Well, we didn’t end up getting to play tennis after all because both courts were taken and despite driving around for awhile, we couldn’t find any parks that had any.
I just spent 45 minutes searching the park districts’ websites for the surrounding cities and learned we were quite close to a few during our aimless drive. I created a Google map with all the locations so next time we’ll have a backup plan. Yes, I am a nerd.
Friday evening after a healthy dinner of grilled chicken, potatoes, and veggies, we took the kids to Mallard Lake forest preserve to get some exercise. To make it fun, I gave them each one of our old Nikon digital cameras so they could take photos along the way, which they enjoyed. The only one who didn’t entirely enjoy the walk was Joe since the mosquitoes love to dine on him.
Saturday morning we bought the boy a tennis racket and played Pictionary Jr. and Disney Scene It while waiting for the rain to pass. We managed to fit 45 minutes of tennis between rain showers but ultimately had to head home when the lightning siren went off. The rain finally went away in the evening so we took a walk around the neighborhood after dinner.
After dropping off the kids this morning, Joe and I headed to Willowbrook Wildlife Center to check out the new sandhill crane exhibit. You can’t get good photos of them, or any of the wildlife they have on site, as a matter of fact, due to the way the cages are designed. We mostly got flower photos instead. They do have a butterfly garden but it was more like a bee garden today. Not that I mind – I love the bees. Oh, and we saw a baby raccoon as well.
We stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home because I wanted one of their pizzas. $47 later we have pecans, almonds, dark chocolate covered raisins, tapenade, orange chicken, garlic chicken, chicken fried rice, bananas, sea salt, and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. We usually don’t buy that much stuff there but it all looked so tasty, probably because we hadn’t eaten breakfast!
After dropping the cameras and food off at home, we went to the mall where I finally found a bathing suit. It’s a lot more colorful than I usually go for, but it will do. Joe bought more stuff than I did which was a bit annoying. I couldn’t find any clothes I liked at New York & Company or Kohl’s, except for the bathing suit. I did get a cute Nike tote bag, though. I’m all about the bags, much to Joe’s chagrin.
I even got a new bag for my work laptop at Target. I hate the Dell one that comes with it, as do all of my colleagues who have laptops. It has sections to hold other stuff as well so I’m not dragging around several bags and feeling like a pack mule.
After dinner we’re going to go play tennis again. I forgot how fun it was until recently. We used to play regularly when we lived in the apartment but stopped for some reason after we moved.
For the past few months I’ve been bemoaning the fact that my library, or none of the libraries it trades with, has Bad Religion’s album The Gray Race. I even told Joe today, “that’s it, I’m just going to order it from Amazon.com” and then a little later it occurred to me that I made a copy of it before I moved out when my ex and I broke up eight years ago. Can you say duh? I got home from work, ripped the copy, and added it to my iPod. Now I can enjoy the best Bad Religion album ever at work tomorrow.
I’ve been using the Wii Fit almost daily for two weeks now and I like it. I only get about 15 minutes of exercise during each use, but I’m also using the elliptical machine for 20 minutes while watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so for now that’s enough. I enjoy teasing Joe because when it measures him, this cute voice says, “that’s overweight”. It’s funny because he’s really not overweight as far as I’m concerned. But I guess he’s just over the normal BMI for his weight and height. I’m in the normal range but I definitely have some excess pudge to tone. We had the kids weigh themselves too and let’s just say the Wii was not kind. Unfortunately that’s typical for kids today and it’s rather sad.
We’re trying to be better role models when the kids are here with us, as small of a percentage of their time that may be. Saturday after we went garage sale hunting, we went to the park and the boys played catch while I helped the girl practice tennis. She wants to try out at school but I don’t think they are going to take her unless she takes real lessons. Most of the time she just stood there expecting the ball to come to her. Granted, I was aiming for her to allow her to practice returning the ball, but I explained to her she needs to run for the ball and move back if it’s too high or forward if it’s coming short. She was doing better by the time we were done but she has a long way to go. I do give Joe’s kids credit – they are way more into extra-curricular activities than I ever was at their age. The only problem is they are bit over-confident in their abilities and don’t necessarily want to put in the work it requires to follow through with whatever activity they are interested in. So that’s something they need to work on.
Tonight I tried a new recipe – Chicken Parm Meatball Subs. They came out much better than I was expecting! I was too hungry to photograph the evidence so you’ll just have to trust me. I burned the first two rolls under the broiler so I’ll need to pick up more so we can finish the leftovers tomorrow.
Speaking of leftovers, yesterday we took the kids to Boston Market for lunch to celebrate Joe’s birthday before taking the kids home. Can you believe it cost $28 for the four of us to eat, and that was with a $5 coupon? At least the food is pretty healthy, even more so since the kids had to get one veggie from their two sides. The boy wanted mac & cheese and mashed potatoes so he wasn’t too happy about that but he got over it. The plan was for us to go to Pepe’s for dinner after dropping them off since it’s right by their house, but their mom called about an hour before we were going to leave to say she was in the area and could pick them up. So we ended up at Red Lobster instead. It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten there and I only ate half my dinner and took the other half for lunch today. Plus I had grilled chicken instead of deep fried shrimp.
I started writing this post earlier but a big storm rolled in so we shut down our computers and played on our DS for awhile. We’ve gotten two new games recently – Left Brain, Right Brain and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The Left Brian Right Brain one is more like Left Hand Right Hand since that’s all it seems to be testing. My left arm actually hurts from using that hand way more often than I normally do.
Going to go weigh myself on the Wii Fit and then read before bed. I’ve been good getting to sleep by 10 pm every night and getting a solid seven hours of sleep. That with my daily dose of Vitamin D, more exercise, and eating better has made my stress levels quite low. Nothing seems to get me really fired up lately which is nice.
Sunday we went to the mall so I could look for a bathing suit. Yes, I know it’s late in the season. In fact, it’s too late, as I could not find anything. Joe liked the bikini I tried on but I felt like I was falling out all over. Not a good feeling, actually, so I nixed that.
One of the things we did accomplish was getting my rings cleaned, as we’re required to do so every six months by the jeweler in order to qualify for the warranty.
While the lady was cleaning my rings we walked around looking at all the pretty sparkly things. One necklace in particular caught my eye. Just for the hell of it I asked the woman how much it was and she pulled it out so I could try it on. She also told me she’d knock $30 off the price and re-size the chain for free. Feel free to laugh at my naivete, because I asked her what the stones were. “Sapphires”, she replied. My not-usually-spontaneous-when-spending-money husband told me I should get it, so once I got over thinking he was joking, I did. Ironic that my hubby buys me jewelry when it’s his birthday this weekend. He’s way too good to me.
I’m pretty psyched to have a necklace with real gemstones in it. The event required a trip to New York & Company this evening, after picking up my re-sized necklace. I needed something blue to match and found a super soft sweater that I got 20% off as I had just gotten a coupon in the mail today. Talk about impeccable timing! In addition, I got two tops that were seriously discounted; one was only $5.99 when it was marked $26.50. To think I almost put it back on the rack!
The weather cleared up in the afternoon so I got the bright idea to take our bikes out. We biked from our house to the park (1.5 miles each way) and rode around the park’s bike path (another 1.5 miles). A lot of terrain was up-hill so I’d say we got a good workout. I’m pooped and am going upstairs to read before bed.