Belgium

Ok, so this is a few weeks late. Instead of tackling our whole Europe trip in one posting I thought I would split it between Belgium & Paris. David was already in Gent, Belgium when I flew out to meet him. He had to work so I had 2 days to explore Gent on my own. It was amazing. The architecture of the buildings is mind blowing (pictures below). Here are a few things I found interesting in Gent. Beer is important. Beer is very important, almost as important as their chocolate. When you order a beer it is severed in its own labeled glass. Example, if David ordered a Leffe Braun it would be in a glass labeled Leffe Braun. Each glass is different in shape, size, and style. Also, all bars advertise what beer they serve more than their name. So looking at a bar you would not notice the name of the bar but you sure knew what kind of beer they had. The other thing that I found interesting is that they served French fries with every meal, and I mean every meal. Gent is one of the few cities that Hitler declared as a “free’ city, so it was unharmed in the war path to Paris.


Here is the castle I toured. It surprised me that castles are no way pretty or romantic, but very fascinating. There are numerous torture rooms with a lot of torture equipment (freaky stuff). It's very dark and very spooky.





A view from the river walk

These statues covered the front of the building.


One of the several cathedrales


Aren't these just the cleverest little statues?

Another river walk view




World's best waffles.... EVER

Weight Watchers - Week 8

I had another successful weigh in, down another 2.2 pounds for a total of 23.2! Yea me! Sorry for the short post... I will try to do more later in the weekend.

Thursdays weigh in

Just a fast note. I weighed in thursday and I was down 1.4 pounds for a total of 21 pounds! Yippee! Going to the cabin this weekend. I will post about our vacation & cabin trip when I get back on Sunday.

My husband is shaving his head?!?!

He is doing this to raise money for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. It’s a wonderful organization that helps raise money for childhood cancer research. I am so proud of him. There are 5 guys from his work that is doing this. If you want to read more about it here is the link to his donation website. However, if you would like to come to point and laugh at him, please come!
http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.php?ParticipantKey=2009-349769#

Europe was beyond wonderful. Better than our honeymoon. I will post more the trip this weekend.

Should I be concerned?

Tonight we celebrated David’s birthday (a little early) with my family. We went to The Vine. Brianna ordered the ‘small’ beer…. Should I be concerned?


David's birthday isn't until March 4, however he will be in another country, so we decided to celebrate before. It just doesn't feel the same when you celebrate after your birthday. Look what my parents got him for his birthday.

For those who don't know, G'N'R still lives on in David's mind. He's already talking about seat covers to match.... HELP ME! Thank goodness this jeep stays at the cabin 9 month of the year! Speaking about David's jeep. When he got home yesterday there was a note on the front door, "if you want to sale your jeep please call me." Pretty much made Davids day!

I weighed in tonight. I was down another 3.4 pounds for a total loss of 19.6 pounds in 5 weeks. I’m very happy about this. Now to maintain it while on vacation…. I'm sure I will only get to Paris once in my lifetime, so I will not stress about eating only healthy food. I plan on being smart about my choices, yet still enjoy myself. I also hit the gym 4 times again... just couldn't bring myself to get there on Sunday too, even if I could get a 25% off a smoothie.

We discovered damage on our roof from a storm. Good news is that we'll be getting a new roof on the house. Oh the stress of they style and color. I swear you would of thought I was about to perform brain surgery the way I was concentrating on the shingle samples.

Take care. I will post after our vacation. Wish us luck.

A loss but not by much….

I weighed in last night. I’m down another 0.2 pounds. That brings me to 16.2 pounds in 4 weeks. I feel great about this. I really do. I was expecting to be down more than 0.2 pounds, but I need to look at it as it was at least a loss and not a gain. I also stuck to the gym thing, 4 times again! Wahoo! They are now offering 25% off fruit smoothies (only 4 WW points!!!) on Sundays… so maybe I’ll hit it 5 times this week and reward myself with a fruit smoothie.
David just got back into town last night. It’s so wonderful having him home!! He just makes my life so much easier. It’s amazing. Last night while I was giving the girls their baths somehow the kitchen got clean and the dishwasher got loaded. Oh, then while I was reading to Ashlynn, both the girls lunches got packed for the next day…. It’s almost like magic… but it’s David. I swear he is the best husband and father I could even wish for.
Now, I’m starting to prepare myself for my first international (if you don’t count Rocky Pointe) vacation. David has business in Belgium again… so I’m tagging along. He flies out Feb. 27. I will leave March 3 to meet him. I’ll explore Gent, Belgium while he works for a few days then we’re off to Paris, France. We’ll take a train from Belgium to Paris and spend 2 ½ days in Paris. I cannot even begin to find words to explain how excited I am about this vacation. Paris with my husband! This is a trip of a lifetime for us. I’m actually looking forward to the long flight out there by myself. For the flights I have checked out Stephenie Meyers’ Twillight and New Moon books from the library. I will get to read grown up books! Well, actually they are young adult, but still there will be no rhyming or pictures! Oh, I will also be splurging on a new Sudoku book to have for the flight. Any other suggestions for 20+ hours of traveling by myself?
Equal to my excitement is my guilt for leaving my girls for 6 days. I have never been away from Ashlynn or Brianna that long. They will be staying at my parent’s house, which always seem like a party at their house. Ashlynn is already excited about going and thinks it will be cool to spend 6 nights at grandma’s house. I just know I will miss them terribly.

Thank you!

I would like to thank Ben for his comment on my previous blog. He is absolutely correct. I read his comment and had a light bulb moment. I need to remember that my main goal is to get healthy and to feel good. The weight will come off if I focus on my overall health. It will be hard a times to remember this, but I will try to step back and remind myself of the larger goal, to be healthy for my girls and husband.
Although, I didn’t have my light bulb moment until after I weighed in last week. Good and bad news. Good news first. I was down another 3.4 pounds for a total weight loss of 16 pounds in 3 weeks. The bad news is that I ate light, (very light) the day of weigh in. I ate so light that I only ate carrots for lunch. Not good. I don’t believe in not eating to lose weight, but I was so desperate to be down on the scale I did a silly thing. So, this week I promise myself that I will eat a regular lunch the day of weigh in.