Spring has Sprung

Oh spring how I've missed you... thank you for coming back into my life this year :)
I feel like I've been a bad blogger the last week in a half or so. Somehow my time gets taken away and I've forgotten to blog. Bad Emily. Tomorrow I will be doing a food update for sure! I have a few things to share, and one big thing I've never made tomorrow so hopefully it will be a good update!?

Sunday we went out to Fiesta Island with Ashley, Moose and Charlie (thank you for inviting us, the girls needed it!) for a few hours of play time. It was perfect timing since Saturday was pay day which meant we were in and out of the house all day shopping. Molly and Ellie hate those 2 day's of the month so we always try to do something just for them to get there energy out the day after pay day.

(I LOVE this jacket but it always make me look pregnant! At least I know I know I'll look cute preggers)

Today since Frank was home by 11:30 since he's going to be in a class for a few weeks (short days yay!) I said forget cleaning and baking lets go to Mission Trails! There was no way I was wasting such a beautiful day inside if I had the car to go somewhere. It was so peaceful when we go there. There were only a few people on the trail up to the old damn and a few cars passed by while walking. It was perfect.

We did a brisk walk there and then were going to run on the way back but as soon as I started to run I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. BAD! So instead I sped walked to the only porto potty on the trail which was over a mile away :( I felt much better after going to the bathroom, too bad I had burnt myself out just trying to get there. So we just did a slow walk back for the most part. Towards the end of the road it goes uphill to the beginning, Frank had decided to run with the dogs the rest of the way and I was just going to walk. I decided stop complaining and just DO IT! So I did. I ran up the hill and almost all the way to the car. I of course had to use Nick's technique of yelling at myself in my head to keep me motivated.

You may be wondering why I was so inclined to run? Maybe not just humor me. I decided I'm going to do a 1 month fitness test (I couldn't think of any better name) for myself. I'll be working on sit ups, push ups and running. I started this today and with the help of Frank showing me the proper ways I did 5 push ups and 20 sit ups military style. I'm hoping come April 12 I'll have good numbers and be in better shape after a year hiatus.

Wish me luck!!

Side Note: After uploading those pictures I realized they were from when we went to Fiesta Island on Friday. I'll post the pictures from our Sunday trip tomorrow. Sorry for the mistake.

umm umm good

I've never been a fan of winter, so moving to southern California was something I was excited about. So far i'm liking fall/winter for like... the first time ever! Even though it's not that cold I still like to do fall things, like making soup. Curling up with a nice bowl of soup {we still have no table :( } is comforting in a way. Maybe it's just me!?

I saw these potatoes on For the love of cooking a little while ago and have been dieing to try them! I love potatoes but hardley ever make them, so these were something I was looking forward to. What I love is that these are full of flavor.. good flavor not just covered in johnny's.

With the potatoes I decided to make the bean and bacon soup from For the love of cooking, but of course I didn't add in bacon. I try to add meat in for Frank if possible, but i'm really glad I didn't with this soup. The flavor alone in it was amazing. I did however, add in a little oregano and basil for a little extra something.

I'm not too sure if Frank even liked the soup because he only tasted it last night {he had to help our friend.. read below} and apparently didn't eat anything last night at work. Normally he tells me if he doesn't like something.. so i'm curious ha You can go here for the Hasselback Potatoes, and here for the bean and bacon soup.

Last week our friend Mikey was out and about when the battery in her husbands truck died. It wouldn't be much of a problem but her husband has been underway latley and she only has 2 people to call.. me being one of them. Thankfully for us Frank is home sleeping during the days, so we headed her way to help out if possible. Frank had asked a few questions about what happened so he knew what to bring {he brought his whole towl box ha}. She told him that there lights turn off automatically when you turn the truck off, so he decided to take the battery out of the truck. So to make a long story short, yesterday mikey and her husband went to get a new battery at autozone and the.. not so smart... employee tried to tell them it wasn't dead. I don't know much, or anything about cars but I knew there battery was dead! So last night in the dark frank changed out a few car battery's.. that's his kinda fun!
I just realized that whole story was probably pointless and boring ha.



OHHH I almost forgot to do a Nick update!
Monday's are his weigh in days, and yesterday he lost another 2.2 pounds.

He has 36.8 pounds to go till he gets to his goal weight...

And has lost 143 pounds since April 13!!

WAY TO GO NICK!! KEEP UP THE HARD WORK : )

5 pounds down and a doctors visit!

Today is Monday, meaning it's Nick update time ha! These pictures I used as recent are from last week and he's lost 5 pounds since then. He was pretty excited cause this was the first time he's worn jeans in years! And he now fits into his first pair of goal jeans that are a size 38. This last week he changed up his diet and saw a good result out of it with the 5 pound loss. WAY TO GO NICK!

In other news I finally had my appointment for my back. I was worried that I wasn't going to get much out of the visit and that I wasn't going to like the doctor.. yadda yadda. Anyways, I really liked the doctor so I will continue to see him while we are here in San Diego. I also figured out what is wrong, sciatic nerve. No this wasn't a suprise to me or anyone really, but I wasn't 100% sure since i'm not a doctor or anything. He actually told me I should start doing yoga to help [[my mom LOVED that! haha]] and gave me a packet of stretches to do and other info. My mom was hoping he would send me to physical therepy but it might be cause at the moment i'm doing okay with the pain. I'll go back in 2 months for a check up to see how i'm progressing and if nothing is happening then i'll ask to go to physcial therepy. One thing I really liked about him, is that he didn't push medications on me. I've been to doctors who would rather give me pills than lets say take yoga! So i'm pretty happy =)
Let's see... my ankle still hurts, but I just got to deal since tomorrow is PAYDAY!! And I have a million things to get done. YAY for having money to pay all the bills!!!!

Labor Day weekend

I hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend! Frank's cousin Ricky came down from Pendelton for the weekend, it was nice having him down for a few day. I told him he needs to come back down when we have money and can actually do something! ha The dogs and I haven't been out of the house in about a week in a half, so we were more than ready to get out. I had planned a full day for the dogs to be able to get all there energy out and get some excercise on Saturday, but it didn't turn out as planned. We were able to show Ricky Sunset Cliffs... I think he liked it? We did attened 2 BBQ's on Sunday and I got to meet some of the people Frank is in school with. The first BBQ we went to was out in JAMUL!! This guy has a huge house with a huge backyard, but there is no way I could live that far away from base. It's about 30-35 minutes away, and i'm sure more if there is traffic. After our first BBQ we made our way to Ashley and Tony's for our second feast =] So all in all it was an okay day. Tonight we went with Ashley, Tony and Ricky to see Inglorious Bastards [[we had free tickets from my mom =)]]. I knew it was going to be a gory movie.. which it was, but I was happy that it wasn't too bad. It was a great movie! Brad Pitt was hilarious, the acting was awesome from all the actors. I say it's a must see.

So for a Nick update.. I forgot to update last week because it seemed to slip past me. This last week he only lost .6 pounds which his is lowest week yet. He does know that the liquor he drank on Friday didn't help [[I say he deserved to have fun, he doesn't drink.. it's been I think over a year since he last drank??]] and he did add in more calories this week so his body still needs to get used to it. Seeing the .6 gave him more motivation to work out really hard today! If you want to follow his blog to see how he's doing you can check it out here.

NICK

I've decided that Monday's will be "Nick" days. For those of you who don't know Nick is a friend of mine from back home. 19 weeks ago he decided that NOW was when he was going to live his life the healthy way. He made his way to the gym for the very first time at 359.8 pounds [he said its okay to put it up, i'm hoping his story will helps other =)] and as of Monday he is 102 pounds lighter!!!!! If you watch the Biggest loser then you know who Jillian and Bob are, I call myself his Jillian through the internet ha I'm so happy for him and all he has acomplished in 19 weeks. He says he has about another 87 pounds to go till he gets to his goal weight, then it will be time to maintain for life. While Frank and I were home in July I went shopping with Nick and helped him pick out goal clothes. He just gave me an update earlier saying that he fits into the 38's [I believe that's the size] but they are still a bit tight. If anyone cares to follow Nick with his journey to a healthier life, or would like to pass his story along this is a link to his blog http://ndizzle2dafizzle.blogspot.com/

I thought I had a Before picture but I didn't so I used his "Before/After" picture for when he had lost 73 pounds for the BBQ while I was home. So the picture on the left his is actual Before.

And this is "After" losing 102 pounds!

Maintenance...

Just came and fixed the latch to our fence door, they even installed a lock for us. This was the first thing we had to have fixed and were very pleased with how fast they came out. The guy said he'd been working here 6 years and this was the first time something like this happened. Apparently the only thing that has happened is car windows being broken but nothing stolen from the car... weird ha in the month a half we've been here the stereo in Frank's truck was stolen (we didn't care to much about that so we didn't do anything) and now this. Somebody shady must have moved in around the same time as us... I have a feeling I know who it is, but of course I have no proof.


I would like to say on a happier note Nick is so close to the 100 pound mark!! I'm so happy for him and all he has overcome to get to this point. Keep it up Nick!!