Family Visits

Let me just tell you how wonderful it is to have family come and visit!!!!

Friday night Jackie's sister Mary and her youngest daughter Karmen arrived for an 11 day visit. We were extremely excited to have them come out and share our town with us. They arrived late Friday night and Saturday morning was the start of a pretty busy schedule (at least so far). Saturday Karmen and Mia (our other niece) went to a Jonas Brothers concert and were so excited about it that they couldn't sleep the night before. When we all caught up on Sunday about their experiences, they did not have enough good things to say about it.

Then Sunday afternoon, Mia tells us that she was able to get an invite for her and Karmen to be casted audience members for their 3D movie that they were shooting on Monday. The only hang up was they needed a chaperon to take them and be with them all day (11am-9pm). I was the lucky one chosen to go with them and I do have to admit I was a bit excited myself. Living in California all my life, I can't say that I have had that many opportunities for something like this.

So... yesterday I picked the girls up and we headed the the Honda Center in Orange at 10am for a day with the Jonas Brothers. The girls were so excited they just kept giggling. Once we were inside, they were assigned to the yellow group (which ended up being a not so bad group, but the girls will tell you it was the worst group to be in). After approximately 2 hours of waiting in lines, we were brought into the arena and the girls again had to wait to be called down as audience for some of the scenes in the movie. At one point they thought for sure they were not going to be picked to go down and they were just about in tears. Needless to say, they were eventually taken down and they were so close to the stage that the boys actually touched their hands!!! :) Once we finished with the taping portion of the movie, we were fed and asked to wait for a while longer.....Then the girls were taken down with all the kids that came for the day to the floor to watch the concert that the Jonas Brothers were doing that night. Mia and Karmen were up close to the stage most of the night and had a ton of fun from what I can tell. Mia made a cute comment that her life was now 95% complete. !!!

Here are a couple pictures from what I could see from the concert, but it was not nearly as good as the girls view!

This is of the boys up on platforms above the entire crowd. You can barely make them out!

This one is of the oldest brother Kevin coming down the stage with his arm up in the air.

This is a picture of the youngest brother Nick on the big screen they have up.

I figured I should probably give a description of what the pictures were so that you could kind of try to figure it out. :)

I am not quite sure that yesterday could be topped for Karmen, but I am hoping that the rest of Mary and Karmen's time will be as wonderful as the time so far.

Another Word About My Challenge

Okay, so over the course of the last few weeks, I realized that I do not need to post updates about my challenge so often. It has become very disheartening to see the very small results each week and I am sure for those that might be struggling like me, it would be discouraging for you as well to see that someone else might be having a hard time. So I have decided that I will not be posting updates on a weekly basis anymore and maybe not until I hit some sort of milestone on my journey! :)

My Challenge Update #2

It's sad for me to confess, but this past week was definitely not good for my goal of losing 20 pounds before Jackie and I head back to North Dakota. I gained 2 pounds back rather than losing any at all. I do have to say that it was almost worth it when I think about the fun that I had with my family over the 4th. My sister Megen, her husband and 4 girls plus my mom and Jackie and I celebrated the holiday together with lots of good picnic food and tons of fun.

This week I will be trying to make up for the fact that I gained weight rather than lost weight. I am going to be having Usana shakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as kick my butt into gear on my wonderful treadmill that I just had to have. I found a good exercise routine for runners that will help you go from the couch to a 5k in 9 weeks and I intended on being able to run the 5k by the end of the 9 weeks. I love to run and always have, but it's not like riding a bike. You have to rebuild the endurance and stamina that you used to have and it has taken me 2 weeks to realize that. Slow and steady wins the race, right???! :)

A True Blessing from God...

Many of you already know that Jackie and I have been working towards buying a house this year and one of our hold ups was that we were trying to sell the Jeep in order to put ourselves in a better position to buy. We put the Jeep up for sell in January and had no success for the longest time. A few calls here or there, but nothing seemed to be working out. We both had prayed about it constantly and knew that the Lord would make it sell when the time was right....

Well this past weekend, the time was right. We sold the Jeep and are now on our way to searching for a house to call home! The selling of the Jeep has been a true answer to our prayers and a huge blessing for our financial life! Praise Jesus!!! :)

A picture to remember our little Jeep!

My Challenge Update

It has now been a week since I starting working towards my goal of losing 20 pounds before we leave for North Dakota and I am happy to say that in one week I have already lost 4 pounds. I sure hope that I can keep it up until we leave and even do a bit better over the next 3 weeks because I really want to reach my goal! 

Our Day with Cole

Jackie and I were blessed to have the opportunity to have Cole this past Friday night until Saturday afternoon. When we went to pick him up Friday night, we both were surprised to find that the big kid standing in the driveway was Cole. He is getting so big!!! :) 

Cole had written himself a note that said, "Ask to go the driving range and then to the Army Navy Store." Needless to say, Saturday morning we headed over to the driving range to hit some golf balls and then over to the Army Navy Store before taking him home.

Jackie decided that she was going to be the photographer for the day and so all the pictures are of Cole and I. Thought I would share a few from that wonderful day!

Cole getting ready to hit the ball :)

Me giving Cole a few pointers from the very short time I took lessons.

Setting him up to "knock it out the park." :) As Cole puts it when he gets a good one!

Look at the form!!!!!

And just one of me using the beautiful clubs Glori gave me! Thanks Glori :)