Our Vacation Was Great! Good Books, and Being Committed

We had so much fun!!! It went much too fast and I hardly spent any time at the beach (it was so cold and so windy it about blew us away and made the cold that much colder)

It was a little difficult trying to eat abstinent meals but everyone was so careful to help see that I had food I could eat that it went well for me. I made my pumpkin "pie" and it smelled delicious but tasted terrible. Too much Splenda I think.

We visited all the local sights including two lighthouses, the aquarium (which was amazing), the pools that are made on the beach when the tide goes out and we went to the Tillamook Cheese factory which wasn't local but was very interesting (we bought more cheese than we could eat in a month).... (we'll have to freeze some.) We also visited all the gift shops and a candy store (lots and lots of luscious candy so I bought some for Joe since I couldn't eat it) Turns out that he had been to that same store and bought himself some candy (we weren't together at the time I bought him the candy so I didn't know that he already had some.

The gift shops were richer by a considerable amount when we left them. The girls and I bought some light jackets that were made out of fleece and then a warmer jacket that had a warm lining and a windbreaker outer shell. I bought the small sizes of both jackets as they tended to run a little large. I should be able to wear them by next January or so. Janice tried them on for me so I could see how they would look on me when I reach my goal weight.

We hit a MAJOR traffic jam when were driving to the airport to fly home. It took us an hour to travel two miles. We were all stressed out about it because we didn't want to miss our flight but when we were about 3/4 of the way through the jam we got a call from the airline we were supposed to fly out on saying that the flight was an hour and a half late. We made it with some time to spare - MAJOR RELIEF.

After being cold all week in Oregon it felt really warm when we first got out of the airport that night.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I loved being with the girls and David's family. Annika and Mieka were little angels, never crying or being disagreeable the whole vacation. I never heard David or Melissa even raise their voices at the girls and no "time outs" either. How do they do it? I was a constant "Monster Mom" in comparison. (I know....I know.... I shouldn't compare but it's hard not to when you feel guilty and sorry you didn't do better with your kids. Anyway we enjoyed our time with them all.

I bought three book that got here today. One is a 900 page book "George Washington's Sacred Fire" that disproves the faith destroying teaching that he was a Deist. The other two are books by Hayek on the fatal effect of Socialism and it's ability to destroy America. Both of these books talk about the economic situation of our day as if he had lived in our time. He wrote the books around the 1950"s. He could see the beginning of the end even then.

Emilee made an arresting comment at our 4th of July celebration this month. We were talking about about the wealth and abundance we have in our lives and I made the comment that her children would grow up feeling "entitled" and she said her generation is the one that feels entitled. She thinks her children will grow up saying "remember what we used to have." That's sad commentary on what is happening in America now.

Our children and grandchildren will be the ones to pay for our lack of knowledge about sound economics and the terrible lack of fiscal responsibility in government today.

I leave for my CEA-HOW conference in Los Angeles on Friday. I am starting to get excited about the three day trip and not so scared about going without Joe. I lost another 7 lbs. this last 30 days. So now I weigh 227 lbs down from 292 lbs in January. I still have been granted the power to be disciplined in this program. I am so grateful for the grace of God in my life in this respect. There is an interesting thought from the AA Big Book that says "I can do for 12 hours (of this day) what would appall me if I thought I had to do it for a lifetime." That's the attitude I have to cultivate to stay committed to eating this way long term.

That's all for now,

Love to everyone, Mither

Here I am again, did you miss me?

Still going to twelve step meetings, still losing weight :) =) >) (and so on with the smiley faces) I lost 5 more pounds this last month!!! Yaaaaay Me and God's grace! Just goes to show that we can do anything with the Grace of God ( that is if we really tap into it)

I just have to share a cute story, a thing a little three year old said. We have this biker dude, dark tan, wears tank tops and shorts, who has really long hair in the back that he wears flowing down his back who was at his friends house who is active in the Church. (I forgot to mention that he is a regular at the Church's 12 Step program, tank top, long hair and all) (Sweet man though)

Anyway, when he was leaving his friends house their little girl said "Bye Jesus" Little kids can be so precious!

Any way on to my post.

Not much has happened for the last little while other than that I've started going to Joe's (my brother's) house to do genealogy for the last few weeks on Thursdays. We are going to try to establish a regular habit of this so we can get some names to take to the temple. It shouldn't be too hard since the Church now is recommending that we do our genealogy horizontally instead of vertically. That means instead of trying to extend our lines back as far as we can, we make sure all the aunt, uncles, cousins, their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and all their spouses and their aunts uncles and cousins, in each generation, get all their Temple work done and so on on each succeeding generation. The point is to get as many families sealed together as possible. That is the point of genealogy and Temple work after all. Wow, talk about inspiration! So many people have got their genealogy back as far as they can go (in the Church) that it has become hard to find many names at all. Anyway, that means we have go a lot of work to do.

Dad and I will be going on a short vacation with Joe and Eileen at the end of the month. We are really looking forward to this. It is so much fun to go with them. We are going to St. George and Los Vegas. Joe says there are all kinds of fun things to do there other than gamble. They are going to show us around. I only Hope I can keep up. Uncle Joe says he can't go very fast himself so I should be all right.

We are looking forward to our annual Memorial Day cookout. I hope everyone is planning on coming. We will have all kinds of fun water things to do and maybe even Daniel's Special Olympics games. We plan on starting at noon so it doesn't get so cold before the kids have had time to play very long. I'll be sending out an email about it so watch for it.

Well, that all for now, folks ( guess you are all to young to remember that phrase from TV) Random, huh.

btw, Karla is there some way you could get a hold of Holly and Vaughn to come to our cookout? We would like to invite them (hummmmm I guess I could look them up in the phone book, couldn't I? Well, maybe you could mention it to Holly in case I forget and have her call me. Thanks.

Love to all,

Mither