It keeps going down

My weight that is :) I have now lost a total of 23 pounds and I continue to do amazing. I keep surprising myself in what I am capable of doing. I have also shaved 2 minutes of my mile time. A few more minutes off and I will then work on jogging it straight. My goal is to be able to jog at least 2 miles comfortably and also be able to jog/keep up with Mike. So 7 more pounds and I will hit my third goal! Which the reward for this one is getting my hair trimmed. I need it badly so why not make it a goal. Plus I'm trying to see how long I can get it before Mike comes home.

Well Mike is doing okay. He recently was able to visit Japan again. He went there last year too. He said he took a few pictures but I know his favorite part was just staying in town, and sleeping in a bed that he could lay out in. Plus we were able to use skype and talk to each other through webcam, that was amazing. He is actually in Singapore now and we will be using skype again tomorrow to chat! I cannot wait.

I am busting my butt to finish school early. I read through 4 chapters last week and took a quiz recently, I made a 94 on it. I was very happy. So now I'm on to read many more chapters, take another quiz and then it's time to take my final for that unit. My goal is to have this unit, the next and the one after done this month. So more staying home when I can.

My lovely friend Pamela will be here very soon with her husband to stay a couple nights. It should be nice having company :) We had a nice potluck for her today to say goodbye since she will be living in Florida for a while. I got to play with my friend's son Liam, I took him on the slide and the swings, he was so cute and giggling and having a great time. I love all my friends' kids. They're all adorable and definitely cheer me up :)

I am taking a HUGE step tomorrow. I have decided it is time to go back there. There being Lake Murray where Lexi spent her last day. I thought about it all night and just had this gut urge to go back for a walk tomorrow. I want to be okay, I want to be able to go there with Lily for walk/jogs. We used to go there all the time. I need to try and realize that it will be okay to take Lily there. I will just take her in the evenings or early mornings to avoid all the really hot times of the day. So Laura, being the amazing friend she is, said she would go with me. I know there will be crying, no matter when I go back there will be crying. It will bring back many memories but I'm hoping with tomorrow, that after the tears, I can enjoy the jog and think of all her amazing moments in her life that made Lexi the dog she was. It will be hard but I am strong and will make it through.

I did it..

So finally after lots of butt kicking and hard work I beat my second goal!! I have lost 21 pounds :) I'm so happy.

This week will be another week of hard work. I plan to keep the 2 mile walk up everyday, that's my time to walk Lily and get her exercise. Then on days that I don't have work out plans with any friends I plan on doing a couple of videos on the Exercise on demand channel!

I can and will do this :) Hitting goals helps me so much in the motivation department.

So that made my morning. THEN I was so happy that along with this I made amazing decisions in my eating today. Since CA requires calories on menus it makes my decision making simple. Especially at places like TGIFriday's where there are soooo many high calorie dishes. There really were just a handful to choose from that were low calorie. So I picked one of the low calorie ones and it was amazing! I felt great afterwards knowing I made a smart decision.

My day continued to get better and I met amazing friends at Only 7 for some amazing ice cream! So that was exciting because I got to hang out and chat with friends...but also continue my healthy eating for the day :)

Then to top off the entire night!!!!! Mike called :) He is in Japan right now. He downloaded skype on his phone and we were able to talk. I had missed his voice so much. So that really made my night. I cannot wait until he's in his hotel and is able to use video. I am excited to see him!!

Today was amazing!

No holding back..

Not really sure why it's any surprise as to why I'm having headaches lately.

I'm pretty known for keeping my feelings hidden and not letting anything out. Which of course is never good in the long run. Everything builds up and either comes out all at once or I just can't take it anymore.

I really miss Lexi. After some encouraging words I realized I shouldn't feel bad for talking about her, if anything it's going to help me feel better. Then I won't keep it all inside. Honestly it's hard to explain what I feel on a daily basis without her. The best I can say is that it's this hole, just something is missing from my life. We don't have children yet, we pretty much thought of our dogs as our kids...silly to some but it was our life. Now that she's gone I feel our family is missing something. Of course it probably doesn't help any that Mike is not here too. But I know even with him here there would be something missing. She had a huge impact on our marriage and we dearly miss her. I do great but I find days where I see something that would remind me of her and then I lose it.

In my attempt to find a quote that would make me feel better and help me realize my own strength. I found this:

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

It has helped and I think it's an amazing quote to think of in any hard situation that life brings us.

I've been working out everyday this week and it is amazing how great I feel. I love that I was able to keep that up and I'm glad that while my parents are here we've been choosing healthy things to do. We've been eating good, working out and just taking great care of ourselves. This is a big change from our normal vacations. Even with eating out more than normal we're picking places and making sure we look up calorie content. I'm really proud of how great they're doing and how it's making me more motivated to keep up my work. Even though I've been staying around the same weight, I'm confident that with some hard work I will be able to accomplish my main goal.

Even Mike is starting to work out and I'm so happy. Anything that helps our family become healthy and stay healthy is great.

My friends are amazing and I'm glad to have them through this deployment. It's the greatest feeling knowing I have people to call on here if I need anything. Honestly I was always scared to move here because I knew this is the station he would be leaving on deployments and I was always scared that I would never have good friends to lean on. I'm pretty shy and making friends is never easy for me. But I'm glad I found people that I clicked with and they feel more like family :) I would have never survived this first deployment or the beginning of this one without them.

Lots of changes for the family

Things have changed a lot for our small family since the last time I blogged.

July 26th will forever be remembered. That day started out like any other and ended the worst possible way. Not too much detail but that day Lexi did not make the normal Lake Murray walk we do. She was an amazing dog and will forever be missed.

I'm able to now look back on our amazing times and share those with friends. Just telling of how sweet and loving....and of course how silly she was. One day I'll be able to look at her pictures in her last moments and realize she was happy at Lake Murray, she loved it there and more importantly she loved being surrounded by people.

Then at least once before we leave San Diego, I want to be able to go back to Lake Murray and make peace with what happened.

Another change is Mike is now on his deployment. He's doing great so far and I'm very proud of him.

In a couple of weeks I will be able to chat with him via video and I cannot wait, it will be great to see him.

My parents are in visiting, it's been nice so far, just enjoying San Diego and the company. They'll leave next week and then right after Pamela will be here! Constant company...yay.

Come on 19th

Well this week is my last week of work, which I'm really happy about.

I will be going to school for Pharmacy Tech. It's not what I want to do forever, but it will be something I'm interested in until I'm able to get into Nursing school. If it wasn't so dang hard to get into out here in CA I would. So eventually we'll settle down, I'll get into Nursing and my long term goal is to be a Nurse Practitioner.

After my last blog we survived a long underway. That was bad. Right in the middle I got really sick and it took about two weeks to fully recover from that. Then at the end of the underway there was the swine flu going around Michael's department. So he had to take this pills to stop it and those actually ended up making him sick, poor guy. He's fine now.

Michael starts his leave on the 23rd and we're so excited. We have a lot of things we want to do. So far on the 24th I've bought us tickets to see Transformers 2 at the IMAX theater, so we'll do a lunch right before and call it a date lol. Then the 25th we head out early that morning for Disneyland. We'll visit Disneyland on the 25th and 26th. On the 27th we'll visit California Adventure and then head home on the 28th. I'm really excited about that. We liked Disney so that should be fun but we haven't been to California adventure.

We also want to do a few beach trips, the zoo, wild animal park and seaworld. It should be a fun leave! OH and we'll be celebrating his birthday too.

I've been working out still, I'm really happy that I have not given up on this and I've lost 20 pounds so far! I want to lose so much more before I go to Texas to visit in December and before Mike comes home from deployment.

Speaking of deployment, it's becoming more and more real everyday as we start planning out the small details for it. I'm really not enjoying any of that. I'm ready for it to be done and over.

I really just want some sleep...

Well Michael is currently gone. So that means my life becomes hectic.

This week in itself is nuts. I've had to cancel one thing because I really need sleep.

Monday I made myself go to the gym that evening, even though I would have rather just slept haha. But it was awesome going with Nicole and pushing myself so hard to get it done!

I've been losing weight, so far it's 13. I still have a lot more to lose, but I'm on the right track. I'm trying to see how much I can lose while Michael is gone.

So last night was the Biggest Loser season finale. I absolutely love this show. I had Photina and her daughters over to watch it. It was really good....long and I felt bad that I was falling asleep during it. But it was really good. It was also nice to have the company too.

Tonight starts a second workout a week with Laura and I'm excited about it. I'm starting to fall asleep now but I know after working out with her tonight that I'll feel amazing!

Michael is doing pretty good. He stays really busy with work.

off to pretend to work haha. I quit here June 19th and I'm extremely excited.

Time change

The time change is good and bad.

The good: I get to go jogging, walk the dogs or anything outside after I get home from work.

The bad: It's harder waking up in the morning when it's still dark outside. I didn't think it would be but it is. I just want to fall asleep when I see that.

Today is a calm day. I'm at work and then after work I'll be going over to a friend's house to hang out and work out!

It's also Biggest Loser night. I love watching that show. I even love working out while watching it. It's the best motivation I've found.

Mike said he was going to have a busy day. He said he has two tests this morning for qualifications. I'm really hoping he passes! I'm nervous for him. Other than that he's doing good.

Yeah, yeah

I'm horrible at this thing already lol. I really need to keep up with it better.

A decent amount has happened since last time I updated.

Mike did buy the car, the Honda Civic Coupe Si. It's really nice and pretty. We did a lot of changes to the house and stuff we have in it. The dogs decided the futon needed to go and messed it up...so we moved our bed to the guest room and got ourselves a new bed and bedroom set. It's beautiful.

Thanksgiving was good last year. We spent it with friends in a potluck style setting.

Christmas was nice too, we were able to buy each other presents finally lol. I even cooked us a Christmas dinner.

Mike's mom came and stayed with us for a while afterwards and it was quite fun. We spent New Years together, had some drinks and watched the New Years shows lol.

With the new year has brought a bunch of junk. Mike has been going in and out. They're doing several underways to get them ready for the big deployment that is coming up later this year. He is currently gone right now but will return shortly. So we spend a lot of time emailing each other when we can.

The dogs are doing good. Lexi is now 2 and Lily is over 1 now. They definitely miss Mike when he's gone.

I'm about to start applying to Nursing schools again, it's that lovely time of the year, hoping I can get in this time around.

So I fell off the losing weight wagon, imagine that. I started working with a personal trainer towards the end of Jan. I work out with a great friend of mine. Plus the trainer is a good friend too :) I have so far lost 9 pounds. It feels amazing and just so much different than other failed attempts. Maybe because I've worked a lot harder for it this time and it's been about changing lifestyle choices rather than just doing something temporary. We workout with her every Saturday morning at 8:30am. Then we workout every chance we get after that. I have fallen in love with the gym again haha.

Plus once Mike gets home we're going to be changing a lot. He wants to start school and look into doing martial arts again. He's going to start working on his degree and taking online classes. He also will be jogging with me and any other workout to get ready for his PRT.

My friend and I got tickets to see No Doubt on May 22nd!! I sooo can't wait. I've listened to them since I was in the 5th grade! That's going to be a lot of fun!