Memorial Day Weekend 2019

We celebrated our anniversary by going to Longhorn steakhouse Friday night.

 The kids were out of school Friday, and Tim was off.  So he took them to his gym and to lunch.  They showed up at work with these pretty things for my present.  He let the kids pick them out too.  So nice!

 Tim excited for his steak.

 I had the cheesy garlic Parmesan chicken.  It was SO good!!!

 Saturday morning I finished packing up the trailer.  I had to put back in all the essentials that we normally don't have to take out until the end of the season!

Tim took the kids back to the gym Saturday morning, then I swung by and picked them up to go see Aladdin!!  It was a great movie with a GREAT soundtrack!

 Saturday evening we had family dinner with the Ohana.  The oldest "niece" is going off to the air force so we all gathered for a send off.  I normally just give cash for these events, but I was DETERMINED to give her a lei like everyone else.  But decided to make a bracelet because I need to be a little different. :)  everyone loved it!

 Sunday Morning:

 We backed the truck up to the trailer and pulled out for Blue Springs State Park near Clio, AL.

 I'm not sure why he decides to wear his joggers or some form of sweat pants ANY day in the summer.

We packed the kids new bikes and the dog in the back of the truck and off we went!

 He didn't sleep well the night before.  He was a TAD grouchy on the short drive.

 I made him stop so I could use the bathroom - and I got him a snack because I needed his mood to perk up! 

 Crossing over to Alabama.  This is the Chattahoochee River.

 MADE IT!  745 Alabama time.

We found one of the only spots available at 8am and got everything set up.  Loaded the truck to go to the water!

 It was in the weirdest spot - we've never had to drive straight in on a circle.  There was four spots up where we were.  Two of the trailers were there permanently.

 A little Keto snack at the water!

 Kennedie already drawing!  Mason taking a snooze!

 Listening to my Audio-book!

 1045 and there weren't a lot of people there.

 Getting the grill ready!

 I forgot to bring a spoon down for the beans - so he army'ed one out of tin foil!!

 It was getting hot and Mason kept moving around to find more shade!

 You know when you just wanna punch out your spouse?  We laughed at this picture!  He even offered to cover my double chin with his fist!

 We cooled off in the trailer for a bit.  We had a slight problem, we somehow got hooked up to a 20 amp site, we have a 30 amp trailer.  We kept tripping the breaker until we realized.  If we wanted to keep the air going we had to put it on auto and at 74 degrees, and all the interior lights had to be out.  I was worried for when we wanted to pop popcorn and watch a movie later.  It ended up not being an issue and we just had to be very careful with what we turned on.  But once we realized the problem it didn't trip again!



He was cracking me up - even in a small 22ft trailer he can find a way to hide and be by himself!

 It started to cool off a bit outside as the sun was going down and we had some good shade in our neck of the woods.  So the kids got their new bikes out for a spin!

 We got the kids new bikes because they are old enough to ride the mile and a half to the library this summer to enjoy the summer reading program activities.  They haven't had bikes in 3 years since we live down a dirt road and they weren't old enough to bike anywhere alone yet.  But now that Kennedie is 15 and Cale will be 10 next weekend we are confident they will be OK by themselves in our small town.

Because they haven't had bikes in 3 years Cale was 6 when he had his last bike and it had training wheels.  So he had to learn how to ride!  He did great within an hour or so he was pretty good at it!

 Popped some popcorn and popped in a movie.

 Tim wanted to listen to music - so he had to borrow my ear buds.  I thought it was funny he was wearing gold and pink Lilly earbuds!

 Cale had a little wipe out while riding his bike.

 Enjoying the night.

 We also didn't get a fire ring with our spot - so we made s'mores in the griddle.

Kennedie said they tasted great!  She went back inside a little while later and made more all by herself and she was proud.

 Round two of popcorn. 

 Round two of s'mores.  He just likes the marshmallows and graham crackers.

 Tim fell asleep before the rest of us - sent Cale in while we were putting up the stuff from outside.  Joker stole my spot on the bed.

Monday Morning:

 This was our area - at noon the day before we saw that our favorite spot #20 was available.  We were SO close to moving - but we stayed - there was no traffic up here at the top of the campground and it was nice when Cale was learning how to ride his bike.

 Making breakfast. 

 Cleaning up the camper and getting everything ready to leave.  We decided to go dump the tanks first thing before there was a line like there was last holiday weekend.

 Because of the angle of our trailer we had to angle the truck to the hitch.  One try and we were good to go - I was pretty proud of myself for guiding him back at an angle.

 I think I have a sunscreen problem.  We take sun protection seriously!  Clearly these always go to the bottom of the bag and I don't check before I drop another one in.

We didn't get "our spot" Monday morning, so we were in another spot.  We headed out once it started to get filled up in the water.

I hope everyone's holiday weekend was fun and full of thankfulness of the lives that were lost for our freedom!

I'm trying the Keto thing....

So a fellow dance mom was saying she started the Keto diet and had lost a good amount of weight on it.  So while it took me about 5 months to rid myself of 22 lbs the weight that steroid injections in my back, made me gain - I had gained back about 10 with poor eating habits.  So I did what any girl in my position would do.  I Pinterested it, and research it!

Looked "easy" enough - a lot of the foods on the 'can have' list was mostly stuff I liked eating (I'm a HUGE picky eater so a lot of diets don't work for me because it's a lot of stuff I just won't eat!)

I'm in the middle of my 4th week and I'm averaging about a loss of 2 pounds a week.  That first week was the TOUGHEST I was so hungry all the time, and because I can't have normal sprite of course I craved it!! Normally there isn't donuts, cakes and cupcakes at work but of course the week I chose to start there was donuts, cakes AND cupcakes 3 days out of the 5 day work week!!  But I was resilient and didn't have a week moment!!  I have lost a total of 6 pounds so far.

My day goes like this:

7am I have my morning spark (which thankfully is Keto friendly)

10am I have my breakfast which usually is two eggs and bacon

12pm I eat my lunch - usually a meat of some type and a vegetable

2pm afternoon snack

500 (ish) pm dinner.

After dinner I do not eat anymore, only water.  I fast until my 10am breakfast.

I ONLY drink water, and let me tell you how much I love my sprite!!  I love fruit, pasta and bread and all the yummy carbohydrates.  So to not have ANY in almost 4 weeks is a HUGE victory for me!

 These are my favorite snack and they replace the need for chips in a meal.  We call them "cheese chips" in our house.  I take presliced cheese and cut them three ways and make 9 pieces per slice of cheese.  Bake them at 375 for 8 minutes (on parchment paper).  I let them cool on the parchment paper and put them in a bowl and keep them in the fridge.

 10am breakfast time!! 2 eggs (either scrambled or sunny side up) with bacon.  (I cut up one package of bacon at a time so I can just grab some and cook it in the morning.)

Lunch this day was tuna (with miracle whip, mustard and pickles) and cheese chips.  This is one of my favorite lunches.  Bento Boxes are from Tupperware!  Totally worth the buy!

 Lunch on this day was eggroll skillet.  Ground beef, browned and then adding a package of bagged coleslaw mix, near the end I added soy sauce and sesame seed oil.  When we ate it we added some "yum yum" sauce to it.  SO DELICIOUS!  It makes a lot too.  Had my husband not had seconds he would have had enough to have lunch the next day too.  This was all that was left for my lunch!

 

I saw this on Instagram and thought my husband would TOTALLY dig it for his lunch.  I bought all the ingredients and will make those this week for him!

When we went camping last weekend I thought it was going to be hard to maintain my Ketosis (which you can check that you ARE in active Ketosis by purchases "Ketone urinalysis" sticks at Walmart in the Diabetic testing section for under $7.)  But I did enough pre-planning and prep work that it was no problem at all.  But when it came to the campfire I wanted to be snacking so bad!!  But I kept to my water!