Ok. So I ran 4 miles on Saturday with LOTS of hills. I did over 2000 feet of elevation. My legs (quads) were sore yesterday. I had hubby rub them down. Today I did a 13 mile bike ride. And let me just say… biking isn’t fun when your quads are sore!

Training is going ok. I have 27 days till the Triathlaon. So this is the final push phase for me. So I’ll do a build and then a long taper. I’ll continue to do “mini-workouts” of 20-30 mins the first few days and then about a week before I’ll just take the week off.

When I was running the other day, I saw a bird scrounging for food. Then he just stopped and puffed his breast out and closed his eyes in the sunlight. I felt like it was a metaphor for me and my life. The bird wasn’t focused solely on his task at the expense of enjoying what is around him. He was able to stop and savor the beautiful sunshine. Im going to do more of that. Just so happens I was walking UP a hill when I saw that. If I had been running, I might have missed it. Ha. I can rationalize anything.

The biggest test of my endurance is working. Fitting in 4 hours a day on top of an hour and half of training and my commitment to spend an average of 2 hours a day completely immersed with the kids. Then of course there is the patio project.

Oh dear friends, the patio project has been sooooo trying. I don’t even know where to begin. Our Landscape Artictect was a complete bitch. I didn’t like her at all. I would say things like “please put concrete in this area” and she would ignore me and do her own “design”. Then I would ask her again, and she would do something else different to show me. Each time, charging me for her time.

Then the contractor is very sweet but he’s young and has had a few missteps along the way. The biggest misstep was changing how we were going to construct the sitwalls from concrete block to pouring them. Which costs about double I figure. Add to that he didn’t put the sleeves into the concrete so we have to run more wire around the concrete, I had to project manage a lot of the project because he wasn’t here and various other small communication missteps, and it’s just added up to one big headache.

He also put all his eggs in one basket with this one mason. Well this guy came out and his quote was 18K more then what the General contractor gave us in bid. So we had to stop everything and regroup. Obviously, we aren’t going to add that 18K on top of the increased concrete costs.

So now we are looking at doing part of this project ourselves. We are going to build our own fireplace and bbq island. We are going to put our own rock on the sitwalls. I’m including a picture. It’s not much to look at yet…but it will be.

3 Tiered Concrete Patio with Fireplace and BBQ and Sitwalls

Having the kids home this summer has been awesome. We have had so much fun. I love the age they are now. They are not driving me crazy. I am present and savoring the time with them. Even with work — it’s going great because I’m really making time for quality time every day. This is the first time in my life I can say that I am completely present with my children. Im not wishing away the time, I’m not hoping for free time, I’m not thinking about what I should be doing differently. Im just here enjoying it. They did one week of camp and it was fun for them… but if you ask them, they would rather be home then at camp. So I think we are just going to do one week more. We’ll see. What I like about camp is the dailiy activity level.

I’m in the process of planning a trip to Disney in November. Also going to head down to the house in Florida. This is my 40th birthday. I have to tell ya I don’t even care. I’d like to go get more “skin” taken off as a present to myself. But I don’t think I’ll have time to do that for awhile. Maybe in the winter?

Wednesday our In country Adoption Facilitator is meeting us for breakfast. It’s a rare treat to get to spend time with Kazakh peoples! Let alone our adoption facilitator. We are really looking forward to that.

Wednesday night I’m scrapbooking with some friends. I need to get on the stick and get some pictures printed out.

Ok… that’s the basic update….

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