We are Family...

Mark's family came out to visit for Christmas, and while they were here we had family photos done.  We realized a few months ago that we hadn't had formal family photos done since Mark and I got married 6 years ago, so we thought it was about time to do so!   Mark's Mom, Lori, knitted all of the beautiful gold scarves for us, and they turned out beautifully.  Without further ado, here they are!

Mark and Ginny

Mark and Ginny again

The Stewart children, LtoR: Mark, Ginny, John, Heidi

The Women LtoR: Ginny, Lori, and Beautiful Heidi

Mark's parents Doug and Lori

The Men LtoR: Mark, Doug, and John

The entire Stewart clan LtoR: Mark, Ginny, Doug, Lori, John, and Heidi

Mark's family comes to visit for Christmas

Mark's family came to visit for Christmas, and we did family pictures.  We also went to the Trail Center to see the Gingerbread display.  They have these cute little gingerbread people that you can take your pictures with.  Lori was the only one willing to take a picture with them. 

Gingerbread Lady Lori

We also have been walking by the river quite a bit this winter, and this is what we usually see. 

Huge chunks of ice in the Missouri River

So Sad Today...

While shopping for Christmas groceries this afternoon, Mark's sister called and informed us that the Provo Tabernacle burned down today.  All that is left is the outer walls.  I've never felt any sort of attachment for any material object, but I realized today just how much the Provo Tabernacle meant to me, and how many memories I have made there.  I have many memories of going to concerts there, attending regional conferences for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and even one New Years Eve First Night in Provo going to take shelter from the cold and listening to the beautiful music that was being played.  I have to admit, I have had a heavy heart today at this great loss.  There was millions of dollars worth of equipment that was lost in the fire, but you can't put a price tag on this irreplaceable historical landmark. 

Lunch at a Pub...THE Reuben

Last night, Friday, Mark and I were both craving Reubens, so we decided to look into where we could find a really good Reuben.  Looking at the Urbanspoon website the reviews said that Crescent Moon is the best place to get a Reuben, due to its closeness to Blackstone Hotel, where it is supposed to have originated...

So the story of the Reuben goes something like this: A group of guys got together to play poker, and while playing they would discuss sandwiches.  They came up with the Reuben, which is Corned Beef, of which Nebraska is a major producer, on Marbled Rye with Sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island Dressing, and a side of YUM!   Does it look like we enjoyed it?  We did!  Not to mention my Chili Cheese Fries were to die for and Mark's Fried Green Pepper Rings were amazing!

Looks Good, doesn't it?

So if you like Reubens, and are ever in Nebraska, stop by Crescent Moon and have one.  Warning: If you go on a Husker game day, be prepared to refuse a bunch of Husker shots!  Every time the Huskers score, they give a free round of red shots to everyone.  We were only there for 2 touchdowns, so we only had to refuse it twice.

Then to finish off our date night, we went to Jones Bros. Cupcakes, which was recommended to us by a friend.  They were so good!  We asked the guy which ones to get, but he only made it worse.  He proceeded to describe all of the different cupcakes, making the choice only that much harder to make.  So we decided to get three, and share half of each one.  We got the Husker Red Velvet, which is their signature and our favorite, the Chocolate Raspberry, our second, and the White and Black which had Godiva chocolate in it, which was our least favorite, but still delicious!  We also got hot chocolate which was super yummy!  All in all, a yummy night!

Thanksgiving, YUMMY!

First of all, I have to say that I am so grateful for my wonderful husband!  He has been such a big help these past few days in getting ready for the Thanksgiving feast.  I also have to express my gratitude to all of the missionaries out there that are so far away from home serving our Heavenly Father.  Theirs is a service greater than any of us can comprehend, and I am indeed grateful to them for it. 

That being said... I am also VERY grateful that they came for Thanksgiving dinner and helped us eat all of that food!  There was a ton!  At one point I had eaten so much, I could no longer taste what I was eating, so I knew it was time to stop. 

I will back up a little here.  Most of our local friends here in Omaha were either going out of town, or already had plans to eat with someone else.  We were still able to have the Woods come over, and it was a lot of fun!  The Woods had already invited the missionaries, )which by the way, we have 4 of them in our little branch now, Go Conestoga!), so the missionaries came too.  We had already had them over for dinner twice this week, so I am sure they are sick of us, but they were good sports and came any way. 

The Woods made some really amazing pies, and lumpy mashed potatoes, and I LOVE lumpy mashed potatoes.  They also brought some Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, but I didn't have any because we don't want to open up that can of worms again!  I think that the majority of the weight Mark and I have put on while living in Omaha could be directly traced to The Cheesecake Factory.  It's a horrible place to go because it is so good!

We did the turkey, and somehow it, uh, didn't get turned on in time.  We were totally on our A game this week getting everything done the way it was supposed to be, but then the most important part we don't get turned on.  DUH!  By about 10:30, (dinner was at 1:30), I am wondering why I don't smell the turkey.  We feel the side of the roaster, and it is STONE COLD!  So we turn it all the way up to 450 degrees to hopefully catch up, and we were only about 30 minutes late with the turkey. 

We asked the Elders what was their favorite foods at Thanksgiving, and Elder Mohr said he love Pecan Pie, Elder Dee likes Pumpkin Pie and Egg Nog, Elder Latu hasn't had Thanksgiving until the mission because he is from Tonga, and Elder Curtis said he loves his mom's Baked Macaroni and Cheese Casserole.  So, the Pecan Pie I found a good recipe for, and it was yummy, I found a recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch, and I emailed Elder Curtis' Mom to get her recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese.  So, besides the turkey being late today, I think it was a success.  I have to say, I loved the Lemon Supreme pie that Alicia made.  So yummy!

Towards the end of dinner we let the dogs out to clean up the crumbs for the kids.  The Wood's little girl, Melynn, who is super cute by the way, kept saying "OW!" every time Polly licked her.  I think she was trying to let us know that she didn't appreciate the licks!  After dinner we found one of the Feta Turnovers on the plate that aparently was not liked by the Emmett.  Mark said he saw him take a bite, pull a face, and then out it back on the plate.  So funny!  We can't wait to have some of our own little cuties!  What a fun day!

Turkey Dinners and Blang Blang!

Last Saturday we were able to go deliver turkey dinners for the Open Door Mission.  It was a great experience for both of us!

And while shopping for Thanksgiving stuff, we saw this totally awesome Cadillac sitting in the parking lot of Walmart, and had to get a picture!  Talk about Blang!  You can't really tell, but it is a Baby Blue color.  So awesome!

Halloween: Are we convincing?

For Halloween this year we decided to go with one of Mark's favorite Canadian tv shows, not to mention the ONLY Canadian show he likes!  Normally he would have been Red, but as Harold is taller than Red, I "got" to be Red Green, and he dressed up as Harold Green.  The picture isn't so great because we took it after our branch Halloween party, so the makeup is a little funny looking, and I just look like a bum.

Them...

Us...

Baking and Stuff

Don't laugh when I say this, but Mark and I would like to someday open our own bakery.  That way we can bake all kinds of great things, but then other people will eat most of it, and we won't gain weight!  What brings this up is that we are trying to avoid watching TV.  I know, what does that have to do with baking?  Well, we mostly watch TV when we get bored.  Sundays, unfortunately, can often fall under the category of boring.  There is only so much scripture reading and Ensigns that you can read on a Sunday, right?  So then we think, let's just watch BYU TV, which is great and all, but about 5 PM they have some pretty lame shows on, so we turn it to a different channel, and thus opens the black hole of television that sucks us in.

Back to the point.  In order for us to avoid watching television on Sundays, we have begun cooking and baking together on Sundays, and we love it!  Not to mention I have found this totally awesome website, AllRecipes.com, that has about a bazillion recipes that are really great, and have ratings from other people who have also tried them, with tips on how to make them even better.  Wow, I am really rambling!

Sunday at church  the Elders reminded us that we were having them over for dinner, again (for the third time in a week, we love feeding the Elders!  Great taste testers.), but we didn't really have a complete meal available without going to the store.  We had half of several meals, but not everything.  The closest we came was to hamburgers, but no buns.  So, we decided to make our own buns!  Seriously, this website makes you feel like you can do anything!  When we got home from church we got busy making dinner. 

My specialty, unfortunately, is dessert.  I made a pumpkin roll, which I LOVED even though no one else did, and I also made some gluten free pumpkin cookies for a friend since we were going to their house to play games after dinner.

Mark is the bread man!  He read this book which I blogged about previously, and he now specializes in bread.  Speaking of which, he made some Pumpernickel Rolls in his dutch oven for our branch's Manly Man cooking contest last year (blogged in the previously mentioned), and on Sunday a member made a specific request for them for the Halloween Party next Saturday.  Holla!

Man, I am seriously rambling!  So, any way.  Mark made homemade (obviously!) Hamburger buns.  They were really good, especially for the first try!  With the exception of the mixing and kneading (the KitchenAid was all over the place!), here's the progression...

And here are my cookies and Pumpkin Roll...

The Pumpkin Roll looks funny because it is wrapped in plastic.

Tonight my culinary skills fell flat, though.  I had 5 Granny Smith Apples sitting on my counter, and decided I would give candied apples a try.  They were candied all right, the candy equivalent to an Everlasting Gobstopper!  We ended up peeling the chocolate/caramel coating off and just eating the apples.  Notice the distressed look on Mark's face...Sad!

I am going to use the other 3 apples tomorrow for an Apple Bread Pudding using some bread that Mark made.  Hopefully that will turn out better!

Frog Legs Anyone?

All I have to say is BARF!  

Although Mark and I have been riding bikes and such, I am still taking the dogs for walks in the morning so that they can get their exercise in too.  Polly, as mentioned in a previous post, is a beast.  My biggest frustration walking them is Polly tugging on my arm, because she is so strong.  She is really good at coming back to me when I tell her to come, and if I tell her to heel she will walk beside me.  The problem is if she sees something interesting, she forgets she is attached to a leash, and takes off after whatever it.

Since she is so responsive to me calling her, I have just been dropping her leash when there aren't any people around, and she usually stays right behind my right leg.  Today she was feeling a little more adventurous, and would run off the trail a little ways, then come running past us (Ros and I).  As we were nearing the Ped bridge, I realized that Polly hadn't been tapping my leg like she normally does.  I looked back, and she was about a half mile back with her head in some brush.

I called her name and her head popped up with a frantic look on her face.  After she didn't immediately come, I called her again, and she buried her head back into the brush, and then came running.  I saw something black sticking out of her mouth, and I figured she was just eating another stick (Yes, she has eaten sticks before) and I was prepared to dig it out of her mouth when she got to me.

As she got nearer I could hear a popping sound, and I just though it was her breaking the stick she had found.  She ran up to me and I grabbed her and lifted her head up, and what I saw was a little something like this...

 Barely able to resist barfing, I decided that a mouth swipe was not the best idea.  This one I would let her have.  Although, I did send a quick text to Mark telling him that his dog had just eaten a frog, and if that was bad.  He responded, "Only if it is poisonous."  My response, "Ummmm."  My thought, "Didn't get a chance to test it before she crunched it down!"  She is still alive, so I assume that it wasn't poisonous, but she has been hopping around a lot more than usual today!

The biggest problem is that I can still see the foot sticking out of her mouth, and I can still hear her crunching on the bones, and all over again I want to barf!  Yuck!

No worries, my afternoon bike ride with Mark went better, he didn't eat any frogs.  Although I do think both of us inhaled some bugs.  We biked out to Lake Manawa in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and we loved it.  The 13 mile part wasn't so great, but the scenery was amazing!  I love Autumn, and Omaha/Council Bluffs does a pretty good job of showing it off!  Not to mention as we were headed back there was a field full of deer running and playing around.  So neat!  It was initially supposed to be an 8 mile ride, but we took a wrong turn, or I should say we didn't turn, and it ended up being 13 miles.  My bum is a little sore, but it was well worth it!  This is kind of what it looked like tonight.  Once again we forgot our camera, so this is a picture that I found that is pretty accurate of what we saw.  We will definitely be doing that ride again!

What exactly does "Take it easy" mean?

Yesterday I donated blood at my former community college.  I try to donate often, and it has been almost 6 months since I last donated!  Not the point though.  When I got my finger pricked I told the guy that he had to squeeze extra blood out to get the right hemoglobin levels for me to donate.  Something about the freshly picked skin mixing with the blood usually results in levels too low for me to donate.  Any way, he got a little carried away so when he finally put the band-aid on it quickly filled up.

He takes me over to the chair, hooks me up, and starts draining me.  The whole time he was standing close by, which is highly unusual, asking me how I am doing.  Because he keeps asking I figure he wants a different answer besides fine, so I start complaining about my finger.  First response, thinking he would laugh, I say "I think I am hemorrhaging from my finger!" To which he quickly starts defending himself, saying "You told me to squeeze it extra.  You told me to."

So then he asks how I am doing again, and I say "well, my finger really hurts!"  He quit asking.  Still not the point. 

The point of this post is, just as I was leaving he tells me to "Take it easy."  I didn't think much of it, until I started trying to take it easy.  By about 6 o'clock I just couldn't stand taking it easy anymore, and I suggested to Mark that taking a "leisure" walk would qualify as taking it easy.

So we head down to the MO River, and start off on our leisure walk with the dogs pulling us.  All is going well, we get across the beautiful Ped bridge, and start heading towards Harrah's, which happens to be a riverboat casino (and no we weren't going there to gamble, that just happens to be where the trail goes). 

For some reason last night Mark decided that he was going to walk fast, and about this point I am starting to realize that for the first time Mark was walking ahead of me, which continued the whole way.  Not to mention I ended up with Polly's leash several times, and she is a handful to keep up with.  She is about 40 lbs of almost solid muscle.  (The nurses at the vets office have mentioned several times how strong she is, usually just as they are sticking a needle in her butt.)

After crossing over the bridge and then under the freeway, there is suddenly this large cloud hoovering around our heads, which I was unable to see clearly because I had once again forgotten my glasses.  Mark starts swatting, and complaining about the swarm of mosquitoes and we start to run, with the swarm close at our backs.  Luckily we were able to get far enough ahead of them that when a jogger came past going the opposite direction they changed directions and went after the jogger.  We made it to Harrah's then turned around.

Then on the way back we were heading up the Ped bridge, and realized just how steep the Iowa side is.  Yikes!  ( Sorry about the bad pictures, but what do you expect from a camera on a phone?)

So I posed Mark the question, "What exactly does "take it easy" mean?  Does running from mosquitoes, being drug around by a dog, and climbing up a fairly steep bridge count?  If so, then I guess I complied with the blood sucker's orders!

Plateau = Biking

Mark and I have both hit a plateau, weight loss wise.  I have been reading up on how to get over plateaus, besides just exercising for 20 of the 24 hours in a day, and the common consensus is to do something different. 
So today I pull our bikes down off the walls, dusted them off, (and there was a ton of dust, sad!) pumped up the tires, and we went for a 9 mile bike ride tonight.  It was tougher than I was expecting it to be.  I guess I just thought that since I used to ride bikes all the time and it was a piece of cake then, that I could hop right on and it would be the same as always.  You know, like that saying about learning to ride a bike, you never forget, or something.  Apparently that only applies to the balancing part.  My muscles definitely didn't remember. 

We rode across the river to Iowa, and north to a park right on the river.  It was a beautiful park, very quiet and secluded. 

As we headed back we began realizing all the things that we didn't have for biking, mostly on my part.  For example, I don't have a helmet or reflectors on my bike.  I was wearing all dark clothes, so I pulled my pant legs up to my knee, figuring that my extremely white legs would be a sufficient reflector under the circumstances. 

Oh, and I forgot my glasses, and at night my vision is especially bad.  Other than that, it was rather a pleasant ride. 

Great New Website

For those of us that need to begin reading the General Conference talks early in order to finish them by the next Conference in April, The Church has a new website dedicated solely to Conference.  Very Handy!

SHOUT OUT! to Visiting/Home Teachers

Mark and I haven't had Home/Visiting teachers very regularly in our first years of marriage, but boy, when we do they are spectacular!  The Visiting Teachers that I have had this year are totally amazing, and I just wanted to publicly announce that!  As you know my birthday was last week.  So when they came to visit me today, just before the "Home Teachers" arrived (I will explain the quotes in a minute), and they brought me some awesome goodies!  Heather brought me this super yummy Fruit Pizza,

and Kathy brought me a fruit basket full of yummy fruits, 

and her husband's book which talks about goals. 

I'm not just raving about the yummy food, which I always appreciate, but also the fact that they take time to get to know me, and both know that I have an abundance of goals that I want to accomplish, one of which is losing weight, and they are both very considerate and supportive of this. 

We also have wonderful home teachers right now, Elder and Sister Davis, who are a senior missionary couple serving here in the Winter Quarters area, so not your traditional Home Teachers.  We love chatting with them, and could spend hours without even realizing it.  Tonight they came by right after my Visiting Teachers, and they shared with us about what Elder Ellis taught them last week (he was here for our stake conference, and is a wonderful speaker).  He talked about discouragement, and that Elder Ellis said that there are 3 ideas to combat it:  1. With God nothing is impossible, 2. Someone has already done it, so I can too, 3. Mark and I can't remember the third one, but once we do, we will add it. 

It made me start thinking about my previous VT/HT, and it reminded me of the ones I had in Utah.  To be honest, I can't remember if they were visiting teacher or home teacher.  Not that they were transgender, but because they, Susan and hubby, came as a couple.  They were some of my favorites because they would stop by, drop off some chocolate, and remind us of General Conference, or whatever else was coming up. 

I remember, too, as a little girl seeing my mom's VTs come over, and wishing that I could have women come over just to visit with me, and I am glad that now I do!

So there you have it, I have a special place in my heart for Visiting and Home Teachers.  Next time you see yours, give them a big hug or handshake, whichever feels more comfortable to you, to show them how much you appreciate them!

If you would like to know more about what Visiting Teaching is, visit: http://lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,8776-1,00.html

If you would like to know more about what Home Teaching is, visit: http://lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,4657-1,00.html

Ouch!

This morning I accidentally woke up almost on time, I say accidentally because I didn't realize that I had my alarm clock set for the wrong time.  Just after waking up, though, while still half asleep, I realized that Mark was laying on my hair.  Instead of slowly pulling it out, or asking Mark to roll off of it, for some reason in my sleepiness I had a panic reaction and yanked my head.  The immediate consequence was an intense pain in my neck and shoulder.  I couldn't even turn my head.  I only found one way to hold my head that wouldn't bring me to tears.  I immediately thought, time to chop my hair off again.  When I woke up fully I just realized that I hadn't pulled my hair up into a pony tail, which I had started doing from the time we first got married and had my hair yanked the first time when it ended up wrapped around Mark's arm and he rolled over, taking my head with him.

Mark helped me downstairs, where he gave me a blessing, then called my doctor to find out what we should do.  Luckily on Friday I had found the card that my doctor had given me with his cell number for emergencies.  Mark left a message for him, put birch oil on my neck, and we waited.

Dr. Drummond finally called back a few hours later and said that I needed to ice my neck for 15 minutes, then take it off for 45, and continue doing this all day, then go in early tomorrow for him to check out my neck.

So far the ice has been helping, as well as the Birch oil that I have been putting on it.

Hopefully all will go well tomorrow, and the damage isn't too serious!

Birthday Fun! Great Start to My Next Year of Life!

Plans for today were pretty simple.  Go to my Yoga class in the morning, study for and take my tests for classes,

 This is what studying looks like at our house...

then go to Relief Society activity, go home.  Mark wanted to at least go somewhere for my b-day, although tomorrow is when we are REALLY going to celebrate!  So, we decided to quickly go to my favorite fast food restaurant, Culver's, home of the Butter Burger.  http://www.culvers.com/  Sounds gross, I know, but they are soooooo good!  No worries, we worked off the calories afterward, and they actually have less calories than a basic hamburger somewhere else.

My favorite thing at Culver's, though, is the scrumptious Pumpkin Pecan shakes that they have during the Autumn.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I absolutely LOVE pumpkin.  Pumpkin anything.  I could probably even eat a Pumpkin hamburger (Hmmm, I think I will have to try that!)

Any way, everything is going great, enjoying the burger and fries, and then the best part, the shake.  I took a few bites out of the tiny hole of the lid, and decided it was taking too long to get all that goodness in me, and I need to remove the lid.  I start prying the lid off, which at this point seems child-proofed so extremely difficult for me, and just as it comes off, the condensation on the outside of the cup gets the better of me and the WHOLE thing dumps into my lap (well, minus the first few bites)!

What do I do at this point?  I look at Mark and I say, "Yeah, I JUST did that!"

My next thought?  I'm still holding my spoon...can I just eat it right out of my lap?  I probably would have but there were a ton of people in the restaurant.  As a side note, after reporting the events to the women at Relief Society, many voted for eating it out of my lap.  Mark was kind enough to get me a bunch of napkins and then buy me a new one.  Nice, right?  I love special treatment for my Birthday!

Awesomeness!

So, off to Relief Society we go.  Mark went too so that he could watch kids while the women gabbed and such.  After Relief Society I was feeling a little sluggish and told Mark I wasn't feeling up to walking.  After stepping on the scale, though, I was suddenly in the mood for a walk.  And of course our dogs were very much in the mood for walking, as always.

So we are walking our normal 3 mile loop that we do down by the Missouri River, and we are realizing why the dogs love going at night.  Last night they were chasing toads around until the toads played dead and the pups would move on.  Occasionally a random rabbit would run by giving the dogs yet another thrill.  Tonight, they moved on to bigger and better things.

For a moment I couldn't understand why Roslyn was tugging so hard on her leash.  Then I realized that down the hill from us by the train tracks there is a Possum running along just down from Ros.  All for some good sport, I walk a little closer so Ros can get closer.  Apparently she got too close because the Possum turned around and starting hissing at her!  It was then that I realized that this thing was much bigger than Ros, and could easily tear her to shreds. 

Polly starts freaking out, but we eventually got them away.  All interest in the toads was lost, and they were on the lookout for more interest creatures the rest of the walk. 

Word of caution, if you are weak stomached, this next part may not sit well with you...

We are headed back towards the car, and about a mile away Mark stops.  He says "I need to go!"  So he starts to walk a little further, and says, I really need to go.  It was so bad he couldn't even hold onto Polly's leash anymore.  Realizing the danger of the situation, (being reminded of my own explosive business while on my mission that resolved itself right in the middle of a Guatemalan road, called Boo.  My companion laughed about it for a very long time, while I washed crap out of my garments!)

I asked Mark if he wants me to run get the 4runner.  He said that he is going to have to use the outhouse.  Outhouse = a horrible little portable John that has smelled as though it has never been changed, which happens to be right on our way to the car.  We have had many conversations about the outhouse, and I have even said that I would rather crap my pants than go in there.

Realizing at this point just how dire the situation was, I take off running the last mile to the car with the dogs.  I look back every now and then, and it looks as if Mark hasn't even moved.  I reach the 4runner, throw the dogs in their kennels, and take off toward Mark.  I get back to where he was, and I can't see him.  My first thought is that he has gone into the bushes, but I couldn't smell anything, and knew that couldn't be it.  So to the outhouse I go.  I pull up, and a chagrined looking Mark steps out.  Crisis averted, the outhouse saved Mark a pair of shorts (because they would have been thrown away, of course!)

What did I learn from this?  I learned that although things didn't go as planned, I am quite impressed at my own attitude.  At the end of the day, I still found all of this quite enjoyable, mostly hysterical, and easily manageable.  This next year is going to be a piece of cake, I mean, a bowl of salad!

It's my last year...

...in my 20's! And I am going to make it my best year! I feel very differently this birthday than I did last year. I think I had my midlife crisis way earlier than most people because last year's birthday I felt awful! THIS year, though, I feel great! I have so many goals and things that I want to do this next year, and I am so excited to do them!

To name a few, I want to be about half the person I am today, (while becoming a much better person) I want to work on being more frugal with money, I want to knit more and learn more knitting techniques (I still haven't finished my first hat, yikes!), I want to have our first baby, (this is a little less in my control but I am going to give it my all) I want to sell all of our business stuff, and last but not least, I want to go to Hawaii while my parents are still serving there (this ties into the frugalness thing). The ultimate thing that I want to do is a triathlon. For this blog, I will focus on only a few, as it is late, and I need to go to bed so that I can start enjoying my birthday bright and early!

First to tackle is that monkey on my back of losing weight, aka flatten the tire around my waist, clean out the junk in my trunk, whatever you want to call it.

I think I have a pretty good start on this one, though. Last week I reported that I needed to lose 100 lbs to get to where I want to be. Well, this week I have again met my goal, and I can report that I now only have 96 lbs to lose. Yea! This goal also ties in with the Hawaii goal, as I would be mortified to go to a beach in Hawaii looking like I do now. I would be worried that someone would mistake me for a beached whale!

 
On the frugality front, Mark and I have been trying to use our food storage for meals, and only purchase the absolute necessities like eggs.  We don't want to move all of it with us when we move to wherever we will be moving in June, and it also helps with the finances!  Not to mention eating at home also helps with deflating the previously mentioned tires!  We are trying to make do with less, which really just means LESS-ER since we weren't living on that much to begin with.  Every penny counts, though, right?

Mark and I also hope to have a baby in our home by the time I turn 30, either through adoption (which would be so amazing!) or through me getting pregnant and carrying it 9 months (which would be miraculous, and we would even be ok with only 8 months!).  So this is my little plug for Mark and I. 

If you know of anyone who is looking for a family for their baby (or babies), we would LOVE to adopt them! 

If that doesn't work out, I am currently having my back worked on, and hopefully getting that straightened out (literally) will help other areas of my body, so maybe I can carry a baby full term. 

Next, I know that this sounds weird, but I really want to do a triathlon, which will be a great test of my fitness. 

In January of this year, when I started working out again, I saw a poster in UNO's gym advertising a mini-triathlon here in Omaha to prepare for some of the real triathlons.  Mark and I decided then and there that we wanted to do it.  Unfortunately I really messed up my right knee and ankle and couldn't run anymore.  I am hoping that by Christmas Eve, which is one of my major goal markers, I will be able to start running again.  I would say I would enjoy doing a marathon, but after the first 5 miles or so, running just gets boring for me.  I will stick to running 5k's once I am able to run again.  I hope that the treatment that I am receiving for my back will help with my right leg as well as for my uterus! 

And there we go, my biggest goals for the next year.  I am hoping that my 20's will finish with a bang!