Weigh-In Wednesday

It's that time again! We finished week two on Weight Watchers, and I'll admit it was a struggle. We ate out more, walked less, and my point calculations were highly questionable a couple of days. I also learned that my favorite meal at On the Border has way too much fat for my stomach these days.

So here are the stats, and since this isn't something that Steven ever writes in, I really don't feel right reporting his weight info each week. I need to get an established pattern for this, so I'm going to report the same thing each week, and inches lost once a month.  So here goes:

Pounds Lost/Gained: -1.6 lbs
Inches Lost: n/a
Days Exercised: 3
Major Accomplishment: I jogged for the first time this week!
New Goal: Exercise 5 days this week.

I'd love to hear how you stay motivated to work out! We're getting my whole family involved, and it's really helping to have my mom and sister call me daily to see what time we're meeting up to walk.

Bad Blogger & Top 2 Tuesday

Yikes! It's been almost a week. I just haven't had motivation to finish editing my San Diego pictures, or come up with anything else to write about. I wish I could call it "writer's block" but in reality it's just laziness. Tomorrow is "Weigh-In Wednesday," so they'll be a new post then. For now, I'm going the lazy route and doing another Top 2 Tuesday from the Undomestic Momma!

This week's theme is what 2 Things (Not People) Would You Want on a Desert Island?

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My first item would be my board game collection! I'm assuming I'd have at least a few buddies on the island, and I'm a board game addict. 

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My number two would be sunscreen, without question. I burn so easily, and I'm not going to suffer while stranded on an island!

Weigh-In Wednesday

I've decided that Wednesdays will be my day to chronicle our weight loss journey on the blog. This gives me an entire day between our actual weigh in and the blog post. We'll see how this holds up. I'm really bad at putting myself on any sort of schedule.

For our first week I lost: 2.8 pounds
And Steven lost: 10 pounds

Yay for Steven! I'm really proud of how he did this week. He even ate a veggie here and there!

I'm not sure what happened with me. I was down 4 pounds as of Saturday, but I think that weighing in the evening combined with our weekend festivities did me in. Note to self, no more bad food after Thursday. Period. End of discussion. I may also try to go a few weeks without digging into my weekly points allowance. I also need to start weighing in the evenings since that's when my meetings are.

I'm going to try to give my #1 helpful hint and/or find that helped me get through the week. This week I learned that planning is key. If we plan our entire day out the night before, we really do better the next day. It also makes tracking your points really easy. My #1 find this week wasn't really a find, it was sitting in the grocery store all along, I just didn't notice it. That was the Weight Watchers brand yogurt. It's only 1 point per package where my Yoplait was 2, and that, believe it or not, makes a big difference in my morning!

Did you have any great diet finds this week?

One Year Ago Today...

We laughed.

We sweated.

We smiled.

We promised.

We kissed.

We celebrated

And we began a brand new life together.

Happy Father's Day!

We're celebrating a day early, not only on the blog, but also in life, because we have another celebration to fit in this weekend.

I have to say, that I'm a very blessed girl. I may be turning into my Mom, but I'm very lucky to have an amazing father as well. He has put up with more giggling girls, curling irons, hair bows, and chick-flicks than any man I know. He didn't get to start watching football on Sunday afternoons until I was dating Steven, and I never heard him yell at a sporting event on T.V. until last fall during a Cowboys game. Up until Luke was born, poor Dad was the only man in the house (other than the fish -- even the cat's a girl!).

I'm even luckier, because I have another Dad. Only he spent the past 30-odd years living with boys. And let me tell you boys smell (trust me). I'm so blessed to have a father-in-law who loves me like I'm his kid.

Happy Father's Day to my Daddy and to John, my fantastic father-in-law!

Friday Fails - Diet Fail

It's Friday Fails time over at My Blessed Life, and this week I have a total diet fail. Ok, so it didn't completely blow my week, but it was a FAIL either way. Yesterday I forgot to take out meat for dinner (fail #1), which would ultimately result in my massive fail for the week.

We decided to go out to dinner. We've both had great weeks, and really focused on making sure we were eating enough and eating the right things. It's probably important to mention that I've been preaching portion control non-stop all week. This will be important later.

We spent, I kid you not, an hour hunting for a restaurant where we'd have enough to eat, and still stay within our points for the week. We knew Applebees had a Weight Watchers menu, but since it's not our favorite place, we really wanted to eat somewhere that's "normal" for us.

Then I found, what I thought would be our saving grace. P.F. Changs. Orange Peel Chicken - 8 points, Brown Rice - 3 points, Soup - 2 points. Helllllooo dinner.

So we went, and we ate. We ate like kings. In total disbelief that this could really be real.

You know when your mom told you that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was? Yeah, she was so right.

This morning Steven informed me that we had each eaten three servings of Orange Peel Chicken. Yes my friends, each little plate of chicken they bring you is three servings. THREE!! I mean, I kinda knew that from the massive pain in my stomach all night, but I felt so defeated.

Luckily though, Weight Watchers was made to help you survive the diet fails. We get an extra allotment of points each week to use how we please, and I am happy to say that neither of us went over that allotment. In fact, we both have some left to spare!

Here's hoping next week I have a weight loss success after my Friday Fail!

What are your fails this week? 'Fess up and link up at My Blessed Life.

Top 2 Tuesday -- Guilty Pleasures

It's Top Two Tuesday again over at The Undomestic Momma, and this week's topic is guilty pleasures. I don't know why, but for some reason the phrase "guilty pleasure" automatically makes me think of food. I think it's further proof of why doing Weight Watchers is such a good idea for me.

#1

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So my first guilty pleasure is bread. My favorite is the baguette. I personally love the ones from Panera, but I'm pretty equal opportunity with my bread addiction. I love tortillas, pasta, rolls, and pretty much anything that I can slather in butter. Yum. Too bad (good) I can't it like that anymore!

#2

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Diet Coke. This became a guilty pleasure yesterday. Before then, it was simply an addiction, or as Dana at work put it, "my signature vice." I'm fairly convinced that I will not survive giving up my Diet Coke, but I will suffer for the sake of my marriage (because my husband asked me to do it).

So there you have it, my pitifully food focused guilty pleasures. New Goal: Get guilty pleasures that don't involve my stomach :)

What are your guilty pleasures? Speak up and link up :) 

And the journey begins...

Steven and I have decided to get healthy and start eating better. After talking to the doctor, we've decided that Weight Watchers is the way to go for us. We had our first meeting and weigh-in today, and we start on our new food program tomorrow. We both have a good amount of weight that we want to lose, and we know how important it is to have a program that will work for the long term.

I've done Weight Watchers before with some success, but I know we'll do even better together! We've prepped our kitchen by taking 3 bags of temptation to my parents' house (sorry Mom!), and replacing everything with program-friendly food and snacks. We're hoping to walk in the evenings with Foster, and we'll be keeping our fingers crossed that it won't be too terribly hot at 8:30 at night!

I know weight is a big struggle for alot of people, so what are some things that you do to stay on track?

Be It Ever So Humble

There's no place like home.

Seriously.

I just spent a week in bright, flashy, noisy Las Vegas. And Vegas is so much fun... don't let anyone tell you it isn't. Especially massive whirlpool bathtubs. They make the 12-hour workdays bearable.

And while loud and sparkly and totally-over-the-top are fun. I know something even better.

Dinner at Panera with your husband.

And then laying on the couch with him and the puppy listening to your husband play video games after watching the episode of Glee that he recorded, but waited until you were home to watch because he knew how much you wanted to see it.

There's no place like home.

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The 2-Hour Tour

On our first morning in San Diego, we knew exactly what we wanted to do... go cruise the harbor! This was Steven's first time in San Diego, and the closest I got to the water when I was there in grad school was a pavilion overlooking the harbor at the convention center.

(For those of you who don't know, that's Laura B.! She and I were grad school roomies and coworkers, and she was one of my fabulous bridesmaids!)

Unfortunately on that trip, the flowers on the building were prettier than the shot of the harbor!

This time was different. Steven and I hopped a cab to the bay, grabbed tickets from the Convention and Visitor's Bureau (if you visit San Diego -- GO HERE FIRST! We saved so much on admission to everything, even the zoo). Then we boarded our boat for a 2-hour harbor cruise.

Despite the never-ending, cheesy jokes from the captain, the cruise was alot of fun. The first half of the cruise was of the south end of the harbor. And for some reason it was HOT out on the water. And being the geniuses we are, we forgot to pack Steven a hat. So we improvised.

And if he ever sees that I posted this photo, he will kill me. So no telling. K? Thanks!

The entire coastline was absolutely gorgeous. It was at this point I started begging to move there.

We got to see tons of Navy vessels, and learned lots of random facts about how to tell cruisers from destroyers, and so on. Do I remember any of that? No. So here are two pictures of some sort of military boats.

After the first hour, we docked. Some people got off. Other people got on. We scouted out better seats. And then we headed north. And it got nice and cool.

We saw these cute little boats. All lined up along the coast. Apparently the boat owners/captains live on them. And pay rent for these little spots. Like $200 plus a month. For a buoy. 

We kept heading north. Admiring the ships, the water, and the breeze. And then it got cold. And windy.

Did I mention I wore a skirt that day? It even got cold enough for Steven to come inside where it was warm. Then the captain/narrator/king of bad jokes mentioned Sea Lions, so we all ran back out into the wind.

They were cute, but not as cute as the ones at the Zoo, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After the cruise we walked over to the very touristy Seaport Village and got lunch. We also got Steven a hat, to avoid more of the brochure-hat incidents.

We had Chicago-Style Deep Dish, on the harbor in San Diego, of all places. Oh well. It was yummy. Next up is the USS Midway and the famous San Diego Zoo!

The Surprise Vacation ... California Dreamin'

We've discussed the possibility of going somewhere over Memorial Weekend for months. We both had Friday and Monday off, making it the perfect opportunity for a getaway. We also knew we'd have no time to do this around our anniversary, so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Steven decided that he needed to surprise me, so for weeks he plotted and planned the vacation, while I plotted and planned how to get him to tell me.

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But he didn't. Wouldn't. Laughed at my pitiful attempts. I may or may not have sulked. 

But it was so worth it, when Thursday morning, before our last half day of work, he told me that we were off to San Deigo. I was beyond excited, ecstatic, or any other e-word that's appropriate here. I absolutely adore California. Every time I go there, I want to just have all of our stuff shipped to us and never leave. I'm sure Foster wouldn't mind the plane ride.  

Ok. So he would mind. But he'd get over it after a Scooby Snack or something. 

But I digress. 

So we worked our half day and took off for the airport. And we waited. And waited. And waited. The flights were awful. Apparently EVERYONE was dreamin' of California for Memorial Day.

So we waited some more. 

Then, a miracle happen. A flight got delayed coming into Dallas. 

A dozen people misconnected. 

We got on. 

I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane...

And heading out to Las Vegas for work tomorrow! I won't be back until Saturday, and I probably won't have any access to anything while I'm there. But, have no fear, I've got posts ready so you all can see our fantastic trip to San Diego!

Steven planned this trip all on his own, and didn't even tell me where we were going until the morning before we left! We knew we wouldn't really have time around our anniversary to go on a trip, so we took one a few weeks early and had a great time. We went out on the harbor and visited the USS Midway and the famous San Diego Zoo. The town was beautiful and the weather was perfect, and you get to see it all starting Wednesday!

Cheap & Easy

Our living room has been bugging me for awhile. I just felt like it was dark and dull, and needed something to brighten it up a bit. I contemplated toile curtains a-la-Katie at Cleared for Takeoff, but hubs absolutely hated the idea had some reservations. Not about the look, but more about the cost and what I would want to go along with them. And as much as I adore how they look, he was very right may have had a point, since it would have required new curtain rods and the fabric was NOT cheap.

That, and well, let's be honest, new curtains lead to new pillows, which lead to new accessories, which lead to ... well ... ridiculousness. So the toile curtains were out.

I contemplated lamps. But I like my lamps. Well, all but the floor lamp, and the severe lack of light in our living room, makes it a necessity. Plus, lamps ain't cheap.

I considered getting in touch with my creative side with some new wall art. But I like my wall art.

Then, tonight at Target, I realized what I didn't like. The couch/chair pillows.

I fell in love with the CUTEST pillows immediately, which, of course, I can't find online. Stupid Target website. Then I looked at the price.... not so cute. Umm for $30 something each times four pillows, I could have had my curtains. And then some.

Then we wondered over to a clearance rack.

HELLLLO happiness! I saw pillow covers

They were red, and orange, and white and khaki. Love. They were flowered. More love. They were $4 each. They were in my basket.

So here you go:

Oh pillow slip-covers, where have you been all my life? I adore them. They are bright, colorful, and pull a badly needed accent color into my very black-red-and-khaki living room.

Who knew I liked orange? I certainly had no idea.

The best part? They just slip on and you zip them up. So when they get dirty... straight into the wash!

The only problem. Now I want to buy more of these, and use the fabric to re-cover my dining room chair seats.... Hmmmm....

The Last of Disney...

I took a ton of pictures at Disney, but, well I'm honestly tired of posting about it. So here are the last of my favorite pictures. We had a ton of fun, and learned a lot about how to do Disney the right way. Next year we're going to Hawaii for our big vacation. I think Steven will be thankful for something a little more low-key :) So, without further ado, the last of the Disney 2010 photos:

You Can Fly, You Can Fly, You Can Fly!

I have never been a fan of heights. Slides scared me as a child. Ladders scare me as an adult. While I say that I'd love to skydive, I really just like the idea of skydiving. Let's be honest. I don't even like jumping off the diving board at the pool.

So when another guest at Disney mentioned this "really cool" attraction at Downtown Disney where you can go up in a helium balloon, I turned a little green. Steven, on the other hand, looked like a kid at Christmas.

So went went to Downtown Disney. We shopped, we walked, and I glared at the sky, hoping Steven wouldn't notice the giant red and yellow balloon. But he did. He practically RAN to it. I was secretly praying it would be insanely expensive, or that the line would be ridiculous. ANYTHING.

I mean, who trusts a HELIUM balloon? Seriously. You buy them for a birthday party, and they're on the ground a day later. Who would trust a helium balloon to carry them a thousand feet in the air? Or thirty feet. Whatever. 

My husband would, that's who. 

So I went, and held on for dear life. All the way up, and all the way back down.

And I lived, but just barely. 

And I might have had a little bit of fun. But if you tell him, I'll deny I ever said so. 

Poker Face

A poker face is something I don't have.

My mother always told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve. And I do. If I get in trouble, I cry. If Steven and I argue, I cry. If I get frustrated, angry, or exhausted, I cry. No matter how many deep breaths I take, I can't manage to convey my strongest emotions without choking back tears.

I wish I had a better poker face, but at least no one can accuse me of not being honest with my feelings.

Am I the only person with this problem? How do you express yourself without just breaking down?

Welcome to Hollywood!

Our day in Disney's Hollywood Studios was... well interesting. We visited this park last because according to all of the crowd calendars, it was the only day that wasn't going to be horrific. They had Magic Hours over the weekend, and then as Easter approached, the crowds were supposed to go up, up, up! 

Well, surprise surprise. The crowds went UP a day early! We arrived at the park to a ridiculous crowd. We raced to Rockin' Roller Coaster for fast passes, and soon after grabbed ones for the Tower of Terror. The fastpasses for Toy Story Mania were gone long before lunch, and the line crept along with wait times reaching more than 3 hours. You know those days that test your patience? This was one of them. We were hot, cranky, and couldn't get in to do ANYTHING we wanted. Even the backlot tour had a wait of over an hour ... the typical wait is about 5 minutes. It was long, tiring, and frustrating. 

We weren't the only frustrated people though... Magic Kingdom had a back up 3 miles outside of the parking lot. They closed that park off to people with just single day tickets. The whole thing was a madhouse.

Luckily though, after giving ourselves an afternoon time-out at ABC Commissary (and treating ourselves to dessert!) we were able to get into the Indiana Jones Stunt show, and from there the day started to move and a much happier pace. We got to ride Star Tours, and found out later that this ride will be closing later this year for some "re-imagining."

We saw alot of the short little shows, to break up the time between rides. I enjoyed the exhibits after the Art of Disney Animation Show.

After twisting and turning and fighting our way through the park, the time reached 8:30 p.m. I still hadn't come within spitting distance of the entrance to Toy Story Mania. We went and saw the wait time down to 90 minutes. The park closed at ten. Perfection. So we waited.

I admired Disney's ability to recreate childhood favorites, and maintain perfect theming throughout a long line.

I giggled over the cute signs, and watched as my husband and most everyone around me became grumpy, tired and bored. Then I became grumpy tired and bored.

Then we got to this guy. He talked, cracked jokes, and was generally entertaining... until I realized we'd been within earshot long enough for him to get through his entire cycle ... ugh. Luckily a short time after that an angelic cast member sent us up the handicapped line to fill in a hole. We considered hugging her, but refrained.

The we rode the ride, and our arms hurt, and I kicked Steven's tail. I almost photographed the scores, but I thought he was grumpy enough.

And that friends, was our last full day in the parks. We spent the next morning at Downtown Disney (and rode Characters in Flight -- cool yet terrifying!) and the next evening at Epcot, where we ate at very yummy Le Cellier. Then Thursday came, and we were tired. Very tired. We swam, and contemplated what we would do for the next two days. 

Then we realized the only thing we wanted to do was go home.

Do you remember those Berenstian Bears books from when you were a kid?  One was called Too Much Birthday. This was our own version of that book. Too much vacation. We had a blast, and loved every second, but I have never been so tired in my life.

So we packed in a hurry, made a few calls and headed out. We waved goodbye to Disney, and headed back to Texas.