Still Waiting...

For some lazy days of summer!  Whew, if feels like we have been non-stop for the month of June.  I'm not sure about you, but I thought summer was suppose to be for sitting back and relaxing.  Let me see if I can catch you up a bit.
I've actually been working on this for like 5 days.  Let's see if I can't finally get something posted!

Since June 1st, Aidyn has started coming to work with me at Stepping Stones.  She is in the class with 4 and 5 year olds, and I'm a little disappointed to say, she isn't totally loving it.  She does love her teacher though, and she's been very helpful in getting Aidyn adjusted to the room.  It's only for the summer, so I'm not totally worried, but it does make me nervous that she needs more "class" time before the big jump to Kindergarten next year.  It's a work in progress.  She has been able to enjoy a zoo trip, and has been working a ton on the new garden we have at school, she took Tim to the Father's Day picnic, and this week she gets to take a trip to the pool downtown.  So, it's not all awful, just a few kinks to work out.  :)

I have enrolled her in her first real ballet class, and she is loving it!!  She is taking it with her friends from Stepping Stones, Abby and Alexa, one night a week.  She is a great little student and it's been fun to watch her.  We had to buy the little dance shoes and everything. 


Alexa and Aidyn

--------------------------------------------------------------- This summer we've enrolled Aidyn into swim lessons for the first time.  We've put it off for a few years, and I'm glad we did.  This seems like a good age to start.  She isn't afraid of the water, and is ready learn!  I haven't been the one taking her to her lessons, but I now she's doing great. 

Getting ready to swim



Kicking in the water



New goggles

----------------------------------------------------------------- A few weekends ago, Ironman Kansas was here in Lawrence.  It's become one of my favorite events here in Lawrence.  It's a 1/2 Ironman so it's a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run.  This was my 3rd year volunteering and my 2nd year volunteering as a Run Aid Station Captain.  Basically, it's up to me to recruit my own group of volunteers and to organize and run a station on the day of the event.  We hand out water and food and the other necessities it takes to complete 70.3 miles in a few hours.  It's a long day with lots of hard work...but I love it!  This year I got up super early and arrived before the start of the race.  I had never seen the swim portion of the race, and had to see what it was all about. 



Athletes come out of the swim and get on their bikes here



Chrissie Wellington coming out of the water

 It was exciting to be at the water this year.  I got to see Chrissie Wellington, who is one of the if not THE top triathlete women there is.  She is amazing to see race.  It was her 3rd win here in Lawrence.  Even more amazing is that after she wins her race, she sticks around for the rest of the day taking pictures and handing medals to all the other finishers.  She's not only a top athlete, she's a great person as well.  Once the day got going, I forgot to take any pictures of our own station, except for:



Aidyn handing out water to runners

If you have race like this in your area (or any race for that matter), I would highly recommend getting involved and helping out.  It's a lot of fun, it's motivational, and it gets you involved with your community.  *Exit soapbox*
---------------------------------------------------------
My school is part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this summer, which means a group of us are paying for a fresh produce delivery once a week from 7 of our local farmers.  This week will be our third delivery.  So far we have enjoyed napa cabbage, green onions, swiss chard, carrots, italian parsley, snap peas to name a few.  It's been fun, and a little tough coming up with fun and new recipes for each and every item.  Not only am I participating for my family, I am also getting produce for Stepping Stones.  Unfortunately, we've only gotten snap peas (in great, great abundance) for the kids.  I'm hoping this week will be something new...shelling snap peas is becoming my nemesis. 
I have a few new recipes I will share with you next time around.  Along with that, we have started a garden at school (I have a green thumb and kill all foliage in my path, so I'm keeping my duties to preparing the food).  So far they've brought me radishes and today they dug up some beautiful cucumbers.  I also walked through today and saw some basil I'd love to get my hands on.  :) 
------------------------------------------------------------
I have been doing little to no running for the last few months which is really starting to get to me.  Last week I finished up 5 weeks of physical therapy which ended up doing little to no good.  I was hopeful it would help relieve some of the pain, but no luck.  I went back on Monday to see the podiatrist and our next step was to try cortisone shots.  I got my first shot and now I wait two weeks to see if there is any relief.  After that...well, I just don't know.  I know this doctor really wants to help me, he just doesn't quite know how.  Do I think the shots will help?  Meh, we'll see but my confidence is not overwhelming.  I think my main objective now needs to be to get myself back into the gym and to get myself strong.  It's just a matter of getting started again.  Red Dog's Dog Days has started up for the summer, so I am getting some exercise in, but there is a lot jumping and pounding that I'm just not up for yet.  SIGH....

So, our summer is in full swing here.  After a bunch of busy weekends at home and weeks at work, I am hoping things start to calm down a little bit.  We've only made it to the pool once so far, but we've managed to go out for ice cream, well, more than you need to know about.  I think you're caught up now!  I will try to be better.  A few people had asked about a problem with not being able to post comments to my site.  It seems to be an issue with Blogger, and I hope it's fixed.  I ended up going into my computer and deleting all of my cookies, which seemed to work for me.

OK, off to bed.  I have a large bowl of snap peas with my name on it for tomorrow.  Goodnight my friends!

Do you have fun summer plans?