Why Not Minot?

Here's why not... it's WEIRD up there!

Last Wednesday I flew up to North Dakota to spend some quality time with my cousin Jen, her husband Chris, and my precious God daughter Abby.

(For those of you who don't know, my cousin and I are 2 weeks apart and are like sisters. We grew up very close, spending as much of our free time as possible together. I am very blessed to have her in my life. :) )

The trip up to Minot wasn't too bad. I drove to Dallas on Tuesday evening because I was flying out of DFW because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than flying out of Houston and I'm glad I did because it gave me an opportunity to hang out with my friend from high school - Sally. Sally and I were SUPER best friends in high school, lost touch for a couple of years in college, but are doing a much better job keeping in touch these days. We didn't do much but watch Bride Wars and eat animal crackers, but it was a fun night just getting to hang out. She is an absolute SAINT for driving me to the airport - love you Sal! My flights (DFW - to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Minot) went off without a hitch (except for the strange stares I got from the Mennonite population in Minnesota) and I finally made it to Minot. I was SO happy to see my favorite cousin and my beautiful God daughter. Abby turned 2 on March 5th and is SUCH a smart little girl. I am so proud to be her "AnSah".

The reason for my trip was to celebrate Abby's birthday and boy did we ever. Anyone watch iCarly? Well it looked like iCarly threw up all in my cousins house (we went a little crazy with the decor), but it was absolutely great because Abby LOVES "iCarlysam". We had a blast opening gifts and eating cake and I was sad to leave my family, but not so sad to be leaving the weird, judgey, cold, boring, Great Plains. (Disclaimer: If you are from the Great Plains or Midwest, I am sorry, but I just don't care for that area of the country). Here are a few picture of the party:

Jen and I posing as Carly and Sam. If you don't watch this show, you really should. Just watch one episode - it's so cute and funny!

Me and the Birthday Girl who seemed quite distracted by 6,536,294 gifts she got.
For the story about the bandaid on her head, see below.

At least Abby can tell how much of a princess I am - she decided I needed not one, but TWO princess crowns! So cute!

Blowing out her big girl candles!

Decorations

So about that large bandaid on that pretty little girl's head: The night before I flew to N.D. Abby was running through the house and fell into the corner of a wall and split her forehead wide open. 6 stitches and a dented wall corner later (yes the corner - with the metal part!) she had this lovely bandage on the entire time I was there. Ohhhh kids.

My flights back were not bad at all except for the fact that I had only got 1.5 hours of sleep before getting on the plane. By the time I got to Dallas and drove back to Houston, I was basically a zombie. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to push through and finish that drive, but I made it thanks to my mom staying on the phone with me the entire way home. Love you Mom!!

And that.... was Spring Break 2010. Back to work (and now that I've finally finished this post that I started a week ago - I've already been back at work for a week!), but only 2.5 more months of school left!!!! WHOOO HOOO!!!

A new look for the blog and "off the wagon"....

So if you haven't noticed- the blog got a new look! I finally went to thecutestblogontheblock.com and sifted through hundreds of backgrounds before finding this one- which is perfect! It's supposedly a Christmas-y background, but I think it's cute for everyday. I was getting kind of bored with the 10 background offered by blogger so on to better and prettier things!

As you might have noticed, I haven't blogged about my weight loss in over a week and that's because I have kind of fallen off the wagon a bit. I still haven't had much bread per say, but I have been cheating with tortillas and tortilla chips a little. This weekend when Dad came in we were eating out so much that the temptation was just too much for me to handle and I gave in - boo! So yesterday morning I was back on the wagon and eating right again. The working out thing hasn't been what it should be and I haven't really ran or worked out since last Thursday -EEK! I am planning on going to the gym sometime today and getting my butt back in gear. I think I have worked really hard to lose the first five pounds, but it hasn't been enough and I need to work even harder to lose the 5-8 more lbs I want to lose. I keep telling myself with all of the time I am going to have that I should be doing 2-a-days (working out in the morning and again in the afternoon), but saying something and doing it are two very different things. Maybe I will work out today and then try two-a-days tomorrow? We'll see...

Today I have a lot of stuff on my agenda, but nothing really of consequence. I need to give Riley a B-A-T-H and clean around the house some more, but there's a ton of little things in between that I need to do as well. For some reason I am really missing my family right now and I'm not sure if it's that I have all of this time on my hands now or if I am not seeing them enough, but it sucks. All I want to do right now is hang out with my family, especially Jen, Chris, and Abby. I miss you guys SO much - you have no idea. I am very excited that Chris got promoted to Sergeant though and they will FINALLY be able to move in the next year or two. YAY!! Here's the little girl that I miss so much:


Okay well I'm off to do housework and run more errands!

Weight Loss Week 3, Happy Birthday to me, and more!

Birthday Flowers from Grayson and his mom- thanks guys!

Holy geez I can't believe it's only been a week since I last blogged- so much has happened! Last Wednesday was my birthday and although I didn't really have a very good day that day (except my kids all made me cards and one of them sent me flowers to work - so cute!), last weekend was amazing! On Friday I got off 2 hours early and headed up to Longview to hang with the fam and of course to see my beautiful cousin Jen and my adorable God daughter Abby. On Friday night Daddy and I went shopping for a while and then out to eat for my birthday at Red Lobster (we always go there because Casey doesn't eat seafood so that's the only time I get it!) and had a nice time hanging out and talking about everything that is going on in our lives right now. Being on the Atkin's diet has really changed my outlook on food and being healthy and I kind of feel like I've drank the Atkin's "kool-aid". I love talking to people about it and this weekend Daddy and my mom decided to do it and try to get healthy. It's such an easy diet because you can eat as much as you want as long as it's the right thing. My parents and my biggest problem with food is that we are always hungry or we just eat out of habit or boredom. With this diet we can still do that AND lose weight- it's perfect! Getting over not having carbs or sugar has been pretty tough for us, but it's so worth it. After eating and talking Daddy and I went to Wal Mart to get him stocked up on Atkin's approved food. On Saturday Daddy and I got up early and I made eggs and bacon for breakfast. We then went on a quest to find a suit for me to wear to my interview this week (oh yeah I forgot to mention that! I have an interview at Cy-Fair ISD on Wednesday, July 29th! YAY!!). So we went to Dillards, but before we went in I decided to peruse the sidewalk shoe sale. Boy am I glad I did! I found an ADORABLE pair of Coach wedge sneakers type shoes AND a pair of Cole Haan flats that are perfect for teaching BOTH FOR $9.99!! They were both originally $160-$175 each so that's over $300 in shoes for $20.00! That kind of thing NEVER happens to me! Aren't they cute??

After the initial excitement of finding awesome shoes IN MY SIZE for cheap we went on to find a suit. After trying on several not-so-great looking suits we finally settled on a grey Gianni Bini pant suit. It looks really great on and I'm super excited about my interview! Keep me in your prayers please!

Saturday afternoon Mom and I went shopping for my birthday gift - a new pair of running shoes. After getting my new iPhone I really wanted a pair of the Nike Plus shoes that have the thing in the bottom that tracks your workouts and runs. We found a really cute pair at Kohl's and I loooove them. My Pumas were getting a little worn out, plus Zach got a hold of them and chewed up the back quite a bit. I haven't gotten the chip to put in them yet, but that's the next step. At least they are comfortable!

Saturday evening Mr. Paul and Mom took me out to eat for my birthday at this AMAZING steakhouse out in the middle of nowhere- Avinger, Tx. It's called Five D Steakhouse and if you ever get a chance to eat there I highly recommend it. The steak was great and the restaurant was so cute! Apparently people drive from all around to eat there and I can see why - it was awesome! Here's me and Mom at the steakhouse:



After eating Mom and I headed to Kyle and Serina's wedding at The Reserve in Longview where my cousin Jen was a bridesmaid and my God daughter Abby was a flower girl. It was a very nice wedding but BOY was it hot! They apparently didn't open the place up early to turn the AC on so it was sweltering inside and out before and during the wedding and during most of the reception. Jen and Abby looked adorable as usual (except for those cowboy boots you had to wear Jen!) and the reception was fun. I cheated a little on the diet by having a tiny piece of grooms cake but it was DEFINITELY worth it! It was some variation of Black Forest cake and it was delicious! After the reception Jen and I and a bunch of people I hadn't seen since I was 12 years old went to McCann Street Grill to hang out. I found out that vodka has no carbs so my new drink of choice is a vodka w/ water. Not the most delicious thing, but at least it's healthy. Here are some pics from the wedding:

Kyle and his bride Serina

The beautiful Jen
Me and Abby in her flower girl tutu

On Sunday I got up and made Daddy breakfast and Mom came over early to join us. After that Mom and I went to get Jen and my Aunt Karen their birthday gifts and headed out to Meme and Papaw's to celebrate. It's so nice to get to go out there because before I went to college Jen and I were there on a weekly basis. Here's a picture of me and Meme and Papaw at the wedding:



After the party I headed home and so far this week has been pretty great! Monday was Superhero day so I put on some tights and a red tshirt and taped an "i" to the front of the shirt and I was "Mrs. Incredible" or "Elastigirl" not sure which one because I've never seen the movie, but it was better than wearing my Wonder Woman costume and getting weird looks at the library and other places I had to run errands to on my lunch break. Here's a picture of me and Maggie who dressed up as Violet, Lexie and Andrew who were Batman and Batgirl, and a group picture of all of us at Main Even bowling:



Yesterday I spent the entire evening working on my teaching portfolio and I think it looks pretty great. A big thank you goes out to Jennifer Mawer and Katie Freed for helping me so much with this! Also thanks to Daddy and Mom, to my friends at TWYLA for supporting me through all of this and of course thanks to Casey for supporting me through everything this past year. Love you all!

Okay and now for the weight loss:

I am feeling fantastic and have been getting up and running almost every morning at 5:30 or earlier. Riley has been coming with me and is really enjoying it (not to mention losing a pound or two himself!). I have lost about 8 inches overall and 5 lbs. Here are my measurements and pics:

Bust: 33"
Stomach: 32 1/2"
Waist: 26 1/4"
Hips: 37 1/4"
Right Thigh: 21 1/2"
Right Calf: 12 3/4"
Left Thigh: 21"
Left Calf: 12 1/2"
Right Upper Arm: 10"
Left Upper Arm: 10"

Weight: 122 lbs


Needless to say I am showing lots of improvement in endurance, overall shape, and feeling a lot better. Yay for getting in shape and having an interview this week!