Where in the World?

Guess where we're heading in just a few, short weeks?  No clue?  Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed it right either.  Baron has been traveling to Salt Lake City, Utah several times over the last few months.  He has to go back again in a few weeks and I'm gonna travel out and spend the weekend with him.  Yay! Who doesn't love a little free vaca? Thank you, SkyMiles :)

I'm a little excited because it's been so long since I've seen some legit snow!  There will be no cute vacation pictures of the newlyweds though (<--how long are we newlyweds for??), because I'll be looking like this the whole time:

I wonder who has the best deals on full face ski masks, hahaha!

Weight Loss Resolutions

This whole weight loss thing is hard.  The concept is easy, put less in than you work off.  Simple right??  Maybe for you, but not for me.  I decided to "take off" the week of Christmas from tracking, eating 100% on plan, and I definitely didn't go to the gym.  I know that the majority of my weight loss journey is mental and if I had to stay on plan 100% during the holidays that it would lead me to totally giving up and not losing weight in the big picture.  I was okay with a gain over the week of Christmas, knowing that I deserved it because of the choices I made during the week. 

I weighed in on Tuesday and was up a few pounds, no big deal.  Nothing I can't lose again and get back down to the weight I was at prior to Christmas. 

So here I am, publicly addressing my New Year's Resolutions for accountability:

- Stay 100% on plan (until our vacation coming up in the end of January)

- Workout (at least) three times per week. 

- Drink more water!!

We have a mini-vaca coming up at the end of January and I'm commiting to be 100% on plan until then. I plan to make some good choices on vacation, but I'm not going to track my diet and I'll probably gain a little bit of weight.  But I'm okay with that, this is a long term thing.

I also would like to go to the gym more often than three times a week, but I'm not going to get down on myself if I don't make it more than that.  Baron and I woke up early this morning to go to the gym before he had to go to work.  I have to admit, as much as it hurt to hear the alarm clock go off at 5:40, it felt really good to be totally done with a workout that early in the day! 

My last commitment to myself is to drink more water.  I was getting SO good at this during the summer and then the weather turned cold and I stopped drinking all the water.  I'd be embarrassed to admit how much (or how little) water I drink. My realistic goal to start out with is to drink two of my big tervis cups a day.  Realistic? Yes :) Gonna make me freezing cold? Yes :(

My weight loss journey has been slow.  I haven't lost as much as I thought I would've by the end of the year, but I'm doing it in a way I know I can stick with.  What good does it do to lose thirty pounds in the blink of an eye just to gain it all back just as quickly?

This year I'm commiting to my health.  I can do this.  I have done this. You can too!

Christmas Catch Up

Hi blog world!  Long time no talk, sorry bout that!  I'm back, thanks to my hubby who did surgery on my computer for me.  Baron got back into town on Wednesday night, just a few days before Christmas, and we had a wonderful first Christmas together.  We even got to Skype with both of our families for a little while on Christmas Day :)

Here's our Christmas season recap:

1) We drove through something called "The Galaxy of Lights" on Christmas night to see a great light display!

2) @ the Galaxy of Lights

3) On Christmas Eve we drove downtown to a Christmas Tree display, it wasn't as impressive as we expected, but we thought this tree was cute.  Notice the rocket?

4) We drove around on Christmas Eve and found a house with a light display synced to a radio station with Christmas music.  Disney makes us feel closer to home :)

1) What's Christmas without bright, red nail polish?!

2) Hot Chocolate...mmmm!

3) Puppies waiting for Santa

4) Lots of naps were taken :)  I think we slept for 2 hours on Christmas Eve. Oops!

The pups got a lot of cookies from Grandma and two Gator jerseys to wear for the bowl game! Go Gators!!

On Christmas Eve, Eve (you following?) we made Hot Chocolate in our Moose Cups and watched the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Hilarious!

And on a culinary note, we had pizza on Christmas Eve (kind of a tradition in my family) and I made stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer. They turned out great! Got the recipe from here: Stuffed Mushrooms.  Then I added some turkey bacon to the filling and slices of grape tomato on top. Yum!

I also wanted to make one of the traditional goodies for Baron that my mom used to make with us when we we little.  We used to always make "Rice Krispie Wreaths".  Except you use Corn Flakes.  Well I forgot the green food coloring and found that it was nearly impossible to shape the gooey mass of cornflakes and marshmellows so we just had Christmas Balls.  Wreaths are so yesterday.

On Christmas we decided to make Gnocchi together. Turned out great, took us about 2 hours to make which is nice because sometimes Christmas afternoon is kind of...boring...gasp!

On Monday (the day after Christmas) we woke up bright and early and headed to Target, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart for some after Christmas sales.  I wanted to pick up a few decorations that I'd had my eye on all through December.  We were lucky and I found everything I wanted for at least 50% off, woohoo!!  That afternoon we headed to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.  Baron was in heaven and I thought it was a lot more interesting than I expected ;)

And that's it folks, that's all the pictures I took.  Don't judge that the majority are from the iphone. I'm a bad blogger. 

Coming up this week on the blog:

- Talking about a vacation that's coming up...(I'll give you a clue, it's COLD there!)

- Sharing some fun Christmas gifts

- Getting back on track with Weight Watchers (cue scary music).

I hope you all are having a great *short* week back at work.  I'm still cleaning up from Christmas and today will start with laundry. Oh my word, the amount of laundry!!

Have a great last few days of 2011, kiss your husbands, and drink lots of water!

Cheers!

2011 Recap

What a year it has been!  2011 has been the happiest year of my life, I married my happily ever after!!  We've been through a lot of changes this year and we are both so excited to be ringing in 2012 here in Alabama, together!

Here's a recap of our year in pictures (mostly by iPhone).  Whew! I'm tired all over again!

January-

1st- Rang in 2011 watching fireworks in downtown Jacksonville with Baron and one of my best friends, Ashley.

Macey didn't like the fireworks :(

4th-  Baron popped the question (and I said YES!)

February-

14th- Macey Valentine turned 3!



April-

21st- My last day of work in Labor and Delivery.  Such a hard day for me, but I am so thankful for all of the experiences I had there!  After I got off in the morning I headed home (where Baron met me) and packed up all my belongings to move them into Baron's apartment in Gainesville.  Can you say tears?

23rd- Baron and I make a road trip to Alabama to explore and find a place for us to live.

25th- Baron's 28th Birthday!! A low key dinner celebration while we were apartment hunting.

26th- We signed the lease on our new apartment "home" in Alabama.  Whew, what a relief!!

27th- One of the worst outbreaks of tornados in years took place while we were "house hunting" in Alabama.  Spent a very scary day in our hotel lobby with no electricity and lots of nerves!

The weather before it got too crazy



Baron and I huddled up in the lobby of our hotel.  Tryin' to keep smiling!



29th- Made it home just in time for Baron to walk across the stage (with his PhD!!) in Aerospace Engineering! 

May-

5th- Headed to Charleston, South Carolina with two of my best friends for a little Bachelorette getaway!

21st- Our Wedding Day!!



22nd- Headed to Alaska for a blissful two week honeymoon with my love <3



June-

11th- My best friend got married in Jacksonville! Got to hang with my friends and family one last time before moving to Alabama.

My ''little'' brother ;)



I <3 my family

12th- We finished packing up Baron's apartment and started our trip to Alabama.  Goodbye Florida!!

13th- Finished our trek and made it to our new home.  The first day in our new apartment:

July-

3rd- We added a new addition to our family, Maximillian!

7th- My friend Ashley came for a visit!



18th- Started Weight Watchers...hellllllllllo healthy eating!!

28th- My Momma came to visit for a few days!

August-

26th- I turned 26 years young!  Another low-key celebration, man we're gettin' old!!

September-

11th- My best friend came for a quick visit and made a road trip all the way back to Florida with me!  I spent a week and a half in Florida with my family while Baron was in Maryland for work.  I got to see lots of friends and family but wasn't there long enough to see everyone.  Can't wait to go back!

October-

October was uneventful.  We continued house hunting, training Max, and trying to eat healthy.

November-

9th- We submitted an offer to build our dream home.

10th- Our offer was accepted and we are under contract!!

My future kitchen :)

Our empty lot

23rd- We met both of our families at a cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia for Thanksgiving.  Spent a wonderful few days together and had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner if I do say so myself.



December-

17th- Max graduated from Obedience Class! 

Pin says, "Recall Race Champion"   

And now here we are, about to celebrate our first Christmas and New Years together! Thanks for being so good to us, 2011!!

Broken Laptop

Hey y'all, I'm coming to you via my trusty iPad.

Why??

Well I may have broken both computers in my house. I plead innocent but I was, in fact, the last one to be using both computers when they stopped working. Oops!

So I'm not ignoring the good ol' blog just can't type much with the current options ;)

Hope to catch up soon!

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours!

We wish you the happiest of holidays and a 2012 full of blessings!

Share Your World Thursday!

Hey y'all!! Linking up with the beautiful Jessica for "Share Your World Thursday".  Come play along!

1. What is the best compliment you've ever received?

Someone once told me that they hope their daughters would grow up to be just like me.  I never said that the compliment was warranted ;) but it meant a lot to me.

2. SEAT BELT?

Always.

3. Fill in the blank.

You know your comfortable with your spouse when you _____________.

Aren't phased at all to bust out the ugly cry.

4. Someone gives you a gift wrapped in a 6 inch square box, what is it?

This is hard.  I don't know! Haha.

5. You are at Chic-fil-a, what do you order?

Depending on if it's diet cheat day or not.

Diet Cheat Day= Chicken Nuggets and Fries

Not Cheat Day= Grilled Chicken Sandwich & a Fruit Cup (wahhh wahhhhhhhhh.)

Dear Santa,

Can I borrow $800?  Or better yet, could you just drop this off under the tree, because I wouldn't be able to actually spend that money on a purse, but if it just appeared under the tree or on my doorstep, I definitely wouldn't turn it down.

The Louis Vuitton Speedy 35 in Damier Ebene...I want.

Thanks Santa, you've always been so understanding.  I've tried to be good all year, but keep in mind this has kind of been a crazy year for us! 

Finally 21

Good evening readers!  I writing you from my couch, snuggled up with my two pups, "Peppermint Snow" candle burning, tree lit, and having just hung up the phone talking to my two best friends at the same time. Sweet!

I went to a Weight Watchers meeting at a new location this morning.  This meeting was a lot closer to me and started earlier in the day which is nice because I can get my day started earlier who am I kidding, it's nice because I don't eat anything before I weigh in and I'm usually about to fall out so the earlier my weigh in is, the earlier I can finally cram some food in my mouth.

So the new meeting must've brought me some skinny vibes because I was down another 1.2 lbs! Yay, my total so far is 21 pounds.  I've kinda been up and down a lot the past few weeks because the holidays are screwing with me but I'm getting there!  If anything I know I'm doing better than I would be if I wasn't do something.  Wow, that makes NO sense, ha!  I just mean that I'm focusing on my eating habits and even if I only maintain my weight through the holidays I'm okay with that. 

Baron and I refer to life before Weight Watchers as us being fat and life now as us being skinny.  I hope we weren't really fat before we started eating healthier and I know we have a ways to go before we're actually skinny, but you get my drift.  It's just our thing.

So the other night we were laying in bed talking about our new house.  I told Baron how excited I felt when we signed the contract because I could really picture our kids running around and I could actually envision scenes from our future childrens' lives playing out in my head.  He reached over, grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes and asked, "Were we skinny?"

Bahahahaha!!

The end.

Pup for Rent

See this sweet girl here?

She is my heart <3

We've decided to rent her out, however, to pay for her new doggy food.  Rate is negotiable, but she is sure to be loved by you and your family!  A great companion, snuggler, and she snorts often. 

I mentioned Macey's struggle with allergies in this post.  We've had to go back for a few more steroid shots since I wrote that and they seem to be becoming less and less effective.  Not to mention, I don't think it's good for her to be on steriods for the rest of her life. 

I've been reading a lot about dogs (and Boston Terriers) with allergies and a lot of people have had success in switching their dog's food to something grain/gluten free and with limited ingredients.  We settled on this delicous choice:

  

It smells sooo bad.  Like I have to hold my breath whenever I feed Macey, but I'm willing to make some sacrifices if it helps her itchy little feet.  Not to mention the price of this pretty little bag.  Umm yeah, crazy.  She's now only getting grain-free, gluten-free, chicken-free treats (sorry Grandmas!).  Basically her treats are sweet potato and ______ (lamb, beef, duck, fish, yuck!)

Dogs are not liking the weather dipping down into the 20's (!!) at night! I finally found them some sweaters that are easy to put on and actually fit them snugly (<-- is that a word?) enough to keep them warm.  So what if we get made fun of on our walks?  It's gonna be a cold winter for us Florida peeps trying to figure out how to live in Alabama.

Hugs your dogs, pay your bills, and wear your seatbelt,

Much love-

Right now...

... I've got a few candles burning to totally make our home smell like Christmas!!  Oh and the green "Pine" candle is not the same one I mentioned the other day.  I could fill our whole apartment with Christmas tree flavored candles.  I love Wal-mart candles! Yes, you heard me right.  I can't stand shopping at Wal-mart but I made a trip today to pick up some holiday candles.  Y'all...they are 5 bucks and actually smell up your house!  No more spending crazy amounts of money on Yankee Candles, okay well maybe only sometimes.

        

...I've got a little bit of this in my coffee cup.  I'd never tried the International Delight brand before, usually just grab the Peppermint Mocha creamer from Coffeemate.  Lemmetellya, you're gonna need to seek this one out.  I almost put a straw in the bottle.  It is that good.  I'm gonna buy some to freeze because of course, it's only seasonal. Boo!



... I've got my volume turned all the way up on my Michael Buble (Holiday) Pandora station.  Ol' Frank is serenading me right now and I'm not sure this song could be done any better.  I just loooove Christmas music!

... I've got these babies baking in the oven.  I try really hard to be a good wife :)  I think I found the recipe on Pinterest, which linked me to this blog.  She's got several healthy recipes on her site, the ones I've made have all been good!  These Chicken & Cheese Shells are 9 Points Plus for 3 shells.

We had talked about going to see Breaking Dawn tonight but after a pretty crazy week we decided to have dinner at home and watch a redbox movie in our pj's instead.  Sounds good to me!  Hope everyone has a great weekend.