Beautiful Jaunts

Back to the girls and my virtual walk around County Clare.  We're doing it old school.  A map is pasted to a poster board and a chart at the bottom to record our daily steps.  Every 2000 steps in a mile.  At least that's how I'm counting it.  And that's how it worked out when we did the official Virtual walk app last time.  But this time is free.

Every once in a while, I mark where we are on the walk.  I'm able to use Google maps and plot out a course based on miles walked, starting at the Shannon airport and up to Ennis, down along the shore of the Shannon River to the Atlantic ocean and then north along the shore of the ocean.  

Eventually we'll be within sight of Kilkee!  and the traditional anchor I took the kids pic in front of both times we were there.  

Looks like they've updated the anchor base...

Here was my view last week.  I'm probably several miles past that by now.  I haven't tallied our steps this week at all...  I was within a mile or so of the Lisheen house that we stayed at on our first trip.

Here it was way back then.  25 years ago...  I don't know if I'd even recognize it if I found it on the google earth nowadays...

Here is Maddy's view.  She's miles ahead of us.

Kindergartners keep her hopping and on her toes...

And Meri's.  She's not too far behind me.

Leon just got a step counter watch and he and I are going to do the Ring of Kerry again, the cheap way!  On my map.

together.

OH!  The thing that stopped me from posting for over a week was that my BIL and his boys arrived LAST Wednessday and did my deck/porch/pergola!!!!  AND they painted up some scruffed up siding and trim with paint.

So things were hopping here too!

They surprised me by bringing their power sprayer and cleaned my porch/deck floor and then staining it!  What a nice surprise!  I ran to get 4 gallons of stain, then had to run back for 5 more.  The deck was SUPER dry and sucked it all in.  Reminded me of a Green Acres episode that no one else remembers but me...

Here is the before shot of our deck floor and old railings.

A nephew up fixing the pergola.  There were a few rotted boards that needed replacing.

and him staining our deck. 

 

I picked the color "quiet chamois" without knowing how to pronounce it, so it was interesting trying to show the paint guy what color.

And now that it's down, it looks like it should be renamed "Butterscotch Pudding".

I'm having loads of fun putting the furniture back on and pretending we just moved in again!  The first time was such a rush on the coldest day of the year.

AND I got my Etsy purchase hung up finally!

The guys worked Wednesday thru Friday and then came back on Monday for just a day trip.

They put up all the railings in that one day.

AND then BOOM.  It was done!

They plan to come back in 6 months and paint the deck railings for us, since the pretreated wood needs to cure before we can paint it.

What a relief to live in this house again after having the outside looks decent again.  And not get nervous when it rains or blows around outside...

It's almost as if we love our home again!

AND it's inspired us to get some quotes on the siding that we've been putting off.  We may just bite the bullet and get it all done now.  Need to anyway and I don't think we can reside it ourselves...

ANYWHO, as I sit here typing, I glance around with projects in my mind... mmmm new carpet would be nice.

HEY!  They have a sale on wood flooring at Lowes!  OR I can find someone's cast off wood, sand it down and install it ourselves bit by bit.  (Robb said jokingly I want a divorce...)(I don't believe in it so he's stuck with me and all my crazy ideas!)

Robb just wants things to calm down a bit more before we jump into anything else.

The noise around our house lately has been somewhat stressful.

SIGH...  It takes work to be beautiful!

Working Things Out

I got up early today and worked out with Meri!!

There is a space where we go that has a bunch of equipment there, untouched.

She has a whole routine that she used to do, so I tagged along and did it too.

The weights felt powerful, the treadmill even more powerful and then when I did a torso turny thing while holding a weight, I started feeling less powerful...

We worked out for 30 minutes and I worked off all the calories of my cappuccino just on the treadmill.  It tells you how many calories you've burned.  nice...

So I came home and had breakfast, totally wrecking what I'd done. Well, not really, it was a normal calorie counting breakfast.  I'm determined to lose more weight...

We're going to try and do this a few times a week together.  She's more ambitious and will go more often than that.

We're both doing the My Fitness Pal app too.  If you want to be my friend on there, let me know!

Everyone needs a little encouragement!

I had given Meri my old scale and just recently replaced it with a new one. 

It'll take some getting used to.

When you first step on it, it gives me good news.

When I step off and back on, it's 2 pounds heavier.

Bi-polar scale...

So I'm going to use the first number it gives me, because it's being consistently weird about it.

I may trade back for my older scale as the numbers are lit up on that one.

Meri got Robb's old bike out and got it road ready. Shub bought a bike and they've been biking around.  Plus Meri has been riding bikes with her only charge the last couple weeks and has been enjoying it a lot.

The pic below is Ryan and my brother, Mark in 2008 when they went on the RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa.  Mark used to go every year and that year, he talked us into helping Ryan buy a super duper bike and go with him for a couple days.

I should probably get my bike fixed up too, but eh... I know where I can work out...

Devils Backside & Possible Rattlesnakes

Friday - Maddy took (Robb says "forced") us to Devil's Backbone park for a leisurely stroll.  SHUUURRE it's leisurely!!!  

If you pay attention to the walk and avoid tripping over rocks jutting out of the ground and don't notice the general and gradual lack of oxygen.  

Parts were very leisurely, but some seemed pretty treacherous.

We left Robb at the outlook and the rest of us trekked on to the Keyhole a little ways further.  

See these innocent pics?  

Well two feet to the right of this one is a sheer drop off to the houses way below.  

See this one?  

A mere one foot to a steady slide to death and destruction. 

 I was beside myself constantly telling the kids to be careful and get their rears back over here where you can be safe next to where they'd seen a rattle snake last year.  

FYI: Don't go there...  It's NOT a trail...

Like we're stupid...

We did see a few stupid people off the trail...

Maddy made sure to tell me that she and Stanley had climbed up to a ledge up high on the other side, mentioning that Stanley had to catch her to make sure she didn't fall (to her death).  When she noticed my hyperventilating, she said, no wait, I think it was the lower one, down there.  Don't trust anyone who changes their story mid-gasp.

    Heading downhill was a little easier, and Leon had a blast fashioning a magic wand out of weeds.  He changed Maddy into a deer and deer in the headlights doesn't move, so he made her into something else.  But a rock doesn't move either.  

Let me PAST!!

Last rock climbing photo of the day.  

My kind of  mountain climbing!!!

Almost forgot about the cookie store!  After the climb, we headed downtown Ft. Collins.

If you ever want to spend a fortune on fab cookies, go here.  Mary's Mountain Cookies! YUM...

I bought an unseemly expensive amount of cookies and there are still some in our car.  Scratch that... WAS...  Robb finished them off yesterday.  

The walk to the store was almost as adventuresome as the hike!  Well, still no snakes...  

  

We went to a movie theater with recliner chairs and trays. After placing our order for food at the concession stand, they made note of our assigned seats and brought our food to us during the previews...  

This place was AWESOME!!!!  Robb wasn't as enthralled as our lunch (and apparently 5 billion dollar popcorn) was more expensive than the tickets.  The movies was BFG the Big Friendly Giant.  I hadn't read that book as a child, but apparently all the grandparents around me had.  We couldn't sit together and after Leon threw a fit that he couldn't sit with the girls, Maddy and Meri came down to our chairs and said that Robb and I should have a date and sit by ourselves for the movie.  

Okey dokey!!!  

We could hear Leon talking throughout the movie but they had fun and I got to recline...  Robb napped.  The movie just didn't hold together like it should have for him.

We got Leon back to the hotel for a nap and then we met up for pizza with a college friend and his wife.  

Got back to the hotel for some more serious packing and much needed sleep.

MUCH needed sleep!!!!

Heard a Hula rumor...

Trudy over at Sewing With Trudy mentioned in either FB or a blog post that she'd made some hula hoops for a church craft sale. I thought, hmmm.... That sounds pretty cool! How do you make those? So I emailed her.

Got some instructions back and pondered on it for a week or so. Finally had time to go to the local Lowes (Home depot kind of place) and got the instructions all wrong in my head. For some reason I had gotten to thinking that I needed flexible PVC pipes to do this with. So Meri and I scoured the plumbing section and found some 9 foot long flexible PVC pipes. One of them was 3/4" in diameter, the other was 1/2". We couldn't decide which to use, so got both. Also picked up some colorful electrical tape.Got home and cut about 1.5' off using a knife heated with a candle, used duct tape to seal the seam and promptly made tear-shaped hoops. Not exactly useful... oh boy... I dug out the email that Trudy had sent me and checked it again. Oops! I was supposed to pick up irrigational tubing... and in looking at some websites I found on how to make them, also a connector piece.

Well, I didn't have those things... So I cut off the duct tape and in the 3/4" pipe, I inserted a piece of the 1/2" pipe to hold the two ends together and duct taped it again. It's more of a circle now and then dolled it up with the red and green electrical tape.The girls are having a good time! and WOW, is it great exercise! Next time I get to Lowes, I'll pick up some of the irrigational tubing and try it again. If I can figure this out, then I know what I'll be making for our church craft sale next fall as well as gifts over the summer...