April Fools

My sister in law Lauren told me about this great April fools' idea she saw from the creative folks over at Family Fun magazine, where you put fruit jello/gelatin and have it set in a drinking glass to look like juice.  Then your kids get a jiggling surprise.

I was planning on going the jello route until I went to my pantry today and only had chocolate pudding boxes.  So, I ad-libbed and mixed up some pudding and poured it into the kids' cups, complete with straws.  In hindsight this will be much better because none of our kids like Jello - but they "inhale" chocolate pudding.  They'll be expecting chocolate milk (very rich and thick?!) but will be thrilled to learn it's pudding.  We'll see if I can fool them tomorrow.  

If you see them, mum's the word :)

Thanks Lauren for the great idea!

Birthday Boy

J's 4th birthday celebration was a hit!  We had a small family celebration with Grandmom and Grandad.  

Birthday dinner:  Mac-n-cheese and fruit salad.  Hmmm not much green in there.  Do "green" grapes count?  On your birthday they do!

Special outing:  a visit to the huge Playwerx play structure.

The ball pit was a hit!

Lego birthday cake.

Blue ice cream (with rainbow sprinkles of course).

Running Thoughts: 14 Miles

Today was a biggie.  I've never run 14 miles before, ever never in my life.  It went really well, if you take out the part where I biffed it in the middle of a busy intersection (uneven asphalt), scraped and bruised both knees and did a little roll to boot.  I can be clumsy at times, so if this is my one and only fall this season, I'll be glad.  I think I was just tired and sloppy (I fell at about mile 10-11).  

I stuck with Alisa, Chris and Libby for most of the run and we did 5/1 (5 minutes run/1 minute walk) intervals the whole time, and once again started and ended strong.  The entire run took about 3 hours.

The best part was the final downhill stretch with an amazing view of the ocean near Torrey Pines, then plunging into the salty cold ocean waves for some cool relief and massage.  Ahhhhhhh.  

I didn't write about our 9-mile run last week.  It was a backdown week so our run was "only" 9 miles, but boy "only 9" sure felt like "only 15."  I think it was just a rough week.  I was trying out 8/1 intervals for the 9 miles and those didn't work so well for me.  I need to stick to my 5/1s.  I didn't want to bum y'all out, so we'll just move on.  

I'm off to nurse my wounded knees :(

New Neighbors

Z with Yuko Fletcher.

We're so blessed to have some very cool neighbors who just moved in a month ago.  Yuko and Jim Fletcher moved to California from Mississippi, bought the house next door to us, did some work on it (new paint, floors, kitchen, etc.) and moved their things in.  Then they invited us over for dinner at their home (isn't it supposed to go the other way around?) and their house was totally put together and beautiful.  I don't think I saw an unpacked box in their home, amazing.

The Fletchers also have a sweet golden retriever "Abbie-heime"  (Japanese).  Yuko let S take her for a walk last week and now S is asking me non-stop "when can we get a dog?"  

We're so excited for our new neighbors and friends!  

2x2 Equals

S, Z and J.

Four!  Our middle guy J is the big 4 today... happy birthday, we love you!

Lone Ranger

My dad loves the Lone Ranger song.  It's the one (and only) song he can play on the piano.  Check out this musical highway:

It's a little out of tune, but very cool none-the-less.  Love you Dad!

Car Washers

Z and me.

I love to wash cars.  It's my thing, my spiritual gift perhaps?  

I love that the kids love to "help" and that it usually involves bathing suits, lots of soapy bubbles and getting drenched.  I've washed our cars for as long as I can remember.  

But it's extra fun with our 3 kids.

Toy Party

About every 6 months, we have a Garland Family Toy Party.  We collect every single little silly toy in the house and put it in one huge pile in the family room.  Then, we sort into 3 categories:  pass-it-on (donate), love it, or toss it.  It takes a good 2 hours to go through everything but it's wonderful afterwards!  We set out our toy baskets and put together all the balls, legos, train parts, baby toys, dolls, stuffed animals, puppets, etc. into the correct basket.  It's quite fun as the kids re-discover toys they'd forgotten about and have a great time playing with them as we sort.

Today's Toy Party!

Well-deserved park playtime after the Toy Party.

On Track

TEAM in Training Track Workout.

Apparently I have a love-hate relationship with our marathon training group's track workouts.  

I hate running fast.  I'm not good at it.  I'm 6 feet tall - of course my legs get all tangled up when I run too fast.  That's why I run slow.  That's why I wasn't a sprinter in high school, I did the high jump.  I'm the slowest one in my running group.  It's tough.  I breathe really hard.  Whine whine whine.

I love that it makes Saturday's long runs soooooo much easier.  

Last night Coach Bill had us do a "step" workout:  run at 80% 2-200s, 2-400s, 2-800s, 2-400s and 2-200s.  We had some slower recovery jogging in between the high(er) speed (well in my case the "faster than I usually run") distances.  I know it's good for me.  It feels really good when we were done.

I'll be staring at this orange track a lot in the coming months.

Photo note: I played with my camera's ISO setting to snap this photo... it's amazing what kind of photos you can get (in the dark) when you have the right setting.  

Bataquitos Lagoon Hike

Z was excited to see so many dogs along the trail.  

Nature Center.

Brothers.

Running Thoughts: 12 Miles

Humming right along with our training... 12 miles yesterday, and I hate to sound overconfident but it was great.  I know it's supposed to be tough, but when you have a great running buddy, the miles just slip by.  

I ran with my new friend Alisa on the two last runs and she is such a blessing.  We have such a great time chatting that I hardly know that we're running 12 miles, my longest distance ever.  We run intervals, 5 minutes running, 1 minute walking.  It's been a good pace.  We start and end strong.  It took us a little over 2 hours for the 12 mile run.  We had some nice neighborhood areas (near Poinsettia Park) then we ran along PCH for a while.  Those surfers are always out in good numbers on a early Saturday morning.  

Last week I ended up with a swollen and infected toe, but it cleared up within 2 days.  It was a little tender after yesterday's 12 miles, but not nearly as bad as last week.  God is good... no injuries right now.  I will never take being "injury-free" for granted.  

My only glitch this week was some poison oak I have on my right leg.  It itches like crazy and I'm usually a pretty good girl and don't scratch, but boy, it's annoying.  I ran around the lake near our home twice last week and it's a sure bet that's where I got it.    Maybe I'll stick to the treadmill this week.

Track workouts continue mid-week and I think they are very beneficial to our Saturday runs (just like our coaches said they'd be!).  Last week at track, we ran 800s at a faster pace than what we'd run on the long runs.  Those track workouts may only be 1 hour long but boy am I wiped out (and sore) afterwards. 

Next week's long run is another "Back Down" week when we'll only be running 9 miles.  Wow, never thought I'd use the word "only" and "9 miles" in the same sentence.  

Alisa and me after our 12 mile run.

Lunchtime Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for our food, family and friends.  And thank you for dirt.

Amen.

S filling up our containers with free mulch and compost at an Oceanside facility, earlier in the day.

Octogenarian

Louise Bulkley Garland, aka "Grandma" around our house and "Mom" to Jeff is the big 8-0 today.

Grandpa and Grandma

Louise with her 2 grandsons.

Louise on one of her many, many favorite hikes.

Happy Birthday Louise!

We love you!

Hike with Daddy

I'm out of the picture for a while on the weekends doing my runs, so the devoted Mr. Garland is the RD (recreation director) while I'm gone.  He's doing a splendid job!  He single-handedly got the kids to their first T-ball and Soccer games, and took them on a hike afterwards on the hill behind our home (and even remembered to bring the camera and snap this photo!).  Amazing.

I love you Jeff!

City Library

We explored a new library this week (not the one we usually visit) and found a lovely Children's Garden, accessible only from the Children's Book department.  We had the garden all to ourselves and enjoyed the warm sun.  Oh yeah, and we checked out some Leo Lionni books.  Well, we basically cleared out their Leo Lionni book section.  Love his books!

Geez I snap way too many photo of our kids.  So glad my kids will put up with me.  I'd love to get a SLR camera one of these days.  Gotta start saving up for it.  I just worry that I won't use it as much because it's much bigger.  I need my camera to fit in my purse :)

Z in his favorite (highly stained) sweater.

Gotta love the timer setting.  

Spring Sport: Soccer and T-ball

J enjoyed his first "official" soccer game last weekend.  Go Brown Team!

  

S is playing T-ball this session.  Go Blue Team!

PE Day

Our school's field trip on Monday was "PE Day."  S and J both participated, and the 20-minute stations included:

1. Soccer

2. Volleyball

3. Tennis

4. Stretching

5. Relay Races (and leap frog)

6. Games (hula hoops)

7. Line Dancing

It was a great time for all!

S (in purple, mid-air) leaps over her friend during the Leap Frog relay.

Kindergarteners.  Line Dancing.  Electric Slide.  

Now that was fun to watch.  In theory, it was a good idea.