Birthday Week Extravaganza

A fellow blogger is doing a Birthday Week Extravaganza filled with giveaways to celebrate her birthday. I thought, "how fun!", especially as my birthday is quickly approaching as well. She will be having 8 giveaways this week. Check it out!

Holiday Slim Down

We all know by now that there really is no quick fix for weight loss. Trust me - I've tried almost everything. Pills of all shapes and sizes, soup diets, cabbage diets, meat diets, veggie diets, diets, diets, diets..... and the only thing they've done for me is really screw up my metabolism. There was only 1 true wonder drug out there, and they took it off the market and stopped producing it because too many people were abusing it. It did wonders if used correctly! By the time Hunter was 1, I weighed less than before I got pregnant with him!! But once off of it, I realized that my body had relied on it. Trying to get my metabolism going on it's own again has been an uphill battle, and one that I'm slowing losing over the years. Here I am, quickly approaching my 32nd birthday, my children are 9 and 6, and I weigh more now than I ever have.

I can hear some of you now..... "what are you whining about?" "you don't need to lose weight!" "you're fine the way you are now". Here's the thing: I do need to lose weight. Most of time I do a fairly good job of hiding it, but believe it or not people, my midsection is mush! And I have the right to whine because my midsection continues to outgrow my clothes.

So here's the plan: An old friend from school, Natalie, has this awesome blog that I follow and she's recently started a Holiday Slim Down, a 15 week program with goals to help support and motivate one another to lose weight. I'm a few weeks behind the band-wagon, but I'm joining now. I've been running off and on for the past few weeks - I even ran on vacation! So now it's time for me to get serious about losing a few pounds and toning up this midsection of mine.

Here are my goals for the 15 (now 11) weeks:

1. Ideally, I'd like to lose 15 pounds. This may be pushing it, and I would be pleased to just loss 10. Anything over would just be like a bonus!

2. Fit into the jeans I wore 1 year after Hunter was born (that would be a 2 size difference).

3. Tone and firm my arms - they're beginning to look like old lady arms! And I'm just not ready for that... =)

So, wish me luck! And please be supportive. I really cannot do this on my own, which is why I'm looking forward to the HSD group support. Also - kudos to my sister-in-law for motivating me to run more! I'm like the little engine that needs encouragement - "I think you can, I think you can....."

12 Year Anniversary

It's hard to believe that Brian & I have been married to 12 years. It sounds like such a long time, yet it seems like the years have just flown by. We didn't have any plans for the day. We thought maybe of trying to take the family out to Red Lobster. Or maybe seeing a movie. Nothing set in stone. We woke up Sunday morning to the sun shining brightly and the boat already hooked up to the car from the night before.
So instead of taking the day to reflect on the past, we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather and make it a family day on the boat. Probably not the most romantic thing - to have 2 fighting, whining kids on board - and there were times when I thought of throwing them overboard... lol...., but we've had lots of "romantic days" in the past. Right now we just wanted to enjoy what we have now: a wonderfully blessed family in good health.
We loaded up the cooler, packed some lunch and snacks, and headed out to Loon Lake for the day. The boys did some fishing, the girls did some reading, and we all soaked up the sun! Loaded the boat back up around 5pm and headed back into town. Stopped at Camino Real for a mexican dinner, then headed home to unpack and go to bed. We were all exhausted!










It was a wonderful day. Thank you to my husband for making it a memorable 12-years. We've had our ups and downs but we keep truckin' along, never looking back....

Priest Lake: August 2009

We're trying to get in as much boating time as we can, since we bought our boat late in the season. So far, the weather has cooperated. Saturday we planned a trip out to Priest Lake. We had some friends that were camping up there, and thought it would be fun to explore the lake, do some tubing and hang out with them on the beach. My brother went with us, along with Shianne's best friend, Alexis. It was a beautiful day - a little on the windy side - and we all had a great time. Just before dark we loaded up the boat, and joined our friends back at their campsite. Rafe grilled up some delicious hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner and we ate while hanging out around the campfire. Finally got home at 10:00pm - everyone but the driver (me!) slept on the way home..... :D
Shianne

Alexis

Hunter

Alexis tubing for the 1st time - she loved it!!

My brother, David, and Brian

Maverick & Hunter

Riley, Shianne, & Alexis

My brother discovered this little boy on the beach to teach - I think they both enjoyed it!

Shianne & Alexis

Colter

Rafe

Pend Oreille Shores Resort 2009

Just a few pictures from our week at condo. It's always such a relaxing week. The kids are old enough to pretty much do their own thing. All of the cousins are really good about playing nice together and staying in a group. They all loved to get up and go fishing first thing in the morning, swim during the day, and burn off the last of their energy late at night. The weather started out good - we had a few hot days - but towards the end of the week it turned cold and stormy. These were perfect days to go swim at the indoor pool according to Shianne! We had a lot of fun with the new boat. Got some of the kids and cousins, etc out on a tube, and took a lot of rides just for the fun of it. It was sad to pack up and come home, but we know that we'll return next year~!

The Mohawk

Sadly we are coming up on the end of summer. This means school shopping and haircuts at our house. Shopping for Shianne, and haircut for Hunter! lol...
Hunter really needed a trim, so while Brian was cutting it the other night, he talked him into a mohawk. Hunter has never wanted one before, even when the neighbor boy did it last year. But Shianne promised him that she'd color it blue for him, and it was all down hill after that.


This is a few days after the initial cut and color, so it's faded to a green tint now. Not to worry though - it better be shaved off before school starts!!!

Official New Moon Trailer: Meet Jacob Black

Oh My Gosh!!! Anyone that truly knows me, knows that I have been obsessed with the Twilight series books since reading them all over a year ago. Each movie that comes out just feeds into it and I find myself thinking of nothing else!
I have to admit that the Twilight movie was a disaster, but the more I watch it, the more I like it. Now the hype is all about New Moon, and I'm ecstatic! It was one of my favorite books out of the four - I am a HUGE Jacob fan all the way.
This new trailer was just released and I could sit and watch it all day.... =)

The movie release date is November 20th, and you can be sure that a group of us will be going!
Enjoy!!!!

Latest Addition to our Family...

For the past few years, we've sorta been wanting a boat. It's one of those things that we thought was fun to do with other people - on their boat. Their responsibility, their payments, their storage, etc.... but never sure if we really wanted to indulge ourselves with that expense when you only use it 3-4 months out of the year.
After our 4th of July camping experience this year on Lake Roosevelt, we got that "bug" again. That "wouldn't-it-be-nice-to-just-drive-around-the-lake-all-day" bug. It was then that we seriously started considering it.
Honestly, we don't camp as much as we used to. With the kids keeping us busy with their extracurricular activities (dance, soccer, and baseball), it really doesn't make since for us to pack up all of our camping goods, load up the trailer and head out of town for a 24 hour trip. It's too much work. So our thinking was, "wouldn't it be nice to just load up the boat and head up to the lake for a day??". Even if we want to sleep overnight, we can take along a tent, or just sleep under the stars.
So we began looking, thinking that next summer would be best. It would give us a chance to look at a few and see what features we do/don't like, etc. We've been looking mostly with private sellers - people who either have outgrown their boats, or financially cannot afford them anymore. Our main source of "research" has been craigslist. This is how we found our trailer and motorcycle, too.
We began looking at a few last week and quite frankly they were nothing to get excited about. It's amazing how everybody thinks that their boat is the best, and how little some of them were taken care of!
You must also realize that as we were doing this, we were quickly approaching our vacation - a week long stay on Pend O'reille Lake. Hmmm... wouldn't it be nice to have a boat for that??? =) Oh yeah....

So we did it -- we took the plunge. We found a boat that has been immaculately taken care of. It's the perfect size for our family for our first boat. (Yes, "first" boat - I've already got plans for another bigger one in the future...) It's a 2007 Stingray 180RX. These are the photos from the previous owners, and I'll post our own pictures later. We're picking it up tonight, then taking it to the lake on friday ~ WHOO HOO!!!!!