Apple Picking at Cider Hill Farms, Amesbury, MA

Like many other New Englanders, we went apple picking today.  We chose Cider Hill Farms for their awesome apple cider donuts and choice of apples.  The apple trees were quite picked over but some of the trees had a bunch at the top.  Luckily, they give you apple picking poles (which I had never seen before) and those worked great!  We filled our bags with Macoun, Honeycrisp and Early Fujis.  I now have apples for 2 months!  I'm psyched.  They taste so good fresh from the tree.  The kids had an absolute blast.  They enjoyed picking (and eating) the apples and 2 donuts apiece.  They had fun on the hay ride and LOVED jumping around the hay bales that the farm set up.

Happy New Year - L'Shana Tova!

It's high holiday season.  L'Shana Tova!

Also?  Autumn!

Ian popped up from his seat so that he could help Rabbi Jay carry the Torah.

2014 Title 9 Women Only Sprint Triathlon, Hopkington MA

This past Sunday, I participated in the Title 9 Women Only Sprint Triathlon in Hopkington, MA.  It's a .25 mile swim, 10 mile bike and 3.1 mile run.  I trained by doing each activity individually but only twice did I do some running after biking.  And never once did I practice swimming in open water.  I trained only in the pool.  The course was MUCH more challenging than I expected.  For some reason, because it was a women-only event and there were going to be a lot of "newbies," I had assumed it would be easy.  Wrong wrong wrong.  The bike didn't have a single flat spot.  Thank god the last 1 mile of the run was flat.  My overall time was 1:21:25.  Here's the break-down:

Overall placement:
Swim:  26/610; 3/92 in 40-44 year old division
Bike:  122/610; 26/92 in 40-44 year old division
Run:  85/610: 16/92 in 40-44 year old division

My swim was decent but I thought it could have used improvement.  For one, I needed to actually swim in the 2 weeks prior to the triathlon.  My local pool closed during these 2 weeks and despite good intentions to visit another pool, I didn't happen.  And now my back is really sore!  Also, I needed to sight my swim pathway more often.  I kept swimming towards shore instead of swimming in a straight line and once almost ran smack into a huge orange buoy.  When I do another triathlon next year, I will need to practice some open water swimming.  I will also plan to buy a swimming wetsuit so that I can do some ocean swims.

I felt good on the bike, despite the hills.  I averaged 15.0 mph, which I thought was pretty good given the challenging course.  That being said, it was clearly the worst of my 3 legs of the race.  I definitely held back a bit knowing that I had to get through the run.  I think I was at 90% instead of 100%.  As I do more triathlons, I will hopefully get a better sense of how to pace myself.

I was really proud of my run.  I averaged an 8:26 min/mile pace which is REALLY fast for me.  When training, my fastest average was roughly 8:45 min/mile pace and usually it was slower than that.  I didn't have any more to give on the run and so I know I gave it 100%.

I can't wait to sign up for some more races next year.  I found out that my neighbor also is interested in doing them and so I'll have to coordinate with her.  I plan on doing an Olympic distance triathlon next season (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike and 6.1 mile run), which will require more dedicated training.  And I need to figure out how to get faster on the bike.

Ian's First Day of Kindergarten!

Ian had his first real day of kindergarten today.  He was so proud of himself and I was so proud of him!  While he has been in "school" for almost his entire life, this is the first time that he was out of the daycare environment.  As usual, I didn't have to worry about his transition to kindergarten.  He has always been happy to make upward changes (ever since he was in the mobile infant room at daycare, banging on the glass door because he wanted to get into the adjoining toddler room).

His schedule is a bit nuts since public school kindergarten in our town is only a 1/2 day.  So he is going to public school kindergarten every morning during the week.  Then every day except for Wednesday, KinderCare picks him up and he does their afternoon kindergarten program and after school program.  On Wednesday, he'll be going to our local temple for their afternoon kindergarten program and then religious school. What is nice about that is that he's getting his "Sunday school" experience during the week so we don't have to try and force yet another activity into the weekend.  If he really likes the temple experience, we might send him twice a week instead of once a week.

I'm still sort of amazed, shocked and awed that my first baby is already in kindergarten!  This kid is going to knock their socks off - he's already reading complex sentences and words without much effort.

Achieved My Weight Loss Goal

I've been wanting to lose those last 5 pounds of baby weight for a long time now.  My little girl is about to turn 3, I'm going on a week-long scuba diving vacation shortly and I'm turning 40 next month.  So I decided to kick the weight loss program into high gear.  I've been exercising more (4 times a week) and doing high intensity bursts.  I've been mixing up my workouts too (bike, run, swim, and cardio training with body weight).  I've also tried to eat healthier (although I'm already a fairly healthy eater).  I stopped eating rice/potatoes as side dishes and traded them for roasted vegetables, like squash, cauliflower and brussel sprouts.  And I did it.  According to my weight loss app on my phone, I started at 147.2 pounds 2 years ago and today, hit my goal of 140.0 pounds.  So hooray for me.  It's what I weighed just before getting pregnant with my son in 2008.

But, I'm still not totally thrilled with what I see in the mirror.  I used to have a flat stomach and now I have a bump where my stomach is.  It's not flabby or mushy, but it's not flat.  So I'm going to set a new goal of 135 pounds and see if I can achieve that.  My guess is that my stomach will look the same even with another 5 pounds gone.  I think it's a combination of age, genetics and the fact that I had 2 babies in my latish 30s.  It may just be that I'm stuck with it.  And if that's so, that's okay too.  I just want to see if another 5 pounds make a difference.  I'm 5'5" so being 135 pounds certainly isn't too skinny...

Well-Child Visits and Stats

Today, I took Ian and Sammy to the doctor for their 5 year old and 3 year old checkups.  They were pretty well-behaved and Sammy was definitely more comfortable being at the doctor with her big brother there besides her.  Here is a photo of them poking each other while we waited for the doctor.

Here are their stats:

Ian (5)
Weight:  43 pounds, 8 ounces (68.54%)
Height:  44.29 inches (76.21%)

Sammy (3)
Weight:  29 pounds, 6 ounces (39.32%)
Height:  38.0 inches (71.20%)

Thankfully, Sammy's ears checked out fine.  She only recently stopped a 10-day course of amoxicillin after suffering from a double-ear infection.  This was her first ear infection since she got tubes placed into her ears when she was 1 year old.  In one ear, the tube was totally gone and in the other ear, the tube was no longer in the ear drum.  I was so worried that we were heading down the pathway of needing a second set of tubes, but it looks like the antibiotics worked!  I guess she's 2 years older, her Eustachian tubes are bigger, the drug dosing has changed and the bacteria are different.  I hope she doesn't get ear infections too often because she was a miserable wretch for about 5 days.  She didn't complain that her ears hurt but she wasn't eating or sleeping well and was super crabby during the day. I really missed my smiling happy little girl.  But she's back!  Hooray for antibiotics that work!

So Long Crib!

Yesterday, we took our crib, which has served us so well, to the dump.  It was an old drop-side crib first used by my nephew, who is now 14.  My brother's kids used it and our kids used it.  I would have loved to have donated it, but they don't take drop-side cribs anymore because they're no longer considered safe.  I thought briefly about free-cycling it, but I couldn't bear to think of a child injured or killed because of my crib.  But at least I free-cycled our crib mattress, which was only 3 years old.  

We transitioned Sammy out of the crib and into her big girl bed over the course of a week, just like we did for Ian.  It really was no big deal at all.  We put her twin mattress on the floor for a week to let her get used to not being in a cage.  She loved it because we dressed it all up in Hello Kitty bedding.  Here are the many different forms of a sleeping Sammy:

I love the picture of her sleeping with her head hanging off the mattress.  I had to stifle my laughter as I took that photo.

And here she is in her big girl bed.  She's so proud of herself!