The Nelson Narrative

So I started WW on Monday the 6th, and as of Thursday the 16th I was down 7 pounds.  7 pounds in 10 days--I think that  is a record for me.  Granted, when I weighed in on day 1 I had been eating horribly for several days (holiday weekend and all), and whenever I weigh after a stint of bad eating and then get back on track and re-weigh the next day, I will usually be down at least a full pound if not 2, 2.5. Nonetheless, I am pretty pleased so far, but tomorrow we head out on vacation so I hope I can stay motivated and on track.  It helps that we will be in a condo with a full kitchen and will eat a lot of our meals in.

The girls went to summer camp for the first time last week.  It was a YMCA camp.  I thought they'd love it, but unfortunately it didn't go that well. When I dropped them off Monday morning, I was informed that we still had some paperwork to fill out.  I thought Paul had taken care of all that but apparently not.  So I got it all filled out and finally left for work and all was well.  Then, instead of picking them up right away when he got home from work (he gets home around 3:40 and the bus was due back at the Y between 3:45 and 4:00), he left them there for awhile so he could do some things around the house.  We had paid for "wrap-around" care, thinking that we would need it a few of the days.  When he finally went to pick them up around 4:30 they were both crying.  I guess most of the other kids (maybe all of their fellow camp kids) were picked up right away and they were upset to be left there, even though there were activities and what-not. ...

So I've mentioned on here many times how I've struggled over the last several years with weight, specifically losing and regaining the same 3, 4, or 5, sometimes 8 or 10, pounds over and over. I've always shied away from any type of weight loss program, unable to justify spending money to lose weight when I know I'm perfectly capable of doing it on my own, but I seem to no longer have that capability. So I had been toying with the idea of joining Weight Watchers and then there was an announcement at work that they were starting a WW group at work! It was meant to be. The meetings are held at work every Monday during lunch, so I don't have to worry about trying to fit meetings into my schedule, and we get a discount.  So I bit the bullet and signed up.  I really hope the accountability and support this will provide will prove to be just what I need right now to be successful.  We'll see.  I will try to post weekly updates.     ...

May 13th was our 9th anniversary, and for Christmas my brother and sister-in-law gave us a certificate for a night at a hotel and offered to watch the girls whenever we decided to use it, so we went the weekend of the 16th/17th for our anniversary.  It was so nice.  We went to a hotel in a neighborhood of Bellingham called Fairhaven that is a popular tourist spot with lots of cute little shops, restaurants and bars. We arrived on Saturday afternoon around 3:30 or 4:00, got settled in our room and then went out exploring.  We walked around and checked out the shops and then stopped for Happy Hour at a restaurant.  We then had some time to kill before our dinner reservation at another restaurant so we went back to our hotel and sat out on their deck for a bit and then walked around some more. We went to dinner at a place with live music.  We were seated next to a fireplace with a good view of the band (jazz), but unfortunately the food was just ...

I need to catch the blog up on some recent happenings. First, back in April we got a pet hamster.  The girls named her "Hammie" (although Kayley insists it is spelled "Hamy").  She's super shy and timid and won't let us pet or hold her, though, so that's a little disappointing but it's still fun to watch her run in her wheel.  She also has one of those plastic balls that you can put her in and let her run all over the house. Second, Kayley finally lost one of her two front teeth. Third, the girls got their ears pierced.     Fourth, Kayley lost her other front tooth. Fifth, they graduated from Daisies to Brownie Girl Scouts. And lastly, they had their first Gymfest at their gymnastics studio last night and Olivia got a first place medal and Kayley got a second place medal (it was one of those events where everyone gets a medal of some sort).          

School is almost out and while I'm excited to no longer have to rush around every morning like a chicken with my head cut off in an attempt to get not only myself ready for work but both girls fed, ready for school and to the bus stop on time with all the proper homework/permission slips/lunches/projects and whatnot, I am also sad that they will have to spend all day every day with a babysitter (with a few exceptions, of course), awesome as she is.  It makes me sad that I won't be able to take them on outings to a lake or beach or berry picking or anything.  And the babysitter doesn't have her own car so she can't do those things with them either.  They will spend their summer playing in the backyard, at neighbors' and the park down the street. There's still weekends, of course, so we can do some of those things then but we'll have to put up with the crowds.  And they will have camps, one week of a Girl Scout camp and one week of a YMCA camp (just day camp...

Most of our Mother's Days are spent with Paul's parents or my mom, but this year his parents were (still are) on a cruise and we are seeing my mom this weekend, so it was just the 4 of us.   It started out great.  Olivia came in a woke me up (Paul was already long since up) to give me her present.  It was a little book they made in school called, "If You Give a Mom a Muffin" and of course it came with a muffin and coffee (a packet of instant coffee that Paul helped them make).  Kayley gave me the same thing, of course, except she ate the muffin herself on Friday, as per the story (the story had the mom discover at the end that her child had eaten her muffin).  They also had made me cards and it was all really great and special.   We had brunch reservations at 11:30 which would have meant that we could have gone to church at 9:30, but I didn't get up until 8:00 and by the time we did the gifts it was too late, so we skipped and took our time getting...