1st Round of HCG Diet

I finished up the first round of my diet over the weekend. I ended up losing 34.6 pounds, putting my weight at 206.4, which is the lightest I have been in my married life! I eventually will do another round, as my goal weight is to be 183 (my weight when I was a sophomore and junior in high school). It is so much fun to weigh less. We actually started eating semi-normally on Sunday, and I actually lost a pound! One thing I have found, it takes a LOT less food to make me full now. We had lettuce wrapped burgers for lunch yesterday, and I could barely eat one. Now I know I cannot push it as if I do I will be able to eat more and more, but if I do everything in moderation, I will be ok. I have also noticed that my blood sugar is back in the normal range, hopefully that will last.
The one problem I am having is that none of my pants fit. I have to wear a belt with my 36" pants and don't even get me started on my suit, which has size 42" pants. I am going to the store this week to see if I truly can wear 34"'s, which would be the first time since high school, I am excited about that. The goal is 32's, but that is a little ways off still.
Changing gears (hah!) Tonya won us 2 tickets to the NASCAR Nationwide race is Las Vegas last weekend, so Taylor and I went to watch the race with 70,000 of our closest friends :-) . When we got there, all the Sprint Cup guys where practicing, so we got to see Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Gordan, Tony Stewart(My Favorite), Dale Jr., Joey Logano (Taylor's favorite), etc. That was real exciting! The race had Kyle Busch and Danica Patrick, so we were happy. It is really neat to watch a race in person, you can feel the wind from the cars and definately hear the cars, it is SO MUCH BETTER than watching the race on TV. We had a fun time.
Coming home, there was a huge wreck on I-15 about 15 minutes from Mesquite, both lanes were a parking lot, so Taylor and I watched almost the entire movie Transformers on my cell phone, there was only about 20 minutes left when we finally got moving again, a Suburban must have lost their trailer when we finally got up to the accident.

The Weekly What's Up

I wanted to tell you about the latest news from Shaylie's World.  You already know how my Shaylie has always been a very entrepreneurial spirit....she's always looking for ways to make money, coming up with business ideas, inventing new products and the list goes on!  Well, she's finally found a very satisfying way to implement some of her great ideas!

She started a class newspaper called "The Weekly What's Up." It began when her school "community" was trying to come up with ideas for new jobs. Shaylie asked if she could be the reporter for the weekly trial they have in class. If kids have complaints during the week they "sue" each other and have a little mock trial. So Shaylie came home with notes from the trial and decided that she wanted to make a newspaper and put in an article, the trial report, and maybe  a comic. It was her usual "Shaylie-way" of taking a great idea and making it greater!

She took it to the classroom the next day and the kids went crazy for it! They all wanted to work for her and they were coming up with more jobs: writers, editors, ad managers, etc. The kids were all filling out job applications and giving Shaylie a lot of attention. Her next edition had these cute ads that kids were buying with their class money. One was for a Dance Club--"get your groove on" and another was for a Book Club, but my favorite was from the boy who was a lawyer in the mock trial that started it all. He had placed an ad that said, "Kamden's Lawyer Service--He helped Nate sue, and that's all he needs to help you."  So cute!

She hired someone as an editor--she wanted to be a writer-- and I showed her how to attach a file to an email, so she was putting the paper together and emailing it to the editor who was making changes and sending it back to her. It was all very professional. I have been so impressed with her skills. So far she has put out 3 issues.

And finally, we went to Shaylie's parent teacher conference on Thursday and her teacher told me how impressed she has been with Shaylie's project. She said it has energized their class and made everyone so excited! I was so glad to hear that she was supportive of Shay's ingenuity. Usually at these conferences all I hear is how she struggles with math, but this was nice because I was able to express my appreciation that they are focusing on what kids do right and not what they are struggling with. Shaylie is so amazing at so many things that they don't focus on in school, so it's been great to see her finding her own outlets for her talents.

And best of all, it is making Shaylie feel better about herself, her friends, and her place in class.  If I can figure out how to do it, I'm going to post one of the issues.  If not, I can send you one if you request it!

Love my kids!!! Both of them are so amazing in so many ways. I couldn't be a prouder mom.

An Accidental Morning

Our Friday morning was unfortunately eventful! Scott woke me early saying, "Get up! Your sister was in a car accident!"  By all reckoning, that is not the ideal way to start the day--although having said that, it's infinitely better than being IN the accident. :)  We rushed to the hospital to find my sister and her daughter in good spirits, despite the fact that they ran a red light at the intersection of 700 South and River Road on the way to school that day and were clipped by a truck. They both sustained some injuries. Anje had dislocated a bone in her wrist and Anissa hit her head, but a CT scan showed that all was well. I had to joke with her that the CT might be defective, since it obviously did not detect the damaged part of her brain that recognizes RED LIGHTS! I was just grateful that she was around to joke with. I think they were both incredibly lucky.  Anje had a minor surgery to place and pin her wrist.

You can see from the damage to the car that it could have been so much worse. Luckily, they were both wearing seat belts and the airbags protected them as well.





I have been worried about this kind of thing happening for a while now, since my sister has a very bad reputation for being a HORRIBLE driver. She has been in only two other major accidents before (one of which resulted in a life flight, a coma, and a very long recovery) and several fender-benders. So much so that my first thought when Scott woke me was "Not Again!"  She has laughed it off up until now. But I know that seeing her daughter "broken," as she put it, has sobered her up and I hope she'll take driving even more seriously.

To her credit, she was already starting to be better about Texting and Talking on the Phone while driving. (I know!!!)  We had given her sufficient grief about those that I think she started to realize how important it was to leave the phone off while driving. I'm really hoping that this accident will be the catalyst to a new Era for them.

She feels supremely guilty about what happened, but the thing is we are all guilty of being distracted at times and what happened to her could have happened to anyone.  I am just so incredibly happy that they are still here to lecture and rib and give grief to...Taylor said it best yesterday, after she found out what happened and that all was well. She said, " Can you imagine a world without Anissa and Anje in it?"  The truth is I've had far too many opportunities to imagine just that and I'll tell you right now, I don't like it!  I'm so glad they're okay!

Going to Grad School

I just got the notice today! I've been accepted into the University of Utah's Educational Psychology program. I'll begin earning my Master's Degree in School Counseling starting in May! I'm very excited!