Chubbiness Update!

Today I did a weigh in and I'm down a total of 15 pounds since the middle of January. I need to lose 7 more pounds by the middle of June to hit my goal of 1 pound per week. This last week I was sick and didn't work out but by limiting my caloric consumption to 1,510 calories/day I've been able to maintain my 1 pound/week goal. I actually just bought a pair of jeans one size down from my last ones which feels great! And my work pants which were a bit tight are now loose.

Hopefully by these lifestyle changes I can keep the weight off and actually continue to lose more. Just thought it was time for an update on me! Oh and for Colin - he's lost some weight too and has noticed a big difference in hitting in his softball games. I've noticed too!

Hooray!

Last night the puppy didn't pee or poop in her kennel! Yay! I took her out at 6 am before work and she peed. I came back inside to get ready and she pooped on the carpet! Oh well, it's a step in the right direction! Duke and the puppy play really great together. And I constantly have 2 tired dogs! Aside from being sick...life is good!

5 for 5!!!

Just for the record....

I'm 5 for 5 in guessing the gender of friends babies! 3 boys, 2 girls. And congrats to Tiffani who just found out today they are expecting the little boy they were hoping for! Yay! Can't wait to meet him!

A little bit of this....and that.

Below are a couple videos I took off my camera. Not very good quality but thought I'd post anyway. The puppy has finally figured out how to keep up with Duke. He likes to take the toy and shove it in her face to get her to play. Then he runs and she chases him all around the house and outside. It's pretty cute! We are crate training her which has been a huge challenge the last couple of nights! Both nights she pooped and stepped in it. Which called for a 6 am bath yesterday. Hopefully she will learn to hold it until we wake up! Her yelping was better last night than the first night but we decided she sounds like a cross between a monkey, seal and donkey getting their insides ripped out. HORRIBLE! It makes me wish I was deaf sometimes! She really doesn't bark but she snores really really loud all the time, and when she yawns, she lets out a loud noise.

I weighed her the other day and I think she weighs about 15 pounds. She's absolutely solid! Her legs are so thing and she's got a very round belly. She's definitely going to be bigger than Duke in a matter of weeks. He'll finally get a taste of his own medicine!!! :)

More pics...

Here are some more pictures I took today! Colin has decided that calling her Rissy might feel a little strange. So, we are thinking about Lola. We'll see how her personality pans out and name her accordingly. :) She's such a cutie! Her and Duke play a little and Duke isn't nearly as jealous as I thought he would be. I'm sure that will change though. I'm sure I'll have a thousand more pics to post later!

Our new furbaby!

Today Colin and I picked up our new Chocolate Lab! Her name for now is Rissy but we are thinking about changing it. We'll see! Duke seems to like the new puppy as long as the puppy knows he's the boss! Diesel sticks closely on top of a chair or couch to check her but isn't sure about her yet. Rissy is 9 1/2 weeks old. Her mom is medium sized and her dad is HUGE! So it will be interesting to see what she looks like when she's older. Here are some pics from my phone. I'll try and post more later!

Right after we bought her!

Drinking water. Notice how she's flopped over the chair!

Colin and the puppy

Allison and the puppy - asleep in her arms!

The fruit of our labor...

Today was the day Colin and I have waited for for a LONG time! Other than being exhausted by all the hard work, it was a really great day. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful and stayed around 60 degrees with full sunshine the whole day.

My parents came down Friday night and planned on helping us redo our yard along with Colin's parents and our friend Charlie on Saturday (today). We are SO thankful for all the help we got! THANKS guys! It definitely would have taken forever to do it alone. I guess that's what family is for! My parents were kind enough to give us their previous rota tiller and Colin's parents gave us some money to buy some more plants. We are so excited to get these gifts!

Colin and I had been working really hard to prep the yard by tearing out Rhodie's, arborvitae trees, replanting roses and daffodils in the back yard, and getting and spreading out dirt. By the time our parents and Charlie were ready to help us we were onto spreading manure all over the yard and evening out the dirt where the grass would be planted. It took us just about 5 hours to finish and was well worth it! Here are some pics of the finished product minus lots of plants and shrubs that I still have to buy.

This is back in November. Not a great pic but an idea of what it looked like before!

The dirt Colin and I spread on Friday before our parents came to help.

My dad trying to pull out a HUGE tree root with the truck. No luck.

We ended up having to just saw the root down so it didn't poke through the new lawn.

Finally done! Colin distributing the grass seed.

The finished product. Well, almost. We planted some grass along the walkway.

The boxwood shrubs we planted along the driveway.
We didn't have enough so we have to go get more tomorrow!

Look back soon! I'll post pics when we add more plants and the grass starts to come through. With the amount of manure we used, we should have one healthy lawn!

The amazing shrinking women!

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Food Diary

We've got a new bet going! Several chikas and I have decided to change our original bet. We all put in $50 and set a reasonable personal goal for ourselves to accomplish by June 15th. We are going to set up a trip to the casino for the weekend and use the $50 at that time. My goal is to lose 1 pound per week so 12 pounds altogether. I'm already down about 11 so that should be atainable. Whoever doesn't reach their goal has to give up their $50 to the group but can still go to the casino for a girls weekend. I think there are 5 of us altogether so it should be fun to get away and lose weight in the meantime.

I've got my ticker abover for a reminder to me!

It's Official!

Today we signed on our house and it became officially ours! We are very excited to be home owners and especially that we will NEVER have to pay rent and waste our money again!

We celebrated tonight by going to Colin's favorite local Chinese restaurant. (And it was REALLY good, and REALLY unhealthy!) At the end, we got our usual fortune cookie. Colin's said something about going to a sunny beach...I agree! Mine said, "You will be more successful in real estate than in stocks". How crazy is it that I got that fortune on the day we bought our house? C.R.E.E.P.Y!

A bare yard...

Colin and I have been desperately trying to make our yard look nice. We had many plants/trees that we didn't want but were perfectly good so we decided to try and sell them on Craigslist. We didn't think anyone wanted them but...who would have guessed...someone did. They even paid $40 for some Rhodies that really needed to go. The nice thing is, if we had someone come out to the house to excavate the it would have cost about $200. Instead, we made money! They even flipped a huge tire that was loaded with dirt for us so we didn't have to dig it out. Also, it turns out the guy who came to get them for his boss is a good friend of Colin's cousin.

8:00 am, getting 5 Rhodies pulled from the front yard.

One of two large Rhodies that were just using up space in the back yard.

After they were pulled, our backyard looks much bigger.

Bye Bye Rhodies, hello $40!

Keep On Truckin'!

I just went to the gym and ran 5k on the treadmill at a time of 32:30. Hopefully that will improve! But it is about 2 minutes faster than last time I did it about a month ago! I've lost a total of 11 pounds since the middle of January! My goal is to lose another 12 lbs by June 15th. Any tips out there? (Other than the obvious!?!)

Hail

Today Keana and I were playing Phase 10 and we heard something that sounded like really loud rain. We looked out the window and it was hailing super hard for about 10-15 minutes. This is what our yard looked like when it was still going strong! We had 2 more hail storms today but they didn't produce as much. The street was all covered in white and was really pretty. Of course it melted quickly.

Looks can be deceptive...

Today was so beautiful outside I just had to go out and do something. We had some big blocks that edged the sidewalk that needed to be pulled out. The problem was, they were about 4 inches into the dirt and had roots growing up into the holes which stuck them in the ground pretty good. It took me almost 2 hours to do, but finally got them all out! I also dug up a good amount of black plastic that was underneath the dirt. Looks really bad now, but this summer when I look back at these pics I won't recognize who's yard this was!

Also...

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY DAWN! Tonight we celebrated by having a party at Bailey's. Many friends and family showed up and everyone had a nice time! Next up...Ron in May and my mom's in July!

Look what we did today!

Colin and I busted down our Arborvitae trees! It opened up our whole yard and looks great! Or at least they will when the lady buying them picks them up! Yes I said buying, Craigslist is a wonderful thing! Here are a couple pics.

Here is the opened up front yard. No more trees blocking the way! The trees are currently chillin' on the front lawn.

From across the street. Too bad that truck was blocking the way! Before you could only see the garage section. Now you can actually see the house section!