It has been COLD and snowy here in Boise.  The coldest I’ve seen is 1* on our outdoor thermometer and we’ve had snow on the ground since Monday. We woke up today to more snow!  There was a Christmas parade and the Farmer’s Market in Downtown Boise this morning so we bundled up and went!  Call us crazy

Lu in the car, ready to go!

Don’t the girls look happy?

Wouldn’t you be ecstatic if your Mom dragged you out to watch a line of Minis?

No? How about a snowman! On a Harley!

Really?  Are you having fun yet? Maybe not:

(I think my dear daughter is thinking “EFF YOU MOM.  This SUCKS!”)

The marching band that made both my sister and I start crying-they always do-WTF is up with that?!?!?!

Dancers…sort of dancing…

Isn’t this fun? Well at least there are candy canes!

(“Really Mom?  Really?  Even this candy cane can’t make me smile.”)

Cool old car:

These people said “EFF IT!” and put up there hard top.  How awesome is this car?!?

This float was so sad.  The characters were all falling over because of the snow

Horse-in a a blizzard! (not really)

We ended up going to a Vietnamese place for Pho and watching the rest of the parade from the window.  We saw Santa, sorta…The girls said they had fun or something like that…

  While we were doing that.  Daddy was out mountain biking.  No really!

He had a blast!  So did we-no really we did!

I’m loving the seasons here.  We’ll see if I say that in January or February or March….

It’s been CRAZY busy since we last talked and now I’m in Virginia for work. 

On Sunday we watched Tessa so that my sister and her husband could go hunting and fishing.  My brother-in-law is a pilot and they take his plane and go to the “back-country”-you can’t get there with a car.  It was the first time in almost 2 years that they got to get out in the plane, just the two of them.  Tessa has always been with them.  I am SO happy that we got to help out and the girls were utterly adorable. This is why we moved!

Here they are in the morning, both sitting on the bird’s food containers, drinking water.  Right before this, they were scooting the containers around and squealing:

Yes, Lu is still in her PJs and yes that is a necklace around her neck.  Gram and Pop sent her a necklace for her birthday and it is now on her whenever she is awake.

Later that morning, we hopped on our bikes and took the girls to the zoo.  They had a blast!  I have all sorts of cute pictures but alas they are at home.  I did capture this shot on my phone from the ride home:

Poor Tessa was tired.  Lu isn’t quite sure how she feels about being a human pillow 🙂 (Do you see the necklace?)

Lu also always has her purse and “cell phone” with her.  Here she is taking a picture of Mommy with her “cell phone”-it’s an old defunct T-Mobile phone that her sitter gave her.  I was trying to get a picture of the hundreds of butterfly stickers on her chest and she, in turn, was taking a “picture” of Mommy:

Where did this girly-girl come from?  If there was ever a question in my mind about nature vs. nurture, there is no longer.  We have NOT encouraged this behavior.  We don’t discourage it either but purses, necklaces, and obsessions with shoes?  She is a girl, through and through.  That stuff is NOT learned.  Believe me!

~~~~~

How am I doing?  I’m good.  I’m really good.  I’m continuing to eat gluten, corn, dairy, and meat (sans fish) free. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t helping.  It is helping.  At the encouragement of my doctor I tried some lamb (my favorite) last week-we were working under the assumption that I’m very allergic to corn so I should try truly grass fed animals.  Big mistake. Big. HUGE.  I got a stomach ache almost immediately and spent the night in the bathroom.  Lovely.

As for my energy level, I ran 10 miles this weekend in 1 hour and 59 minutes.  Like I said on Twitter, Ironman Chelsea would have cried because it was so slow.  Lucy’s Mommy?  Was really proud of herself.  I’m learning NOT to compare me to my pre-Lucy self.  I will get there BUT I was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant, I had just finished an Ironman for goodness sake!  My half marathon is next weekend and I feel confident that I can finish with a 12 minute mile pace. The 10-miler didn’t make me sore! YAY!

Want to know what has made me sore?  Soccer and mountain biking.  Both of which, I am LOVING.  Absolutely LOVING.  Soccer is such a rush and I love playing on a team.  Mountain biking is fun and I love that Shaun and I have something to do together again.  Just the two of us.  We go during the week at lunchtime and it is awesome.

I love that our move has afforded me the possibility to be so active again.  I haven’t once missed my 2 hour commute.  I love that I get to work from home, see Lucy 20 times more, and work out during the time that I used to spend in the car.  Life is good, really good.

I’d better get to bed.  I have an 8 hour meeting that I’m leading tomorrow and it starts in 7 hours.  *Gulp*

Okay, so work has been INSANE for the past 3 weeks.  I had to work everyday on my vacation and this week has been beyond crazy. BEYOND.  I’m doing the job of three people right now and it’s hard and stressful.  I was up until 4 am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning working.  BUT, they pay me AND they give me awesome perks.

Look at this one (sorry for the blur and smallness):

That’s a 2011 Specialized Myka Expert 29er.  It’s the first women’s 29er widely available, I’ve already gotten comments from bike geek about how cool it is. 

My company gives us a set amount to spend on exercise equipment each year and there’s my exercise equipment.  Isn’t it beautiful?

Shaun and I are going to go mountain biking on Sunday morning and I can’t wait!

We didn’t get the Eye-Fi set up last night because I was dead tired.  Shaun went mountain biking after work and didn’t get home until 7:50.  That meant that I did the whole bedtime routine by myself which isn’t a big deal it’s just more difficult.  By the time I got dinner done and we had eaten it was 8:45 and I was ready for bed.  We were in bed by 9 and lights were out by 9:15 (get your minds out of the gutter-we were reading).  My little superstar sleeper slept until 6:15 this morning so I got 9 hours of sleep last night.  WOO and HOO!  Of course I had crazy stress dreams all night long but oh well, at least I got to sleep for 9 hours.

Even though the Eye-Fi did not get set up, I still took my first daily picture of Lucy with my phone.  She was so smiley this morning-see?

She’s started giving kisses on command!!! Last night I asked her to give Mommy a kiss and I got a big wet slobbery one. We played a game where I would kiss her and say “Mommy gives Lucy a kiss. Will Lucy give Mommy a kiss?” And then she’d kiss me and I’d say “OH THANK YOU!” and she’d crack up. We did that for about 10 minutes last night. I was covered in Lucy slobber and it was so worth it!

I had the realization last night that since I’ve been back to work (4 months now) I haven’t done anything for myself without Lucy. Breastmilk is such a precious resource that I never leave her with Daddy and a bottle. Plus I miss her so much while I work that I don’t want to leave her alone when I have the chance. But, I think I need to get over this and leave her with Daddy for a few hours one weekend. I do need some “me” time and the train ride to work, work, grocery shopping, and cooking don’t really count. Maybe I’ll take a babystep and go for a run this weekend all.by.myself. I do have an issue in that I don’t know what I’d go do. Sad, huh?

Time to start brainstorming.