Wednesday we spent the day at Disney World. I know, we do that a lot. But this was a special occasion for 2 reasons.

1) we had friends in from St. Louis with 3 daughters under the age of 5, and I volunteered our family to be their personal tour guides. This way they skip the lines, maneuver easily, and having my tweens around makes their little ones want to behave. We’ve done it before and it usually works wonders. We also remind people to stay hydrated and wear sunscreen, which sometimes gets forgotten by tourists after 3 hours of excitement.

2) Our Disney passes expired today so we may not be there for a while. We did actually pull the girls out of school for this trip, which my 6th grader was peeved about. Apparently 3 cool things she wanted to do this semester all happened on that day. But we’ll just say that maybe going to Disney with dear friends from out of town can be a 4th cool thing not to be missed.

So that means Wed involved a lot of walking, no other exercise, and some junk food. But we didn’t eat too poorly because we brought our own food from home. On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel and for some reason 3 of the items I wanted to try they were out of, so I got a baked potato with colby cheese and nothing else on it – and ate one of their decadent biscuits. I also finished Wendy’s steamed carrots and had a bite of Alice’s French Toast (yum!).

The day at Disney reminded me how much I love preschoolers and how great it is to see a child on their first ride of It’s a Small World! Priceless! (Well, around $70, actually.)

But today is Thursday and I was back in the real world. I hit the gym after driving morning carpool. 20 mins of cardio was split between 5 on rowing machine and 15 on Stairmaster level 7. Then I bonded with the ball.

Because I did a ball workout the other day, I made sure to mix it up today with different exercise. I started lying on the mat with my feet on top of the ball for Swiss ball leg curls – or whatever you want to call them. I did one set with both feet on the ball and my hands off the ground, one set with each leg as a single extension and my hands on the ground, and then repeated all 3 sets.

I followed that up with 30 clamshell crunches with the ball under my ankles. Sort of like this image but the ball is under my knees and I dig my heels into the ball. If the ball is too big, these don’t work for me.

(The “right” size ball is in direct correlation with your height, by the way. If you sit on the ball, your thighs should be about parallel to the floor. If your hips are higher than your knees, your ball is too big. If your hips are lower than your knees, the ball is too small for you.)

Then I did crunches while sitting on the ball. 20 with 2 legs up against the wall, and 20 diagonal oblique crunches to each side with one foot on the wall, one hand on the ball.

Next, I did a series we did in my old core class. You V-sit on the mat with the ball between your feet. Part I: Hold that position for 10 seconds. Part II: Drop-catch the ball with your feet 10 times. Part III: Hold the ball with your feet and bring your knees in towards your chest. For all 3 parts of the series you maintain the V-sit position. Try to work through 3 rounds. I start to feel that in my legs and that is when I know my hip flexors are taking over for my abs.

I did a 2nd set of clamshell crunches. Then moved on to the plank. First I did a 30 second plank hold with my forearms on the ball. Then I did 30 seconds of bringing my knees in to the ball alternating legs.

Thurs night was karate. We practiced blocking and disarming when people hit you with a stick. I was the hitter, though, and the 9 year old girl I was paired with had to keep blocking me for 30 minutes. Next week we start forms again so it will be more of a workout.But we did 80 crunches, so I can take that off my total below.

I was messing around with my daughter before karate class and did a headstand. Now my neck hurts. That’s the 2nd time I hurt my neck in the past year doing a headstand. I think I’ll stop doing them now. Unfortunately, it may cause me to skip ab class tomorrow.

What have you taken out of your workout routine as you’ve aged?

2010 goal update: 3504 crunches, 82.5 minutes of plank remaining.