Vacation: Leg #2 STL Days 1&2

We arrived in St. Louis approximately 1 hour before the Cardinals/Indians game was to start.  We quickly checked into our hotel, got sunscreen on Cooper and began our walk down to the stadium. 

It was a hot day, and we had really good seats, right in the sun!  But in all seriousness, they were good seats, right at first base.  Cooper brought his glove so that he could try to catch a fly ball, but unfortunately, none came our way, the closest was about 15 feet from us.  

Here are a few pictures.  Love my boys.  We all had our baseball attire on, I had a cardinals shirt on, Tim with his Indian’s shirt and Cooper with his Scooby baseball shirt.

After the game, we met up with Holly and her family.  We ate dinner at a nice local place called Fitz’s and it as so good to finally meet Holly!  I think of all of my bloggy friends, she is my closest, and I talk to her the most.  My mom always asks me about “the girl who comments on every one of my blog posts” now I can tell her how awesome this girl is in real life!  Her kiddos, Haven and Olive were super cute and her hubby Chris was very nice also.  Holly put together a busy bag for Cooper with a sticker book and gummies and all kinds of other goodies, how sweet was she?!?  So nice!  Our boys were a handful that night, I was thankful for our two great husbands to chase the boys around.  I loved meeting you and your sweet family Holly! 

Monday, we went to the Anheuser Busch tour and drank some beer.  We then went down to Delmar Loop and walked for awhile, taking it all in.   We went to Pi Pizzeria and then hit up a great little cupcake place called The Cup.   We ended the night swimming at the hotel and getting some rest.  After a big Sunday and long day Monday it was time for some much needed rest for Cooper, and US!

Stay tuned for some more pictures and days 3&4 recap.  Leg 3 still to come after that. 

Have a great weekend folks!

Vacation: Leg #1 Camping

There will be three legs to this vacation.  And some legs may be broken up into different parts.  That I haven’t decided yet.  I’ll have to go through pictures before I can say for sure. 

We first went camping with my mom, her husband Shawn, and my brother and his family.  It was a good time.  It was very hot, so I was glad we got to go on the boat, because the water gave us much needed relief from the heat. 

The first day my brother’s fam wasn’t there except for my nephew Layne.  I was glad he was there so he and Cooper could play together.  The boys don’t get to do that nearly as often as we would like. 

But first, there was baseball playing with Nana.  Cooper is OBSESSED  with baseball.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning until he goes to bed at night, it’s baseball this, baseball that, so as soon as we got there, he decided it was time to play baseball with his Nana.  Layne sat back and watched the fun.

Once we got camp setup, we took the boys for a walk.  We didn’t quite know where we were headed we just wanted to walk, so off we went, and stumbled upon a beach.  The boys played in the water, splashed their Nana and had a good time.

The next two days after my brother arrived, we went boating and played and ate way too much.  It was a good time.  I haven’t been in a lake or an inner tube in a long time.  Great fun!  Cooper had a great time driving the boat.  One downside, when Mom, Larissa, Casey and I were out in the inner tube, we flipped it over and my Mom lost her glasses.  She got stuck wearing mine the rest of the trip.  On the bright side, she had just ordered those, and she didn’t really like them much, so she got to order new ones.  I guess the glass is half full.

Cornhole, beer, food, motorized cars, and Charlie Brown on the iPad.  What else could we all ask for?!? 

It was a great long weekend to start our vacation.  We headed home Saturday evening and had to get packed for vacation #2: STL.  I’ll start working on that post soon.  Have a lovely day!

Couch to 5k

Couch to 5k.  I’m doing it.  I have a love/hate relationship with it, but I’m doing it.
Right about now, I should be working on Week 6, Day 1.  Literally right now.  I’ve scheduled this post to occur while I’m on Day 1 of week 6 because I am hoping that I haven’t given up yet.  

I hope I can come back to my computer and that I’ve done it.  You see, this has been difficult for me.  I have never been a runner.  I have never (that I can remember) done an 8 week program that builds upon itself like this one.  I mean yes, I’ve done training for sports, and exercise programs before, but nothing that builds every 3 days.

I have the bluefinapps Ease into 5k app and I love it!  They aren’t paying me for this endorsement so I’ll keep it short.  I love that it allows me to choose my own music, that it gives me alerts for being half way done, as well as when to switch from walking to running etc.  Here are a couple of screen shots.

I didn’t want to pay for the GPS part of the app, so I use RunKeeper.  I generally start it up a minute or two before I start the C2 5K so it’s a bit off of 100% accuracy, but it’s close enough for me.

Here are some screen shots of the RunKeeper app.

 

It’s cool for me to be able to take different routes around my neighborhood and once I get home I always examine what I’ve accomplished.    I learned about the couch to 5k program from Mama Laughlin and most recently Caroline.  I look to these girls along with my local buddy Aly for inspiration. 

I have running a 5k on my goals for 2012, and I’m more than halfway through with my training at this point.  

Have you ever done a training program like the couch to 5k?  Did you succeed?  

Hope you have a fabulous weekend friends!

Stephanie’s Baby Shower

The baby shower was on May 5th, (I’m only a month behind!!)  and it was a great time.  Steph’s mom and I had been preparing for almost 2 months for the big event.     

We decorated the place to the nines.      Here are a few pictures. The gift table had a banner above and below with “Congratulations Stephanie” with different colored elephants.  That was a fun banner to make.     

Above the food table we hung a clothes line with Kampbell’s onesies and three maternity photos that I had taken a few weeks prior.     

The picture of the entire room below shows everything.  The 20+ tissue pom poms, yellow tables with vases (baby bottles) & flowers cake table with streamers behind it.  It was so much fun to decorate and make the room come to life!    

Once the guest of honor and other guests arrived, we ate lunch, played games and got to the gifts.  Stephanie had lots of fun opening up the gifts.  One below is of Steph, her mom and me.  It was so fun and Stephanie and Kampbell got lots of good stuff!!! 

I had the best time throwing this baby shower, and I hope that I’ll get to throw another one in the future!  I think in another life I was a party planner, cause this was way more fun than I have in my day job!