Well I've decided to join a new carnival.

Over at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans, they have a challenge called "Shrink for Good" and I've decided to join! Every Weigh-In Wednesday I'll be posting my progresses and successes! I think it will help to keep my eye on the prize and my head in the game.

So last Wednesday I posted my start weight from 2 months ago when I started my weight loss journey. As of last week I was down 20lbs in two months!

So in my weigh-in this morning I am down another pound! I'm completely happy with losing just one pound. My goal is to lose this weight in a healthy way by eating healthier and exercising. Guidelines usually say no more than 1-2 pounds a week so I'm good with it :)

The last two weeks I've been working out quite regularly and I'm REALLY excited to see the results of that. My clothes feel looser and I feel more energetic so I already FEEL the results! I should have taken my measurements before I started working out, just to see what the actual physical differences are, but I didn't. Maybe I will ... yeah I think I'll go do that now!

For more chicks on the road to skinnyville check out The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans!

July 2009 - Fort Bragg :)

We were bitten by the travel bug again! It was our last weekend with just Lil Miss so we decided to hit the road! Neither of us had ever been to Fort Bragg so we hopped in the truck and headed up north. This was my first home-brewed coffee in MONTHS ... I think I drank about 1/4 of it LOL

We left early and drove up the 101 through wine country and it was SO pretty! We stopped in Ukiah for lunch at a brewery ...

But some things made me a little nervous ... like the sign that said "EARTHQUAKE WARNING ... This is an unreinforced masonry building. You may not be safe inside or anywhere near this building in an earthquake." - O_O

What made me MORE nervous was the amount of times the word "ORGANIC" was used on the menu ... thats when you know you're in hippie-land ... when the label on the mustard has ORGANIC in front of EACH AND EVERY ingredient ... O_O

So we got the hell outta there and continued on to Fort Bragg. We first headed to Glass Beach ... it was pretty :)

We walked along the bluffs ...

Some REALLY nice pics! I love this one :) It's nice sometimes to be away with just Lil Miss. We're able to give her the attention she DEMANDS and still have energy left for each other! It seems like she does better when we're OUT and doing things like this with just the 3 of us.

Which is not to say that there weren't MANY meltdowns ... because there were ... but they seem more manageable when we outnumber her ;-)

Glass Beach was nice, but it wasn't terribly beachcomer friendly. There wasn't exactly a "beach" persay, just LOTS of little rocks and LOTS of BIG cliffs. So we decided to head on down the coast to our hotel. I did my homework and was able to find a SUPER inexpensive place to stay with a nice big room and a private beach! And it didn't break the budget :) We're totally staying here again!

The beach and hotel were SO nice in fact, there was a WEDDING ON THE BEACH! It was so simple and so beautiful it made me tear up :) DH too, we talked about how "us" that was and if we'd known of this place we SO would have had our wedding here!

It was a little chilly and a little overcast, but we still had a great time walking in the waves. I don't mind weather like this, it makes me feel at home, reminds me of where I grew up :)

DH did great taking pictures, he got a bunch of really cute ones of Lil Miss & I


:)

While she played in the sand, we took a few moments to have some couple time and share a glass of wine ...


lol, her smile make me laugh, she's already at that "ok, really? ANOTHER pic mom?" lol

Then she decided she was ready to get out of the wet clothes and it was AWESOME because we were RIGHT at our hotel!

So many things I could say here ... but I don't want to have to put an "R" rating on this blog LOL

We had an AWESOME dinner, Lil Miss did so well!

and their beer was SOOOO GOOOOOD! We had the sampler :)

and she had JUICE! lol

and I had a shiny face! lol

After an amazing time at dinner we went back to the hotel and settled in. We brought some sleeping bags to make a bed on the floor for Lil Miss and she was OUT in about 5 minutes :) then DH and I could have a little more time to ourselves :) :)

So I have to tell myself that I'm NOT a terrible mother for enjoying the time I HAVE to be away from my daughters. It would do NO ONE any good if I just sat around and did nothing fun just because they weren't able to be with us. There's that pesky Mommy Guilt rearing it's ugly head again ;-)

Again, the fog, but it was still pretty in it's own way


the rocky coast up here is just beautiful!

:)


Then we grabbed some sandwiches at a little sandwich place to take to the beach. We saw a beautiful beach down below where we were driving so we pulled off the road to find it. It was beautiful warm blue sky's where we parked ...

then we followed this path through this like FOREST to get to the beach and it looked like this ...

LOL, still pretty, just a little LESS warm than ya know, 100 feet away where the sun was lol

But we put up our umbrella anyway and settled in with our sammiches and a beer ...

And we had our lunch and everything was lovely ...

And the waves crashed and it was lovely ...

and Lil Miss played in the sand and it was lovely ...

This year I finally did something I've been thinking about doing for many summers. I only did it THIS summer because every time I talked to my mom she gave me a talkin to bout it for at least half the conversation.

I put my 3 girls in swim lessons.

Now Tween actually swims fine on her own. But she is the only one. And I figured that if I was putting the other two girls in, I could find a class for her too, if only to teach her some real strokes.

So she learned the streamline, which was HUGE for her because she still plugs her nose when she goes underwater. But when swimming streamline she doesn't, so she was able to take something good away from it.

She also learned how to take a breath while she swam, she was very impressed with herself :)

I was fortunate enough to get ALL 3 GIRLS into age appropriate classes at the SAME TIME! Lil Miss REALLY enjoyed her preschoolers class. She loved kickin along on the kick board and she loved having a teacher ... eventhough she didn't always listen to her

She loves her some kickin!

Flower Child was the one I was really hoping would benefit from the lessons. At the beginning of the summer, she was still swimming in the pool with a life jacket on. That's my fault. I was kinda nervous about taking so many kids to the pool at one time and she was so shaky about swimming (would PANIC if she walked away from the stairs) so I just figured it saved us all a little but of sanity if she just wore her life jacket.

Well, that kept her from learning. The lessons took care of that quick!

She LOVES swimming! She still is a little shaky, but she has more skills now. She is GREAT at streamline and can even jump in the pool without holding her nose, that's one UP on her older sister ;-)

Lil Miss learned to float and she LOVES doing it now! She always does it now and is very impressed with herself :)

Tween also learned the backstroke. This was the pre-backstroke actually, but she did learn it ;-) She really enjoyed getting to learn the different styles and feeling like she swam like a big person I think.

Lil Miss learned and LOVES to play "Fishy in the Middle" and we play every time we go to the pool now :) It's pretty cute, we all play, the girls & I. Lil Miss gets SUCH a kick out of it!

Flower Child learned the difficulty that is "Red Light, Green Light"

But all 3 girls FAVORITE part of each lesson was the last 5 minutes, jumping in the pool :)

LOL. The lessons were 30 minutes, every weekday, for two weeks. They learned a TON and they loved it, so it was totally worth the cost. I was bummed though, I didn't get a pic of Lil Miss jumping in, next time. I'm for SURE putting them in next year!