Melissa, Ryan, Keira and Soren: January 2011

This week was fairly low key. Ryan and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, which was the main event this week. I also spent a lot of time cooking, as I have revamped my eating habits to include more fruits, vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains, with less dairy, fats, and processed food.

On Monday, I swam and did some grocery shopping while Keira was at school. As someone who never really enjoyed cooking, preparing healthy food has been interesting, and a lot of work. Hopefully I can keep it up, as I have been feeling a lot better now that I am eating better, but I am spending a lot of time in the kitchen now, either preparing or cleaning up. Hopefully I can stick to this once the weather warms up and I want to spend time outside with the kids playing or running in the evenings. Once Ryan got home, we headed down to IKEA to get the bookcase that we tried to get earlier. Keira and Soren demanded ice cream and pizza once we got there. It was so hard to watch them eat their dinner and then go home and cook something for myself and Ryan.

That evening, once the kids were in bed, Ryan got the bookcase put together and I organized the toys and paper mess in the kitchen. We are happy with the way it looks.

On Tuesday, It was Ryan and my anniversary! Here are a couple wedding pictures I scanned to remind us of our wedding day:

Keira and Soren woke up and right away noticed the new bookcase, and said it was just like the gym. We went to the gym for Tread and Track class, which was just me today. Ryan was working in Novi today, so we hoped we could link up with him for lunch, but it was brought in for him. Keira didn't feel the greatest today, so we spent the rest of the day at home.

That evening, we went to Bonefish as a family. It was surprisingly crowded, but Keira and Soren were very good and it was a nice dinner. Here are the flowers that Ryan got me. I also took a few pictures later in the week after they had opened a bit.

On Wednesday, Keira felt well enough to go to school, and I added an extra half hour of spinning to my brick class for a total of 1 hour on the bike, 30 minutes running. Again, I made lunches and dinner at home, so more time in the kitchen!

Here is Keira's artwork from this week and last:

On Thursday, I did my long midweek run on the treadmill. 7 miles. It wasn't terrible, and I kept the pace pretty good, but I probably need to push it a bit more in the next few weeks since I am doing the other classes as part of my running training. Here is Keira, modeling some different headwear for her outfit.

On Friday, there was no school for a professional development day. We had several invitations for fun activities for today that we had to turn down due to Soren not feeling well. Instead, we played in the house and outside in the snow, as well as got McDonalds (for Keira and Soren only) to try to make the day at least a little special since we couldn't go to they gym, storytime, Chuck E Cheese or bowling.
Keira and Soren enjoyed running around the coffee table:

Outside, we finally had some snow that we could sort of build a snowman. There was a light fluffy layer on top that made it hard to get a good ball formed, but we did our best.

On Saturday, Soren was still not feeling the greatest. We went out to Costco while Ryan rode indoors on the trainer. This week was as step back week for me, so I had 12 miles to run today. We got more snow last night, so I was happy to wait until the afternoon to run, in hopes that Kensington would be plowed by then. I was very happy when I got there to see that it was, and had a great 12 mile run. Once I got back and cleaned up, we had dinner out at Bagger Dave's. Soren and Keira went to bed early, and I was able to run out and buy The Social Network on DVD on sale, so Ryan and I were able to watch it.

I wasn't sure if our snowman looked better or worse with more snow on it:

On Sunday, Soren was still under the weather. Ryan kept him home from church today so that I could take Keira. Keira gave the scripture in Primary today, and did a great job. I was also able to catch up with my friend Robin, who was in town with her boys for a few days. We also had a linger longer after church. I tried my best to resist the sweets, and had some sushi and veggies, but in the end, I did have a cookie and I bite of Keira's cupcake that she didn't finish. I would obviously FAIL any baked goods temptations if I was ever presented with one in biggest loser style. We didn't stay long, knowing Ryan was at home. We had grilled salmon, brown rice and quinoa, and veggies for dinner.

Up for next week, I hope that Soren feels well enough to hit the gym and do some other activities so we can get out a bit more. I also have a 19 mile run scheduled for Saturday.

This week was a big week. We started the week by heading up north to Crystal Mountain for a few days and finished it up back at home. We managed to stay busy all week, so it has been a bit crazy here.

On Sunday, we spent the morning packing up and then drove up to Crystal Mountain. Since it was a holiday weekend and we booked late, we got the last unit available. While every unit they have it very nice, this one was a bit smaller and a bit further from the skiing. However, had we never stayed there before, we would have thought it was totally awesome. The downside to it being a bit smaller was that there was not a ton of sleeping on the basement level. The kids ended up sleeping on large beanbags that we pushed into our room, my parents slept on the murphy bed also downstairs, and Kris and Linda slept in the master suite. At least no one had to sleep on a pull out couch. Keira and Soren were pretty cute on their beanbags.

On Monday, we had set up for Keira to have ski school at 9:00am. It made for a pretty early morning. We had a quick breakfast of waffles and got Keira down to ski school. She was pretty excited about it. We headed back up to the house after dropping her off and got back together with everyone else. We opted to take Soren out this morning. He was a bit floppy to start, and didn't really get that he had to stand up. Ryan skied him down to take the chairlift back up. The chairlift was really his favorite. We picked Keira up from her lesson, and she had learned to stop, and started to be able to turn! We were so happy for her. She was able to get on the magic carpet herself and ski down the beginner hill in the Totem Park.
We took Soren down to the Totem Park where Ryan walked behind him so he could get the feel of it. He did the same with Keira, and it helped a ton. The kids had so much fun there we lost track of time, and Soren just got super tired and was suddenly done and ready for a nap. I kept him in the snowsports office while Ryan skied to get the car and drove him back up to the house.

Ryan and I had fun skiing with our parents and had a great day. It was snowing during the day, so we had a bit of nice soft snow to ski in. It was great for Michigan skiing! We finished off the night with some time at the pool.

On Tuesday, we decided to push Keira's lesson back to 11:30. This gave us time to have a nice large breakfast of ebelskivers filled with nutella or jam. Yum! We were able to ski a little bit with everyone before taking Keira to her lesson. Soren didn't last quite as long on this break, but he did great again today. Keira continued to progress with her lessons and didn't need her "edgy wedgy" to keep her ski tips together anymore. Yeah! I was so proud of her skiing all by herself! She did like to ski on the bigger runs holding hands with Nana and Papa. Skiing with kids was actually harder on our legs than the "more difficult" runs because of all the snowplowing!

Ryan and I felt like we had really good snow this trip, and we skiied quite a bit today. We skiied into the evening, and the moon looked awesome! We were able to find some softer bumps to ski in too, as well as ski in the trees a bit.

Wednesday was our day to check out. We had a quick breakfast and got mostly packed up before heading out to ski. Keira and Soren stayed in with my mom because it was VERY cold today. The high was 13 degrees! The Loki chair was very fun, and it was super quiet. Everything was so fast due to it being so cold, but Thor was probably the best run of the day. It was smooth and fast, but not icy! We stayed out for about as long as we could stand it before we were so cold and had to finish packing up anyway. We had our traditional lunch at the Thistle before leaving to head home. It was such a fun trip. We are really grateful that we were able to have so much help from the grandparents, especially my mom, with Keira and Soren so that Ryan and I could have some quality skiing.

On Thursday, we were back to our routine. I went to the gym to do my midweek long run on the treadmill and then hit the grocery store before getting Soren down for a nap. We had been planning to go to the Auto Show today prior to going on the ski trip. Soren had been talking about it all week. He couldn't wait to see the mustangs! It snowed all afternoon, but we went down anyway, despite the increased traffic and less than desirable driving conditions. We eventually met up with Ryan at work and headed on downtown. It worked out to be a nice evening to go since the snow kept people away and it wasn't very crowded. We spent a lot of time at the Ford exhibit, with Keira and Soren both climbing in and out of mustangs. I was really disappointed that when I checked the pictures, I didn't have any of Soren in a Mustang, as he kept getting in and out too fast and wouldn't sit still long enough for one (even with the SLR!). We also saw the concept for the new Escape, which Ryan will be working on. We did 2 "rides", one in a focus to learn about its new features where you sat in the car and watched a video. We also rode in an Explorer which actually tilted side to side and up and down to simulate driving. Keira wasn't a fan of that, but was really sad that we didn't ride in the electric Transit or Focus that went on an actual track in the building! (the line was too long). We breezed through the rest of the show, as it was getting late. We did see the Buckeye Bullet which was made by the OSU College of Engineering. It was a late night, but we got home easily as there was very little traffic.

Friday was "white" day at school for Keira. As usual, there was a bit of drama with her outfit. While she was at school, I took Soren to the gym were I was able to swim (finally), and then we headed to storytime.

Here is Keira's project for the week:

I took Soren to storytime while Keira was at school.

We had a relaxing afternoon, and that evening we went over to Family Swim with Cristina and her friend Kari. Soren was facinated once Kari showed him that you could make a "hose" out of a pool noodle by putting the end of it against a water inlet. He spent the rest of the time playing with a pool noodle that I held for him to make a "fountain". We also had a blast squirting each other by blowing water through the noodles. Soren got Cristina really good! It did make for another late night for the kids, though.

On Saturday, we slept in a bit. Ryan went to ride with his friends indoors. They did a new DVD called Sufferfest which uses actual race footage. It was super cold today, and I was really not sure what to do about my 17 mile run that I had planned. Thankfully, Cristina called me and wanted to run it with me. It was brutal. The snow was coming down lightly, but it was enough to make the path slick. The temp was right around 17 degrees, but the real feel was around 0 deg. I wrote a full post on this run at DoubleJoggerDiaries, but I really credit Cristina for getting me through this, as I was ready to be done at 11.5, when we were back at the cars. I am glad I did it, though. Hopefully we will have better conditions next week. That evening, we went to dinner at Baha Fresh and Ryan attended the Wolverine Sports Club social. I had waited too long to find a sitter, and no one was available for me to go too. It was just as well, as I was pretty exhausted from my run.

Sunday was a nice relaxing morning. I really revamped my diet once we got back from our trip, as I have been unhappy with the amount of holiday weight that I gained, so I cooked grilled chicken for lunch before church. We also had grilled salmon after church. Our cuisinart griddler really got the work out today, as it was WAY to cold to grill outside and Keira wanted pancakes for dinner (I had offered them for lunch but she turned them down then, and asked later). We had a visit from our home teachers, which was really nice. We chatted about skiing, Germany, and the move.