This Weekend, I. . .

Honestly, this weekend was so good, I had no desire to return to the real world. Saturday, I had to work a tiny bit, but was done by about noon. We went to the UofL baseball game, and it evoked precisely all the summertime-childhood-carefree sentiments I hoped it would. We didn't even have to stay for the whole game, I was feeling that good by the top of the 7th inning. ;) Truth be told, we both got tired of no one scoring and ended up leaving on a "if no one scores within 2 innings we're leaving" ultimatum.

at the game. I don't know which direction to look when I take pictures on the ipad.

After the game, we biked to Iroquois Park for the first time since we've lived in Louisville. I liked it considerably, although Cherokee will always be my favorite, because that's where we got engaged. It sure felt great to be outside in the nicer weather.

Yesterday, I woke up early and got really ambitious about making a super-fancy visual aid for singing time with my primary kids. Check out how amazing this lady is. Mine looked like a pretty tacky knock-off, but it was still a fun way to teach the kiddos the words to the song.

Oh, and yesterday I made my first-ever roast. I feel like such a grown-up. It was also "free day" for the Gettin' Healthy challenge, so we had to find something delicious to make. I chose these cookie-caramel-peanut butter bars I found last week. They were pretty much to die for. Our good friends Duane and Andrea came over for dinner and to play Sequence. Andrea and I have teamed up and won the last several times we've played, so that is pretty awesome.



                                  

                                             

                                               

Overall, such a great weekend! Link up here or here to share your weekend fun.

On True Sportsmanship.

This is an amazing story all around. Not only is this sports coach willing to take a special needs kid under his wing AND give him playing time in an important moment of the game, but a huge group of his peers (teenagers, no less!) are there to cheer him on and sacrifice teenage ego for his success. So inspiring, I just had to share this. Happy Sunday!

Gettin' Healthy: End of Week 2.

We're closing in on the end of Week 2 for the Gettin' Healthy challenge. We have got some fierce competitors, to be sure! I made two stupid mistakes that have taken me out of first place (falling asleep before I meant to and not finishing my water for the day; accidentally snitching while I was making a cake for Sunday). BUT, this week, I have managed to stay on top of everything. Definitely the 5 servings of veggies/day is the hardest for me/takes the most planning, but Chad and I are in a rhythm with that. We each usually have one V8 per day and one huge salad, and then maybe some frozen veggies or something else veggie. It works pretty well.

On a personal note, I started my official training plan for the half-ironman. I am using this plan from Triathlon Plus, and so far it has pushed me hard (yikes, and it's only week 1) but also focused my workouts in a way I was really struggling to do on my own. I have been working out consistently (mostly) for 2 months now, but was burning out during my workouts once I hit 20 or 30 minutes. I felt like I had to FORCE myself to go any longer.

On Monday and Wednesday, I swam 1800 yards (just over 1.6 km) and it was great! I was not bored, and I was able to push myself to make it through the 200-yard front crawl intervals (previously, I would do 100 yards of front crawl and then switch to something else, exhausted). Running has gotten so much better, too--focusing on being at a certain intensity level and adding sprint intervals has made all the difference in terms of staying focused. So far, so good! Obviously, I am going to have to keep pushing myself even more if I'm gonna be ready for the race on June 1st!

A friend of mine, KT, blogs about her progress towards losing 100 pounds. I enjoy reading about her commitment to her goals, and she has a nice online community of people cheering her on. She is now hosting a virtual 5K on June 1st, which is really awesome because that just so happens to be the date of my Half Ironman! Whatever your fitness goal, you can participate--whether you are looking to get back in shape, or back into running, and would like to have some peer support, check out her challenge here! There will be weekly link-ups on Tuesdays for everyone to share progress.

Happy Friday!

Oatmeal-crust Pizza

I made this pizza dough recipe several weeks ago and it was probably some of the best pizza we've made at home. But now that we're doing this health challenge, I don't feel super great about consuming good ol' fashioned white-flour pizza dough. (There's no rule about grains/flour, but I sorta feel like if we're gonna eat healthy, we might as well eat HEALTHY.) So yesterday, we tried out the new grinder my mom gave us for Christmas! We had oats on hand, so we ground them up for our flour and replaced flour with oat flour in the above recipe. It worked pretty well!

We loaded the pizza up with fresh veggies and fresh mozzarella cheese (YUM!).

Oh, and in case you're wondering: the recipe worked mostly okay with the oat flour. It seemed to require a bit more of the oat flour than is called for in the recipe, just to make the dough not totally sticky. Since we ran out of oat flour, we ended up having to add maybe 1/2 cup of regular flour. Overall though, it was a success and SOO good! I am excited to use the grinder for wheat and rice and other things, too.

Emma's Scripture Thought

I've missed putting these up for the past couple of weeks! Here is Emma's scripture thought for the week.

'Seeing as the chapter heading of Third Nephi 7 starts out, “The chief judge is murdered, the government is overthrown, and the people divide into tribes…” I think I was kind of expecting a chapter that mostly went over some of the history and wickedness that had been taking place. But this chapter actually taught me a lot of great lessons about missionary work! Because there was a lot of wickedness, Nephi was able to do some great preaching. This starts out in Third Nephi 7: 16 where it says, “… (he) went forth among them in that same year, and began to testify, boldly, repentance and remission of sins through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. “I like this verse because it neatly summarizes what I think is our main message. I mean, it’s called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after all. Also pulling from that verse, the word “boldly” makes Nephi seem like a good missionary, but he’s actually way more awesomethan just good. Third Nephi 7: 18 says, “…for it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words, for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily.” That is just so incredible to me, that people really could not disbelieve his words. They could not do so because he had angels ministering unto him. I like how it doesn’t say anything about Nephi being well-spoken or really smart. I bet he was, but the reason he was successful was because he had faith and had the help of the Lord. This is comforting because it’s okay that I can be ineloquent and a little awkward at times but that I need to try to be bold, have faith, and I will be able to teach people that Jesus Christ is their Savior. In fact, I know that principle is true for all of us! So don’t be afraid.'

Thanks, Emma! I love having your pre-missionary voice on here! (3 months until June 5th!)

This weekend, I. . .

Linking up with Sar for a "This Weekend, I" post. A day late. :)

This weekend, I made a cake. Sunday was Chad's and my "free day" from the health challenge, so we decided to live it up. This was my first time attempting to make my mom's carrot cake (which I found out is actually my great-grandmother's carrot cake!). My mom has always been famous for this dessert, and yummm, it turned out SO good! Like, amazingly good. There is no carrot cake I have ever tasted that even halfway compares to this one. It's got pineapple in it, which makes it super moist, and the cream cheese frosting is to die for. Email me and I'll send you the recipe (it's my great-grandma's, but I don't think it's a secret. right, mom?).

This weekend, Chad and I made Hawaiian haystacks (quintessential Mormon potluck dish--also yum!) and had some friends over for dinner. It's fun having friends with kids, because they come over and our house gets crazy for a bit and then they leave. :)

This weekend, I worked in the temple. Something Chad and I do every other week, but Chad had to study so I went alone this time. I love being there so much.

This weekend, I did not think about work once--at least, I tried not to. I made every effort to push the paperwork, the clients, the problems out of my mind every time they started weaseling their way in. Funny story about clients, though. This Sunday, we went to a stake conference, which is several congregations in the area meeting all together. Happens a couple of times a year. Anyway, I knew that some of my therapy clients would be there, but my policy (and I tell my clients this) is to not acknowledge them in public unless they do first. Sometimes it is tempting to tell Chad about who I am seeing, but I can't because often he knows them.

So we're driving home from church and Chad says, "So, the X family came up to me at church. . . [my insides are groaning at this point, but I don't say anything]. . ."and they both were like, 'You have a great wife! We just love her so much!'

Little backstory here: Chad, as far as he knows at this point, has spent more time with this family than I have; in fact, I think I only met them once before we were married, and probably haven't seen them since (until they were clients, obviously).

So heChad says, "Yeah, she's pretty great! But I didn't realize you guys knew her that well." (oh, Chad.) Then they say, "Oh, we're seeing her!" Poor Chad then says, "I don't think I'm supposed to know this. . ."

Funny.

Anyway, that was pretty much our weekend. Happy March!

Half-Ironman Girl.

It's happening. I just registered for my race on June 1st! As in, the half-ironman that I have been training for (sorta) but way too scared to register for officially. Now there's no turning back! Oh man, oh man, oh man. . . time to kick it into gear!

I need to focus on channeling my inner Danni, from the Biggest Loser. Chad and I have watched that show religiously this season, and she is our favorite. Not scared of anything. Wins everything on the show pretty much, because she's so hardcore. We also like her because she seems nice. Like, we would want to be friends with her in real life. Yes, we are sucked into that show right now.

Anyway, it's happening. Game on!

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