I'm a bit sore!

As I am going about my day today I am noticing that my legs are a bit sore.  It is reminding me of the great day I had with my family yesterday.

Bryan worked his full-time job in the morning but had off from his part-time job for the day so when he came home and crashed on the couch for a nap (he wakes up at 3am so he treasures a nap when he can get one) I asked him if we could wake him when we were ready to leave.  It was a beautiful 75 degree day in Milwaukee in the middle of March.  With weather that nice, I wanted to get the kids out to enjoy it.  I pushed them all morning to get their school work done so we could get outside.

For Christmas my brother gave us a family pass to the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center.  My kids have been there twice before for some home school classes and enjoyed it.  They were really looking forward to going there as a family to show Mom and Dad the sights and see whatever they felt like instead of what they were studying in class.

We woke up Bryan and headed off for a hike. A few years back Bryan started taking us for hikes.  He was getting more active in his life and wanted us to join him. Hiking has now become a favorite activity for the whole family.  It's a wonderful thing!  I love that, if given the choice, my kids would go on a hike over watching TV any day.

After a tiring day of home schooling 4 kids and taking care of an infant sometimes I'm not very energized to get out but I have never regretted it. With the weather so beautiful I was plenty energized to go.

We hiked the trails.  Some of them were paved.  Some of them were grass.  Some of them were woodchips.  Some of them were soupy mud.  We came home wet, muddy and tired.  We came home happy and refreshed at the same time.  We saw some beautiful sights.  The Schlitz Audubon is on the lakefront so we even hiked down to the beach.  The kids found a wooden structure to hide in and I had to take some pictures.  It was a steep hike down and an even steeper hike back up from the lake.

There was also a lookout to climb. We climbed several flights of stairs to see the beautiful sights of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At first I told Bryan and the kids to go without me.  I was going to stay down with Samuel in the stroller.  Then I realized that I could take him out of the stroller and bring him with me;) I'm not sure why I didn't think of that immediately. Can we say lazy?  I blamed it on my bad knees.

About a month and a half ago I started having pains in both of my knees.  It started with my daily DVD workouts and then moved into my daily life.  I had to talk myself into stopping my workouts because I felt I was just damaging my knees even more.  Now I am sad to report that I don't workout daily.  It's disappointing and at first I beat myself up for it.  I felt like a failure and I kept eating as though I was working out.  If I'm not earning the Activity Points, I can't eat them.

I haven't figured out what I am going to do about exercise in my life. I'm hoping my knees will heal and I will be able to go back to my DVD's.  My brother has had bad knees for years and my mom had had knee surgery.  Maybe I'm destined to have them too. I'm sure there is something that I will find to do that wont hurt my knees but I told myself recently that even though I may not be able to control my bad knees, I can control what I put in my mouth.  That is where my focus is.

Although that is where my focus is, it sure felt good to get that activity in yesterday and it feels good to be sore today.

Get out and enjoy the early Spring!

Corinna

"For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land." -Song of Solomon 2:11-12