Ode to September

Why I already love September 2009

1. Visiting this city for my 2 year anniversary trip from Sept 3-7 with some amazingly awesome friends, Zak & Kellee Mudrow-- It is gonna be SO much fun!

2. My amazing Mom is coming to town the week after. Can't wait to see her!

3. Last and certainly NOT least, my adorable 3 year old niece, Abbi Lynn Nelson will be coming and staying with Uncle Geoff & Aunt Cami for 5 whole days! Can't wait to spoil her rotten.

Hurry and get here September!!!

Another special friend

We took out our special friend Blu tonight to get some pizza and it was such a great time. When we picked him up he acted like he won the lottery. He was SO excited to see all of us! This guy has impacted my life more than he will ever know and I will miss him so much once we move to Texas. Many times he signs he loves me and it just melts my heart. I tear up thinking about saying goodbye to him. I am so blessed to have so many special friends like him in my life. They remind me every day what truly matters.

Koolaid hair will help you get a man...

Take her word for it. Seriously. Press Play. You will NOT regret it!

If you love me...

As I was walking back to my car after working out at the gym, I noticed something on my seat that was not there before. I opened the door to see this little napkin and the greatest t-shirt ever made. The note is a napkin from this great little frozen yogurt shop that says: my name is ____ i really like your_____. Wanna spoon me? If anyone knows me well enough, they will know this is right up my alley. Oh that sneaky Geoff. Do I not have the cutest, most thoughtful husband ever? Needless to say, I was smiling ear to ear as I drove home from the gym.

Healthy and YUMMY recipes

Here are 2 yummy recipes I have made recipes where I made the original recipes healthy.

Red Potato Salad

8-9 red potatoes cubed and boiled (with the skins on)
1/2 cup skim milk
2 TBSP light mayo
1 package fat free ranch seasoning
Turkey bacon cooked and torn to pieces
green onions chopped

Mix the ranch, milk and mayo. Mix in the turkey bacon and green onions with the potatoes and then slowly pour the mixture over the potatoes and let chill for a couple of hours. Really good for BBQs and such.



Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

3 eggs (I used 2 egg whites, one whole egg)
2 cups grated zucchini
1 c. vegtable oil (I use applesauce instead and it works fine and LOTS healthier)
3 c. sugar (I use splenda instead

1 TBSP Salt

3 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

3 cups whole wheat flour

Bake at 350 for about 45-hour depending on your oven. Mine took about 50 minutes.

Lovin' great deals!

I am so excited about this new Shabby apple dress that I got for practically nothing due to saving up on promotional codes!

I highly recommend you take a gander at shabbyapple.com. It is a little pricey but they are classic peices that you can wear forever and once you do buy something from there, you get TONS of promotional codes via email. This dress cost me like $20. Remember my perfect black dress I bought for Christmas? I wear it all the time and am still lovin' it each time I do.

An amazing experience!

So we did it. We can cross it off our list after many months of discussing conquering this task.

We hiked the WHOLE Wellsville Mountain range. All 12 1/2 miles of it. 7 miles uphill. We counted about 7 mountains total that we climbed over.

(This is what the Mountain range looks like, of course there was no snow when we hiked)

The Wellsville Mountains are literally the steepest mountains in the world. They are amazing and I will never look at the mountain range the same again.

It was tough & at times I wanted to give up. But what an amazing experience it was.

We started the hike at the crack of dawn @ 6 a.m. and ended around 2:45 p.m... Lasting almost 9 hrs. We invitied our neighbors and good friends, the Bennetts, to come with us and we had a great time together.

I don't know if anyone has done anything like this but I would highly recommend it. It was literally one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You could stand on the mountain peeks and see the Great Salt Lake and turn around in the same exact spot and see all the way up to Idaho. Incredible. There is no way you can deny there is a God after seeing the beauty in the Wellsville Mountains.

It was amazing. Incredible. Almost Life changing!

Health-care crisis in America

Disclaimer-- this is quite passionate. And if you don't want to hear/know my opinion, discontinue reading right now.

On to the subject...

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about our health-care in the U.S.

These are my two cents, take it or leave it. I won't be offended if you disagree =)

I honestly and truly believe our country would be in a much better position for health care if Americans actually took care of themselves. I feel like I am in position to talk about this because I make a conscience, daily effort to take care of myself. I run 6 days a week, lift weights 3 days a week and eat a daily caloric intake of about 1300 calories. I have also lived a completely sedentary lifestyle up until I was 20 years old. So this is why I am standing on my soapbox to proclaim to the world that junk food/laziness is NOT worth it! Life is so much better living HEALTHY!!

All you see on the news these days is talk about how terrible health care is in America. I am completely against socialized health care that Obama wants. I think one way we could cut back on health care costs is making health care more expensive for people who had higher BMIs. I think it should be more expensive for people who have higher blood pressure. More expensive for people who have high cholestorol... etc etc. That's right I said it. Is this discrimination? Maybe. BUT I do think that this would motivate people to work at taking care of their bodies, which would minimize health care costs.

Or maybe we shouldn't make it more expensive for the unhealthy but LESS expensive for those who have a lower BMI, etc. I know there are some extreme circumstances where weight issues are not preventable (I have family members where this is the case) but for most cases, it's just plain laziness. The number one crisis in America right now is type 2 diabetes (almost always preventable) and cardiovascular diseases (also almost always preventable). Both of these are weight related issues that can be controlled (for the most part) It has a HUGE affect on affordable health care and a huge reason why medicaid is practically bankrupt.

I think it is really sad how Americans just do not care and are lazy and so overweight. I know what kind of life that is... Like I have said... I lived it for a good portion of my life. I weighed 250 lbs just 5 years ago. My life now, weighing in at about 155-160 (which is by no means "skinny" but it is a healthy BMI)-- I can tell you... is SO SO SO much better! My asthma is practically gone and I have WAY more energy! Not to mention I can do things I never could have done before. It's amazing what our human bodies are capable of.

The point of this blog is to maybe motivate others to get up and be active and teach your kids and friends to take care of your bodies because honestly, these bodies we have are truly amazing and SUCH gift!!And then maybe health-care would be MUCH more affordable for the rest of us.

Just my thoughts. Hope I didn't offend someone. I am just really passionate about this because for most of my life I would wallow about my weight but NEVER do anything about it.. until finally I made a complete lifestyle change and I can tell you I will NEVER go back!

My parents & The Woodlands.

My parents have moved to the Woodlands, Texas (30 minutes north of downtown Houston) and built a beautiful new home there. My mom is finally getting her dream home after all the many years of sacrificing for her children... It's about time.

I can learn so much from my Mom. We had a nice house growing up and my dad made good money, but she never demanded her "dream home". She decided her children were more important and gave us a great upbringing because of that decision.

I am so happy for my Mom. She gets to close/move in to the house in 2 weeks! Homes are materialistic and clearly not the most important thing in the world, but I think it will bring my Mom great satisfaction to finally have a big island kitchen that she has always wanted to do all her baking/cooking. Here's to you, Mom. You deserve it!

(There will be stainless steel appliances put in, in the next couple of weeks)

Cedar City/24th of July

It has been a very busy past couple of weeks for Geoff and I. Last weekend we went down to Cedar City (Southern Utah) to visit Geoff's parents and to be at his best friend Jason's wedding. We had a wonderful visit and lots of great conversation with my in-laws, who I simply adore. We even got Geoff's dad TOTALLY hooked on the show "24". They stayed up til almost 1am watching the end of season 2 with us. We went to Yankee Lake to go fishing with them as well, and sadly we did not catch anything but we still had a great time.


Then this weekend we went to my grandparents house for a couple of days down in SLC to spend some much needed time with them and my extended family. We went out one night with my best friend Randi and her husband Alec to say goodbye, as they are leaving for law school in Oregon and we will be moving to Texas in a few months.

Every 24th of July, my grandparents have a big breakfast up Millcreek Canyon with all the trimmings. It was great to spend some time with cousins and Aunt and Uncles. After our food settled, we went on a 6 mile hike that overlooks the Salt Lake Valley. It was pretty strenuous and tough, but man it was SO worth it when you see the view at the top and to feel like I was in good enough shape to conquer such a tough hike (good thing cause next week we are hiking 12 miles up the Wellsville Mountains-- steepest mountains in the world, no joke) . I feel so blessed to have such a close knit family and will miss seeing them as often as I do when we move to Texas.