April comes, and April goes

Another month has flown by...seriously unbelievable! April has been a busy month, but a VERY good one!

The week following Easter brought us Casey's birthday WEEK. He was off work Thursday and Friday to burn some forced time off. We went receiver shopping at Stereo Shoppe on Thursday and he got his BIG (aka expensive) birthday present. I have to admit, even I can tell a difference... the other one was definitely dying, and this one works VERY well! I feel like I'm at a theater when we watch movies together on Saturday evenings! His birthday weekend also brought the Masters golf tournament, and Tiger's return to golf. We didn't watch as much golf as we normally do for the Masters, but we watched enough to enjoy seeing Tiger back in the swing of it...hoping that the media will leave his personal life alone for awhile now since he did well. And I was misty eyed at the end, when Phil Mickelson won, and gave his wife Amy a huge hug and kiss (she's fighting breast cancer). Phil is such a GREAT guy! He's replaced Tiger as the golf role model for my kids!! We managed a date night on Friday with Pete and Misty to celebrate Casey's birthday. We tried Bonefish Grill...and it was surprisingly not my idea!! Casey had tuna and I had Chilean sea bass...both were fabulous and I was surprised at how low cal the fish was!!!! We finished off dinner with a heavenly chocolate mousse dessert at a little french bakery downtown. And then we learned how to play a new game...Settlers of Catan. It was a LOT of fun, and I cannot wait to play it again! Saturday we took the kiddos to see the new movie How to Train Your Dragon. It was a hoot! It was Zach's first time at the movie theater and he did wonderful, of course, a little lemonade and popcorn didn't hurt! : )

The following week brought some wonderfully beautiful weather, so we did another park tour week! : ) We visited Tully park, Settler's park, and I rode my bike pulling the boys in the trailer over to Jullion park. We played at the school behind the house, which the boys call the park. I started running outside, training for the 5k on the 8th of May. And on the 19th I took my bike down to the greenbelt and did a fabulous 10.5 mile ride, from Ann Morrison Park down to Harris Ranch. As I rode past the Warm Springs golf course I got a craving for some golf time! I don't think I have the time to devote to lessons this year...but I'd like to get back into it, maybe even do 9 holes with Casey sometime here in the near future!

This past weekend we loaded up the bike trailer and the bikes, packed a picnic lunch and set off for the greenbelt again. We rode from Ann Morrison park down to Municipal park. We visited the MK Nature Center, had lunch in the park, and let the kiddos play for awhile, then headed back to Ann Morrison. And no trip to that park is complete without feeding the ducks/geese. There were a ton of babies there, so we had to be careful, but the boys had a ball feeding them. Too bad the wind was blowing and making it sooooo cold or we could've stayed and played longer!

The weight loss game is starting to get the best of me! I'm stuck in a rut trying to get rid of these last 6 pounds!!! Even with my bodybugg and my running it's making me fight for every ounce of loss! I broke down and did my measurements because I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere, however, I've lost another 2.75 inches, so I'm doing something right! And whether it be capris, shorts or jeans, I feel like I'm wearing a cinch sack everytime I put pants on! That's a good thing, except it means that it's time to go shopping for pants/shorts again...and I dread trying to find stuff that fits over the junk in the trunk, but isn't too big for the tiny waist! It always makes me think of the Baby Got Back song by Sir Mix a Lot...36, 24, 36, only if she's 5'3"...and Fonda ain't got a motor in the back of her honda. While my measurements are oh so close to these, I definitely have a motor in the back of my honda, and it's nothing but trouble!!! I'm hoping to run it off...eventually! : ) I have been wanting a pink armband for my bodybugg, but they've been sold out for weeks now. I finally got disgusted and sent an email to them inquiring about if and when they would have more in stock. I got a phone call from them on Tuesday, after a crappy day at work, and they said it was back in stock...best darn news of the day!!!!! Can't wait to wear a pink one, instead of boring black!

This past weekend, one of Casey's good friends came into town to pick up a truck that he bought. We went out to dinner with Joe, Pete n Misty, and Drew. We tried another new to us place, Bar Gernika in the basque block downtown. Some very yummy food, even better company! We finished that off with dessert and drinks at Bardenay, LOVE me some lava cake from Bardenay! And of course it wouldn't be a visit from Joe if it wasn't followed by a 'friendly' game of rummy...which we affectionately refer to as F*** your neighbor! Too bad his stay wasn't longer, it was great to visit with him, even if it was so brief!

This Saturday is the best scrapbook event of the year...FIESTA! I'll be at Michelle's house from 10am to 10pm, scrappin' my little heart out! She has a fiesta project, and we'll be doing the Rock Star pages for our May scrapbook group, and I need to figure out what else I'd like to work on. Can't wait to spend the day with the girls! I will need to take a break in there somewhere and go for a run...should be fun anyways though! : )

Don't know how many posts I'll get done in May. Cinco de Mayo is a dinner date night with the Neisen clan. The 8th is Race for the Cure, my VERY first 5k. May 12th is my ablation procedure. May 15th is a friend's graduation celebration, and another friend's birthday celebration. And of course there is Memorial Day...which means a trip to Council to decorate my mom's grave, and the other family members that are also buried there near her. I'll do my best to document some of it though!

I'd better get back to the movie. I'm watching Snow White with the boys. Lucas ensures me that it is 'THE BEST movie in town'!!! He cracks me up! I find it amusing how addicted to this movie my boys are, given that they are boys, and it's a princess tale! Oh well, whatever floats their boats, and prevents fighting, yelling and screaming! : ) Until next time...

It was a Happy Easter indeed!

I have always loved holidays, getting to spend time with family that you don't get to see often enough, and all of the spirit that comes with the holidays...but now that I have children, they are even better! This was the first Easter that Zach really had a clue about what was going on! They got to do an Easter egg hunt with their daycare friends, and we went to a community one as well. They had soooooo much fun! Easter morning and afternoon was spent preparing a feast for the family, and tidying up the house, and hiding Easter eggs...AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN! Even once the eggs had been emptied of their treasures the kids couldn't get enough of the darn things. And Zach's laugh when he'd excitedly find one, and then have to show Lucas, as if to get his permission to collect it...priceless! The Easter bunny spoiled them as per usual...the game Chutes and Ladders, a playdoh spaghetti factory, bubble guns, Toy Story 2 and the original Madagascar DVD's...and of course, a metric TON of candy!

Dinner with the family was very fun as well! The boys had to show off their mad Mario n Sonic Winter Olympic Games skills to Grandma. They got some time in with Sanjuana, Doug n Trin. They missed Uncle Mike, who was home with some sort of illness...I was sad that he didn't make it, but thankful that he didn't come and infect the boys (they've been healthy for over 2 weeks now...knocking on wood). Some good conversations were had, including the one where I learned my new thing for the day...beer pancakes! I seriously do not know who comes up with these things, but it NEVER would have occured to me to mix beer with my pancake batter...and what in the heck do you put on these pancakes? Neither syrup nor jam sounds appealing in the least bit...but I am nonetheless interested in trying out these creatures, as is the hubby! ; )

I had my 2nd day since January 7th (the first day that I wore my bodybugg) where I was a complete pig, and didn't even come close to my 500 calorie deficit for the day. I was praying that even after running for 30 minutes, that I'd at least break even. I ended up with a horrible stomach ache, and a little over a 100 calorie deficit for the day. The problem...one hard boiled egg here, one there, another one here, another one there...they are only 80 calories after all! Coupled with one peanut butter kiss cookie here, another one there, repeat...same thing, only about 80 calories per cookie. That adds up by the end of the day, and I about had a heart attack when I entered all of those cookies and eggs into the bodybugg program at the end of the day!!!! Lesson of the day...enter each one as it's eaten, then I can see exactly what I'm doing to myself and prevent it from happening again! : ) Someone seriously needs to invent a bodybugg that administers small electric shocks to deter you from eating so much!!!! Granted, I would've likely been electrocuted, but I wouldn't have eaten so many eggs and cookies! : ) I've hit a plateau again...not all that surprising since I've had a couple of really good weeks previously!

I've graduated to monthly allergy shots!!!!!! It's such a relief, not having to give up about an hour of my 'me time' EVERY Monday morning just to get a shot! I'm not sure how long I have to do this for, but it sure is paying off! I was miserable by this time last year!!!!! Now I'm only taking my Zyrtec daily, and doing fabulous! I'm wanting to try to give up the daily Zyrtec to see how I do, but I'm a big ol' chicken!! We'll see!

Casey's birthday is this coming Friday, and he was told to use up some more of his time off. So he has a short work week this week...taking off Thursday and Friday. I love that he'll be home with us 4 days this week...even if it means he'll be parked in the chair watching the Masters all weekend long! : )

I must get on the treadmill and get on with my day! Hoping that the weather finally starts to act like spring so I can start running outside in preparation for the Race for the Cure 5k on May 8th...it's approaching so quickly! Until next time...