My Journey to Better Health, Part 5

"VIGINTI, VEINTE, VENTI!!!"

I did not mean to abandon this series for so long! Some of you may have been wondering if I'm still keeping up with my health journey. Sorry to leave you all in the dark! We've been staying busy here finishing up the school year, having Gabriel's birthday party, took our first real family vacation, had all the kids sick with colds/sinus infection for a week and had Josh away for a week for fire training in Texas. So, not a lot of blogging time for me.
I've been doing really well at keeping up with my exercise routine of working out on my elliptical machine for 20 minutes every morning except Sundays and have only missed 1 or 2 days since getting the machine! I've also been trying to stay active throughout the rest of the day and going on walks or playing outside with the kids later in the day. Eating well is also going well, even while we were on vacation! Juicing has fallen by the wayside for a bit, but I'm hoping to get back into that soon.
I've had days where I felt like nothing was improving, no weight was being lost and just plain discouragement, but I pushed through it and kept working and am now starting to see the affects. I feel like I'm slimming down, but thanks to being a taller person haven't gone down in my clothing size yet. Finally yesterday, curiosity got to me and Elli and I walked over to the fitness center here and used their scale to check my weight... I lost TWENTY pounds! I can't believe it! I was expecting maybe 10, but not 20!

I have lost the equivalent of 2- 10 lb bags of potatoes!!!

I'm so thankful to all of you who encourage me and all of you are on similar health journeys, it's such a blessing to think of you all while I'm working towards my goals. Let's keep working hard!

Surprise!!!

This past Tuesday (May 29th) we all loaded up in the Durango and headed off for a drive. I had already packed for everyone and had it loaded up. The kids had no idea where we were going. They came to consensus that we must be going to Auntie Trish's and Uncle Ben's because we never go anywhere else. After we past the Auburn area, they decided we must be going to visit my sister Shandi.
Shandi lives right down the road from our destination, so I let them keep on thinking that until we surprised them with the real destination in the video below!

I love how Gabe is pretending to not be excited... LOL!

Here are some pictures of our fun time!

Joshua... He's getting all grown up & stuff... He needs to stop that!

Zaccheaus warming up in the kiddy pool

Elli getting sprayed at the Fort McKenzie part of the waterpark

She loved spraying everyone at the jet skis

Having fun at the kiddy slides

Shandi, Seaira, Sariah and Shanel(pictured above) came to play (a little fuzzy I know, but it was the best I got of her)

We watched the clocktower show each night we were there... The rhythm of nature song is now emblazoned into my memory and that's not a good thing. the show was filled with "lovely" lines like "trust the great wolfs howl" and "there's nothing to be scared of here, trust in Mother Nature"... Um, ya given the chance that great wolf would eat you and last time I checked nature cannot be trusted! ;-)

The story time afterwards was good though and the younger two enjoyed meeting the animal characters. On the first night Zaccheaus got all dressed up in his outfit just like the character Oliver, only to find out they just bring out one character each night and that night was Wiley's turn to be out for story time. The story reader lady noticed him all decked out in his Oliver garb, so she brought Oliver out for story time the second night we were there.

Zaccheaus and Oliver

Now Oliver being the mischievous raccoon that he is, sometimes is known to steal things... Like the story teller's book or a kids hat. Well, this evening Oliver was so excited that Zaccheaus dressed up just like him, he tried stealing Zaccheaus! He started walking off with him & Zaccheaus went right along with him... Of course they didn't go far and Oliver quickly returned my boy to me. 

Gabe joined us for story time on the second night and Oliver gave him nooggies to get him to smile for the camera. 

We all had a great time and the kids are all already ready to go back again!