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Hi Hi!

This is The Girl, writing to you from the DC Rainmaker weekly newsletter headquarters…AKA, my couch. If you are new to this pajama party then you are way behind, might want to go HERE to catch up on what this is all about!

I hope everyone is having a great day, and if Christmas is your thing, I hope you had a good one. If not, and you’re having a bad day or you’re still moping about because you didn’t get that one thing you were especially pining for, you need to stop reading. Stop, drop, and roll you’re way back to the blog and go HERE! Ray is doing a December give away, and it’s for $500 Clever Training bucks! That giveaway is lasting until the 29^th, so get going. You can come back to the Newsletter after!

On with the show!

Pretty solid week of posts last week. With the in depth look into a trainer desk. I have to say I’m surprised it took this long to see trainer desks to hit the market. Maybe sports companies were just enjoying seeing what contraptions Ray would come up with (one of his lesser-refined examples below) over the years to keep our training sessions organized. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, he made a quick video of the unboxing and general thoughts on it too. So check that out.

Amongst other things, Ray wrote about my child like excitement to get to see the penguins at the zoo. There’s a bunch of other good stuff on that post as well, like some food photos that have become much requested. So go ahead and browse the headlines of his posts from last week in the section below if you haven’t already read the blog.

Other than (all of) that, Ray had a busy week and HAS a busy week ahead. All things are now gearing up towards CES prep. I’m interested to see what new things he finds in the tech world this year. Also, Ray can openly browse the baby tech section this year, opposed to last year when he sorta creeped through the booths like he accidentally stumbled upon them- we hadn’t yet announced Baby Maker yet.

Now as always, if you have time after clicking on all of those links, you can keep on scrolling to below the fold where I take a moment to ramble about whatever is fresh on my mind.

Ahh yes, Christmas weekend!  We ended up packing in quite the pile of stuff over the last few days, far more than normal.  Albeit, mostly non-fitness related stuff.  Instead, it…

I’m sure many of you received various sports gadgets over the last few weeks as part of the holidays.  But for those unlucky elves who received only a half-eaten gel…

The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I…

As trainer season is in full swing now, so are the various trainer-focused items showing up on my doorstep.  And not just trainers of course, but separate trainer accessories.  Today’s…

One of the primary benefits of apps on any platform is to extend the functionality of a device to do something that the manufacturer didn’t otherwise include.  That’s true of…

In Depth Thoughts from the Girl

Hey, glad you made it down here. It’s early Tuesday morning, and I’m staring foggy eyed into my laptop screen with the tiny tot rolling about on her play mat. I’m incredibly thankful to my dad who brought over a “family sized” can of Tim Hortons coffee for me last month. The aromatic steam from the mug is clearing my head the way the tiny defrost lines on the back window of your car clears off the humidity (or ice, depending where you live).

We had an absolutely fantastic little family Christmas this weekend. No complaints, The Peanut took everything in stride. I will point out, however, that whoever wrote the song “All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” was never a first time mom. Teething created lots of drool covered presents and a few squirmy moments, but we just kept giving her things to chew on, and extra nap, and she was a little trooper. No worries on the clean-up either, our dog Lucy loves to clean up drool. She’s a professional, and the two of them are best buds these days.

Looking onward to the days ahead, I’m flying solo for a crap ton of few days. Ray is off to CES this weekend for the long haul, lots of pre-CES meetings. During which time I have to finish up the paper work for our little one’s day care “dossier”, and pack for our 3 week journey to the land down under! Did I mention that we were headed south to Australia for January? Let me express myself clearly here.

I. CANNOT. FRIGGIN’. WAIT.

The fact that I’ll be home alone with a 6 month old, teething, about to start crawling baby for an 8-9 day stretch, doesn’t bother me one single bit. The fact that we will be flying with said baby for over 24 hours. Nope. No problem. My level of excitement to have a warm breeze and sunshine grace my currently very pale skin is off the charts and cannot be stifled. Also, to have a car! To have a kitchen bigger than our current postage stamp sized one. To have the general population speaking to me in English (albeit sometimes they make up their own words like “courgette”). I am “totally stoked”. I will do my best to not make you cold winter weather readers too envious during the three newsletters I get to write with my toes in the sand!

On that note, I have to go research a few things for our trip. Any suggestions for Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, or the Great Barrier Reef areas would be mucho appreciated! As well, anyone with a pediatrician recommendation for any of those places would be great as well, it’s just comforting to have a reference on hand, just in case.

Myself and Ray would love to wish you all the most happiest of New Years! I hope 2017 is a great year for you. Thank you for all of your readership and support of the blog. Have a very safe New Year’s Eve, and we will see you all next year!

~The Girl