Jenny weekend

Bella's friend Jenny spent two nights while we let her parents go off to Wisconsin for a vacation. It was fun to have 3 kids for a limited time, and very interesting to see the change in dynamics: Bella spent a lot of time in various states of jealousy depending on how much attention Isaac was getting from Jenny. And Mister Enthusiasm was definitely trying to be in the middle of everything!

Saturday we did swim class, and then some of us went to see Madagascar 2 (not Issac and Pamela) with some others in the neighborhood. Honestly, not quite as charming as the first, and with a lot more potty humor and violence. But there were some laugh out loud moments for me. Mostly I was just excited to see a preview for Monsters vs Aliens (no not THOSE "Aliens" - different ones). Looks like a great retro-feel monster adventure.

I had the boys over for Scotch Night Saturday, and it was again a remarkable lineup: We opened a Gordon and Macphail Strathisla 25 year sherry cask that Chicken and I had given Ant for his birthday some weeks back, and it was flat out mental how wonderful that dram was. We also revisited a young Caol Ila, an older Port Ellen, and Glen Scotia, whose subtlety may have been impacted by the Auchentoshan we opened with. We watched The Incredible Hulk, which was another great Marvel Movie - they're definitely on a tear with Iron Man and now this... can't wait for Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers (all in development).

Today was a lazy lazy day - very little was achieved. Pamela and I have decided to keep our "lazy sunday" policy, so no big projects. It felt good.

Isaac's eating keeps getting nuttier: Tonight he ate almost half of a cucumber with italian dressing. Smacking his lips - "I LIKE THIS!!!". We had some epic wrassling today.

To follow up on my "sore legs" comments from last week following my BodyAttack training: By Tues Night, I had finally stretched things out to the point of being able to walk again. Wednesday AM I attended BodyPump, and then ran through the full BodyAttack workout. And did the same Thurs and Friday. By Friday, I was starting to feel that this intense workout is indeed do-able, and my legs were certainly not in any pain. It's weird to be able to actually feel oneself getting STRONGER in a short period of time like that. My last bump like that was after the 3 day BodyPump training. Hmmmm... Intensity = results. Strange that.

For my BodyPump certification, I finally reviewed my videotape that I need to mail in: One of the conditions of the taping is that you are the SOLE instructor - nobody helping in the room. Any hint of that and you're immediately disqualified. So I was a bit disheartened to see in the first minute of the tape the club co-owner who was doing the filming caught in the mirror behind me coaching several people on their posture. You're watching me on stage, and framed in the bottom left corner is the mirror showing him correcting posture. So I need to re-tape now. Sigh.

I haven't blogged on the Obama Victory: I'm ecstatic of course, loving the fact that we have this great opportunity. I have many friends who went the other way - they had their reasons and I don't blame any of them (with the exception of my coworkers who really really liked Palin... more than McCain). And I think McCain's concession speech was wonderful: If he had brought more of that class to the end of the campaign and less of the dirt and smears, I think it would have been a lot closer. It was nice to see the McCain who I actually respected back in 2000, not the man who had continually compromised in the past 8 years to cater to "the base".

But I don't think Obama will magically make everything better: He's got a tough row to hoe, and 43 has left things about as bad as one conceivably could, short of a smoking crater. But I'm looking forward to seeing Obama apply his cool head, his sharp wits, and his ability to see many sides of an issue to the situation we are all in now. I'm not going to armchair QB his cabinet picks... Give the man some time to work some stuff out!

I'm off to San Fran for one night Monday. We're interviewing a candidate, plus I'm meeting with one of our senior consultants to plan out a new business line... should be fun. I also have to work on some major presentations for next week (!!!) where I'm presenting both to the board in Tacoma, and to a trade association in Seattle. Being in a different time zone or on an airplane with nowhere to go should help with that. ;)