Return of Family Fun Day

It's been a significant amount of time since our last Family Fun Day. There is too much to do with The Boy and basketball and The Girl and gymnastics. Luckily, both seasons end this weekend...or is that unlucky since his playoffs coincide with her championship meet?! Regardless, they are both ending, which one would think would free up more time; however that will not be the case.

Baseball try-outs begin on Monday. If The Boy does not make the middle school team, he can still play in the city league. That will mean about a month off before the season begins, but we are really hoping he makes the middle school team.

The Girl is seriously considering moving to Prep-Op in gymnastics. What that means (to us) is more time and more money! LOL! Seriously, though, we spent some time talking it over with her coach and, if The Girl proves to us that it is what she really wants (and can handle), she will make the switch this spring, increasing her time in the gym.

Translation (if you weren't paying attention) is LESS TIME FOR MOMMY!

In the vein of keeping things together, we had a minor Family Fun Day this past Saturday. As usual, Family Fun Day in our home always seems to include some sort of exercise. This is really good for The Husband, but not so much for me! As I've mentioned several times, The Husband is a huge fan of Crossfit. In fact, he is building a Crossfit gym in our garage. (I'm actually expecting a delivery of weights and such today.)

Family Fun Day was spent at the gym. I even managed to take pictures; however, none have been uploaded as of yet! I promise to post them soon. Both The Husband and The Boy had really great workouts. The Girl had an OK workout...she complained a lot of the time. As for me? Well, surprisingly, I worked out too! I did about 4.5K on the rowing machine. It was actually quite enjoyable (but there is no need to share such information with The Husband, lest he make me repeat the exercise!!).

Hopefully, our ridiculously busy schedule will lend itself to more family fun adventures!

Clean dog and pull-ups

It's hot today. Not killer hot, but hot. It's 87* with a heat index of 92*. I decided this would be a good day to bathe The Dog...she stinks!

The first step in bathing the dog is finding the doggie shampoo. Except I can't. I have NO CLUE where it is. This might be in part due to the fact that we have not bathed her since we moved here, so, of course I have no idea where it is. I resort to the next best thing...shampoo. It's The Husband's shampoo, and I know he won't mind. (Actually, it's hotel shampoo, so no one will mind!)

After I bathed the dog, I kinda felt like being out in the garage some more. No idea why. So, I decided to sweep out the garage. It's mostly clean because of the gym and all (which reminds me...I never posted phase 2 of the gym. I'll get to that soon.) The loft is about half done. The pull-up bar is there. I looked at it and decided to give it a try.

Guess what! I pulled myself up! It wasn't a "chest to bar" pull up or anything like that...more like a "I think my nose is even with the bar" pull-up, but I did it...no jump or anything. Then, a bit later, feeling pretty full of myself, I decided to give it another go. This time, I got my chin up there. Keep in mind, I'm not the smallest gal in the world, so I'm pretty darned impressed that I sort of did two whole pull-ups...unassisted!

Go me!

Building the gym...Part 1

I forgot to take a photo of the beginning of this project, but here we are in the beginning phases of building the gym in our garage. We have very tall ceilings in the garage, which is good for a Crossfit-type gym.

We began with the lifting platform. That was easy. We used 4 3/4" sheets of plywood for the base, and then one sheet of 3/4" oak for the top. We bought horse stall mats for the outer parts. Cutting the mats proved to be an issue; the proper way would have been to use a retractable knife, but that proved way too slow and arduous. Instead, we opted for the retractable saw! Much easier to cut, but it vibrates like all get-out!






We measured the mats and ran a chalk line before cutting, but that proved to be not nearly as helpful as we'd have wished because The Husband could not actually see the chalk line when he was cutting!









We screwed the mats down in place...








and, voila! A lifting platform is born.






No good gym is complete without a stereo system. This is what we have set up. We have DirecTv, so we have XM through the TV. The Husband has some favorite lifting stations. No doubt, they are not my favorites! The workbench will, in time, be moved out of here and into the larger garage we plan to build out back.





Over here, we plan to build a loft. It will be about 7 or 8 feet high so there is easy access to both the circuit breakers and the water heater (until we get the tankless water heater we both want).




It will provide much needed storage as well as a perfect spot for the pull-up bars.

The weights have already been ordered and should be here early next week. The rings are somewhere and we already have many other components for the gym. It's just a matter of putting it all together and making it functional.

One of the goals of this gym, by the way, is for me to actually USE it. Mostly, it is for The Husband and The Kids, but I need to get off my bum and use it too!

I'll let you know how THAT works out...