Family Fitness Night, Morning with Mom and other stuff

It has been a wonderfully uneventful Thanksgiving around here. Pete has been home all week and we took the opportunity to do, well, nothing special! It is just so nice to not have a schedule for a few days. No homework, no bed time, no alarm clock...

A few events from last week and a few random pictures that were on the camera...

Sleeping in the car. I will never understand how my kids can sleep in such crazy positions.

Sleeping on the chair. Reese actually slept like this most of the night!

Last weekend we all participated in the Sneak a Peek 5k. It is a 5k run through Grand Prairie's parade of Christmas lights. It was really neat. The weather was great; not too cold for the kids to enjoy. Little Alissa even went the entire 3.1 miles! Amazing!

Zach and I brought home some hardware.

On Friday there was a Thanksgiving Feast at school and then we enjoyed the beautiful weather out on the play ground.

"Morning with Mom" at school serves a breakfast that the girls and I are not crazy about, so we have started our own tradition by going to breakfast together before school on that special day.

Last week the school had Family Fitness night for us to come experience the exercises that the kids have to do to pass the fitness test required by the state of Texas. It was pretty interesting. It is not too hard to pass but it is pretty difficult to be commended. I had to try it all to see where I stand. Soren and I hold the record at the school for pacer laps!

Sit up test... ...and they are STILL doing sit ups...

Fall 2010

I have been chastised for my lack of posts lately. I have two excuses. #1 - We are in that time of year where what we are up to is school, homework, swim team, bed, school, homework, swim team, bed... so it doesn't make for the most exciting posts. And #2 - I have perhaps over committed myself and finding time to blog is a bit harder.

Now that I have made my excuses I will catch you up on this last month in the Underwood household.

Soren is swimming only 3 times a week for an hour as opposed to two hour workouts 5 days a week as her shoulder continues to heal from an over use injury. Nothing serious, just tendinitis, but it could get serious if you don't let it heal. She is loving being a part of the Lego League after school Monday through Thursday. She says that their robot and research projects are coming along nicely. We are excited to see them compete on December 4th because I really don't know much about what they are doing. Soren got her 2nd 6 weeks report card on Friday and is still hanging on to her all A record. She is also signed up to run a leg of the 5 person relay at the Whiterock Marathon on December 5th, so she has been doing some running to prepare for that. She is on a team with Pops, Nana, Uncle Mat and Pete. She will run a 4 to 5 mile section (can't remember which) and their team will compete with a team that Zach and I are on with some of Zach's fishing buddies. The losers have to buy lunch. It should be a good time. Soren is merely inches shorter than I am now and is strong and beautiful. It is such a joy to see her excel and thrive in all she does. It is humbling to think about how blessed I am to have a daughter like her. God loves me a lot!

Reese. Sweet Reese. She keeps us laughing and thinking. She also swims three times a week and enjoys playing with her friends on her days off. She is excelling in school as well and also is making all A's. She says the funniest things that I try to write down. After Halloween she was digging through the candy bowl and noticed that we had a few Smarties. She knows that these are her Aunt Jodi's favorite candy and asks me if she can mail them to her. I think it is a great idea and get her an envelope. She sits down to write a letter to include in the envelope and as she writes she asks me "mom, how do you spell 'buddy'" I ask, to clarify, "you mean buddy like friend?" Her reply: "No. I mean like no buddy likes these so you can have them." Gotta love the Texas influence!

Pete is also excelling in his EMBA program. This week he started his first accounting class. Now there won't be anything that I know that he doesn't! That was my area of knowledge! It will be interesting to me to see if he likes it at all. It just does not seem like something that fits his personality to me. Now that his foot has totally healed, Pete is back to running. He runs as much as possible between work and school. Some weeks that will allow a long 30 mile run and other weeks he can only squeeze in short distances, but he gets out there anytime the opportunity arises. He will be a part of the relay in the marathon, but I will not be surprised if he runs the whole thing while he is out there.

I am working, volunteering and training. Right now the training is about 12 hours a week and will increase up to about 20 hours in a few months as we near race month in May. I still love it and enjoy reaching new goals. This weekend I was blessed to get to sneak away to San Antonio with two girl friends for the San Antonio marathon. We had so much fun getting away and the bonus of a good training run to boot. I did the half marathon distance and ran a PR of 1:45! Good times.

We are looking forward to next week off of school for Thanksgiving break. No plans for the holiday, but I am sure something will come up!

That is all I can think of for now. Life is good and we are blessed!

Reese likes to play practical jokes. Here is one that she played on me last week. That is a whoopie cushion on the brake pedal of my car. She thought that was absolutely hysterical.