Day 56-60

Day 56 Church night, no activity

Day 57

Gymnastics for the girls.  Two bike/trike runs up and down our street before the farewell dinner with Grandma and Papa.  One massive screaming crying fit in front of the neighbors from one daughter who didn't have quite enough bike runs before we had to leave for dinner.  Three bike runs in the dark after dinner to fulfill the promise made to end the fit. 

Day 58

Friday evening was for getting out of Dodge.  Mom went off to a retreat, Dad and the girls went with Grami out to the cabin. 

Day 59

Daddy reports that the girls got to play at the castle park in Port Angeles.  1 1/2 hours. 

Day 60
Brisk walk to the park 1.3 miles each way with the double jogger.  Hannah insisted on walking half way there. She did a great job of keeping up.  Haley made it about 1 block.  Lots of playtime for the girls.  1 hour 15 min.

Day 54 and 55

Day 54 and Day 55
Sadly, I can't come up with anything much active for either of these two days.  Thank the grandparents and the Olympics for this.  Togetherness, well, we've done better in that area with a little help from the Grandparents. They treated the girls to after school lunch "dates" and Haley has had lots of one on one time with Papa (her Grandpa) who drove her to and from preschool for the last two days.  To our credit both days we've gotten in extra reading time with the girls. I also worked in Hannah's class both of these mornings which is something she loves.  No sign of getting back on track until next week, but one can be hopeful.

Day 52 and 53

Day 52
Grandma and Papa arrived today.  All the girls went outside to get some fresh air on our street. Hannah rode her bike, Haley is still milking her hip and wanted to be in the stroller, the "big" girls walked.


Day 53
Birthday party today.  16 screaming girls and one boy playing in the backyard on a glorious sunny warm day.

Day 47, 48, 49, 50 and 51

Day 47
Tried the 30 day Shred workout from on demand, well mom and dad did.  The kids didn't last too long.  Instead they decide they would make a centerpiece on the dinner table out of their baby dumbbells.

Day 48
Ash wed service at church, that's what we did as a family.

Day 49
Bought the 30 day Shred video, doing workout #1 again for mom and dad.  Gymnastics for the girls.  Not together, but active!

Day 50
No active time today - we all went to a church event in the evening.

Day 51
The kids had lots of playtime today, a 3 hour birthday party for Hannah accompanied by Mom - tons of running around. Haley got together time with daddy taking things up to the boat and "helping" to load the boat.  Some trampoline time at the neighbor's house for both girls.  The only thing we all did together, besides eating dinner was a nighttime trip to a Bartell's to go get Theo Chocolate bars that were a screaming good price. I suppose being sedentary together and going out and buying chocolate is opposite from being active together, but we got the together part down and hey it was dark chocolate - antioxidants!

Day 44, 45, and 46

Day 44
Bike and trike ride around the neighborhood and then the flying wheel toy in our yard.  30 min.

Day 45
Night walk around the neighborhood behind us, youngest daughter in the stroller to rest her hip. 25 min.

Day 46
Neighborhood bike ride for the older child, stroller for the younger, and walking for the parents. 15 min.

Day 41, 42, and 43

Day 41
For our time together we completed our 1st real puzzle together as a family. Only 63 pieces, but "real" puzzle pieces that are small.  It was a Tinkerbell puzzle Hannah got at church tonight. 

Day 42
Our baby's hip is still ailing, no gymnastics for her today, but her sister did go to gymnastics.  Mom got a nice walk in with a friend and was too sore from the previous day's run to do much else.  We did the puzzle again for together time.

Day 43
McDonald's Playland 1 1/2 hours.  OK, so it's not so great that they are eating fast food, but the time they spend playing, screaming and running around surely trumps the extra calories from the food.  We got a new toy at the Target $1 bin, it is called a Flying Wheel Toy.  We were excited because it is very similar to a toy we have out at our cabin.  The cabin toy is called "Give it a Whirl" made by Discovery Toys, but has been discontinued.  The toy at the cabin is barely limping along and needs to be replaced and we were sad to see that it had been discontinued.  Now, we have found the replacement!  This toy is great exercise for the kids, one person launches disks and the others run after and try to catch the disks.  We played out in front of our house today and the neighbor boy saw us and ran outside to come play.  20 min.

Day 38, 39, and 40

Day 38
Bike riding up/running and down our street with the neighborhood kids before the Superbowl.  45 min.

Day 39
It appears that this may be a "together" week rather than an "active" week.  Our youngest developed a limp yesterday and appears to have a problem with her hip.  X-rays showed nothing, so we're not sure what's going on.  Probably best to reduce her activity for awhile.  3/4 of the family had lots of time together in the Dr's office and watching the X-ray tech do her thing.  We did have some family time hot tubbing and using the pool noodles the girls got for free at the boat show.  By the way Bayliner, world's worst kid freebie - giant pool noodles they can use to assault themselves and the general public while walking through a crowded event center.

Day 40
Kindergarten concert at the school - family togetherness and fun for all!

Day 37

The Boat Show the Boat Show, the Big Seattle Boat Show - 2 1/2 hours.  It's a lot of walking - trust me!  Also some bike riding and car washing back at home.  Two more "new" rummage sale bikes were aquired this weekend.  We now have 2 extra bikes to leave over at our cabin, so it will be easier to get some exercise out there. We also now have a next size up bike.  I love getting a bargain.  I'd rather pay $6 now for a used bike than $50-$100 next year for a new one and for now, the girls don't care that these are all actually boy bikes.

P.S. Grandma - these are the new haircuts

Day 35 and 36

I'm much too tired to write, but if I don't do it now, I'll start forgetting things.  Not that there is much to remember. 

Day 35
Thursday was one of those separate active days - gymnastics for the girls, a walk with a friend for me.  No time for us all to be together due to an evening meeting.

Day 36
For the girls 3-4 hours of play out in the church play yard while I was setting up for the church rummage sale.  Whatever I was doing was tiring enough that it called for several hours on the couch to recover.  Daddy had a long day at work.  The girls (mommy included) bonded watching our newly aquired Nutcracker Barbie video.

Day 34

I feel like a broken record on wednesdays, it's church night, so no free time in the evening.  This is the day out together time is usually a long story time.  That's what we're going to do right now.

Day 33

Had to get in a quick together time before Mom ran off to a meeting.  Bike/Trike ride in the dark on our street.  30 min. Took the training wheels off Hannah's bike.  Why we did that in the dark so we could not get good video of the occassion, I have no idea.  Have we broken the cardinal rule of parenting by not capturing wonderful pics of her very 1st ride without the training wheels?  Well, technically, she did try her friends' bike (Amy and Katrina) without the training wheels last June at our cabin and I do have pics.  Let's just say we have a LONG road ahead of us before she'll be able to ride the bike on her own.  There were a lot of "I can't"s from her and a lot of "don't say I can't"s from me.  I felt like I was channeling my father.  She was also optimistic, several times she was only up for a nano second, and she'd say rather proudly, "I was up for 1 second"

Speaking of bikes and the cabin, I was able to score a bike at our church's rummage sale.  We hope to get two junker bikes to store out at the cabin to make it easier to get out and excercise out there.

Day 32

Neighborhood bike ride for the girls on a drizzly Seattle afternoon - 30 min.  Daddy skipped out to go to the Boat Show.

Day 31

Together Time +3  Activty Time 0
OK, so we didn't do so well today on the activity front.  Although all of us (some of us more than others) spent a good deal of the day cleaning up the house.  We did enjoy together time, eating ice cream sundays, watching America's Funniest Videos, and storytime.

Today is day 31, I've heard it said before that to establish a habit, you need to do it for at least 30 days.  We're one day past that and well on our way.