants to swim! Granted this is coming back from a lesson with Jonna where she screamed through half of it. So, I was a little frazzled. I said to Ben, "NOPE! you didn't want to swim and listen to your teacher you don't get to enjoy free time after your lesson. Let's go home!" So, I walked them both kicking, screaming and crying all the way to the parking lot!"

Yep, I was that Mom. I felt horrible, wanted to cry right along with them. I wanted to not take them back and give up! WHY did I think I could handle this myself?! I called to gripe to Jake. And he takes my venting and that was that. Ok, I am too darn bullheaded to not do this. I just need a little help! Next, I called my brother Johnny. I said what are you doing from 6 to 7 the next two nights?! He came along both nights and sat with Benjamin while I went with Jonna. That guy is amazing! All I can say here is YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! Both nights went 1,000 times better. Ben is swimming under water. Making, "ice cream scoops while treading his legs". Jonna is blowing bubbles and jumping in to me on the side of the pool. She will even hold her breath under water for one second when she jumps in. She loves to put her head back in the water!

So, tonight. I will take pictures. And Jake will hopefully go with Jonna!! It will be grand! Next week, Jake will be able to come to three of them and Johnny will come to the other!

Next time I talk of these swim lessons, we will have pictures. All is well in Holee land! But man, I am tired :).

Fitness journal of the day - the motivations and the fallback

And a one.....

And a two....


Sometimes, I feel as if I am batting a million, and sometimes, I feel I could be working out better and eating better. My friend who is keeping her fitness journal couldn't have said it better yet in this post here. She hit it right on the nose. I am always trying to keep my motivation up, and I have to say, she explains it one way, and looking at picture number one is another way. That wasn't the first step of my pull up. To do a full pull up, you start with arms straight, pulling up to the top, and chin over the bar. The easiest is palms facing me. One day, I will do with palms facing out. Not quite there yet.

At this time, I feel I am maintaining. Father's day weekend, I enjoyed so much food, and it was food that was processed and full of sugar and well, it was spanking good. But I started over Monday, and feel a little better on track!

Last week, I had some walls put up on my work out regimand. I overdid my hip. Running at the ESPN worthy softball game I played last week, pushed it over the edge, but it started because I tried too much squat lifting. It really is so frustrating when you want to do something, but physically your body says, NO! When I mean no....I mean I get sharp pains in my hip when I walk and it gives out. Or it gets stuck in the socket for a moment and I can't straighten out my leg to walk normal. That is my sign that I have overdone it. So, I need to slow down. Less to no more thrusters. Maybe even a negative on the kettle ball swings. I do know I can do lunges, and small weight on Romanian Dead lift, and Push Jerks as long as I don't go to far down. So, this is something I have dealt with off and on my whole life. When you are dedicated to becoming the healthiest you can be and read all these WOD's that others are doing, you really want to be able to do them too. To work muscle groups you know you haven't pushed before. But, I know I can't. So, I have to find other ways. My goal right now is to do 10 pullups. The most I have done is 5 in a row. I just got to keep it up. stay motivated, and make short term goals along the way.