Temples

Happenings

I started to consistently blog about my weight-loss ups and downs.  I figured I wouldn't bog down this blog with all of it since this is our family blog.  If you want to see what I've been up to and how I am doing, you can now follow me - here - http://changing4alife.blogspot.com

I decided to wait a bit before I post some more Hawaii pics so instead I will post a little of what we've been up to!

Pinterest is my friend!  Especially for little girl hair-dos! 

Rysa's hair NEVER stays through church but this one actually did!  I was so proud of her for holding still - but a little more proud of me for actually pulling it off!

Don't Drink Your Calories

I NEVER drink soda.  When I say never, I really mean never.  I may have 1 soda ever 3 or 4 months, if that!  When we go out to restaraunts, we always get water.  Not because it's water I want, but water is FREE and with the FRUGAL husband I have, water it is!

This weekend we went to Logan (2 hour drive) to celebrate my sisters 30th birthday!  We threw her this little surprise party and went bowling.  There  was pizza, chips, and a whole lot of soda but no water in sight!

I was SO proud of myself.  I only had 2 slices of pizza.  I normally would have eaten about 4, sometimes 5 slices.  While eating the pizza I thought I was being good by only drinking half of a cup of root beer.

We then went bowling and they had code red.  Code Red is my ALL TIME favorite soda.  It's got such a yummy taste and gives me a boost of caffeine, I LOVE IT! It is my weakness for sure.  I got a 20 oz to share with my sister, but I'm pretty sure I drank most of it.

We then went to my mom's house.  She had made some yummy sloppy joes (I only ate 1), there was some yummy potato salad, the BEST potato salad made by my grandma, I only had 1/2 cup of that. But then there was root beer.  My 2nd greatest weakness in soda other than code red.

At the end of the night I entered all my information into myfitnesspal (friend me if you're on there) and I went over my calorie goal by 450 calories. Wanna know how many calories was in all the soda I drank?

463

I DRANK MY CALORIES -

I could have endulged in another sloppy joe instead of feeling hungry, had another slice of pizza, had some more of my grandma's salad.  I could have had some chocolate chip cookie or who knows what, but I DRANK MY CALORIES!

I was more upset over the fact that I drank my calories than the fact that I went over for 1 day!  DON'T DRINK YOUR CALORIES, it's not worth it and will leave you unsatisfied and craving more for days!

Heart Rate

I am trying to lose weight the right way. 

I would say trying my hardest, but I've had a bad weekend through Monday and it DEFINITELY was not trying my hardest!

I've been tracking my food, watching what I eat, changing routines, and working out nearly EVERY DAY for at least 60 minutes with little to no results. There must be some results I don't see because everyone tells me how great I look, and I feel great too!  Some days I feel as if they are saying I look great though because they know how hard I am trying and want to give encouragement, not because it's really true (but that's a post for another day!)

So, with nothing changing and no measurable results being found I decided to invest in a heart rate monitor.  I know that 98% of losing weight is the food you put into your body, but I was worried I wasn't getting my heart rate up for a long enough time period. I bought the Polar FT4.

I've only had it for one day and today was my first time using it.  So far I like it!

I used it in my kickboxing class this morning.  This class OBLITERATED me today! I LOVE it!

Anyway, back to the heart  rate monitor - Today my heart rate monitor said my average HR was 168, my maximum was 184, and the time in target heart rate zone was only 10 minutes. My target HR zone is 125-165.  So, I am putting this out there - what does this mean?  Is it bad that my HR is always above my zone?  Does it mean I am working harder but burning less calories?  I am so confused!  

On a good note, my resting heart rate this morning was 56 which is PRETTY awesome!

Here's to learning more about being healthy and doing it the right way!

Weight-loss and vacationing

One of my biggest fears of going on a 3 week vacation was gaining weight.  I knew we would be eating out nearly EVERY meal.  Not to mention the delicious Polynesian food they have there.  I was scared.  I didn't have access to any weights, a gym, and not a lot of time to exercise.

We had been there for 4 days when I found a scale to step up on.  It said 215.  I had gained 6 POUNDS in FOUR days.  It killed me!  I didn't think I had done that bad, but apparently I was WRONG!

I remember walking up to Cris and saying "I hope that scale is wrong because it says I am up 5 pounds" and he looked at me and said "it's actually right, it says the same weight for me as at home"

My hopes of a miscalculated scale were OVER!  I needed to change what I was eating, how active I was, and what I was doing and I needed to change it FAST!

I started to eat only half the rice and meat that was served, drink LOTS of water with each meal, and not snack as much on the beach.  I decided I would swim for 30 minutes while snorkeling each day.  It wasn't much, but it worked.  Especially when there was rough water, HOLY ARM WORKOUT!

At the end of the remaining 2 weeks I was back down to 211 and somehow by the time Thursday morning came and I went to the gym, I had gotten back down to 209, the exact weight I was when I left.  

THANK GOODNESS!

Now, I don't know so much about this birthday weekend for my Rysa girl and the 120 cake bites we have in our home because a snow storm prevented family from coming and having dinner with us!

Hawaii (part 1)

After my last blog post we started getting ready for a 3 week vacation to Hawaii.  THREE WEEKS!  Can you believe it?  We are one lucky family.  It wouldn't have been possible without an amazing family in Hawaii that let us stay with them for 19 days!  

How do you blog about a 19 day vacation?  Especially when blogger doesn't make it easy to post pictures!  While we were in Hawaii I updated facebook almost daily for the sake of my family to see what we were doing there.  Facebook makes photo sharing SO easy!  

BUT . . . 

 I hate facebook.  Some wouldn't believe it with how much I am on there, but I am trying and hope to be on it less and less each day.  Some days I wish I would have never discovered facebook and hulu.  Both bring so much strife into my life!

SO . . . 

I am going to work on updating this blog and using this to be what it is for and stop using facebook as much to share with family. 

SO HERE GOES - 

When looking for airfare, we quickly realized another way to get to Hawaii a lot cheaper was to fly 

out of Las Vegas.  Flights out of SLC were $600 but out of Las Vegas we were able to get them for under $400! 

So we did the thing any normal, insanely frugal person would do and left our home for a 5 hour drive to Las Vegas. We saved over $600 doing it this way (with the cost of gas and hotel).  I still wonder if it was worth it or not, but my frugal husband says it was, so I guess I will agree!

Our flight left Las Vegas at 6:00 AM.  I though, eh, that's not so bad, 7:00 Utah time, kids are usually awake byt then anyway.  Little did I realize we had to be there at 4:30 AM and that meant waking up at 4:00 AM and the excitement meant I actually woke up at 3:30 AM!  Needless to say, it was a VERY long day!  Hawaii is a 2 hour difference and we didn't get to bed that night til about 10:00 PM, it was NUTS!

I didn't really take pictures of our first day in Hawaii.  We flew in around Noon, went to the house we were staying to drop off our luggage, and then went and met Cris's Uncle and Grandma.  It was the kids' first time meeting them.  We then went out to eat at a cute little restaraunt called Ramen Ya.  IT was ONOS!

One awesome thing about getting there was we had rented a small car (again, to keep costs smaller).  I was regretting it but we were already paying $600 for the small car, a van would have been over $1000.  Cris left us at the airport and got the car.  When he came back he was in a black van.  When he went to pick up the car, they asked him how many were in his party and upgraded us to a van!  It was the BIGGEST blessing for us!

Our first stop was La Perouse Bay.  To get there you have to drive as far as the road will take you.  It's a cute little area.  It's pretty rocky but was suppose to be a good snokeling spot.  It wasn't that great with the kids.  Snorkeling proved to be difficult with the kids but we were able to see some pretty cool things.

At this stop we all were injured in some way.  Cayten stepped on a sea urchin.  Did you know if you  step on a sea urchin you are suppose to pee on it?  We didn't.  When we got back to the Bechert's (the family we were staying with) Uncle told us.  Since we didn't pee on it, he had to soak his foot in vinegar to kill the part that was still stuck in his heel. It took a while to heal but he is all good now. Rysa slipped on some rocks and cut up her legs pretty good and Cris scraped up his ankle.  I think Carsyn got hurt somehow but I can't remember now.

Top Left: Carsyn did NOT LIKE the water at first - Top Middle - Cris holding a super small black crap - Top Right - Carsyn's view - Bottom Left - Cris walking with Carsyn - Bottom Right Cayten and Rysa attempting snorkeling for the first time.

The kids found MANY creatures here.  Mostly were hermit crabs.  They found some super small ones and some big ones!

OH MAN! This is going to be so much harder than I thought to blog about our trip! This is only part of day 1!  How do you blog about big family trips?

8 YEARS!

Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary,

HaaaAAApy Anniversary!

Today Cris and I have been married for 8 mostly wonderful years! My goal in our marriage is to make sure the good days far surpass the bad days.  We all know there will be bad days, however, I want to focus on the good days!

I posted on FB how crazy it is to look back on my life.  9 years ago, before Cris and I started dating, I KNEW that I would never be married or have a family, I would become a doctor, and all would be well.  

At that time, I had gone on a total of 2 dates from 16-20 years old.  I had been forced to go on one of the dates and it was the worst date of my entire life!  I thought moving over to Logan and living the "single" life would change things but it didn't.  When it didn't, I knew I would be single forever!

Enter Cris into my life in March 2004.  He was friends with my roommate.  They hung out all the time so I got to know him as a friend.  I wanted something more.  I usually did.  Any time a guy gave me attention, I hoped they would ask me out on a date.  With Cris it never really happened that way.  We became friends, I wanted more, he said we were just friends, I accepted that.  Every now and then I would wish for more than just friends but room mates would ask him and he continued to say we were just friends.

This little scenario went on for 2 months.  School was over.  We were all going our separate ways.  I was going to Oregon for a few days.  Friends and Roomies were all moving back to SLC and Cris moving back to Ogden.  Surely, that would be it.  I knew we would probably fall apart and not really have much in common as we lived in different places, had different friends, etc.

Little did I know . . . when I got home from Oregon, Cris asked me to start dating him.  We went on our first official date in the beginning of May.  By September 6, 2004 we were engaged, and on January 7th 2005 we were married!

There are so many times I look at my life, my children, my husband, and my home and laugh just a little bit.  I never thought I'd be here in this place at this time.

My favorite quote is "if you wanna make God laugh, tell him YOUR plans for the future"

It is so true, you never know what your future will hold.  For me, I do know that my future will always include my wonderful forever husband and family, and that's all that matters!