bear's morning nap

jay put bear in bed for his morning nap while he went to preschool this morning. it was so cute! jay actually read bear some books, then tucked him in and closed the blinds. after i returned home from taking him to preschool, i passed his room and saw how snuggled in bear was. i just had to take a picture!

long, too long!

it's been way too long since my last post. for some reason, i just didn't have the motivation/energy or creative juice to post something. i've been reading lots of other blogs this last month and am totally blown away with how many stay at home moms blog! it's amazing, and inspiring to read their blogs and get inspiration for my own life.

jay is starting preschool next week! i'm so excited for him, yet i'll miss our open schedule from the summer. we really did a lot of traveling on road trips this summer. a first for us. we saw lots of family and spent time with dear friends. but i must say, i love fall!!!! it probably is one of my favorite times of year. and i hope we don't get any more lizards running around the house! i don't even want to talk about it, but we haven't seen one for a few weeks now!

the canning of the strawberry jam was great! my mom helped me with jay so i could do all the stirring, etc. i must say, it tastes great too. (do you think that has anything to do with the fact that there is 5 cups strawberrries to 7 cups sugar???)

mike and i have been busy watching free movies from blockbuster.com. they apparently were doing this promotion for a free month of on line movies, so we took them up on it and we've been watching movies every night! we want to get as many movies watched as we can because we are not renewing the membership. ah, summer nights!

oh by the way, this picture of jay and mike was taken on jay's 4th birthday. mike's mom was able to write us in to disneyland, and we had a ball playing in the park all day! can't believe my baby is 4!

neighbor with pool

this photo shows some scraps jay got across his forehead. we aren't exactly sure how he did this. the best i can come up with is when we were at the lagoon on friday, we was jumping off a little cement platform that had a fountain. if that is when he did it, he sure wasn't bothered by it. don't worry, his face is no indication of pain, he was mugging for me!













could there be anything better than good neighbors that invite us to use their pool when they are gone? so jay and i trotted our hot selves next door and enjoyed a cool refreshing swim for 40 minutes. i must say my spirit even feels refreshed. it has been sooooo HOT here the last few days, that it was nice to be outside and not sweating.

jay is almost finished with his first session of swim lessons. miss andrea has been great for him. when we were swimming in our neighbor's pool he was real excited to show me how he goes under water.

What to do?

Now that the Tour de France is over, what am I to do? Since July 1st when the tour started, I've been glued to OLN's coverage of the tour. And since there has been nothing else on TV, it's been a great event to be watching. I was happy to see Floyd Landis pulled out his first win of the Tour. His story is inspiring. The last five days of the tour had so much excitment.






Now as I start this new week, I've picked my next activity. I'm canning strawberry jam this week! I've never canned before in my life, but I'm going to give it a shot. I plan to can on Wednesday, so today and tomorrow I'll be gathering my last few tools and ingredients. Thankfully my mom has agreed to come over and help monitor me (and play with Jay) while I cook. Let's just hope it's not such a scorcher that day!

The "Goose"

Yesterday we enjoyed at day at the "Lagoon" in Redondo Beach near Auntie I's house. Jay has a hard time saying lagoon, so it has been coming out as "goose." Debs and Emma came as well as Holli, Kelsey & Kimberly. Of course baby Colin was there enjoying all the fun too! Here's some fun photos of the day!

(I'll post more about the Tour de France tomorrow!)

More Cycling Terms

Bonk - when a rider has absoluetly no energy left due to dehydration, or not eating enough during the stage.
King of the Mountains - This is a points competition that riders can earn as they cross the summit of each climb. The first rider over gets the most points, and then the points decrease for about 5th to 8th place.

Tour de France Vocabulary

As we enter the last week of racing in the Tour de France, I though I'd start a list of terms and phrases I now have a new context for. I'll do a few words each day until the end of the race.

Peloton - main field or group of riders
Unhitching - riders that fall behind or away from the peloton
Breakaway - rider or group of riders that ride ahead of the peloton.
Natural break - when a rider pulls over to the side of the road to take a leak! I've seen them do this during the race. They even have a gentleman's agreement in racing that you don't try to ride ahead and attack a rider because they are peeing!

Swim Class Fun

What is better than being a 3 almost 4 year old going to swim class every morning with Miss Andrea? That is the kind of life Jay is leading for the next 2 weeks. I can say everything is going well, except after the first lesson he informed me that he would not like to go again because he didn't want to go under water anymore! How do you say, "Look kid, we've paid for the classes, and you're going!" Of course I didn't say that, but instead we talked about practicing our skills and that I would talk to Miss Andrea and let her know how you feel. That seemed to work because after day 2 he said he had a great time. Phew! I'm just not going to talk about swim class all day until in the morning when we are getting ready. That way he won't be thinking and fretting over it. Wish my life was so hard!

Podcast, Baby!

So as you know, I've been faithfully listening to the Discovery Channel's podcast of the Tour de France each day. On yesterday's podcast, host and Discovery Channel teams press officer, PJ Rabice, invited listeners for the second time to email him questions. So I promptly emailed some of my questions. Lo and behold, on today's podcast, he answered 2 of my 3 questions and used my name!!! Know what I did next? Yep, emailed him again!

Spot of Bother

Poor George Hincapie is in a "spot of bother." He did not do so well in the 2nd day of the mountain stage in the Tour de France. It looks like he probably won't make it to the podium this year. I still think he's great though and I hope he rallies to move up from 40th place (out of 165).

But it was exciting that Floyd Landis won the yellow jersey today! He's the 5th American to ever wear the yellow jersey in the 103 year history of the tour. (Greg LeMond, Lance Armstrong, Dave Zabriskie, George Hincapie, & Floyd Landis. Only two Americans have ever won the entire tour, Greg LeMond 3 times and Lance 7 times. How cool would that be if Floyd could win it and keep the Americans competitive?)

I really do like Floyd, so if George is out of it, then I hope Floyd can win.

(Stationary) Bike Ride

Yesterday while watching Jay and Emma play in Debbie's back yard (while she ran to the store) I figured I might as well ride the stationary bike they have on the patio. I adjusted the seat, turned on the timer and decided 15 minutes would be a good start. With all the Tour de France I've been watching, I felt like it was a fitting activity. Boy, do I admire those cyclist more now that I rode for a whopping 5.1 miles in 15 minutes. Within a minute of my "ride" my arms were getting achy in that leaned over position. You basically are bent at the waist! It sure doesn't look that uncomfortable watching it on TV. But I peddled on! I then thought it would be fun to assume the time trial position where the elbows are close to your sides and you are basically resting on your forearms. Just shoot me now! I couldn't imagine riding in that position for the hour that some of these athletes do.

Well, towards the end of my "ride" I got into a good cadence by really focusing on pushing and pulling the peddles down and back up. At first, I figured it would just be more work, but in reality it made the peddling smoother and easier in many ways. All in all, I'm glad I gave it a go. I was pretty proud of my 5 miles at around 20mph. (Most of the cyclist travel at about 30 or more mph.)

Smile!

"Smile" is what I heard Jay say as he got a hold of my digital camera and started taking pictures of things. "Smile TV, smile table, smile toys!"

He really cracked himself up when he started taking photos of himself! Imagine these photos being taken with a little "cheeka" sound effect he added for flare.

You'll also noticed the hot cookies coming off the cookie sheet from his vantage point. Too much fun on a Monday!