Busy Days

Wow, what a busy month we have had! I started off the month at a conference for Baby Boot Camp in Sarasota Florida. We originally were going to go as a family and make it a vacation, but we couldn't make the finances work, so only I went. Tim kept saying have fun on vacation, to which I scoffed, I'm not going on vacation, I'm going to a work conference! However, after flying on an airplane, checking in to the hotel and heading out to the cafe by the pool to have a sandwich and a beer and doing all of this quickly/smoothly and stress free without having to lug around 2 car seats, a stroller, worry about snacks, potty breaks, diaper changes and who's about to melt down...as I sat there in the lovely breeze soaking in the sun halfway bored, I thought, ok, maybe I am on vacation! It turned out to be a fantastic weekend! I was feeling really down about the business not taking off and was struggling with my time management now that I have 2 kiddos and trying to still provide them the educational and emotional interaction they need each day and still get the work done that I need to to make the business successful. We had 3 days full of really informative presentations-in a conference room that looked out over the beach-and 3 days of exercise workshops to refresh my classes-all these workshops/exercise classes were done at 7 am on the beach-it was beautiful! And to top it all off my fellow Baby Boot Camp owners are a great group of women who had nothing but encouraging words and great ideas to share with everyone. I came home feeling totally rejuvenated and hit the ground running! I have already made leaps and bounds in improvements. Plus, it was nice to get away from the kids and all my home/mom responsibilities for a few days!
Then the following weekend we had our "last" bike event of the season. I say "last", because Tim just volunteered to be a bike medic for the Livestrong 90 mile ride in Austin on the 24th. He just signed up for this a few days ago. Hmmm....me and the boys might volunteer to help out at a break point or start line stuff. We'll see. I would love to ride in it, but it is another fund raising ride and we agreed to only do one of those per season and last weekend we did the MS 150. But, since he is a volunteer he doesn't have to pay or raise funds, he is donating his time instead. Yeah, rough gig! So anyway, last weekend we did the MS 150 which is a bike ride starting at the Alamo Dome downtown San Antonio and riding 70 miles (with a 100 mile Century option-which of course we took!) out to New Braunfels on Day 1, then a 60 mile ride back to San Antonio on Day 2. Last year my dad and I rode it and it poured the entire first day! It rained so much that there was flooding in New Braunfels and they closed the century option, then canceled Day 2! It was absolutely miserable! But this year was wonderful! We had perfect weather and the ride was organized very well. Since it was a charity ride there weren't any timing chips and places weren't awarded. But we rode very well and finished day 1 in about 5 hours ride time. Unfortunately my Dad had to fly out to a conference on Sunday morning so it was just Tim and I riding on Day 2. We did even better though on Day 2! It was an awesome ride! We averaged 18 miles/hour and were done by 11:30 am! It was great! It was a great ride to finish out the season on...I am getting ready to run a 5 miler though the end of October, so the race season is completely finished. Just the big ones for now. Hopefully a baby bump will be getting in my way soon! :)

Team "Mannhandlers"