Thursday Thrills

 So today was my turn to host the Thursday Thrills.  The plan was to do the Rose Garden / Elephant House picnic, however when I saw the weather was suppose to be cool and wet, I sent an e-mail to change to the alternative of the children's Museum.

So Emma and I rode Max to the Children's Museum.  She loved the train ride, and was so good walking to the museum. She was so excited, and had been waiting for this trip since she learned about the place.  She went right in to play and had a blast.

 We were suppose to meet another family here, but they did not show.  I did finally text her, only to discover that the e-mail I sent was only sent to one person, and she was waiting at the rose garden.  I felt better when I learned that another family showed there as well, so they were not alone.  The wet didn't come and they had a nice trip.

 So Emma and I explored the entire museum, ate lunch and then took Max back home.  I have promised Emma that we will return.  She thinks this is a great place!

5% is GONE

It is official, 5% of me is gone. 5% of my body fat is gone.  Since starting Weight Watchers, I have lost 18.4 pounds. And I did it in 8 weeks.  I am following program, and it is working.  I am seeing progress, and I like it.  

Other good news on the weight loss tract:  I am down a size in clothes!  Yeah.  I decided to go shopping in my closet one morning.  I pulled out a skirt that had been too tight on me.  When I put it on, it was perfect.  Not even tight when I sat down.

I am so proud of myself.  

So, my next official Weight Watchers Goal is 10% of my body weight from my starting weight.  That will be down 37 pounds. And a longer term goal, I want to be down 70 pounds from my starting weight by Mother's Day 2014.  We plan to visit Disney World at that time, and it would put me back at my wedding weight. I think it is doable.  I am trying not to have too big of goals, but be realistic.  And if I miss the goal by 10-20 pounds, I am really not going to complain.  That will still mean that I am down 50-60 pounds from my starting weight.

My side goal (has nothing to do with Weight Watchers) is that I want to weigh less then my Glenn.  We are withing 5-10 pounds of each other, and I want to be less then him.  I was when we got married, but I have gained more then him.  

So now, the challenge!  Men lose weight faster then women. It is just a fact.  They have to do less to lose more.  Glenn is sort of dieting.  He is following the plan for dinner, and breakfast.  He is not tracking his food, but he has cut out all the bad snacking he was doing.  He is trying more vegetables and fruit then he likes to eat (which is none!).  So these little changes he has done are producing a difference.  He is currently not losing as much as me, but he is losing.  I really am proud of him for that, because my man loves his snack.

So we will continue our journey to better, healthier us.

Happy Father's Day

 This year we celebrated Father's Day with the Cawood's and Joe and Mere's house.  They had been so busy, and gone weekend from their house lately, that Meredith and I decided it would be more relaxing for them to be home.

We had a fund day.  Really just relaxing.  We started our day with Presents for Daddy.  He had already picked up a new Computer Monitor as his present from me, but Emma wanted to give him something that she picked out.

 We had a fund day.  Really just relaxing.  We started our day with Presents for Daddy.  He had already picked up a new Computer Monitor as his present from me, but Emma wanted to give him something that she picked out. Now Glenn has been on a big board game kick lately, so we wanted to go to the game store. Since I needed to pick up a book, we hit Barns and Noble first.  Emma was super excited about the kids book section, and decided she needed books for Daddy.  This resulted in Emma giving Daddy the complete works of Curious George, a Peanuts book and the Lego Hobbit Game, all from Barns and Noble.  It was a pretty good gift giving session, and Emma and Daddy had three new things to do together.

After church, we headed over to Joe and Mere's.  We had planned a BBQ, and just a quite, relaxed evening.  And it was just that.  The Men all got gift cards (game store, restaurant and book store) so only cards to open.  the kids had fun playing, and the food was fantastic. The only disappointment I have is that most of the photos we took are lousy!  I need to remember to get some good photos at family gatherings.  I get too involved in visiting to think about my scrap booking! :)

An Adventurous Saturday

 Today dawned bright and beautiful.  We knew that we wanted to get out and move around, and let Emma play.  The only problem was what to do.

So this week's Thursday Thrill is up to me.  We are suppose to go to the Washington Park Rose Garden, then walk over to the Elephant House for lunch and play on the Playground.  The only problem was that a friend had done that same thing the day I sent the e-mail, and she noticed signs at the park stating it was closed for maintenance.  However, it was open and in use when she was there.

With this knowledge, we decided we had better check out the park to see what was going on.  So this was our first stop of the day.  We found that the playground was indeed open and in use, but there were signs posted that it was closed? Since we were there, we took a good tour of the huge playground, and Emma had a ball.  She was very proud of her ability to hang from the rings.  we did have issues with her being willing to climb the structure.

Now this playground includes a huge deck that has slides and other interesting things to do.  Emma is terrified of it.  She would not walk up there, and refused to do anything that was not on the ground.  It is a very stable deck, so not sure why she is so scared.  This seems to be a trend this spring, and I hope we can work through it.

So after playing on the playground for about an hour, we walked on over to the Elephant House.  The Elephant House is all that remains of the original Washington Park Zoo.  They used the actual Elephant House and re-designed it into a covered picnic spot.  There are mosaic animals on the outside, and a stone carved Elephant inside. Really a special part of Portland's history.

So where to next?  As Glenn and I discussed it, we found that we need to talk about things away from Emma.  She heard the words Children's Museum, and that is all she wanted to do.  So, we decided we would try, but not guarantee.  You see, the Children's Museum shares a parking lot with both the Zoo and the Forestry Center.  As we drove through the parking lot, it was filled to capacity, with several cars circling to find a spot.  Now there is another lot that you can shuttle in from, but Glenn didn't want to use it.

So we did try one last option for going to Emma's first choice.  We drove down to the Sunset Park and Ride to catch the Max.  This seemed like a great option, however their parking lot was full as well.  We drove the whole thing, and didn't even see people walking to their cars, let alone an empty spot.  And there were still tons of cars there looking for a spot.  With this mess, we decided that the Children's Museum was out.

So as we drove around, knowing that we were going to do something else, we finally decided that OMSI was the best alternative to the Children's Museum.  And even better, we already have a family pass, so it was free!

 Emma and I visit OMSI fairly often (thus the family pass) but we rarely get to share it with Glenn.  It was fun to have Daddy there to play in the Discovery Lab's with Emma.  She showed him her favorite things, and they played together in the water area.  After over an hour, we decided to head down to Turbine Hall so that Glenn could see how it had changed.  The first thing we saw as we entered was my cousin Bethany, her boys, her brother Jake and my Uncle Norm.  It was too funny that we would run into them.  We visited a bit as the kids played, but the demands of kids took us apart from one another.  We knew that we would be getting together on Monday, so no problem.

After such a busy day, Emma was pretty tired.  We headed home, and had a nice quite evening.  We always love Saturday's when we can just have a good adventure!

Traveling with Royality

 Tonight was once again Weight Watchers, so another park date for Emma and Daddy.  Today Emma decided to be a Pink Princess all day, and insisted on going out in style.

After they picked me up, we had dinner at Elmers, and then it was on to Target to pick up some "Clothes Soap" in the words of my husband.  When he told me this, all Emma heard was Clothes, and started saying "clothes, I want clothes.  Can I have some more clothes?  Please!" It appears we have a clothes horse on our hands.  We did end up getting her a few items of clothes, which she could use.

Bethany is Here

 My Cousin Bethany lives in Mesa AZ these days with her husband Dan and their three children.  Bethany and I shared an apartment for a while until she and Dan decided to marry.  Now that they live so far away, we miss them terribly.

So this year, they all came up to visit family here in Oregon.  Dan was only here for about 10 days, so we wanted to be sure to see them while he was here.

So today we drove up to my Aunt Judy's house to visit with the Proctor Family.  Emma and their youngest really enjoyed playing together.  We were so busy visiting all night that we forgot to take photo's until we were getting ready to leave.  I had already dressed Emma in her PJ's (with the hope that she would fall asleep on the way home) when we pulled it out.  It was such a nice visit, and we really need to plan a trip down to Mesa again.  After  all, we both have family there to visit.

Enchanted Forest - Take II

 We decided we needed a trip to the Enchanted Forest Today.  We had brought Emma last year, but she only liked about half of it.  She refused to go in any of the Fairytale buildings, and loved the slide.

 This year was a completely different trip.  Our little girl loved this place.  She was excited to see and try everything, except the crooked house and the slide.  She did try the slide once, but that was enough this year.  It is funny how they change.

We also purchased the wrist band for her rides, which ended up being great.  There are 5 kiddy rides, and she could do all but one of them.  She tried them each and loved each one, but differently.

 Emma followed Mommy through the maze

 Are they being swallowed by that witch?  Emma wouldn't even get close to this mouth last year, but was a pro this time.

 Not too sure about this shoe slide this year.

 Daddy was hear as well

 She got a good long ride on the bumper boats, with a full crew going in. 

 This was by far her favorite last time.  Pretty good this time too, but so many other rides to try.  We only rode the train three times!

 Not quite sure about this cage!  But she did it, and did it again.  She said she liked it, but never smiled until we made funny faces at her.

 This became her favorite ride this year.  We did it four times.  The second to last trip was with a group of girls who screamed.  Emma just looked at them and smiled.  The next time down, she decided to try a quiet scream herself.  It was rather adorable.

 Glenn decided he wanted to ride the Challange of Mondor, a dark ride where you shot at blue lights.  Emma was brave, and rode along, only informing us it was too scary after the ride.  Such a little trooper.

We had a nice lunch while we watched the Water Show, did some more exploring and ended our day.  It is really quite fun to share this place with our daughter.  Both Glenn and I have memories of being here as kids, and now she will too.