Santa Cruz Sept. 2009

Last weekend I went to Santa Cruz for a conference (an excuse to go party). It was beautiful. The boardwalk was fun.

I'm going to go back some day and take the train they have there and do some kayaking. The weather was perfect. Last year we went to San Francisco at the same time of year and I was cold most of the time. We stayed at a resort on the beach in Aptos. It was nice to have a kitchenette even if we didn't do any cooking. This resort even offered beach bon fire services. They'll set up a bon fire, provide the fixings for smores and then clean up for you. Pretty cool. One of the events for this conference was formal. I got to wear the dress I blogged about before.

It was nice to get away, meet new people and the drive back home down Hwy 1 was beautiful even if it was foggy a lot of the time.

Jonas' late birthday post

Catching up is hard work...

I've been meaning to blog about Jonas' birthday party that we had in July, but was overwhelmed by the amount of pictures. I had to figure out how to do the collage first. Much better. Just click on it to enlarge.

We had 2 ponies, carnival games with tickets and prizes, snow cones, corn dogs, corn on the cob, cup cakes in ice cream cones, watermelon, lemonade, a horse pinata and LOTS of FUN!

The Scripture Memorization Challenge

I've been regretful that I didn't take advantage of my time in early morning seminary class (scripture study class) when I was in high school. I went all four years but didn't graduate the program because I stopped participating my senior year. Even then I never memorized the Scripture Mastery scriptures. In hind sight I know I did myself a disservice. So I've been thinking about my disappointment and my lack of knowledge regarding the scriptures. Then this weekend I realized I could be regretful or I could do something about it. Hence the title of the blog: The (self inflicted) Scripture Memorization Challenge!

The challenge: Memorize 1 scripture mastery scripture per week. Blog about success (or lack there of). Invite others to the challenge (even if they only need a refresher). Pray about the challenge as it goes; pray for strength, understanding, and the truthfulness of each scripture.

There are 25 scriptures from the 4 books (Old & New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants). That is 100 in total. So yeah it might take two years, but if not now, when?! I'll do one from the Old T., New T., BOM, D&C, Old T. ...That way I work on verses from all books each month.

So here I go. I'm starting with: Moses 1:39 (Old T. / Pearl of Great Price) - Behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

I am officially challenging YOU to join the challenge: http://www.ldsscripturemastery.net/scriptures.html

"Search the scriptures — search the revelations which we publish and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you, and if you do it with an eye single to His glory nothing doubting, He will answer you by the power of His Holy Spirit. You will then know for yourselves and not for another." — Joseph Smith, Prophet

Progress - end o' week 18

Down 27 lbs in total. I haven't really set any goals about how much I want to loose, but for now I'm aiming for 50 lbs in total. That's only 23 more to go. Totally do-able.

Some things that help me:

1) A two point breakfast that I can do at work: I discovered Apple-Cinnamon herbal tea from Lipton.

It is yummy. I put a tea bag in my cup, fill it up to the top with hot water from the coffee machine, add a pack of Sweet'N Low, wait for the flavor to seep into the water. I enjoy half of the tea and then add a pack of Quaker's High Fiber Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal to the tea.

Then I have a flavorful, high fiber, breakfast right at my desk. Did I mention 10 grams of fiber and only 2 points?!? Anyway, it is my M-F staple, I do it at home sometimes, and it is an easy solution for traveling.

2) Fiber One Oats & Chocolate Chewy Bar. 9 grams of fiber and only 2 points!!! It is yummy like a little Quaker chocolate chip granola bar, but will actually do something to help fight the hunger.

3) Special K Protein Meal Bar. I love the Chocolate Peanut Butter one. 3 points, 5 grams of fiber and more fat then the other items I mentioned, but being able to eat something with peanut butter in it is totally worth it. Plus I've found that this one does fight the hunger and the sweet tooth.

4) Special K crackers. Different flavors which are all tasty. 2 points for 24 crackers. They are crispy like a chip. Satisfies the munchies.

Labor Day Weekend Adventures

On Saturday afternoon we had a baby shower for Heather. Karina and I were in charge of the food and Heather's mom, aunt, and grandma did the rest. It was a beautiful, but hot, day. She got some beautiful blankets and other items to help "feather" the nest.


After the shower we jumped in the pool for a few hours. We had been in the pool the night before and were anxious to get back in the cool water. I had to leave early to go home, shower, and meet up with a group to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Phil being directed by John Williams and doing only his music. They did scores from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Witches of Eastwick and more. It was a perfect night to be out in the open.

On Monday, Jonas and I slept in and then headed to Long Beach to use our passes to the Aquarium of the Pacific. We love it there and have made good use of our passes. We played for a couple of hours before it was time for lunch. We took the bridge across to the Pike and made it over to California Pizza Kitchen. We shared a pizza and the yummy split pea and barley soup out on the patio. A bus kept stopping right out front on the street every 10 minutes. I saw that it said "free service" and had seen it stop in front of the aquarium before. We decided to check it out. We rode it to Shoreline village (but we didn't get off) and another stop within the Pike. The bus had to stop for service so we got off and walked on the path next to the harbor back to the Aquarium. There are many boats there that offer different trips. Jonas pointed out that I said we'd do a boat cruise one day and why don't we do it now. So we did the 45 minute harbor cruise. It was beautiful and informative. After it was over we headed back to the aquarium for more fun.

Then, because that wasn't enough, we hit the Citadel Outlets (not in Long Beach) for an evening of shopping. We had fun there too and shared a caramel apple that was covered with mini reeses pieces instead of nuts. Yummy! On the way home we took Heather and Eric hot chocolate from Starbucks and checked out the work Eric had done on their shower. It was beautiful.

It was a really good weekend.

Progress - end o' week 17

I don't remember how much the loss was between week 15 and 17, but it was a loss. I'm down over 26 pounds in total. It feels good to loose, even if it is slowly. We're told that the slower you loose, the more likely you will keep it off.

I did horrrribly this last week. I had used all of my points by Thursday and then just stopped counting. That doesn't mean I made horrible decisions the rest of the week; I just wasn't holding myself accountable for them. On the bright side, I made it back to the gym on Friday and did 40 minutes on the elliptical without too much effort. I thought that I'd be dying since I hadn't been in 3 weeks.

I'm still motivated, still counting (at least M-F I am) and excited about my progress no matter how small. Yesterday I bought a dress that I had tried on 26 pounds ago that I didn't buy because I didn't feel comfortable sitting in it. This is NOT me, but this is the dress:

Jonas' first day

So I have so many things to blog about right now, but I'm going to focus on one thing...

My baby is a Kindergartener now!!!

No, his name isn't Austin...Jonas' name is on the other side. He was excited to see his name on a card with the alphabet and numbers to 20.


He doesn't need a backpack and uses this canvas bag to tote his things. His teacher said he had difficulty adjusting. I was surprised about that because he has done so well at pre-k. I bet he did better today. He did look happier and better prepared this morning: