The Jacob & Shayla Bentley Family: Happy Birthday and Happy Father's Day!

June 16^th, 2013 ß Happy birthday to me!

My Dearest Brother,

Thank you so much for your sweet e-mail last week. Your words really meant a lot to me and gave me lots of warm fuzzies. I am so lucky to be your sister and to have you as part of my life. I hope that you have a wonderful Future Father’s Day as well!

This week has been busy and wonderful. Getting back to school has been a challenge but I have definitely enjoyed it. Here is a rundown of my classes so far:

FLEXIBILITY FOR FITNESS: I think that this will be a good class and I like the instructor but the first week has gone SOOOO slow! I just want to get into it already. We only have 9 weeks total - I really didn't want to waste a whole week on syllabus and flexibility testing (which was pretty lame anyway.) What I did discover is that my left shoulder has reduced mobility compared to my right shoulder as does my right knee extension. This wasn't really a "discovery" however since I knew this from Evaluate and Assess fitness last semester. I look forward to actually getting to spend the time stretching in this class.

PRINCIPLES OF CARDIORESPIRATORY TRAINING: This is a brand new class so the instructor is still trying to figure out what format he wants to use. The plan is that we will have a lecture on Mondays and then on Wednesdays we will "do it." We have fartlek, tabata, and HIIT on the menu so it should be interesting.

NUTRITION FOR FITNESS & SPORTS: Once again, lots of technical details so far but we have gotten into a few concepts and I am currently in a great debate with my instructor about a point he brought up in class. We were talking about energy and he claimed that if you run 1 mile at 10 mph at a 3% grade on a treadmill that EVERYONE who did it would burn the same number of calories because they are doing the same amount of work. We got into a lengthy discussion about this in class and after class and later that evening as well. LOL! What can I say, I am persistent. He is looking into it but what we have decided so far is that excessive oxygen intake or "effort" is factored into it but not necessarily as a matter of weight. Ex: Someone who weighs more than me but has a better VO2 max will burn less calories doing the same amount of work because their excessive oxygen intake is lower. Too technical? Maybe but I find it fascinating!

EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY: Oh boy... this class blew my mind on Wednesday. He flew through the biological concept of muscle contraction and I have so many terms beating against my brain like myofibrils, sacromeres, motor a-neurons, ATPase, etc. It promises to be a treasure trove of information... if I can keep up.

PRINCIPLES OF WEIGHT TRAINING: So far this has been my very favorite class. I was worried that it would be really intensive but it was perfect. VERY informative and well structured. We went over basic movements like crunches and planks today but the instructor forced us to take it slow and really focus on perfect form - WOW it was so much harder. We were all shaking like leaves but it felt great. He also had us come up with variations on the movements and he showed us a bunch that he likes as well. I felt like a kid at Christmas. I LOVED it!

KINESIOLOGY: This is another class like Exercise Physiology. SO many terms. On Tuesday we went over basic anatomical direction when referring to movement patterns of the body. Ex: You do a jumping jack in the frontal plane of the body but a crunch is performed in the midsagittal plane and if you are referring to the front of the body it is anterior but if you are referring to something that is simply above another structure we use the term superior. Not kidding - that was DAY 1!!! And that is a tiny portion of all of the terms. I came home immediately and had Jake quiz me and then studied the terms again the next day. On Thursday we went over 11 different slides pointing out 59 individual muscles and, yes, we have to memorize them all. I am doing pretty good at the memorization so far and can differentiate easily between the muscles of the leg, bicep and hip. I am still working on the muscles of the chest and as long as I can remember coracobrachialis I think I will do well on the test on THURSDAY!

Overall I feel like I am keeping up pretty well. I probably should have spent more time this weekend studying but as it is my birthday I spent the time partying instead. J

Speaking of my birthday, Matt and Alyssa so very graciously took the kids yesterday so that Jake and I could get out and celebrate. We hit Rodizio for our traditional birthday lunch and we were so pleased to find out that they have changed the sauces that they use for their chicken (my FAVORITE meats there) so that they are now gluten free!!! I was so excited and enjoyed many piece of Sweet & Spicy Chicken.

After lunch we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were kid-less for the day and came home for a nap. LOL! Does that make us old? It was sooo nice to get to relax and cuddle together. It really set the tone for the remainder of our day.

After our nap we went out to the Carmike theater on Redwood and 9000 South to see Star Treak: Into the Darkness. We LOVED the movie and can’t wait to see it again. I liked it a lot more than the first one, although I did like the first one as well. Don’t worry – movie marathon is definitely happening when you get back!

We casually shopped after the movie and got “dinner” at Jamba Juice. I got my usual smoothie and Jake got the Pink Star. My usual is the Tropical Harvest smoothie which is part of Jamba’s fruit & veggies line up. It contains: Mangos, peaches, yellow vegetable juice (sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash), passion mango juice, and ice. I haven’t found anyone else that likes all of the fruit & veggie smoothies yet. Mom and dad and Zac and Alyssa all think that I am insane. Jake doesn’t mind them though.

So far today we made a big delicious breakfast and my sister-in-law, Vickie, brought me a giant fruit salad inside a watermelon. From what I saw it has watermelon, apples and kiwi. It will most likely grace my breakfast plate for many days this week! My mother-in-law is making my birthday dinner since mom is out of town and it will be nice to spend time with family.

Jake received his certificate for passing his test this week and he is now an official certified internet web professional. Hopefully this will give him a little bit more of an edge in applying for tech positions throughout the church. I know that when the time is right that he will be able to find a new position. For now, we are grateful for steady work that pays the bills.

Abrielle seems to be getting through the summer rather gracefully. She loves Karate still and is currently on a Mickey Mouse obsession. She discovered the old Mickey Mouse episodes on Netflix (like the one about Mickey and the Beanstalk) and loves them. She carries her Mickey Mouse “doll” around with her everywhere. I know that it is probably too much to hope that she stays interested until we go to Disneyland but I think that that would make the experience even more magical for her.

Nathan continues to talk more and more and loves to wrestle. He will let me smother him in kisses if he is under the impression that we are really wrestling and he squeals and laughs with delight. He has some tendencies of the terrible twos and can get easily upset at times but he is easier to talk down out of his tantrums than Abrielle was. Both kids continue to bring great joy to our lives.

Well, once again, I have managed to talk myself through a lengthy email. I hope that you are doing well, dear brother. I love you with all of my heart and I can’t believe that we are at the 6 month mark of you returning home! (In two days…) Give this last quarter of your mission the absolute best that you have. Serve and love and be the wonderful man that I know that you are.

Love always,

Shayla