I’m trying to get into shape this year, and my mind is firmly set on it. But that’s not an easy thing to do, if you’re way past 30, when you gave birth to two kids within a gap of fifteen months. We have a small lake near our house that I tried swimming in, and in the evenings, I took a walk with my sons sitting in their double strollers. It helped beat the Georgia summer, and got me to loose a few pounds. But winter came and all those ideas went down the drain. The icy lake isn’t much fun to swim in, and over the last few months, my fast growing sons can’t use the stollers anymore.

As much fun as it was during the summers, it’s just not possible to take a walk or swim in such cold weather. And while on the look out for more options to help me reach my goal, I found
trampoline workouts! I love it, my sons love it, and i couldn’t ask for more. I can play with my kids, while I’m getting back into shape. Exercising has never been better.

It’s been a year since we got the boys a trampoline. It’s their favourite way to pass time, and spend all day jumping, and bouncing off that thing. But the more they did that, they were getting
more fit day by day. That’s when I choose to give it a try. It was amazing! Not only was I having some fun time with my sons, all the jumping was tuning me into shape as well.

I have just one small problem right now though. To keep our aging dog company, we found and adopted a really cute, loving, and good-natured yellow Labrador cross puppy. The puppy, named aTinkera, not only is a great companion for our older dog, but she is fantastic with my sons as well. She is our shadow- where we go, Tinker is never far behind. That extends to the rebounder as well.

It is actually pretty funny to see Tinker, standing up on her little puppy legs with those giant paws, trying to grab the floor of the trampoline as the boys roll around on it. I have nightmares about her getting a tooth stuck in it though, should she ever catch a piece of it.

She’s now going through a phase where everything seems like a chew toy. And I was given the
responsibility of keeping her away from everything. Not easy. Her main target though was our dear trampoline. If she makes even a small hole in it, we’d have to replace the entire thing, and that isn’t going to work well with my current budget.

We’ve made several attempts to keep her at bay. My dad who lives way up in the North, sent us a soft plastic snow fence to help the cause. That went well, for a while, because that smart
little thing, failing in all her attempts to get around the fence, found a way ‘through’ it! Yes, she started to chew the fence. Next we tried coating the fence with a pepper solution. But after the rain, that too failed. Old ways are still the best ways, so finally, we made a chicken wire mesh around the trampoline base, and since that looked quite dangerous, we had some flowers and shrubs put around it.

Since then, we’ve had no trouble with Tinker. She eventually gave up chewing the chicken mesh. But the jumping didn’t stop, and a few flowers got hurt. But it was no big deal. It would have been more trouble if Tinker made holes in the trampoline floor. Now my workouts continue, and the kids are still having fun.