To bet or not to bet?

As I look at my naked reflection in the mirror, my first reaction is to run away screaming in horror. Knowing this will wake up my husband and daughter, I refrain.

I thought (silly me) that running a marathon would get my body back into shape (meaning... a shape I am happy with... not a big round shape). Oh how wrong I was... I gained 10 lbs and a few inches on my legs. Yes, I know it's all muscle- but who gives a crap if it's "all muscle" when my pants are too tight!?!

I realize now that working out, alone, will not help me shed this leach-like flab around my mid-section (from below my miniature breasts down to my knees).... alas... I need a better plan. I need to eat right. So- I'm starting to count calories (again). This time I'm going to try to make sure I keep it under 2,000- and not just stop keeping count when I reach 2,000 :)


On top of that, I decided that I'm going to start running to work. Don't gasp too loud- I live pretty close. Only 3.4 miles away, to be exact. So... when I told a friend at work that I was going to start running, he mocked me and said I wouldn't last 1 week. How dare he!? When I insisted that I would be able to last, he actually tried to make a bet with me! "$50 says you won't run to work more than 5 times." Well, I plan to do it... but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. However, maybe this is JUST the motivation I need to actually do it (money talks) . I agreed. The final bet was- if I do it less than 5 times, I pay him, if I do it more than 10, he pays me. So there's a little leeway there. I have 6 weeks...







I will win this $50! And hopefully lose some inches while I'm at it, since I'm not trying to run a stupid marathon- just 3.4 miles :)



Are we ever going to be satisfied with our bodies???

These make me happy.

Daddy is on the left (with one eye- she specifically pointed that out to me), I'm the big one in the middle, and Kennedy is on the right. The dark red illustration is a flower.


This, of course, is a picture of our wonderful house- with grass in front. Dad is on the left, and Kennedy and I are on the right. I wish my legs were really that long.

She can spell and write her own name!! Go Kennedy!

I smile every time I look at these.

Kids say the darndest things...

The other day we were at a friend's house. Kennedy needed to use the restroom and asked me to go with her (for moral support). So I was standing next to the sink as she was sitting on the potty. At this age, she's been loving to role play with her toys, talk to herself as she's playing, etc.... well, while on the toilet, she was talking to herself, and something she said caught my attention.


Kennedy: "How do you like THAT, Mr. Crocodile?"
me: "Kennedy- what are you doing?"
Kennedy: "There's a crocodile in the potty, and I'm pooping on him."
me: "........You're pooping on the crocodile...?"
Kennedy: "Yep. He's mean, so I'm pooping on him."
me: "Oh, I see."
Kennedy: "Yep. And Captain Hook is going to be so happy that I'm pooping on the crocodile."
me: "Yes, I'm sure he will be. It's always good to make people happy."

Before I forget... Days 3-4!

I must be getting old. I'd heard that your memory slowly drifts away as you age, and I'm finally starting to believe it. No, I haven't forgotten that I was going to post more about Disneyland- but I'm slowly forgetting what happened. And I know if I don't write down what happened, I'll forget that I went at all!

Day 3: Sea World

First, when we woke up, it looked like Mickey Mouse had visited our room during the night and left presents for Kennedy!! She was thrilled.



(She took her shirt off as soon as she saw that there were some clothes to try on!)

Then off to Sea World.

I had never been to Sea World, so I was anxious to go. It was a perfect day- There was hardly anybody there and the weather was gorgeous.

Here are some random pictures we took:


I don't know what kind of animal this was- a dolphin of some sort, I believe. (Notice Kennedy in her sweatshirt she got from Mickey)


I think sea lions are so cute. I want one. But I'd need a place to put it besides a bathtub...

Then we saw the famous Shamu show!

Kennedy refused to open her eyes because "the sun would hurt them."


Eels creep me out.

We saw lots of cool animals... and Justin went on the rollercoaster, he fed a dolphin, we went to the dolphin show, the penguins, sharks, yada yada yada... I liked Sea World, but to tell you the truth- I didn't think it was as amazing as everyone had told me it was. Don't get me wrong- it was cool. But I don't have to go back. Unlike Disneyland...

Funny Kennedy-ism: She was really tired and didn't want to walk, so Justin had her on his shoulders for a big chunk of the day. On one occasion when he put her down, she started whining- I asked her what the problem was. Her response: "There are ants in my feet!!" It took me a moment to realize what she was saying (her feet had fallen asleep). Haha! We got a good chuckle out of that one.

Day 4: DISNEYLAND again

I'm getting too old for this. And that's pretty sad, since I'm only 25. But walking around for 3 days straight is exhausting!! And I thought a marathon was bad.

Since it was so empty on Day 2, we had pretty much gone on all the rides we really HAD to go on, already. It was significantly more crowded on Day 4. So when we first got there, we headed over to California Adventure, which was almost a ghost town. So ghostly, in fact, we felt like we needed to ride the Tower of Terror!! (ooooooohhhh) I guess we forgot to mention to Kennedy how scary it is.. but she figured it out as soon as the ride started. She closed her eyes the whole time. But she was a great sport!! I love that ride. She didn't.
We made it up to her by going on the "dumb" carousel (that's what Justin told me it was called). She, of course, loved it...

which you can plainly see by her enthusiastic smile.


We strolled through California Adventure... through "Bug World," which was cool. We felt like little bugs. And we rode the bumper cars, which were actually bugs. Obviously.


On our way out, we ran into Mr. Incredible! Surprisingly enough, Justin didn't feel inferior. Mr. Incredible did.


We made our way over to Disneyland, which was way crowded. Still way better than the summer, but worse than the previous day. Kennedy was really really tired by this point- we ended up renting a stroller. Best $10 we ever spent. We were SO exhausted and didn't want to carry a 40 lb kid around. We figured out which rides we wanted to hit the most, since we were almost ready to call it a trip- Peter Pan, Pirates, Winnie the Pooh (Kennedy's choices), Splash Mountain... oh I miss it already.

We were too cheap to buy a picture- so we took pictures OF the pictures:


We were way too into this ride, since you can compete against each other by shooting the aliens.



(We're in the back. I think that if we were in the front we MIGHT have forked out the $$ to actually buy it. Then again, maybe not)

Over to Toon Town to take some more fun pictures:


We went in Tarzan's Tree house...which is the dumbest "ride" ever. You climb up a gazillion stairs (yes, a gazillion), look in a tree house and look at the rooms they have in there, read the story, and then climb back down those gazillion stairs, and you can bang on pots and pans at the bottom. AND the tree wasn't even real. Stupid.


We saw a tall man in a hat and asked if he'd take a picture with us! (Justin thought of a few Woody jokes, but he made sure to say them quietly.)


Oh- haha! And as we were saying goodbye to Woody, a woman was pushing an older lady in a wheelchair, and I heard the woman say "Look mom! See who it is?" With much enthusiasm, the mom said "Oh wow! It's John Wayne!!" We got another good chuckle.

To end the trip- a nice picture in front of the Disneyland entrance.


And some foot rubs.

After dinner- we went back to the hotel, and Kennedy was so surprised to find that Mickey had visited her again!

(Notice that she's already taking her shirt off- ready to try the new clothes on)

She has been talking about Disneyland nearly every day since we came home. "Mom- do you remember that monster on that one ride? (Matterhorn) I do." "Do you remember the pirate ride?" "Remember I met Woody?" "Hey mom- remember that Peter Pan ride with Captain Hook?" ...

It was a blast. We all had way too much fun.

Disneyland!

Ok, I know it's been forever. And my excuse is the same one everyone has: I've been busy. BUT I have something worth posting about- we went to Disneyland! Yes, it's true- we've finally been on a family vacation. It was fabulous! Since I am such a busy person (obviously, since I don't find time to update my blog regularly), I'm only going to post about the first 2 days... then when I have another spare moment, I'll tell you all about days 3 and 4. Get it? Got it. Good.

Day 1 (Feb. 23):

Our flight got in really early (7:00 a.m.), which sounded like a good idea at the time... but we soon realized that, after we ate breakfast and went to the beach, we were too tired to do much else. We checked into the hotel early and crashed for about 3 hours.


I love the ocean...

After our nap in our beautiful hotel, which was directly across the street from Disneyland (Kennedy was so excited that we were staying in a castle),

we walked over to Downtown Disney (located between Disneyland and California Adventure- no admission fee... just lots of shopping and such) to have some dinner and take a look around. It was raining and I wore very slippery flip-flops.


After lots of shopping and dining (and slipping), we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Day 2:

Disneyland! We arrived as soon as it opened (8:00 am). It was raining- but that was good, because, as you'll notice in some of the pictures, it was very empty! We were able to ride every ride we wanted to- as many times as we wanted. It actually cleared up by mid-afternoon and turned out to be a very beautiful day. And of course the sunshine brought more people.. but oh well. It was still fun.

We started out with buying ponchos, since we didn't want to have to carry around our big umbrella all day (and I made sure to wear non-slippery shoes this day). And who do we see? Pluto!


Then we made our way over Toon Town to take some silly pictures...(do you notice that there are NO people in the background of this picture???)

... and to visit Minnie's house... where we met Minnie, Goofy, Max-a-Million (whoever he is) and Mickey!

(we made sure to remove the poncho for the Mickey picture)
As we were wondering where to go next, we heard a band playing. And we saw Marry Poppins! We made our way into the circle- and Mary selected a couple of girls from the audience to come dance with her- and Kennedy was one of them! She was SO excited (for those of you who don't know, Mary Poppins is one of her very favorite movies)!



We took a few fun pictures... (we all tried so hard, but couldn't seem to get that sword out)
We rode as many rides as we could. Kennedy was fascinated by all of them, but said most of them were "scary." Yet, she was still a good sport and went on almost all of them twice without complaining. We also met many other people- she met Winnie the Pooh, Eyeore, Ariel, Jasmine & Aladdin. I just decided not to post all of those pictures... To end the day, we went on her 2 favorite rides again: Dumbo and the Teacups.

I wanted to hurl.

I forgot- we actually finished by going on Space Mountain- which was completely empty. After the ride, they asked if we'd like to just go again- and we wanted to, but Kennedy was done. So we went to get some ice cream. We went up to the counter to order it and she then told us she didn't want any. A few moments later I looked over at her and she was out.

(Oh- and do you like Justin's new glasses? They look hot, don't they?)

Needless to say, we all slept very well that night.


Those were the first 2 days. Like I said- when I have a little more time I'll write about the next 2 exciting days! Yay!