Making A House A Home Part 3

The painting of the bedrooms is finally done (which also means we don’t have to move our King size bed and mattress every day)! It also means I have been moving my dressers back in our bedroom all by myself, as well as split up the girls in their own rooms (and I’ve also moved their furniture around too, all by myself (Thank you crossfit!) while Ben was turning his blackberry harvest into 6 L of blackberry jam and making banana bread with the help of Aunt Sandy!

Once I was done vacuuming and organizing furniture upstairs, I tackled cleaning the ceilings, walls and mouldings of the entire upstairs, staircase and I did the kitchen and half-bath on the main floor as well as the ceilings in the dining room, but I needed a break after that because my neck was killing me from looking up all the time! All I have left to clean are the walls in the dining room and the walls and ceiling in the living room and I will be done with the major cleaning of the house and will just have to maintain my usual weekly cleaning.

I had originally planned on putting Béatrice in her little toddler bed in her room tonight, but since Rina won’t have a proper bed until we receive her new furniture (6-8 weeks), I didn’t want her to sleep on the floor, so we kept her in the toddler bed and Béatrice in her crib until then. I sure hope the transition to separating the girls’ bedroom goes smoothly! I will take pictures tomorrow and post them as I didn’t have time today.

This all means we might be able to have an open house next weekend! So very excited to show our friends our new home! 🙂

In the meantime, I will leave you with a video of Rina playing a pretty awesome game after dinner. Notice she’s jumping on her new bed sheets! 😉

 

Making A House A Home Part 2

Papou has generously offered to help us out financially to get the bedrooms painted since it’s almost impossible to get anything done with 2 toddlers around the house. We have hired a painter to help paint the bedrooms and he started earlier this week. I’m glad we decided to go that route and that we were offered help to do so. It has been a very good decision and the painter is quick and efficient.

We have also put in an order for Rina’s bedroom furniture, but we will only be receiving it early October. In the meantime, I plan on separating the girls from sharing a bedroom as soon as the painting is done. Béatrice has been acting up at bedtime and it keeps Rina awake for no reason whatsoever. When the painting will be done, Béatrice will come out of her crib and go into Rina’s toddler bed. For her part, Rina will sleep on her toddler mattress on the floor of her bedroom until we receive her furniture. I’m hoping to do this transition this week since I’m still on vacation (and will be ok with the sleep deprivation that I’m almost certain will ensue from the process of splitting up the girls).

Today, we are also signing a contract to change the 11 windows that need to be upgraded in the house. Our house was built in 1918 and the windows are original windows wood frame and warped glass included! We will upgrade for vinyl windows but keep with the same style of windows we currently have, except for the one in the staircase leading upstairs. I will make sure to ask if they can keep the stained glass intact on the frame so I will be able to hang it back up on top of the new window in the living room and I think I will keep one of the windowpane from the living room and re-purpose it using the frame of the window and installing a mirror instead of the window pane and use that as mirror for the half-bath on the main floor. Although we are signing the contract for the windows today, it won’t get done until the 1st week of October, so just in time for the cooler weather and hopefully, that will help with our heating cost over the winter! 🙂

Here’s the progress below!

Don’t mind the mess during the renos!

Making A House A Home Part 1

Friday morning, we took the girls bright and early to Community Park so they could spend some energy outside before their nap. We were hoping the would nap a little longer since we were going to a wedding that evening. The ceremony and reception were being held at the Tigh-Na-Mara. I won’t post any pictures of the newlyweds as I didn’t ask if it was ok to post some on here so you’ll just have to trust me that they were both gorgeous and dashing!  We cleaned up very nice too, if I do say so myself!

I had bought a simple navy dress from Bryan’s  just before leaving and had forgotten all my jewelry and Ben had no pants to wear that fit him. We made a quick dash to the mall on our way to Parksville and I got myself a nice necklace and earrings from Aldo Accessories while Ben bought a nice pair of pants from Banana Republic. Rina was originally wearing a prettier dress, but she took a tumble and blood ran from her knee onto the dress, so we changed her into a different dress between the ceremony and the reception. Still a pretty cute family IMHO!

One day, BeZU will smile when prompted!

I love that dress despite my nasty CF bruise on my leg!

Yesterday morning, we decided to pack up early and hit the road during the girls nap. That meant we had to clean up the condo, do some laundry and we had also promised Rina we would take the girls “golfing” (playing mini-golf). She was so excited about it all and we didn’t really play for points. It was more an obstacle course for us as we were trying to hit our balls around little legs and feet that kept walking on the putting green. Rina and I both managed a hole-in-one on the 18th hole which meant we won 2 free plays. Seeing as we didn’t plan on using them, I went down the line-up of people waiting to purchase their entrances, picked a family of four and told them we would give them our free plays. I figured, we might as well pay-it-forward. The parents seemed very pleased with our offer and I just said they should pay-it-forward somehow to someone else! 🙂

Upon returning home, yesterday, we dove right into Home DIY projects. There were weeds to be pulled out (still lots of thistles, but we’ll get there eventually), bushes to be uprooted and plants to be watered. We had also received a call from the Home Depot saying that the blinds for our skylights were ready to be picked up. I’m pretty happy about those as it has been hard to sleep in the bedroom with the sun shining straight on my body and temperature of around 28ºC (82F). I’m sure these will make a huge difference in the heat that seems to get stuck upstairs:

See those nice sun squares shining right on my side of the bed? They are all gone on the right pic!

While we were waiting to pick up our blinds, we also decided to get 2 more shovels (one to uproot the thistles and another to do some grass trimming along our walkway) as well as a trowel for gardening. Once we dropped everything off at home, I took off on my own for a trip to HomeSense where I bought drawer organizers for the bathroom upstairs and a rug for the front entrance (I still want one for the patio door, but couldn’t find one I liked).

New rug

I also bought a towel holder that hangs from the cupboard and a make-up mirror for when I put my face on in the morning. Miracle of miracles, I also found a duvet cover for Béatrice. I was starting to re-think my idea of having her curtains and duvet cover in the shade of bubble gum pink, but I found her curtains last week at Home Outfitters and I scored her duvet cover today at home depot for $30!

Things we are still missing are a full-length mirror for upstairs, a new mirror for the bathroom downstairs (there is currently one there, I just hate it!)new furniture for the girls’ bedrooms as well as for our bedroom, and new duvet cover for us as well.

We have also booked an appointment for someone from Home Depot to come and give us a quote to change the 2 windows upstairs (they are the original ones, from 1918, wood and single pane. Definitely not safe for what will be Rina’s room) and we will be making some phone calls today to get quotes on the painting of all 3 bedrooms. Things are moving along and I’m excited about making this house a home!

Ben also put all the doors back up in our rental suite and has re-connected the washer and dryer. Lots of little projects being crossed off our list!

Running Like A Russian Bull!

I read the WOD last night and I thought: Russian Bull, Russian Bull, Russian Bullsh** if you ask me! Here’s why:

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I showed up for the 0700 class this morning and was ready to tackle this like the monster it sounded like. After all, I did 14.5 in 38 mins, I could probably go through this one as well!

WOD: I used the following modifications for the WOD:

• Running, walking, crawling whatever got me through each rounds of 600m run
• red and green bands for my strict pull-ups
• HR push-ups Rx
• Double crunches Rx
• lunges Rx
• 26# offset KB rack carries

It was tough, but still a lot easier than 14.5. I don’t think anything will ever be as tough as 14.5 (famous last words! 😉 ) I really wanted to get at least one stretch of 600m without stopping, but I didn’t manage to do so. At one point, I was really struggling for the run and I saw AJ who was just floating. She wasn’t gunning it, she was using the run for recovery and was going at a slower, steadier pace. I followed her example and was actually able to do a little bit better and actually recover a bit. I still needed to take a few walking breaks, but I felt better.

I managed 4 full round + the following:

• 600m run
• 6 strict pull-ups
• 8 HR push-ups Rx
• 5 Double crunches.

That means I ran/walked a total of 3km under 40 minutes and still managed to do other “stuff” during those 40 mins. It wasn’t pretty and I probably did look like I was a Russian bull running on the street, but I made it through those 3km and for a non-runner, I am super proud of myself! 🙂 The fact that I never quit, even though it was already so freakin’ hot (I even took off my tank top and did the WOD in my sports bra, that’s how much I didn’t care anymore!), but I kept going, one task at a time, kept pushing. What was even more impressive was that everybody was cheering each other on during the runs. Even more incredible, people were smiling while providing encouraging words and it made me smile back at them. Yep! That’s right. I was running AND smiling! Who would have thunk it!

For the rest of the day, I am cleaning my duvet (filled with orange juice, thanks to Rina), doing some more laundry and going hunting for a fan for our room and the girls’ room. It’s been extremely hot here lately and our upstairs gets steaming in the evening. Last night, we had the girls with us on the couch until 2130 because they just couldn’t sleep it was so hot. Needless to say, I went to bed shortly after so I had no time to myself at all coming home from work. I’m hoping the fans will help us all sleep a little better throughout the summer.

In other news, we have a couple who will come and view our suite tonight. Hopefully, they don’t get scared by the lack of carpet in it and are decent people… We’ll see!

Keep On Pushing

I knew yesterday would be brutal, but I didn’t know how brutal it would be.

Woke up early for the 0600 Crossfit class and I got dressed quickly in the quiet house. Our house! Still feels a bit weird to say out loud! 🙂

I had looked up the WOD the night before and I knew it would be hard:

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Skills: My ankle is a whole lot better, but it’s still stiff and swollen, so I took it cautiously yesterday. To top it off, we did some side shuffles around the gym and it is still pailful for me to do lateral motion (pushing off my foot sideways hurts still) so I was already being cautious after that. I started at 20″ for the box jumps (easy) and managed to do 4 rounds of 3 at 24″. I think I probably could have done 25″ or even 26″, but given my ankle, I chose not to. Also, I got my foot caught on the box once. No shin skinning happened, but it was enough for me! 24″ = 39% of my height! Yay me!

WOD: That was brutal. Period. Airdyne sprints (or crawls in my case) are not my cup of tea. I was paired with two beasts Bo and Krysha, so I elected to go for last on each rounds, meaning I would have to be on the dreadful thing for 16 calories for the 1st round, 14 cals for the 2nd round, 12 cals, for the 3rd round and 10 cals for the last round. Not surprisingly, I was the last one of all the teams to finish, but I didn’t really care. I had too much on my mind. I’ve been stressed out of my brains lately with some family stuff, the move and everything else in my day-to-day life and I just wanted to get this thing done because I could feel tears bubbling up and I didn’t want to cry with every one watching. I don’t know what it is, but when I get emotionally stressed and follow-up with an intense physical workout, it’s like opening the flood gates to everything I have been suppressing and then I’m treated to the worst involuntary ugly cry show. So yeah, didn’t want that happening again. I plowed through my 4th round, got off the devil incarnated and went to the wall to catch my breath and let some tears flow free. I managed to not go into the ugly cry fest and with some deep breathing, I remained somewhat presentable before quickly leaving the premises. I hate when that happens. I hate not being in control of my emotions when I’m at Crossfit. This is supposed to be my time to myself, my escape, my little haven, the one place where I can stop thinking about everything happening in my life and just lift heavy things, move them and burn some energy. Oh well. Next time will be better, I’m sure!

My thoughts, exactly!

I knew the rest of the day wasn’t gonna be any easier as I was already feeling super stiff and sore in my deltoids and trapezius muscles. That’s what happens when I get stressed out. Everything in my neck and upper back bunches up and gets into a big ball of knots. After finishing to unpack the upstairs, I sorted and folded/hung all of the girls’ clothes and did the same to our clothes too. the only thing left to unpack upstairs is our makeshift desk/office station on the landing.

Today, we got up early again and I made up a list of things to get at Walmart (food, clothes for Rina and organizers for our cutlery drawer), I then sprayed some baking soda on our carpets upstairs and in the staircase and let it sit for a long hour in order to try to get rid of the intense cat urine smell that overtook the house last night. We are not sure if the smell was coming off the carpet in the suite or the carpet in our place, but we got on it quick! After I fed the girls their lunch, I got going on the vacuuming of the previously spread baking soda (smells much better!) and started to clean the upstairs bathroom (ceiling, walls, shower, toilet, tub, floors, EVERYTHING was scrubbed and is now sparkling) while Ben added shelvings for storage in the basement and ripped up the carpet in our rental suite. Once I was done scrubbing, I went to help him out with removing the under-padding and am now sitting down for the 1st time today, frizzed and disheveled and surrounded by boxes. I am hoping to tackle the boxes in the living room tomorrow while doing laundry and getting ready for another set at work. Only 2 more sets of work before I’m on vacation for a month! But first, we will enjoy our traditional Sunday breakfast out with aunt Sandy who kindly noticed that I have a few grey strands of hair showing. I believe her subdued statement went something like this: “Holy sh** you have a lot of grey hair!” Good thing I like her! 😉

I finally decided to sit down around 1500 to take  a little quiet break while the girls were still napping and wanted to write up this post, but our internet was wonky and I’m just finally able to finish this off.

Not impressed with my grey frizzy hair, the wonky internet connection or the unpacking left, but I am impressed with my trapezius! Check out my little bulge! 🙂

Now, I will indulge in a hot water bottle on my back, some knitting and mindless TV watching! ‘Night!

 

Applying Crossfit Principles In Your Everyday Life

Sorry about being MIA lately, it’s been slightly chaotic between being at work and moving to our first house!

I finished work yesterday morning and slept for 4hrs before I tackled unpacking the bathroom, linen closet and our master bedroom. It took me a long time to unpack and refold everything, but I finally got it done around 1900, just in time to put the girls to bed for the night. To say I was done for the day is an understatement.

We woke up early (thank you skylights without any blinds) and got to moving our furniture outside of our bedroom so the carpet cleaner would have ample room to do his job upstairs. The carpets are pretty cruddy and I’m hopeful he’ll be able to get the back in shape.

While we were moving furniture around, I managed to move both of my tallboy by myself. I had removed the drawers to make them lighter and then braced my core, picked them up in a front rack position with my arms folded and moved them to the room we are keeping empty until we are done painting (it will become Rina’s room once we’re done). Then, it was onto the tall dresser. We tilted it down and both Ben and I grabbed onto it and moved it quickly into the spare bedroom. Bam! Our bedroom was ready to go!

The girls’ bedroom was fairly easy. I managed to move Rina’s bed and mattress all by myself and Ben and I moved their dresser together. We didn’t bother removing the drawers out of that one and it was fairly heavy. We both went down to a deep squat, grabbed hold of the bottom of the dresser and lifted it up. I won’t lie, it was a heavy squat for me, but we managed to get it done! A year ago, I probably would have shied away from lifting all that furniture. Today, although it was somewhat challenging, I felt confident we could get everything done with both Ben and I. It just goes to show how Crossfit has helped me in my everyday life. I am now more functional and can lift much heavier than I was able to do a year ago. Winning all the way if you ask me! 🙂

Now, Ben is at work and I’ve put most of the furniture back to where it belongs by myself (except for that super tall dresser… No way I can do that one alone, cross fitter or not! I will have to do it with Ben tonight when he gets home. A quick trip to the grocery store by foot with the girls and a healthy lunch before they went down for their nap. I have folded laundry, cleaned the dishwasher so we can start using it cleaned up some more furniture and now, I will sit with my hot water bottle on my lower back while I take a break on the couch. Tomorrow should be another busy day of managing the girls while trying to unpack after an early Crossfit class. This will be my routine until we are officially done with the paint and officially moved in! 🙂

Our Home

It’s been a very long day and I’m absolutely exhausted after a 0500 start for the 0600 Crossfit class this morning. Rina woke up just as I was leaving and was begging to come along. I had looked up the WOD for today and I knew it would be a “safe one” to have her around i.e. no throwing of barbells around or running (which might end up in a collision with her if she inadvertently got in the way). Being the mom that I am, I took her with me in her pi’s, crazy hair and all! 😉

Here’s what we did:

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Skill: I had to sub these for the Romanian deadlift as my ankle is still bothering me too much to do the Russian squats. I got up to 70# today.

WOD: I did my push-ups from my toes, but did them hand-released. I also did my pull-ups with the red and green bands, all strict. I can’t seem to progress much from these… Maybe I’ll just have to build myself a pull-up bar in my new yard and practice them at home! 😉

Rina was really well behaved and stayed out of the way for the most part, except to join me when I was doing my push-ups! 🙂 She’s an amazing partner to have and she cracks me up during the WOD!

We came back home and hurried to get the girls ready for a fun (ahem!) trip to Home Depot. I have a feeling we’ll be living there for the next few months. We wanted to buy some paint colour samples as well as new deadbolts for the house. 2 hours later, we came back home to finish packing and I now have to live out of my back pack for the next 72hrs… We took advantage of the girls’ nap to pack all their toys and books away. When they got up, we made a quick trip to the bank, picked up some food for our picnic dinner at the new house and headed on over to what is now officially our home. Our real estate agent was waiting for us with the previous owner watering our garden and she handed us the keys to our place. She also had a few presents for us (which I thought was amazing on her part): a beer for Ben (he doesn’t like wine), a small bottle of champagne for me, a retractable garden hose, a small propane fire pit for our patio and bubbles for the girls. 🙂 I still can’t believe this house is ours. It needs to be cleaned top to bottom, but it’s ours!

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We then tried some swatches of paint on the walls and I think the choices I’ve come up with are pretty good. We will go buy the paint on Monday so we can enjoy a mail-in rebate that is only on until Wednesday. Trying to save as much as we can. Ben also said that he saw the leftover paint for the outside of the house as well as some of the inside of the house in the shed. Score!

It turns out the previous owner of the house is also our next door neighbour. He was renting out our house to tenants and lives in the house next door. He said we could go over and ask him questions anytime!

We then camped out in our dining room and had dinner on the floor (literally) while the girls ate and ran around us. It was hot and we were trying to open the old windows on the main floor. Some of them are stuck in pain and while Ben banged one to try to pry it open, he broke the window. Just a crack in the corner, but it will have to be replaced. Welcome home! 🙂

We came back to the apartment to put the girls to bed and I am now officially exhausted. I’m back to work tomorrow and Ben will start moving some boxes from our current place to our new house with some helpers and his sister will come and help out as well as the Nanny. I hope the day goes well for him. We have movers coming around on Sunday to move the heavier things while I’m at work (still). Happy moving weekend!

So Many Colours!

After we departed with the largest sum of money we have ever managed to save up at the lawyer’s office this morning, it felt really real… WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! Also, we’re moving in 3 days! Yikes!

I came back home and all I wanted to do was peruse Design Seeds for the rest of the day. I have many Pins on my Pinterest account from their site and find it such a good inspiration for colours! For the moment, let me just share with you a few that I really have my mind set on, now I need to work on getting the husband to agree, although I just found out today that it might be easier than I originally thought so…

Yet another reason my husband is the best!

So… for our master bedroom, I was thinking shades of grey or charcoal with a bright canary yellow. Something along these lines:

(pics taken from here and here)

I’m thinking an accent wall in the shade of yellow with the other walls in the lighter shade of grey/charcoal, while maintaining the trims white and hopefully getting the white/beige carpet cleaned. Eventually, I’d like to keep our furniture on the darker side and get a black duvet cover. I could accent the duvet cover with a knitted yellow blanket and lighter accessories in the room. So yeah, that would be my ideal master bedroom! 🙂

For Rina’s room, I’d like to keep her duvet cover the same and therefore I was thinking something along these lines

(pics taken from here and here)

I would use the second pink from the left or the second purple from the bottom as an accent wall (again) and hopefully, we could pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master and save up some money by doing so.

As for Béatrice’s room, she doesn’t yet have a duvet as she’s still in her crib, but we were hoping to get her in the toddler bed once the move is complete. She has this really nice knitted blanket that Mamie painstakingly made for her and it’s a dark grey and lime green in colour… Something along these lines would be awesome:

(pics taken from here and here)

Again, the lime green would be an accent wall and we could maybe pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master bedroom and call it a day.

There you have it, my inspiration for our upstairs living quarters. As for our downstairs, I’ll keep the hallway and kitchen the same sandy/off-white colour. The dining room and living room are a bit more puzzling to me. They are big and open to one another, separated only by a small arch. I would love to have a beach-y feel to the main floor. Tones of (again) light grey, sea foam, navy and accents of coral is what I have in mind. I saw the following ad on the Pier 1 Imports website and that’s where the inspiration is coming from:

(pics taken from here and here)

That’s where the inspiration stops. I don’t know how I would paint the walls and what colour. I think I’d like to upgrade our couch to either a grey leather sectional or navy fabric sectional, although a navy leather sectional would be my ultimate dream! I would probably put accent cushions in the coral tones. The downstairs isn’t a priority right now and we’ll mainly focus our time, energy and finances on the basement suite (changing the carpets, or ultimately, getting them cleaned to their original status), the upstairs and refinishing the deck. If we could get by with just cleaning the carpets in the suite, it would free some money that we could use somewhere else! 🙂

Down the road, we’ll need new furniture for both the girls’ bedrooms, our bedrooms, the living room and a patio set would be awesome-sauce too! All in due time. We’ll get things done slowly, but this house will be our home! I can’t wait ti get the keys tomorrow. If we get them soon enough, I might take the girls with me to go have a picnic for lunch or dinner on the floor of our new house! 🙂

Misery Loves Company

After a crazy day at work yesterday where I was floated off my unit to go help out on MBU, I was glad I got to go home and put my girls to bed. I then tackled the very much dreaded sorting out of their toys. It took me 2 hours to sort between “keep”, “give” and “toss” piles, but I got it done! I then finally sat down and looked up the WOD online and the little bit of energy I had left simply evaporated when I read this:

Team 36

This is a team workout, based around groups of 3 people. You’ll spend 3 minutes at a rowing station, 3 minutes at an airdyne station, and repeat that sequence 6 times. Each team member will do 1 minute of work at each station and your goal is to achieve as many calories as possible in the total of the 36 minutes.

Another leg WOD and I just started to walk normally after the Bataan on Monday 😦 Better get off to bed so I have a little energy in my tank tomorrow morning.

I got up this morning and still didn’t feel like going to the Box at all, but I got dressed and made my way over nonetheless. It had been a while since I was really not feeling a WOD or going to workout for that matter. I am just completely exhausted. I guess all the stress of the home purchase and the packing for the move has finally caught up with me. Oh well, get moving BabyMama!

I’m still enjoying the mobility part of the classes and I missed the fact that we didn’t have any Skill portion today, but the WOD was 36 mins long, so might as well get started! As predicted, it was brutal. Here were my calorie counts for each rounds:

Airdyne     Row

Round 1:             13             11

Round 2:             16             14

Round 3:             12             13

Round 4:             12             13

Round 5:             11             12

Round 6:             13             14

Total calories: 154

Yep, that’s right! All this hard work so I can consume about 3 apples today! That WOD was horrible and we all looked spent once we finished. I guess it’s true what they say, Misery does love company! I’m still a firm believer that the Airdyne was invented by the devil himself as a means to torture the worst of hell’s inhabitants. However, I did notice something today., I can start to see some definition in my quads where they attach to the knee, there is even (dare I qualify it that way) a small bulge! I guess my legs are getting stronger, so, yay for big legs! If only my belly could tone up a bit. All in due time though! It took me years to put the weight and fat on so it will probably take years to take it off!

I came back home, ready for a nap. Instead, I dusted, vacuumed the apartment and cleaned the bathroom while doing laundry. Now, the girls are down for nap and I’m waiting for Nanny to get here so I can do the same before emu night at work!

Only 17 more days before we move! 🙂

No Burpees Were Done Today!

I looked up the WOD last night and shared it with my husband and his reactions was:

Well, that doesn’t look like much fun!

I was very determined to give it my best shot and after my alarm woke me up (1st time I’m not awake before my alarm in 2 weeks – Score!), I was ready to face this one head on!

Training Monday – Tuesday

 

Warm-up:  2 rounds – 20 jumping jacks, 10 double crunch

 

Mobility: 2 min stations

• Foam roll upper back
• Lacrosse ball shoulders
• Samson Stretch 1min/side

 

Skill:  Ring Row 5 x 8, increasing difficulty each set, E2M

 

WOD:  Bataan

With a single KB, you will walk 900m (9th pole).  At each pole, you will perform 8 goblet squats with the KB.  If you put the KB down at any point, 10 burpees.

As you walk, rotate through these carries, switching every pole:

• Offset Rack (both sides)
• Suitcase Carry (both sides)
• Front Rack
• Back Rack

I suggest you go lighter as opposed to heavier with the KB so that you can maintain proper posture and survive the trip without putting the KB down.  Max weight – 35/53

TG:  Scale distance to 400m

FG:  Scale distance to 600m

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Mobility: I absolutely love this new mobility module we have started a few weeks back. It teaches me new tools I can definitely use at home to improve on when I have a minute or two! I also worked on my planks doing 45s and 35s.

Skill: I finally managed to bring my feet right under the rings for the ring rows. They were definitely challenging and everybody else managed to either go further ahead than the rings or have their feet on boxes, but it was my 1st time being even with the rings so I was thrilled to be able to get them! 🙂

WOD: This looked easy and simple enough, but we all know that usually means we’re gonna get the bang for our bucks! This WOD was to honour the people who fought and lost their lives in the Bataan Death March. I took a 18# KB and went on my merry way. I managed to do all 900m without dropping the KB once which meant no burpees for me! It was tough. I could definitely feel those 144 KB goblin squats (I actually ended up doing 152 because I did a set of 8 at the end of my last 100m walk which we weren’t supposed to do I guess… Way to go overachiever)! You know it’s been a good WOD when you have a hard time just standing still in the shower upon returning home! 😉

We were then very fortunate to have Tracey come over to help us out with some packing. We managed to pack up most of the kitchen (keeping only things we’ll need for the next 19 days) and same with the bathroom. We only have to pack our clothes next, and sort through the girls’ toys, purge them and pack the rest.

As we are packing up this apartment, I reflect on everything we have been through here. We went from being engaged to married here. This is where we first brought our daughters home to from the hospital. We have grown closer as a couple, we became parents, we have evolved over the past 4 years. Although it hasn’t always been easy, we made it through and managed to save enough for a house.

Some things I will definitely not miss though:

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