Early this afternoon, the sun was shining, it was 58 degrees and the child was feeling the effects of being cooped up for too long. I declared the calendar cleared and we headed to the beach. It was obviously a much needed break. Bekah LOVED it, we need to get out there more often, I mean it's 5 minutes away for crying out loud!

She had much fun jumping logs in a single bound....

Running like the wind....

Using the beached logs as balance beams...

I've definitely seen her agility improve since she joined gymnastics and dance, which is good...she needed a helping hand in that department!

We spent alot of time building sand castles and going on treasure hunts to find ...well, garbage. But she used bottle caps and such to decorate her castle, and then found scraps of blue rope to use as her "river" around the castle. It's so nice to see her imagination developing (we won't really discuss the Ken incident here :) ).

Concerned for Ken

I think Ken has become involved with the mafia or something. This is how I found him on the bedroom floor. It's gruesome, I know!

Squeeeeeee!

The very first time I've submitted anything to craftgawker.com and it made it! I'm so stinkin' excited. My picture of my fortune cookies, all the way on the right there.

I think it changes about once every 24 hours, so if you read this later it won't be on the front page anymore. But it's exciting for me, nonetheless :)

On our way back up the coast from California, we spent some time playing in Oregon. One thing I wanted to see was the Sea Lion cave . The world's largest sea caves with over 500 sea lions in it. The video is terrible quality but you couldn't use flash camera and I wanted to try to capture some of the feel in there. The sea lions, coupled with the crashing waves were very loud! Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for you!), I could not capture the smell of 500 sea lions with fish breath.

Also on our list of "must stop", as usual was the Tillamook cheese and ice cream factory.

The child was born in Wisconsin, which is evidenced by the way she belly's up to the cheese samples.

We are back into the swing of things now. I was able to maintain the diet on the road and am happy to report a 5 lb loss for my first week on the Curves Weight Management program! :)

California Part 3

The famous Tour Thru Tree. Such a tourist trap, but what can I say...I wanted to see it.

Rebekah needed to touch it.

And then she needed Daddy to turn it around and go thru the other way. Good thing we travel during off-peak season and can get away with such things :)

This is an actual bathroom in an 8 foot diameter tree trunk.

It was rather dirty inside so we didn't use it, but the concept was neat.

California Part 2

Are we in Brainerd, MN? Noooo... we're at the Trees of Mystery in northern California. See small bean down there by Paul's big ol boot?

This is the world's largest family tree...there are 12 living trees growing in this tree with only one trunk. You can see one growing off of the branch up there.

There really is no way to capture the magnitude of these trees. They are just spell binding.

We took a gondola ride up to a scenic view...again, no way to capture the immense beauty.

California Part 1

Well here we are. Crescent City ~ what a gorgeous start to our day down the coast! This is the Battery Point Lighthouse in the back ground. The waves were spectacular!

First we need coffee. We decided to try the local chain, Dutch Brothers Coffee.

Quite tastey!

Bekah needed to get out and actually touch a tree.

There is nothing too spectacular about this picture. But I need to snap it because this is where Rebekah casually glanced out her window and said "nice pond".

One of the few mother daughter pictures of small bean and me, you can tell it was windy from our hair. I love the rugged northern California coast!

She's becoming a good little road tripper. This was at a rest stop somewhere in Oregon, I think we'd been on the road about six or seven hours at this point.

Pictures of the trees will come soon, we're still in the hotel this morning. After this episode of Super Wise (whys?...I'm not sure), we are pulling the plug and heading out.

I am glad to see they have my size of coffee here! Deliver that to Crescent City, please!

We are staying in a laughably budget motel making the trip affordable. Very happy to have internet but it is sloooowwwwwww...I wouldn't expect a ton of pictures until we get home :)

Oh also, I am very proud of us for staying on diet during travel! I packed stuff to make turkey breast sandwiches for lunches and taco salads for supper. Breakfast; the small bean had oatmeal (in the microwave at the motel) and the G man and I had boiled eggs and an apple. I will splurge on a latte later today though!

My large order for the heritage center in FL is done ~ I love how they looked all lined up, Cuban sandwich anyone? Low calorie, high fiber version!

Yesterday marked my first full day on the Curves diet, weight management, whatever you call it. I'm going to be posting some stuff about the food I'm eating over the next few weeks because I want to be able to refer back to it. On Curves there are 3 phases and you rotate through them.

For the first 7 days I am on phase 1. So today for breakfast we had a latte (1 dairy exchange) and scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onion, and green pepper (2 eggs = 1 protein exchange, the rest are free veggies). Grant got toast with his :)

I first sauteed the veggies a little in lemon juice.

Normally I would have used a nice wad of butter for this task, but surprisingly I didn't miss it. We've used lemon juice in place of butter on a lot of things with much success! Even popcorn...try it! I also used to put a large helping of cheese on top of this dish...but not anymore. Unless I want to give up the latte for a serving of cheese...uh no thanks!

I've also worked on upping my water intake. Many don't like plain water, or get tired of it. Instead of using drink mixes that contain harmful chemicals like aspartame or splenda, I used essential oils. You only need a couple of drops in a 24 oz water bottle! I mostly use grapefruit, except during my workout I like to use peppermint for a nice cooling effect!

On that note...I'm off to Curves!
*****UPDATE***** I weighed in today and I am down 4.5 lbs since Saturday!

Random update

Okay, well obviously I didn't miss it THAT much, since it's been a few days since my last post.

It's just that there isn't that much to report. I am working on a large felt food order.

I've moved my sewing machine into little beans room because she will not give me 5 minutes to sew. She seems to be happy with the new arrangement, we had tea and sandwiches (her felt food) while I sewed today and it was much more productive!

She has been wearing her new princess dress all week. Seriously, she cried the first night I told her she couldn't sleep in it.

Look what I discovered today...my chives are coming up! I'm still trying to get over the fact that I live in zone EIGHT, sorry Mom :) She has a little zone envy. This spring we are going to plant bamboo, holly, and lavender.

Hubby has been working on the living room all week. Pictures soon.

Oh, I made the G man a pair of lounging pants by taking apart his old pair and using it as a pattern. I was much more proud of this task than I should have been! LOL

My dear friend, Josi drove all the way up to Aberdeen to visit us this week and I was too frantic to remember to grab the camera. GRRRR But it was a good visit and I got to load up on baby kisses!

See, just a whole lot of nothingness. But it's our nothingness and it makes me happy :)

I may have to go back to daily blogging. I MISS IT!

And I'm worried that I will feel sad when next year I look back to see what we did on this day and there will be no entry *gasp*.

Also, somewhere somehow there is a way to make your blog into a book. If anyone knows what that is will you share a link. How neat would that be to have your year in words and pictures sitting on your book shelf?

I posted Rebekah's birthday pictures on facebook, but I am going to post them here as well so that if I do figure out that book thing, it's documented here.

Annnnnd the cake. The cake that consumed one entire day of my time but was worth every second because omg, it's SO HAPPY!