Saturday, August 31, 2013

Family Update

Summer flew by entirely too fast!

Mike had the opportunity of a lifetime to go Alaskan fishing with some guys from the ward.  In preparation for the loads of fish they were expecting to bring back, they collected all kinds of Salmon recipes.  One the first day Mike's dad caught the first fish of the trip, Salmon of course.  Little did we (or they) know that it would be the only Salmon they would catch.  Mike himself was getting mighty discouraged that he had yet to catch any fish by the 4th day.  The night before the last fishing day, he told me that he had come to grips with the fact that he would come home fish-less.  However, on that last day, he caught two fish!  Yay!  We were so excited for him.  So they came home with loads of crab and a few fish.  Definitely enough to last a while.  They had a great time.

A week before Mike left for Alaska we had a milestone in the Emett house.  Little Mikey said his first word!  I had been working hard to ingrain "mama" and "dada" into his receptive and eventually expressive language so I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the first word.  Well, one morning while I was rocking and cuddling with him he pointed to something on the ground and said his very first word.  They say a baby's first word says a lot about their priorities and what they hold important, naturally I wanted to hear "mama" or "dada" but I cannot deny the word that came out of his mouth.  It was as clear as day, I couldn't interpret it any other way... as accurately as possible for a child, he pointed to something on the ground and said, "book".   Now, anyone who knows my husband, especially if you're friends with him on goodreads.com, will not be surprised and will know that little Mikey has surely been blessed with his daddy's love for books and reading.  I'm really proud of my little guy.

To make me even more proud... watch this video to see what he did, just the other night.  I had to catch it on video because Mike was at work and I wanted him to see it firsthand.





So as you can tell, little Michael has been busy reaching milestones, Mike has been working and got to have a little vacation, and I had a wonderful time with my little family over the Summer.  Now, it's over (bummer!).  I'm subbing (part-time) for another Speech Aide at a different school until November and my (online) classes started up on Monday (also part-time) so we're busy, but not too busy.  I know where my priorities lie, family is always #1.

Pretty soon Mike will be getting ready to take the GRE and we'll both be getting applications together for graduate schools.  So if you have any tips or tricks to either of these processes, we'd love to hear them!!!

P.S. brief weight-loss update.  I've lost 15 lbs, last week I started hitting the gym before going to work (this means waking up at 5:30am on those days) and I'm still keeping up with drinking 2 liters of water a day.  Things are going well!

Friday, August 2, 2013

Such a LOSER!

It's been a while since I've updated you on my weight-loss journey and I'll tell you why...FAILURE!  That's what it's been, a complete an utter failure.  I keep telling myself, "this time I'm changing for real!" and I work my butt off to lose 5 pounds. Then I get lax aaaaand gain it all back.  Just call me the yo-yo.  I have honestly lost and gained the same 5 pounds at least 12 times, that's enough to make a small person!  I could have been over half-way to my ultimate goal weight by now! 

So, here's the good news.  After having the time of my life on an Alaskan cruise (and gaining 8lbs of savory food and sweet dessert) I decided not to join any more weightloss groups.  Just me, on my own.  I realized that I have to do this for me, not for a money prize, or to be the #1 loser for 2 months only to take a week or two off before the next round and wreck all my hard work.  I have to do it for ME.
The results... I've lost 11 pounds since the cruise.  Whew!  Ten of those pounds were in the last two weeks.  (insert "Wow" and "You go girl!")  To be honest, I only consciously changed one thing about my lifestyle but it had kind of a domino effect.  My goal was to drink 4 liters of water a day.  As I did this, I noticed a lot less snacking, naturally wanting smaller portions, less of a desire for junk food (it helped that I put crystal light into 2 of the liters), and *TMI ALERT* more regularity, if you know what I mean.  It's been awesome! 
I look forward to keeping up with my water intake.  I want to focus on it hardcore so it's written on my bladder and then I'll add the next step EXERCISE!!!