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Out and About

With it being pretty darn cold here and with Bobby working quite a bit....and with us only having one car, you can imagine that Caeden and I spend a majority of our days in the house. So it goes without saying that we take any chance we can get to go outside and run around. I was starting to get a little frustrated that there isn't any indoor play area for kids in Bend, at least not one that's free. It's made me really miss that little cushy play area outside of Sears in the good ol' Mt. Shasta Mall! Thankfully, the other day the three of us decided to take an outing to the Bend Public Library. And lo and behold, the children's area had a great little play and read area! So that has become our free indoor play area to get us out of the house. That brings us to today! Since I'm trying to avoid going stir crazy lately, I asked Bobby if I could take him to work so that I could use the car to take the little man to the library! Of course it was a blast as we were able to read lots of great books while sitting on the worlds largest teddy bear. And Caeden played with all the super fun toys. When we were done with our "yi-bwawy" fun time I made an executive decision that it wasn't too cold to go play at the park! So we let Baxter out of the car and the three of us, Caeden, Baxter and myself, took a walk through one of my favorite places in Bend, Drake Park. Caeden chose to spend most of his time throwing things in the water and watching/chasing the ducks. Baxter opted to be horrible at heeling so I let him off leash for a bit and we played fetch. After some fun running with the boys, we packed it up and headed over to pick up Daddy. It was a VERY much needed outing for the 3 of us and was almost perfect. I say almost cuz it would have been perfected had Bobby been there! But we'll take what we can get! Here's some pics to show you how much fun we had! You should be able to click on them to enlarge.

Facebook is to Blame

I swear it's not my fault. I want to blame facebook for my prolonged blog silence because I'd rather not take responsibility for being plain ol' lazy! It's so much easier to send a two sentence update and a photo straight from my cell than it is to take the time to actually think through writing something interesting or uploading pictures from my camera. But fault and blame aside, I promised my Dad-in-law that I'd start blogging again once we moved away. So I thought following through on that promise might be a good thing! Especially since not everyone I know and love is on Facebook and don't get to see an hour by hour status update on my life! So here I am! Back on Blogger and ready to try and be interesting again! Although to a majority of people who read this, interesting is as easy as posting pictures and little stories of their grandson/nephew!

So since my last post, a lot has changed. We decided not to open the climbing gym (just yet) but to, instead, let Bobby go back to school to get his degree in Outdoor Leadership. So to do that we sold all his climbing holds (around 5,000 of them), sold other items, packed all our belongings in a huge U-Haul and U-hauled our butts all the way up to Bend, Oregon. So here we are, in the cold, high desert with a fire place in our living room and snow on the ground outside. It's quite the change from our long time home of Redding. But it's a welcome change. We love it already. We've made some great friends, found a fantastic church and are adjusting well. The first month was a bit rough since we weren't making much money at all, but that has improved as Bobby is working a lot before he starts up school in March. We miss our family and friends greatly, but thankfully, quite a few of them have been able to drive up and visit! That has been awesome! And we are excited for the rest of you to come when you can. Our house is very much open to whoever wants to come visit.

On a more sober note, we found out we were pregnant right before we moved but sadly lost the pregnancy at 10 weeks. It was not an easy day but God was extremely gracious with us, making it a much better experience than it could have been. His hand was evident through all of it and we are eternally grateful. At some point I might write a blog about that experience as it was a huge faith builder in our lives.

Well, to leave you, here are some pictures of some of the adventures and happenings we've had here thus far!We have discovered that Bend has endless amounts of outdoor activity possibilities! This bouldering area is just a hop, skip away from our house. It's right on the Deschutes River Trail which is also a gorgeous trail to hike, run, bike whatever! We spent the first two weeks here exploring a lot of trails and scouting out the local climbing! Yes, Bobby is like a kid in a candy store!Here's little Mr. Caeden all bundled up by the river! He LOVES being outside, so he loves it here!Here is Sarah and Meghan in the kitchen when they came to visit for Christmas. They kept us well fed with delicious recipes!Here's our house after the last big snow. And here's Caeden playing in it! He sure loves the snow! Good thing too!And here we are at the top of Pilot Butte. We hiked up there with my parents, Sarah and Jordan, Meg and Andy, Bella, Caeden, Odie and Baxter. It provides a gorgeous 360 degree view of Bend and the surrounding area and mountains. If you come to visit we'll take you up there!

Cross Fit Entry #10 Still Goin' Strong

I know I haven't written about cross fit in a couple weeks but I've still been going faithfully. Two weeks ago I went 5 days and last week I went 3 days. I want to go every single day but balance is an important thing! I've only improved each day I go. I can now do several knees to elbows and can also do several box jumps. (I couldn't do either when I first started in May) I can do more push-ups in a row than I've ever been able to do in my life and I'm getting closer to being able to do that darn pull-up! I've also seen my running improve immensely, which is awesome. I have better form and more strength in my runs and the other day I was able to do two laps of the Clover Creek trail easily whereas before it was difficult for me to do one. Plus, pushing my junky baby jogger is a breeze now! It used to be such a struggle to get that darn thing to go straight, especially while trying to hold on to Baxter's leash as well. But I didn't even notice it on my last run. Also, my Mom started Cross fit this month!!! Way to go Mom! Here she is learning the dead lift.I'm so proud of her for doing it because it's not easy for a 27 year old, let alone a woman of her...maturity;)! She is kicking butt and getting stronger each week. I can already see her confidence growing.

Here's a few pics from the last couple weeks of WODS.

Working out some Thrusters below. I'm in the front left, purple shirt gray pants. Squats, pull ups, push ups...lots of em. Pretty obvious which one is me in this pic.This was a really tough one, dumb bell split cleans and pull ups. I'm on the left getting ready to pull up.

We do special WODs on members birthdays. This week it was KT's day. So we did the following. My butt hurt for days!

This was a new one. Called Turkish Get Ups. You can kind of see the progression if you look at all the people in the different positions. Basically just holding up a kettle bell from lying down to standing up. Plank
Overhead KettleBell Walking lunges. This is why my booty hurt!! :)

Soooo....good stuff! I love it! Can't get enough. I'm heading to bed early tonight so I can hit up the 6am WOD tomorrow morn.

Cross Fit Entry #9 Killer Arms

I title this entry "Killer Arms" because my arms are going to kill me tomorrow! I hit up the 5:30 class tonight and we did 5 rounds of 15 Dumb Bell Split cleans and 21 pull-ups. (you can see the guys in the pic at the top of the split clean movement. You start with your feet hip width apart and the weights down by your shins then you end up in a sort of lunge with the weights by your shoulders). I did jumping pull ups since I'm still unable to do a real one. But if I keep doing stuff like this I should be pull up ready in no time! You can see me in the pic below on the far left. I'm resting between pull ups because it freakin HURT! Yay cross fit!!!!

Tomorrow my Mom starts cross fit!! I am so pumped. I'm going to do Tuesday nights with her in her Fundamentals class. I can't wait to see how she likes it! Cuz I know she's gonna like it!

And for those of you who are interested as well and have questions, feel free to check out their website for all the answers! http://www.crossfitredding.com/. Or come to Saturday's WOD at 9am to try it out for FREE!!!

Cross Fit Entry #8 Sluggish

Friday was a busy day seeing as it was Bobby's birthday (Happy Birthday, Love!) and I threw him a little BBQ. Plus I had to put some finishing touches on a cake that I made and then deliver it to a family out in Cottonwood. I didn't think I'd be able to get a WOD in. But at 10:55am, Bobby walked through the front door early from work. I handed Caeden over to him and quickly got dressed and bolted my butt down to CFR for the 11am WOD! Of course I was late but I got there while they were still warming up. After a little 400m jog warm up myself, we started the WOD. The night before we went to a BBQ where I ate lots and lots of refined carbs. And MAN! Did I feel the effects of that! I was so sluggish it was rediculous. I knew right away that it was a result of what I ate. I had no extra "umph" whatsoever and I finished last after everybody else. Not that it's a race or anything but I was just not on it. I was thankful that I got to go at least and the workout kicked my butt. So now I know not to eat like that in the future...oh wait, I went to two BBQs in the two days that followed and ate almost exactly the same way. Oops! Well, we'll see how long it will take me to learn my lesson! Here's some pics from the workout. I'm in the middle of the long line of "sit-up-ers". And that's me in the back left corner of the other pic, jumping rope. Question of the Day: Who's gonna come start working out with me???

Cross Fit Entry #7 Yay!

(this picture is NOT of me! I just wanted a good picture of someone doing Knees to Elbows)

I woke up this morning with just a little back pain remaining. But now it feels 100% better! I was even able to do today's WOD! I was pretty pumped about that since yesterday I was unsure how long it would be until I was able to fully jump back in. Today we did a 500 Meter row and then

21-15-9

Sumo Dead Lift High Pulls (with kettle bell)

Knees to elbows

Burpees

So basically each of those things 21 times, 15 times and then 9 times. By the end I was red faced and felt like I might pass out! It was awesome! I love this hard core, high intensity stuff. It makes me feel so tough and accomplished. So different from jumping on a machine and forcing myself to exercise for 30-45 minutes. I love having the trainers right there with me and I love having other people to do the exercises with. Today it was an older dude named Alex. He is a firefighter with a moustache and bomb-A work ethic! Couldn't ask for a better person to work out with! ;) Except for maybe my husband or my Mom. And by the way, my Mom has officially decided to join Cross Fit! She starts June 2nd in the next fundamentals class. And with her starting up, that means we can do a family membership, giving Bobby the ability to start too! I'm very excited to share this new part of my life with my family. It will be fun to work our tails off side by side!!