More 4th of July

Amazing

My visiting teacher's family invited us over for fireworks tonight.  Their daughters friends family had won a pile of fireworks at a golf tournament.

One word:  Amazing!

I love my camera, it isn't much but it takes some great photos at night and of fireworks, so ENJOY:

Robert and Debbie in the sweethearts chair and their neighbor Kippy

Now that is what I call "double-fisting"

The wee ones!

Kent and K settled in for the show

The rest of these speak for themselves!

 

Happy 4th of July!

The day started with a nice pancake breakfast at the church.  K was supposed to participate in the flag ceremony with the scouts but didn't want to.   He told me after that even though I'm not American I should "lip-sync" the words!

We decided that we wanted to do something different this year and I searched the internet for fun 4th activities to do, and honestly, didn't come up with much that sounded fun.  I decided that I needed to expand our search and came upon Black Chasm Cavern.

We left shortly after the pancake breakfast for the scenic drive from Orangevale to Jackson, California.  What a pretty drive and you pass through all these little old towns that were founded in the gold rush era.  Quite fascinating in and of themselves, that will be another excursion, maybe without the guys, to go in all those little antique shops and not to mention the amazing kitchen store in Jackson.

The cavern itself was absolutely amazing.  So far they have found 15 rooms, but can only tour through three of them.  It is a nationally protected cave because this one little tiny room that you can only see from a distance which has every type of stalagmite, stalactite, helictite formations.

They say helictite formations are only found in 5% of all caves in the world and there are some that appear only here in Black Chasm.

This formation here was at the bottom room that we could go to (there were 12 more rooms beyond this).  K named it the Walrus tooth!

He was trying to smile through the flash!

Helictite

This one on the right here was so cool, it was a little hole in the cavern and inside were these amazing helictite formations

More helictite formations

 Looking down, way, way, way down, at the bottom here, is a small pool, it reflects the roof which is a blue gray rock which I can't remember the name of.  It was amazing.  When the picture is full size you can see it better.  Someone repels down every six months to change the light bulb.

Pretty Stalactite formation on the roof of the room that we were in.  There is a lot of damage to them, because the miners back in the 1800's used to bring people down to show them and they would take a piece back to the top as a souvenir.  The admission was a pinch of gold.

The two guys in my life!

 

The Almighty Dollar

When you are almost 12 it is amazing how valuable making money becomes. In other words, you will do a lot for a buck!

As some of you may know our son lacks his pituitary gland and takes a lot of medication every day.  One of those meds is a shot that he gets at night.  You have to understand how terrified he is of needles.  He has had blood taken every month as a baby, then every three months for the next few years and now he gets blood work at least twice a year.  He despises needles.

Along comes Scout camp and he knows that we are not going to be able to give him his shot at night while he is sleeping.  He wanted to go to camp so bad that he agreed that after dinner every night they would go to the nurses station and Kent would give him his injection.

Upon arriving home, Kent told him how well he had done with his shot and then offered him $1.00 every time he helped give his own shot.  At bedtime the last three nights he has called out to remind us about his shot and he is up to $3.00.  Yahoo!  Keep it up soon you will be $365 richer if you do!

 
For more information on Panhypopituitarism click here.  Our son was born without his pituitary therefore all of those hormones are replaced manually.

Kitchen Project

My honey and son had Scout Camp this week and left early on Monday morning.  Woohoo!  While the boys away the mom will play.  Hmm define play?  Paint something, yeah, that's right, let's paint something.

You see when Kent goes away, I usually use that opportunity to get a project done without interruption. (translation w/o any "discussion" about whether or not we should even want to do that project).

 
The first Son's of Liberty camp 8 years or so ago, I painted my cabinets....  Anyway, I decided to paint my laminate countertops.  So I did the research before they left and that Monday, I stopped and bought what I needed.

I got the counters ready that night, all taped, and sanded.

The next night after work, I came home and got busy!

The first step - get organized!

Second step - paint the black gooey glue stuff on the countertop

Third step - take the spreader and spray on the chips of gray/white all over the sticky black gooey stuff.  Make sure you do a thick coat.  Then the fun stuff - sanding - can you believe that they want you to do this by hand!!!! Are they nuts?

Okay - the top one was sanded by hand, the bottom one has been sanded with my mouse!

Ah, below my faithful mouse.  The only thing that you have to be careful with is to not go too deep on the corners and edges.  Otherwise it works like a charm!

 

The last step.... put the top coat on and let it dry.  Doesn't it look nice?  I love how it turned out.

Now all we need to do is wait the 48 hours before we can do light duty on it.  1-3 weeks for a full cure.  I absolutely love how it turned out!




 

Note to self:  Now that it is painted and looks gorgeous.... You can really tell that it needs a back splash.  What do you think about this glass tile?  When does the hubby go away again :)  Love it!

Hard Work and Choices

I am grateful today, for a busy day.  

First we went to celebrate the life of a friend who I didn't know for very long, but Sue and her husband made an impact on our family.  I first met her after we were married.  They were in our Ward at church.  Sue and Jim... Mr. and Mrs. Clause for two months of every year.  We still have the picture of our son and Santa as a five month old baby being held by Jim.  Actually, that picture was on the wall at CVS pharmacy for about five years!

It was so sweet to hear and learn more about Sue from the talks and to be able to see her through the eyes of others.  She was a loving service orientated woman who had a lot of friends. 

This is how I will remember her:



We had only lived in that Ward for one year, but at the memorial today, there were so many faces that I recognized but couldn't remember their names. 

After the memorial we needed to head out to Del Oro High School for the Upstage production that Deanna, Lindsey, Hayes and two of Mark and Anna's kids, Amy and Haley were in.  I can't forget Steve and Heidi's daughter Hanna is in the group too.

Here is were the hard choices comes in.... It was lunch time in between the two events.  I needed to feed my family, but didn't have time to fix something, so to Carl's Jr. drive thru we went.   Amazingly, I persevered,  I DID NOT ORDER anything.  We went home to change and I quickly fixed my Medifast meal.

I know, amazing isn't it. 

The Upstage production was so much fun, I am so proud of the kids.  I thought so much as I watched them, Deanna and Lindsey dancing next to each other, how fun they must have being able to hang out together so much.  How important that relationship is and I love to see it.  I thought about my mother in law and knew how proud she is of these girls for their choices, talents and beauty, and how she would not have missed their performance.  


Here's the link to their production company...They are in a few pictures here


After that K and I took dad out for dinner at his choice the Outback.  The food was good and I tried to order a meal within the calories that I could.  Yeah - like I said, I'm not perfect and I did have some of the appetizer and bread as well.  


I'm not going to try to make excuses, I try hard and then just do my best.  I am going to reach my goal, no matter what.


Enjoy the day!

My weight loss journey

This February, 2012 I decided that I would start to walk.  I had reached my heaviest weight and I was damned if I was going to get any bigger.  So every day at 10:15 I would get an outlook reminder at work to walk. 

I started by walking the length of the hallway and back five times.  When that felt comfortable I would walk the length of the hallway, down the stairs to the main floor, down the hallway to the elevator and back upstairs.  (There was no way in heck that I was walking up those stairs!).  I built that up until I was doing it 5-8 times.  When I would take the elevator back up, I would hit the main floor button, so that the elevator was waiting for me when I got back around.

After that got comfortable, I decided to go outside and walk around the whole building.  Then I would walk around both of the buildings.  Finally, I started walking with my friends, Azi, Kathy and Michaela and we would walk once and a half around both buildings. (I drove it with my car and it was 0.7 miles).

In the meantime, in April, I had decided I really wanted to pursue the gastric bypass surgery. I went for orientation to a few doctors and chose the one that my Sis-in-law Valerie had used b/c he doesn't believe in making you lose weight.  He figures if you could have you would have.

Here's a link to the website about him (Not the most flattering picture that's for sure, cause he is really a handsome man)  Dr. Waldrep.  

The problem was that when I was in my 20's my appendix had ruptured and abscessed.  I have already lost 1/2 my large intestine and about a foot of my small.  The scar tissue that I must have has Dr. Waldrep requesting that I make the surgery easier and safer by me losing weight.  He wants me to lose 50 lbs......  It felt like such a huge insurmountable goal.  He had me start Medifast to help me lose it quicker.

I have now lost 36 lbs from my heaviest weight.  I lost 10 before pursuing the bypass,  and I've lost 26 since.  I have 24 more to lose.  My next appointment is in mid-July and I'm really dedicated. 

Don't get me wrong, I have my weak moments! 

I am now walking at least 30 minutes a day five days a week and averaging 1.4-1.7 miles a day.  (I am trying to run also and have built up to 1.5 minutes.)  Oh yeah and now I go up the stairs too!

I have started a beginning weight program that will also help with the losing weight as well as the shaping.

My goal... a 5 KM run December 18th.  I figure it gives me a ton of time to prepare, it won't be hot, and its free to run!

Height, again!

Well, this morning I tell you my heart plummeted through the floor.  As I in bare feet stood back to back to my son.... Alas, it has happened.... He is now officially taller than me.  I tell you 10 year old's are not supposed to be taller than their mommas.  I can understand 14, 15 or 16 year old's inching slowly past their short mothers, but 10 I tell you its just not fair!