Before and After

When I was a senior in high school I weighed 100 pounds. I ate whatever I wanted and didn't exercise. It was wonderful! Admittedly I was too skinny and when I slowly started to gain weight I welcomed it. When I got married at 24 I was still eating whatever I wanted, still didn't exercise and only weighed 125 pounds.

Getting married and turning 25 changed everything.

I continued to eat what I wanted and slowly I wanted more. I started gaining weight so I bought an elliptical machine so that I could work out. Meric wanted me to try weight lifting but heck I am a girl and no girl wants big muscles.

Then Meric and I moved to Texas and like they say... everything is bigger in Texas! My weight had jumped up to over 160. I was the girl who was always so skinny and then ALL of my bad habits caught up to me.

Over the next few years I tried many different things to lose weight. I tried counting calories. I went to the gym and wandered from machine to machine working out. Then one day Meric found a new diet and exercise plan. (It is called Body for Life and I highly recommend trying it out.) We changed how we ate and more importantly how much we ate. We started working out with a combination of cardio and weight training.

Pretty soon Meric started seeing results but mine came much slower. I lost 5-10 pounds over the next few months. But then life got in the way and we stopped following the plan and went back to our old habits. Time and time again we would start and stop and I would only ever lose 5-10 pounds only to gain it all back. Frustrating!

Then Meric deployed to Afghanistan. I decided that while he was gone I would finally get into shape. I wanted him to come home to a hot wife. The beginning of March 2012 I weighed myself and the scale stopped at 156. I started eating right and exercising. My sister, Kelli, was my workout buddy and we helped push each other. We did workout videos like P90X and went a month without sugar. In 2 months time I had only lost 5 pound.

I started to slack a little and came dangerously close to quitting once again. Then in May Kelli and I decided to do a 5K. I couldn't quit now because I had a race to complete. The longer I worked out the more the weight came off. I also added a bit of variety to my workouts. P90X, crossfit, weight lifting, running and yoga all became part of my workouts. (Side note to all the girls: Cardio is good but weight training is important too. Also muscles will burn calories for you while you are just sitting there!)

Over the summer another sister, Kenna, came to visit. The 3 of us continued to workout and to eat right. Well not 100% right, we did enjoy quite a few desserts. Also I learned to swim this summer. Swimming is really fun and a great workout.

In April 2012 Kelli and I went hiking and took some pictures. This past week we decided to go hiking again and try to recreate some of our pictures. Here are the results:



To date I have lost 25 pounds. I still have a few more pounds I would like to lose and a little more toning up to do but I am extremely happy with my results. The real trick to my weigh loss was sticking with it and not giving up.

Now I just have to keep it off!

August Rush

This summer has been a wild ride. Toward the beginning of August we packed up the trailer and moved. Same campground, different spot. The space we were in originally was fine but there wasn't much room around it and no shade. As soon as a better site opened up we jumped on the opportunity to move.

Our new campsite

We love our new site. There is space in front of the trailer to sit and a picnic table. It is next to trees so there is shade. We also have a fire ring so we can enjoy fires. The people who moved out of the site left a tomato plant that we have now taken over. I have really enjoyed the extra tomatoes and made salsa for the first time.

The bigger site really came in handy for the last week of August. Lissy and Tiffany came to visit for a week. Kenna has been visiting all summer but had to head back home so that she could start school. I thought it would be nice if she had someone to fly back home with and Tiffany and Lissy volunteered for the job.

Emmy and Lucy were really happy Tiffany and Lissy came to visit

 Now five sisters in my trailer could have been a recipe for disaster but it was a really great visit.

We visited a few of the local attractions.

Visiting Lincoln's boyhood home

Kelli is creepy

Tiffany frolicking through the field

We went hiking.

Kelli and the cave

My sister on the Ohio River

 Enjoyed the food at Jailhouse Pizza.

Tiffany in jail

 

Lissy in jail

We had a blast hanging out at the pool. 

The weather was perfect: hot but not too hot.

Playing in the pool

Goofing around

Cannonball queens

The only thing I would have changed about their visit is that I would have made it longer. It all went by way too fast.

'nuff said!

After Lissy, Tiffany and Kenna got on the plane to head home, Kelli and I found ourselves alone. It was really weird to go back to just the two of us after having Kenna visit for two months. We really had a great summer and I am sad to see it over and have Kenna leave us.

Now we are looking forward to fall and all the fun that brings.

Color Run Fun! ::by Kelli::

About a month ago I heard about a color run. All we knew about it was it's a 5k where people throw color at you while you run. It sounded like fun and we all wanted to do it. However with only a month left the price for admission had gone up. And being daughters of a Scotsman we didn't think the color run was worth the price. So we passed it off.

Then, with about a week to go until the run Mandy suggested we all volunteer instead. It's free, we don't actually have to run, we get a T-shirt, and (most important) we get to throw color at people.

Kenna and I were immediately on board with this idea. The instructions were to be at the Waterfront Park in Louisville at 6 am. Sound pretty reasonable right? Well Louisville is about an hour drive. Which meant we were up at 4:30am to get ready and head out so we could be on time. It was still dark when we arrived but lucky for us we found the sign-in station right away.

The woman assigned us to Color Station #3. We were handed yellow T-shirts with "The Color Run" on the front. Kenna and I were just excited not to have to wear pink shirts. While Kenna and I got the shirts Mandy got directions to our station from a couple who would be volunteering in the same station.

Us before the race started!

So following Mandy we walked up the street (avoiding the automatic sprinklers) toward the direction the couple had indicated. But as we walked we weren't seeing anything to indicated a Color Station. So we turned around and headed up another street. Again, we walked a little ways before deciding we weren't headed in the right direction. So we turned around again and headed up another street. By this time the sun was up, more people were filing in for the race, and we had already walked a 5K trying to find where we were suppose to be. Finally we found a lady with a map who showed us the race course.

From there we were able to find our station. The funny part? If we had continued walking down the first two streets both ways would have gotten us to where we needed to go. Oh well!

 

Kenna checking out one of our attractive group leaders. The other is in blue behind us.

Kenna's sad face after the guys leave.

(Also, Kenna and my relief of not wearing pink was reaffirmed when we arrived and discovered we'd be sharing that portion of the street with the pink group. A bunch of young teenagers who liked to 'woo' loudly at anything and everything and sing songs at the top of their lungs, before the race even started mind you. Dare I say they were annoying.)

After setting up barriers, flags, and laying out tarps on the grass we opened up one of the many large barrels of color. It's really just colored corn starch so they were big tubs of powder.

We filled mustard bottles full of the yellow powder and once the race began we squirted as many people passing by as possible.

All colorful!

It was a lot of fun for us and the racers. We came to realize why it's called 'the happiest 5k in the world'. For some reason its hard not to smile when getting sprayed in the face with colored powder.

We as the volunteers had fun too. Kenna had about five people stop to take pictures with her and a group of boys even stopped to 'serenade' her. The air was completely yellow and at some points we couldn't see the mob of racers until they were already through.

After the race (you can see pink in the background)

Clean up was easy and one of the staff said we'd done the fastest and best job she'd ever seen. We were out of there at 10.

All in all volunteering turned out to be much more fun than we'd ever thought. We would all do it again in a heart beat.  

How did I get to be this old?

I call this one 'And they were never seen again'

Last Thursday I turned 33. I don't really look forward to getting older but 33 ain't so bad. You're only as young as you feel anyway right?

With Meric out of town, he had ordered most of my presents online and had them shipped to me. I got boxes all week and he wouldn't let me open them until we talked on Wednesday. Wednesday night for me is Thursday morning (my birthday) for him. Typically we aren't able to talk to each other on Thursday nights for me because Meric has a committment most Friday mornings. By Wednesday all of my presents from Meric had come and all of the ones my mother sent had come, so I got to open all my presents while Skyping with Meric. My mom had gotten me books, car fresheners, hand soap, and some fun soap/loofa things. Kelli got me a Doctor Who shirt. Meric got me a couple Firefly shirts, pizza stones, a machette, and a yoga video. What can I say I am a spoiled girl and it doesn't end there.

My actual birthday started with Kelli taking the dogs out for me. Then she made breakfast for me. Mozzarella bites! (It is what I felt like having okay!?!) Next we headed to Bowling Green (about an hour south of us) for some fun. We went to Lost River Cave.

Dance floor in a cave. It use to be a night club.

 They have a little walking tour and then an underground boat tour.

Sitting on the boat

 The cave actually has a river running through it so instead of walking through the cave you get in a boat.

Inside the cave

It was really cool. There also were several hiking trails.

Kelli's happy face

A butterfly habitat.

 And 4 blue holes.

What are blue holes? Well the river that flows into the cave is mostly underground. In 4 spots the water is above ground and looks like little ponds. Because of the minerals in the water, the ponds are an opaque color. The white/gray color of these ponds reflects the blue sky giving the ponds a beautiful blue color.

After the Lost River Cave we went shopping and then to lunch. We ate at Smokey Bones, a restaurant I haven't been to since I lived in North Carolina. Kelli asked the waitress if they did anything special for birthdays and she said they give a us a piece of cake and icecream. When she brought it out it was the biggest "piece" of chocolate cake I had ever seen. It was really good as was the rest of our meal.

We then headed home and played Beatles Rockband and watched some Doctor Who. It was a really fun birthday. I wish Meric could have spent the day with me but Kelli and Kenna did a good job of making sure I had a good day.

Friday was not nearly as much fun. When I got braces one of the major things that needed to be done was getting rid of my baby tooth. My top right canine never came out when I was a child. It has never been an issue for me but the older you get the more it can cause problems and the harder it is to fix it. So Friday I offically lost my last baby tooth. I now have a hole where my baby tooth use to be and a gold chain coming out of it. The chain is attached to a bracket that is attached to my adult tooth. My orthodontist will slowly pull on that chain to get my adult tooth into place. I won't go into more detail than that or share any pictures because it is really gross. I just hope the tooth comes down like it is suppose to and that the braces thing gets easier after that.

Despite the dental work, it was a very fun week. I am a very blessed girl and am very loved. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and for making my birthday a good one!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

July has been a crazy, busy, hot, fun month. It all started when McKenna came to visit for the summer. Kentucky, along with most of the country, was experiencing a record breaking heat wave. Kenna has handled the heat well and I haven't heard a single complaint from her.

Even though she is only a junior Kenna wants to take some senior pictures while she is here.

For the 4th of July Kelli, Kenna and I went to a Louisville Bats baseball game. A minor league baseball game on the 4th has become a tradition for my family. I didn't tell Kenna where we were going and she was suprised when we pulled into the stadium parking lot.

Despite the heat and the Bats losing the game, we had a lot of fun. Also because of the holiday we were treated to a fireworks show after the game.

Since this is Kenna's first time in Kentucky, Kelli and I have been showing her some of our favorite spots. 

We have gone hiking a few times.

Visited Lincoln's birthplace.

Ate pizza in the old jailhouse.

Another thing we have done a lot this summer is swimming. Earlier the summer I learned to swim and Kenna wanted to learn when she got here too. At first she was a little nervous but she soon got comfortable as long as she could touch the bottom. After a couple days Kelli and I pressured her to jump in the deep end. She jumped a couple of times hanging on to the ladder. Finally we made her do it without hanging on. By the end of the day she was doing cannonballs in the middle of the deepend. We call her Cannonball Kenna now.

This past weekend was the campground pig roast/potluck. The campground provides smoked pork and everyone contributes a dish. It is really good and a good time to socialize. This year they also had skydivers and a fireworks show afterward.

(There was a burn ban in effect during the 4th of July so we couldn't do fireworks then.) It was a fun night and a good show.

We are only half way through Kenna's visit. We have had a lot of fun and have a lot more fun planned.

June Bugs

I was realizing the other day that I haven't updated my blog for a while. Now that I am really thinking about it I realize it is because I haven't done anything in June to blog about. May was a crazy busy fun month but June... kinda sucked.

June was hard for me. Meric has been gone for 3 months. Silly, naive me thought that the beginning of Meric's deployment would be the hardest. I figured after the first few months I would get use to it and it would get easier.

Boy was I wrong. As much as I missed Meric the first couple of months weren't that bad. He hadn't been gone very long, we talked on Skype all the time, and Kelli was here. Life was almost like a vacation I was taking with Kelli. We would go hiking and do fun things. I would take pictures and send them to Meric. I had a couple of rough days here and there but basically we were having fun.

But the longer Meric was gone, the more reality set in. THIS IS LIFE. I was having fun and doing all of these things and Meric wasn't here to be a part of it. Meric wasn't going to be here to be a part of it for quite a while.

Doing life without Meric here just felt wrong. How could I be having fun without him? How could I be living life without him? It really hit me hard after running my first 5K. That was a huge accomplishment for me and something Meric would have loved to do but he wasn't here. After that it was really hard for me to want to do anything.

Unfortunately there is nothing anyone can do to fix my problem. It is a mental block I have to work out for myself. After a couple of weeks in the slumps I started to pull myself out of it. It is still hard to be without my best friend and partner but I can't stop living life. I can't just stop and wait for Meric to come home.

I am very blessed though. I have good people around me that are keeping an eye out for me and checking to make sure I am okay. Also I don't know what I would do without Kelli. She helps me get out of the house and do things. And in about a week Kenna will be coming to join us. We have so much planned for her visit. It will be a fun summer... I just wish Meric was here too.

P.S. June wasn't a complete waste. Kelli started volunteering for the Red Cross at the hospital on Fort Knox. She helps out in the office and also in the lab. Yay for her, she gets to draw blood! I am learning to swim. I actually have caught on a lot quicker that I thought I would. Now I just have to get more confident and skilled. So I guess June didn't totally suck.

Throo the Zoo

On Saturday Kelli and I completed our first 5K. We are both trying to get into shape and know that running is a good way to accomplish that. Of course neither of us really like running so we needed some motivation to get us started. When we heard about this 5K we figured it was a great place to start. A 5K is just over 3 miles, so not super long, and this one is called Throo the Zoo. Why? Because you literally run through the Louisville Zoo. What could be more fun than that?

To prepare Kelli and I started running about two weeks before the race. (Really we should have started a LOT sooner.) It quickly became apparent to me that I am not good at running and that there was no way I would be able to run the entire 5K. I have a runner's watch which helps me know how far I am running, what my pace is, how long it takes me to go a certain distance etc. It really comes in handy while training. I have my watch set to beep every 1/4 of a mile and usually by a 1/2 mile Kelli and I need a break and start walking. We kept training and improved a little but still couldn't come close to running all that way. Also to prepare Kelli and I went shopping! We had to get cute outfits to run in, after all we are girls.

The day before the race we headed up to Louisville to pick up our race packets and t-shirts. The t-shirts had an image of a giraffe on them and since Kelli really loves giraffes it was another reason to do this 5K. While in Louisville, we also drove by the zoo just to get our bearing as to where we need to be the next morning.

Kelli and I before the race.

The next morning started early for us. I wanted to be at the zoo by 7 am so that we could easily park and be ready for the race at 8 am. Definitely my father's daughter wanting to be an hour early! We got great parking and were more than ready to go by 8am. I made sure I had brought my watch and set is for the 5K distance. When the race started Kelli and I kept a good pace as we weaved our way through the starting crowd. By the time we hit a 1/2 mile we both are amazed at how good we feel and don't need to walk. When we reached the 1 mile mark we are still keeping our pace and feel good. At the 2 mile mark we have the definite goal to run the entire course. With only 2/3 a mile left we hit a long up hill stretch. I really wanted to give up and start walking. I kept pushing myself and soon we were up the hill. With only 200 yards left Kelli's shoe came untied but still there was no way we were going to stop. We finished the course in 34 minutes and 20 seconds and we ran the entire way! Kelli and I were surprised and extremely proud of our accomplishment. 

 After the race there were tables set up that had food, protein bars, bananas, water and sports drinks. We sat in the grass eating and enjoying our victory. I was glad for the bananas because my new braces still make it hard to eat. Along with the 5K, food, and t-shirts we are allowed free access to the zoo for the day. Kelli and I spent the next few hours wandering the zoo. After a while our sore feet caught up with us and we headed home.

Giraffes, Kelli's favorite

Rhinos

Elephants

Lions

Tigers

Under water polar bear, oh my!

For our first 5K I think we did awesome. We surprised ourselves and pushed ourselves to new limits. Throo the Zoo was definitely worth every penny and if I am still in Kentucky next year I want to do it again. Of course next year I will train better so I can keep up with Meric.

Kelli the gorilla!