HA!

So, I didn't mean I wouldn't blog anymore, just that I am seriously considering the option of hosting the blog elsewhere. I don't think I could stop the blog, because then I couldn't show you photos like these:



And some more:







Watch out, there's a new sheriff in town! If those didn't make you smile, I'm sending her out to give you a fine for not being happy.

What's Up With That?

Blogger,

You are not my friend anymore and I think we will be breaking up soon. I'm checking out "other" options for my blog. And yes, those do include TypePad and Wordpress or maybe even getting my own domain.

Why is it that my first blog is LIVE, even though I told you that it should be private? No one wants to read about me being pregnant with my first child or hear about my crazy grape and strawberry soda cravings. I think it might have really only been interesting to me and there it is, for the whole world to see.

I'm taking you down, Blogger. Next thing I know, you'll end up deleting all my posts and where will those memories go??? Anyway, I guess I'll see what happens over the next month and if you piss me off in yet another way, but consider yourself on probation.

I'm dead serious,
Jenna

**If you want to look at my rookie blog, you've got about a week to do so before I click the private button or delete it all together: Nine Months to Baby
***Do not blame me if it puts you to sleep. Consider yourself warned.
****I still dig strawberry soda.

Favorite Things Found From Others

A few good finds lately. I can't take credit. They were handed from others, and I'm the kind of gal that gives credit where credit is due. Though, damn, I wish I'd gone and found them myself!

Custom Fruit Roll Ups. Okay, so can I just say that I won the COOLEST giveaway ever off of Jennster's blog?? Yo. She was giving away a box of these bad boys at random (you had to comment on what you would do), but I was chosen. So, in the mail I await my 30 count (YES, 30!!!) fruit rolls that bear my daughter's names with two different pics - a fish and bunny - two of their favorite animals. If they are lucky, they will get a couple. And if they are even luckier, they won't be sending me the stawberry flavor so that I can pass them along. All kidding aside, I think the girls will love them since they can now recognize what their name looks like, and the animals I know they will love for sure. Go check out the site. These are so awesome - I think when we have Bea's 4th birthday party, I will get these made and include one in each goodie bag. So clever.

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion with SPF. So what's my deal with talking about lotion? Not just any lotion, but lotion with SPF, people. And it doesn't smell like all those other products with SPF in them (i.e. - it smells like yummy lotion you want to put on your body). You must try it. And protect your skin (unlike me who forgot to put it on when I went to Carmel last weekend, but I did bring it with me). So, again, why are you talking about lotion? Well, a while ago my brother wrote on his blog about this company called BzzAgent. Now, don'tcha all flock on over there because I was keeping it a secret. I didn't even tell my brother I joined because I didn't think I'd even be one of the chosen ones. It's a word of mouth campaign site. You take surveys. You get chosen for campaigns. You get free stuff. As long as you talk to people about the products and write a simple product report on how you "Bzz'd" on their site then you will stay in their good graces. And be reselected for other campaigns. It's nice getting free stuff, and stuff you like, because it is that much easier to talk about it to others, right? So, that there is/was my first campaign. A girl can never have enough lotion, and good lotion if that (smell good skin protection).

www.silverjewelryclub.com. Don't tell me you've heard of this already. I read about it in my Woman's Day Mag. Free jewelry, folks. You only pay the shipping which is $6.99 per item. If you go to the home page the items that you can choose from shift every 15 minutes, so if you don't like something that is on there right now, check back in a 1/2 hour and you might find something you like. The jewelry is nice and not cheap looking. I have bought two pairs of earrings so far. My ears have not gotten infected and the quality isn't half bad. Check it. You can pay the shipping through Paypal, which I like also. I'd show you pics, but I can't get the camera to take good ones. Check out the site instead.

Where was Clint?

It’s Clint Eastwood, if you’re wondering. We went to Carmel over the weekend (Carmel-by-the-Sea, if I want to be PC about it). Oh, and by the way, Clint hasn’t been the mayor there for EIGHT years. Where have I been? Oh, I got married and had two beautiful daughters, that’s where. So, but I do remember taking a family vacation to Carmel when I was much younger and hoped that we would see Clint. We didn’t, or my guess is that I would have a picture of it.

Anyway, the four of us went down there this weekend to camp. Our second camping trip already this season and it is not even SUMMER yet. I’d say it was a good time all around, and I was all prepared to take a ton of photos. When we were at the Carmel beach on Saturday morning, I turned on the camera to take the first of what I hoped to be many pictures, and that wasn’t happening because the camera was screaming at me - “NO CARD!!!” Turns out that I left the card in the laptop ever since I did that whole photo recovery thing. At least Josh had a camera in his phone, so we got three pics. Here are two of them:



Very fun trip for us.

The highlights:

Carmel Beach: Bea ran up and down the sand hill about ten times. Olivia was scared of the water and in general played the family grouch. It was a few hours of fun.

Monterey: The girls rode their bikes (Bea: Bike with training wheels; Olivia: New Radio flyer trike with handle to easily steer child that just refuses to use peddles) for a very long distance. Bea rode so fast that I sometimes had to run (TRAINING!!!!) to keep up with her. As I was trying to help her across the intersection and ensure that she not fall and we not make cars wait endlessly, I grabbed the back of her seat and the bike fell over, to which she then yelled at me that I MADE HER FALL. At the Monterey pier, we grubbed on chowder in a bread bowl and fresh crab do-dads. We hopped on a “view the bay” 25-minute boat ride and cruised around and saw massive amounts of sea lions and kelp. No scared girls, thank goodness.

Mango Margaritas: First night at Bahama Billy’s (HIGHLY RECOMMEND) the second at some Mexican place where I spent most of our dining experience in the bathroom handling two pees and one poop from both girls.

Campfire bacon: It really is the best. And Josh made me an egg, cheese and bacon sandwich. YUMMY.

Tent coziness: The four of us sleeping under one tent. The first night was unpleasant with Olivia pushing me off my spot or head butting me all night; the second a little more peaceful (because we found a camping store and purchased a cot with padding that we used to make more room for everyone).

Lowlights:

Drama: Girl drama and fighting, but that’s no different than a typical day for us.

Sleeping: The girls stayed up late, possibly from all the excitement. They did not sleep in. As soon as that sun peeked through the tent and it was no longer dark, up they were, and LOUD. I wouldn’t be surprised if we woke up a bunch of other “polite” campers.

Father’s Day: With all the craziness and not being on our routine, I felt awful about remembering that it was father’s day on the ride home from Carmel. Bad me. I hope that the camping trip made Josh’s weekend since he’s a camper. I’m usually much more of a planner. Sigh. Sorry, Josh. You're a great father and you deserved much more...I guess there is always next year, right?

Shower Me

Well, I thank you for your comments and song suggestions, but gosh, my iTunes account is going to explode. Wonderful suggestions all around. Uncle Todd, I own about 2 of those songs on your list and trust your music-marketability, but that is a lot of songs. I’m going to have to download, though. As for Jenn, I know you’ve got a BareNaked Ladies song – out with it! And Anonymous (AKA – HUSBAND), I’m not going into the boxing ring like Rocky, but I will have to add that to my list as inspiration.

Also, in my last post I noted that I need four hours of music. I guess I was thinking that I was going to be doing the 20 minute mile. Well, maybe at first. But, my goal is to do it in 3 hours come October. In any case, I like my music shuffled, and if I hear a song too often I have a habit of skipping it. My supply needs to be large just for this. Somewhat inspirational. Somewhat with a good beat. I’m curious what will happen when I start actually running…I may have to change out some of the key chosen songs for this life-changing event (at least it is to me). Are you wondering what is already on my playlist? Probably not, but I have rediscovered some music that I used to love, and so far here is my core:

Big Audio Dynamite – Rush and The Globe
Mary J. Blige – No More Drama
Usher – YEAH!
Beck – Think I’m In Love
Blink 182 – What’s My Age Again? And Mutt
Brit-Brit – Outrageous
Hot Chocolate – You Sexy Thing (Don’t laugh!!!)
Jamiroquai – Virtual Insanity
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
The Offspring – Bad Habit, Come Out and Play
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure
Rolling Stones – Start Me Up
Run DMC – Walk This Way, Raising Hell
The Tornadoes – Bustin’ Surfboards
Weezer – Hash Pipe

What? You didn’t know Hot Chocolate was a band in the 70’s? I wouldn’t have either if I didn’t happen to have Soundtrack #1 from the movie Boogie Nights. In any case, I have always found music to be inspiring, and I am hoping that it will get me inspired to get off my butt for some serious walking/running action. Music was the first thing I needed because there is no way I can get motivated in silence. And by silence, I mean that I have planned to start getting up at 5am possibly three times a week and hop on the treadmill for an hour. It will be so quiet that if I have my tunes on and start singing out loud as I am known to do, I just might be the neighborhood alarm clock. Oh. You are still stuck on 5am, aren’t you? Yeah, yeah, I know. But where else am I going to fit this important “training” thing in by having girls that wake up at 6am, going to work all day, and then having girls that don’t go to sleep until around 9pm? I’d rather not do it before bed, and because the girls bed time can be completely inconsistent depending on if someone is resisting sleep. If I do it that late at night, I will definitely be wired. I think doing it first thing in the morning will get me pumped for the day (at least I hope) and I know that I will have a full hour.

Are you still with me? Surprising.

I had this idea that I wanted to run by you. Is it possible for me to have a marathon shower? While you’re laughing, I’ll just say that every woman needs to feel important. A bride-to-be gets her bridal shower, a mom-to-be gets her baby shower. I’m done with these things in my life, and I really want that “it’s all about me” feeling again. So, why not a shower? I could register for a few pairs of running shoes, some cute running clothes, some bottled water? It’s SO not happening, but it seriously did cross my mind.

Let the Training Begin

So many of you ask how my marathon training is coming along. A few of you have actually questioned if I will follow through. The answer is yes. If you dare to place a bet on this, I will gladly accept another along with the one I placed with Josh.

The training has certainly begun. On Sunday, I carried Olivia approximately one half mile straight from the park to our home (because silly me assumed she would walk back so I opted for no stroller). I call this weight-training. Dudes, if you think it was a piece of cake, let me tell you that arms are still sore, but not as much as my calves...it was a lot of legwork, too. You try carrying a 25 pound toddler and a glass of water for half a mile and not break a sweat. I am well on my way, yessiree.

Also, I'm looking to get about a four hour playlist on my iPod. Four hours. Twelve miles. Any good running/walking songs have you to recommend? I'd appreciate it greatly.

Stay tuned for more updates...

Recovery

$27 bucks was all it took to get those priceless memories back. Nothing is guaranteed, and I noticed how one photo would be recovered, yet the next in its progression was not. Wonder why that is. But, I hadn’t yet uploaded a number of photos to the computer, so it wasn’t just the one’s below that I wanted, but a great many. Totally worth it. Plus, it is a very rare case when I am in a photo because I’m always the one taking them...thank goodness S volunteered to take pics when we were out last Saturday! So nice of her...

The girls made these princess hats on Friday evening (foam doo-dads with puffy sticker press ons – so easy and fun and total cost was $4):



On Saturday, we went to Vasona Park with S and her dog, Rocky. We rode the train and merry-go-round (totally not cheap at 2 bucks a ride per person, including me):



And here are a few newly recovered photos that I love (and are fairly recent):

A Small Blip

The Weekend: Was Excellent.

Activities: A plenty, including princess hats, train rides, merry-go-round rides, lunch with friends, seeing the SATC movie with another friend, a Greek festival, and tantrums o' mighty.

Sleep: Not much.

Throw up: Once on Friday night from Olivia (tantrum-induced).

Peeing accidents: Quite a few at 3.

Pictures capturing the weekend: Uh.

Dimrod who was playing with the camera and was wondering what the format button does on the camera (DUH! It formats the DIGITAL CARD and erases EVERYTHING that gets in its way!): Jenna.

Pictures lost: About twenty good ones.

Price paid for software to gain those photos back: About $27.

When you might see photos of Jenna and chitlens from the weekend: Probably this week.