It was a long, exhausting weekend.

On Thursday we left behind water restrictions, the smelly, moldy river and spotty internet service to head east toward Chicago to spend the weekend with my mom. Here in Iowa, where we are still recovering from the worst flooding ever, we are conserving water. I have to brush my teeth with bottled water. I have to shower so quickly there’s no time to shave my legs and one day I almost sliced my armpit trying to shave quickly. And we could only do dishes on even days. But in the Chicago suburbs I could take long, luxurious showers where I could shave everything. I even considered shaving my head just because I could. You better believe the first thing I did on Friday afternoon was take a long hot shower without quilt. It was fabulous.

Actually I take that back. The first thing I did was head down to the fitness center at my mom’s apartment complex to run on the treadmill. I love the treadmills in her fitness center. Those treadmills make my treadmill look like a Yugo. Those treadmills have eight different buttons for eight different settings. There’s fat burning, cardio, personal trainer, hills and more. It’s like a smörgåsbord of fitness.It’s almost to hard to choose. I spent the first ten minutes trying out every different setting…just because I could. And the treadmill is like my doctor. It asks me my weight and age and tells me what my heart rate should be. My treadmill at home couldn’t care less what my heart rate is. If I’m lucky my home treadmill will actually stop when I fall off and pull the key out rather than laughing at me for being so clumsy. Plus this Rolls Royce of treadmills at my mom’s fitness center has a TV. Each treadmill, each bike and the elliptical machine all have their own individual TVs. It doesn’t get any better that people. I want to marry the fitness center at mom’s place.

We saw so many movies this weekend I think my stomach now thinks popcorn is one of the major food groups. Butter dripping popcorn fits in to a few of the food groups right. The butter would be dairy. The popcorn is somewhat of a grain with a side of veggie (corn). Right? On Friday night we saw Kung Fu Panda. On Saturday night we saw The Incredible Hulk. We enjoyed both movies. Kung Fu Panda was very cute and funny. Jack Black did a fantastic job. And The Incredible Hulk was way better than the last Hulk movie. Way better. Edward Norton is such a fantastic actor. Plus my mom DVRed Camp Rock and we watched that when we got home Friday night. The kids loved it. And I admit I even thought it was mildly entertaining. Ok, ok. I liked it.

We also went swimming. Every. Single. Day. My mom’s apartment complex has an indoor pool. There are so may things to do in Chicago. There’s the Navy Pier, Six Flags and tons of museums, but my kids’ favorite part of Chicago is grandma’s indoor pool. Yes they are weird. But what’s really cool is Caleb learned how to swim. He does a kind of floppy, looks like he’s drowning kind of swim, but he’s swimming. All by himself. From one end of the pool to the other. Even lengthwise. It was amazing. He’s such a little fish.

Swimming also gave me an opportunity to try out my new camera. It’s not a replacement to my D40. Just an addition. But I got an Olympus Stylus 790 SW that’s waterproof (and shockproof). So I took pictures of the kids underwater.

So anyway, all of this is to tell you I was too tired to do my Sunday Linky Love last night when we got home. So instead, expect a Monday edition later tonight. I know. Could I be anymore wordy?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 11:42 am and is filed under A day in our life. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.