friday flashback 01.29.10 -birthday edition

It was a pretty easy decision for today's flashback photo. My dad had his birthday this week, and since I didn't have the time to put together a birthday post, I knew I'd find a good flashback photo of him for today...

On the back of the photo it says, "January 27, 1982". That was 28 years ago. I was 9 when this picture was taken. I'm pretty sure that makes dad 32 on this birthday? Mom would have been pregnant with Kim at the time.

To put that into perspective, as far as my family goes, Kyle will turn 32 this year. So Kyle is basically the same age as dad was in this picture.

Obviously this is pre-cancer surgery because dad is rocking the 'stache. Other than that, dad still looks basically the same today. The hair may be a thinner and grayer, but it's still all combed back.

Here's my birthday post for dad from last year if you want a little more virtual time travel.

Happy birthday dad. Hope you had a fun day.

upgrade

I finally broke down and purchased a new digital scale. The old dial scale was just too inaccurate and jumpy. The digital scale measures tenths of pounds, in increments of .2. That means the tenths will always be in even numbers.

This week had a lot of "cheats". I had a coupon for a free taco from Del Taco, with any purchase. I purchased a "macho" taco, and got my "classic" taco for free. I was pretty darn hungry, and running errands, so I ate the classic taco with the shell to hold me over till I got home to eat the macho taco without the shell. I didn't know the macho taco had sour scream... but it was sure good.

There was a District Scout recognition dinner on Saturday. I was asked to present an award, so that meant going to the dinner. I ate the garlic mashed potatoes, and rolls with my roast beef and veggies. Also ate the apple cobbler and ice cream.

Our good friends in the ward invited us over after church to hang out and have dinner at their house, but Tegan had just gone down for a nap. So we invited them to come to our house instead. The only cheats I had were eating the spinach-artichoke dip with bread and/or tortilla chips, and the lemon squares we made.

Had a little bit of ice cream at FHE. Plus I probably had other small infractions over the week. But they do add up in the long run.

Other than that, I think I did pretty good about keeping with my diet.

I walked on the treadmill twice since last tuesday. That's pretty ok, but 3 would be better. I also need to start working with my weights as well. Even if I can't go "heavy", something would be better than nothing. I'm not interested in losing muscle, so I need to work them out. Plus, muscle is the only thing that burns calories, so they should be maintained.

I weighed 223.4 this morning. That's only 1.6 pounds lost this week. A total of 11.6 pounds lost. By the way, I eluded to not being satisfied with only losing 3 pounds. After thinking about it, 3 pounds is about right on, for my goals. If I lost 3 lbs. a week, that's 12 lbs. a month. I'd be at my goal weight in about five months. So 3 pounds a week is fine with me (of course that's easily said after only losing half of that this week). Just so long as I'm not adding any weight, I'll be happy.

monday music 01.25.10

I was trying to think of something fun and upbeat for today's music... I think I found just what I wanted...




I believe the poster of this video on youtube says this came out in 1988. That's only like 22 years ago.

I remember some of my friends really liking Voice of the Beehive. I remember liking them for the most part, but my tastes were a little darker.

When I hear that song, in my head, a lot of different movies seem to fight over who's going to get remembered. (Does that make sense?) Meaning, I'm pretty sure this song has been in a lot of movies.

Anyhow, that's my pick. Any thought?

friday flashback 01.22.10

Kind of late to be posting, but better late than never...

The date I have for this picture is 4/22/07. That makes Jennan about 19 months old here. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but Jennan's getting so big.

She's a cutey face!

that's it?

So I weighed myself this morning, and I lost 3 more pounds. That puts me at 225, with a total loss of 10 pounds thus far. I was hoping for more, but 10 lbs. in two weeks isn't that bad I guess. Still not feeling any slimmer.

This week there wasn't any "new" dinners I can think of. Just more of the same.

BUT...

Carl's Jr. continues to score high in our book. You can ask for any of the burgers to be "lettuce-wrapped" when you order. Taking away the bun takes away a lot of the extra carbs and calories. Also, if you're getting a combo meal, you can replace the fries with a salad. Sometimes that might add about 40 cents, but that's not a big deal. Anna and I both has Super Star combos this week- lettuce wrapped, with salad instead of fries. SO GOOD!

In contrast, we had some coupons for Burger King. Guess what? "Lettuce-wrapped" is not an option at Burger King. (Anna was very surprised at that-I figured they didn't.) So we just had them without the buns. So NOT comparable to Carl's Jr. They even excluded some condiments and onion on our bunless burgers. Way less satisfying. Not cool Burger King... not cool.

Also this week, I had a big cheat night. Our youth did temple baptisms, and afterwards, the bishop took the young men out for ice cream. Before I got a chance to mention anything, the Bishop had already paid for everyone to have double scoops... who am I to deny someone the chance to bestow the gift of ice cream on me? Plus, Anna always says, "You can't pass up free food!" So I had a double scoop of ice cream this week... and it was soooooo good.

Ok, so maybe I shouldn't be that surprised at only losing 3 pounds after all.

monday music 01.18.10

Today we observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Having Anna home today because of the holiday was a BIG blessing. Jennan and Tegan have been sick since early Sunday morning, and Anna's been awesome at taking care of them. It freed me up to work on some scouting stuff, and I got more of it done because I didn't have to take as much time taking care of sick girls.

Here's an appropriate song to go along with the holiday-

friday flashback 01.15.10

The back of this picture has the stamped date of "Dec/12/99". The birthday sign in the background is for Kelly's 16th birthday, so this was probably taken between Nov. 18 and Dec. 12., 1999.

There's a few things that stand out in this picture. First there's Anna, hubba-hubba. Second, Kristi's hair. Not that she doesn't have her dreads so much as how she has it there. Then there's Kyle as a skinny bones jones. That's Nick on Lisa's lap. I think he's a junior or senior in HS these days. The tower of "stuff" holding Kelly's birthday sign is no longer there. Looks like food must be in the immediate future.

I guess this one stood out to me this week because of how different most things in this picture are compared to now. But I guess we'll look back 11 years from now, and think the same thing about pictures taken today.

Happy Friday.

it was snow fun

This is a bit late to the blog, but better late than never. Plus it was pretty darn fun.

On Dec. 28, we drove up to the McAlister's cabin in Wrightwood with Kevin and Dawn and kids. On the way up, there was hardly any snow, even when we got near Mt. High. They make their own snow, and that was just about the only snow we saw until we made the turn that leads up to the cabin. Then there was some snow still on the ground. Luckily, where the cabin sits, there was plenty of slightly compacted snow. We were even able to drive in from the street, instead of leave the vans on the street. It was pretty cold that day. It seemed pretty close to 32-34 for most of the time we were there.

We got in, got the kids ready to play outside, started a fire in the cabin's fireplace, turned on the water (which had some issues that day, but we made due), and started having fun. Anna got the snow "toys" out, and...

We all began sliding down the hill.


Daddy and Tegan on the toboggan.

Jennan just got done with a slide.

Kevin, Ethan, and Aidan tuned around by the time they stopped.

Duncan sliding in a disc.

This is the view from the "top" of the hill, where we start sliding down. It's not very steep, so it's not a hard little walk.

Tegan in her favorite spot on the toboggan, and getting a free ride up the hill too. By the end of the day, she was walking up the hill with no problem.

Ethan getting a tow up the hill too, via mommy power.

Daddy and Jennan on a snow "boogie" board. I think we ended up in a bush during this ride.

Kevin and Dawn and kids.

Us. I think the two family shots were taken right before we headed in for lunch. So we did some more sliding afterward.

From the "top" you would normally stop sliding at about the driveway, because it's a long flat spot. But just on the other side of the driveway it slopes down. Every once in a while, you'd have enough momentum to get across the driveway, and go right down the other side to the next cabin's driveway. There also just so happened to be a small "ramp" down the second slope. The kids started just sliding from the driveway and over the ramp. There's Aidan just as he's going over the ramp.

Anna and the girls heading over the second slope. I don't remember if they started from the driveway or the top. That toboggan got the best distance of anything else we were riding, so it was really easy to go down both declines.

Hunter in mid-flight!

Hunter on his belly.

Here's Liam on the "snow go", which is what it says on it. Liam was a master at riding this thing. In the past, no one's been able to control it, but Liam figured it out. He could make turns, and avoid trees and bushes. He would go down pretty darn fast, but always kept his cool. He easily could go down both declines and even went past the cabin below us a few times. He had some long runs. Some of the other boys tried too, but none of them could do it like Liam could. Anna thinks he'll be good at snowboarding. Once, (by accident) he caught the ramp on the way down. He wasn't ready for that, and it "bucked" him off, and he landed pretty hard on the seat. I told him I thought it was awesome.

Near the end of the day, as we're all winding up our rides and just about to head inside to warm up and get ready to go, Liam remembers he hadn't made a snow angel yet...

And there's Tegan doing her one too.

It was a very fun day. The kids had a blast.

the goings on

There's been a lot of things going on that I just haven't had time to put up here, so here are some of those things...


On Jan. 1, 2010, all the cousins were able to get together and do their gift exchange. We waited till then because that's when Carter would be here, and make the gathering complete. Getting all the cousins in this shot was a pretty large task, so getting them to all look at the camera wasn't that important. Still a fun shot though.


Just so happened that all the brothers were together on Jan. 1st, too. We're not only in order from oldest to youngest, but also shortest to tallest. And it's not fair that the other three get an elbow to block the sizes of their guts, and I don't! (I'm working on that.)

We recently signed some of the kids up in a bowling league. We decided that it would be a good social activity for them, and they seem to really like it. Here's Jennan with her two handed drop-toss roll.

Liam can hold on to the ball with the finger holes, and in this picture, it looks like he's got good technique, but if those rails weren't up, it would be a gutter ball every time. But he loves it.

Duncan is in a slightly older group, and they don't use rails. He's been struggling to figure out how to be consistent, and keep the ball in the lane, but he is getting better. They've bowled twice so far. The league goes till April sometime.

We took a trip out to Pasadena to see the floats, and visit the traveling BSA Adventure Base. Boy, was it crowded! Here we took the opportunity to get a shot with the BSA's float.

We recently went to Disneyland for an evening. Kim, Luis, and Isaac met us out there. It was good to hang out with them there. I think Duncan and Liam liked having other people to go on rides with- especially uncle Luis. I forgot to bring the boys' jackets, so we put their fleece pajama tops on underneath their shirts.

Duncan went to his first cub scout meeting this week. He was pretty excited. He said he even told friends at school he was going to scouts. Here he is in his uniform (not that great of a shot of it though), giving the cub scout sign. He had a great time.

So yeah, that's some of the fun stuff we've done in the past few weeks. A busy life is a productive life, and we're doing our best to keep it fun. So far, so good.

weighing in

I think I'm adjusting alright to my new eating habits. It's certainly not always fun. The hardest part is trying to not think about what I feel I'm missing, but change it to challenging myself to think of something new to eat that fits my diet plan.

Two things I thought of this week were taco salad, and Philly cheese steak. We're doing low carb eating, so that meant no tortilla for the taco salad, but seasoned ground beef, cheese, plenty of lettuce, and some "light avocado ranch" dressing (it's zesty like guacamole), turned out to be really good. I think I'll pick up some olives to chop into it for next time, too. But it was quite good. Then for the cheese steaks, we just had them bun-less. Picked up some packs of Steak-umms (buy 1 get 1 free at the store last week), a green bell pepper, an onion, and cheese. Sauteed up the pepper and onion, cooked up some of the meat, piled the veggies on the meat in individual servings, then melted cheese over the top... so good.

So yeah, I think keeping everything very flavorful will be a big help in being "good". In all truth, there were times I ate carbs this week too. I took the scouts to a merit badge fair in our district, and I bought donuts for the scouts that showed up, and I ate some too. We had some friends over, made cookies while they were visiting, and I had a cookie. I did only have one instead of a handful (Anna's fault...thanks?), and that was probably a good thing (doesn't mean I didn't want more though).

Because of all that, and not seeing a difference in the mirror yet, I thought I hadn't lost anything this week, but I got on the scale this morning, and weighed about 228. That's 7 pounds less than last week. So that's pretty good. Seeing the success will help to keep me going.

Have a good week.

monday music 01.11.10

For months, when ever I would see a Cadillac commercial, the song they used made my ears smile, and it's so frustrating, because there are no credits for a commercial, so you have no idea where the music comes from. Or even if the music is original to the commercial, or from an actual band.

I tried searching what I thought were the words of the part of the song on the commercial, but that didn't get me anywhere.

Then I started hearing the song from the commercial on the radio, and I swear, every time I heard it, and waited for it to end, the dj never said what the artist and title was. Drove me crazy.

Finally, the other day, the song was playing (I also always seemed to catch it in the middle of the song, so I never heard an intro.), I turned up the radio, so if the dj mentions the artist and title I'd be able to catch it... lo' and behold, the dj said it was "1901" by Phoenix.

**sigh** Relief.

Here it is:




Bonus Music:
I still can't decide if I like this next song or not. I like the video for the most part, and that's warming me over. The song is "cousins" by Vampire Weekend-

Not at all the type of music I would expect to hear from a band named Vampire Weekend, but I didn't figure that vampires sparkled in the sun either...

Anyhow, any thought on either? Do share...

friday flashback 01.08.10

Wow, it's been a few weeks since I was last able to put up a friday flashback. But now that things have gotten back to "normal", I can resume these fun little trips down memory lane.

There's actually 2 pictures this week...

Snowboarding in Big Bear! Back in the day, we would go to "Ski-Dazzle", and get free lift passes for Big Bear. Both pictures are from the same trip.


I'm pretty sure this first picture should have been second. Judging by the snow still stuck on the boards, we're done for the day. I can't quite put my finger on what year this might be... 98? 99? or am I way off? It's after Kevin's mission but before Kyle's? Anyhow, check out Claron's old school board.



That means that this picture was taken before we got on the snow. The DX pose Kristi and I are flashing indicates that we were excited and full of energy. We look awfully dry, too. I'm guessing that those of us in this picture probably drove together, and the others met us up there? Or did we all go together, and Claron and Jason just weren't in this shot? (Anna's taking the picture- but then who took our picture in the other shot?)

So yeah, these are from our early days snowboarding. Eventually we got our own gear. It's been a looooong time since I've been snowboarding. It was always a good time. Kevin and I went together the most, and there are certain CDs that we would listen too, and to this day, when I hear those songs, it takes me back to those drives up and home from Big Bear.

That reminds me, I have pictures from our trip to the cabin a couple weeks ago that I haven't put up here yet. There was enough snow to sled and slide on. The kids had a blast. I'll try to remember to put those up sometime soon.

It's Official...

I've started a weight loss program. What's the program?... Eat what Anna eats. It's working for her, so now I'm getting on the wagon. Wish I had a lump sum of money waiting for me at the "end", too. But I don't.

I do, however, have a 20 year high school reunion in August, I'd rather be slimmer for, so that should keep me on track. (I hope.)

My starting weight is about 235 lbs. (though our scale says 225, but it's about 10 lbs. on the light side.)

My goal weight is 185. I can't imagine being lighter than that, even though most height and weight charts would say that someone that's 5'6" should be between 155 and 170. I'd like to lose at least 40 lbs. by the time of the reunion. That would put me at about 195.

They say goals only count if you write them down... well consider this one written. And as you can probably guess, I'll try to update every week on my progress.

Let the weight loss begin!

(btw- there's not a "before" picture, because all pictures I've been in for years could be my "before" picture. No need for another one.)

monday music 1.04.10

With all the holiday stuff over, and things are (mostly) back to normal, I can get back to posting blogs on a regular basis... starting with today's monday music.

It's already been fun to play Beatles Rock Band at Kyle and Donna's house, and we had done that. But part of our Christmas gift to Kyle and Donna was an xbox "points" card. With that points card, they can "buy" other songs/games, etc. They bought the Magical Mystery Tour songs that weren't already on the Beatles game, so we could all play those. We did that this past week.

So, in honor of Beatles Rock Band, here's my monday music selection...



Fun game, good music! Thanks for sharing with us Kyle and Donna.