November 1, 2020 100 Miles in 100 Days

Today is the start of the 100 Miles in 100 Days hiking challenge.  It runs from November 1st thru February 8th.  I did the challenge last year and did about 110 miles.  I had said last year that I wanted to do 200 for this year.  They actually had an early start which made the first day October 25th.  Funny thing is, I went hiking that morning not knowing the challenge had started and then came home and saw it on FB so I got to count those miles.  So far I have 24.85 miles hiked already, so I’m off to a good start.

On another note, as part of the 75Hard I have to take a progress picture every day.  Since I started Oct 1st I decided to do a side by side of 10/1 and 11/1.  I am starting to see a difference.  I know I’m feeling good, but I also know that’s because of my diet.  I am sticking with Whole30 and it’s been going good.  I even did some new recipes this week and really liked them.  

These were delicious. It is a caramelized onion with bacon and date on top of a sweet potato thin.  This and the next one I made for an appetizer for a dinner we went to Friday night.  

These are chicken bites.  Half are chicken and sweet potato and the other half is sweet potato and zucchini.  They were ok....they got eaten but I thought they needed more seasoning.  Putting the guacamole on them helped.  

Then I made this chicken tortilla soup.  There was no tortilla in it but it was still called that.  It was so good, I ate it for 3 days.  I’m going to make more so I have it on hand for a yummy lunch or dinner.  When I ate it, I put chunks of avocado on top.  

October 31, 2020 Halloween

Kev and  I wanted to go over to Alicia’s house to see the kids in their costumes. Unfortunately Vincent wasn’t able to make it but they had the costumes from toy story.  They all looked so cute. We walked around on their block and went to a couple houses with them while the girls went up to the door and let people put candy in their pumpkins. 

October 25 - 28, 2020 Kids Overnight

Alicia and Arnold decided that they were going to get new flooring. They had carpet in the family room down the hall and the kids playroom. So they wanted to get all of that torn out and they were going to put in a new tile flooring. Since there was going to be nowhere for the kids to play or hangout they came here for a few days so the floors could get done with no one in the house.  Alicia dropped the kids off on Sunday and then she went home. On Monday afternoon she came back and stayed here overnight. Shockingly it only took them two days to do the floors, so on Tuesday Alicia went home and slept at her house and then her and Arnold moved things back into the house on Wednesday. I took the kids home on Wednesday night and they were shocked when they walked in the house and saw how much it had changed.

We mainly just went on walks down to the park at the clubhouse and then set up the jump house in the backyard. It was fun having all the kids here but boy was I exhausted by the time I got home from dropping them off Wednesday night.

October 19, 2020 Mini Pickleball Tournament

A friend of mine I know from playing pickleball had decided to set up a mini tournament to be played at the new Gilbert courts. She was putting together 14 teams of ladies to play a round robin. What’s the round robin was completed the top eight teams would play in a bracket to get down to the top three teams.  It was going to cost each person five dollars and the top two teams were going to win some money and the third-place team would get their money back. It was really a lot of fun, some good competition, and a great day to get out there and play some competitive pickleball. My partner for the day was Sheila, who I’ve played with before in a tournament as well as some other round robins that I’ve gone to. We didn’t play all that well together, although we were one of the top eight teams but lost once we got into the bracket finals.

October 17, 2020 Eli’s Birthday Party

Eli’s birthday was on the 14th but Alicia wanted to have his party over the weekend so it was today, the 17th. Of course he didn’t know what was going on but he did get a chance to eat more cake plus he got some presents.  It was a fun day and actually lots of picture taking moments. Alicia had stayed with the construction theme like she had for his smash cake photos and all the decorations were really cute. 

October 14, 2020 Animals on the Walking Path

Over by the Gilbert Riparian there is a great walking path that goes along the canal and along the path there is a house that has all kinds of animals at it with a little shack that has all kinds of food. So the owner of the house puts food out so that people can come along and feed the animals. There are donkeys and goats and chickens and horses and cows and pigs and maybe others I can’t remember. But it is the cutest thing that he makes this available cause it’s like a little petting zoo.

I had gone to walk the path a couple weeks ago and came home and told Alicia about the little animal section. So we had agreed that we definitely had to take the kids there so that they could feed the animals. We had picked the day and we met at the Riparian and then went over and let the kids feed the animals. It was so cute how they would just reach in there and grab carrots and melon and pellets whatever was in any of the buckets they would just reach in and go up to the fence and feed whatever animals would come to them.

It was such a treat for them to get so close to the animals and be able to experience feeding them. They absolutely loved it and it was hard to get them away from them. After we fed the animals we sat and had a little picnic breakfast.  

After we ate, Alicia and I took them for a walk down the canal path.  When we came back closer to where the car was we actually walked through the Riparian and let the girls get out of the stroller and walk and check out all the birds and ducks that are all along the way on the path. It’s something we will do again and especially now that the weather is getting nicer we can go for walks and the girls will love to go feed  the animals.