Fun in the Sun

A busy week with all kinds of stuff going on. You can tell because my house is a disaster area -- no time to take care of stuff. Maybe tomorrow...

It has been a hot, hot week with most days well over 100 degrees. Just trying to stay cool and hydrated. Poor Ally running every day. Fortunately her practices this week have been at 6 p.m., but it was still 93 degrees at 8 p.m. on Friday night. I think it's supposed to start cooling off some tomorrow.

We went to my company picnic at Soak City yesterday. I spent most of the time floating around in an innertube on the Lazy River. We made a chain of about 50 innertubes at one point. It was a lot of fun, and we had chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, corn-on-the-cob, biscuits, potato salad, pasta salad, ceasar salad, and frozen lemonades all included. But, of course, that wasn't enough, so later in the day we bought funnel cake, fries, and nachos. Yeah, didn't count points and won't be recording any weight loss this week. Bummer -- but you have to live once in awhile!

Only the tops of my knees are burnt where my shorts scraped the sunscreen off getting in and out of the innertube. I felt so awful by the time I went to bed last night, though, that I thought I was getting the flu or something. I musta woke up 20 times last night thinking I had chills or whatnot... but I realized today I must have had heat or sun exhaustion. I didn't realize how hot out it was with all the water rides, etc. I felt 100% better today though, and that's good since I'm getting ready to head down to the beach for baptisms and volleyball.

School starts in a week, and we have some shopping left to do for supplies and clothes. It will be good to get back on a schedule, but Ally's schedule is jammed packed, and her classes are 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with cross country practice at 4 p.m. Fortunately her classes are only Tuesday through Thursday with home schooling on Monday and Friday. Otherwise, I don't know how she could do it. She has three honors classes with extra work as well.

I made a candy heart package this week for our Youth Pastor and his fiance, Michael and Denise, who had a wedding shower on Friday. It was fun and turned out pretty good -- caramels and nestle crunch type hearts. He told me today he ate half of them already.

We took Bree out for her birthday to Case de Pico and had Mexican food and fried ice cream. Well, I was good so I didn't have the fried ice cream, but had a 12 point enchilada plate. I am sooo glad restaurants these days have healthy choices, and a lot of them publish nutrition information even right on the menu.

The big news around here is the Chula Vista Little Leaguers who are playing the World Series right now. The Padres are old news, and they were described on ESPN yesterday as a "glorified farm team." Grrrr. Chris is supposedly watching the little league game on TV, but he is, in fact, sleeping on the couch. I'll wake him up before I head out to the beach...

Keepin' On

Just normal stuff this week...

Ally has started serious training for Cross Country running a couple miles a day, soon to be more. We purchased her first pair of racing flats on Saturday. She wore regular running shoes all last season, mainly because we didn't feel like spending the money if she wasn't going to stick with it. Now she's good to go -- maybe cut her time in half... ha! She didn't care about the fit as much as how they looked, of course. The shoe guy got her size down first, which took too long for her then got her a pair of pink and purple ones, which she was happy about. She was not happy when he had her in an aqua pair because her uniform is purple. We had to talk her into getting the size first, then worry about the color... such a teenage girl! I don't care how it fits, as long as it looks good...

I went up see Nicky Pena last night up at Amazing Faith Wesleyan. She is a missionary in Puebla, Mexico. It was good to catch up and we all went out for pizza after. Then, on the way home from Poway, I was very close to home and saw a bright light in the sky. Thought it was a plane, it went a few seconds then fizzled out. A pretty bright meteor, especially with all the lights around.

Yes, I made more candy this week... in fact, my first paying job. Not that I was looking for one, but I was asked to make 16 small boxes for a wedding rehearsal dinner. They turned out good if I do say so, I of course had to sample them to make sure they were okay. Vicki told me they were a hit, so that's good. I also visited a candy supply store I hadn't been to in Chula Vista this week, Standlees. It has some stuff my regular supply store didn't, so I purchased a few items, mainly tray inserts for boxes of candy, and a new mold that makes tiny chocolate cups you can eat (see the raspberries below). Very tasty!



A great blessing this week, with Chris being transferred out to Campo since the agent got killed out there, he had been driving to Imperial Beach every night (about 30 to 40 minutes), then all the way back toward our house and out to Campo (another hour or so), then repeating it in reverse after work. Now they gave him a government car, and he can just go straight to Campo from our house. Cuts off time, and we don't have to pay for the gas, so that's a double blessing! It's a new Red Ford Explorer, just 3,000 miles on it. It has hidden emergency lights, speaker system, and a siren. The girls already want to use it to drive around in... but no! Now the only problem is we're running out of parking spaces around here...

It's a Bird... It's a Plane...

It's a meteor! Chris, Ally, and I drove east about half-way to Julian to view the meteor shower this week. We left our house about 10 p.m. Tuesday and parked on some deserted road that lead to a campground off Highway 79 near the Cuyamaca campgrounds. The only person to venture by was a park ranger who asked if we were watching the meteor shower. Umm... it's midnight, we're sitting in reclining lawn chairs, with blankets and pillows, staring up at the sky... what did she think we were doing? I guess you never know...

Well, the coolest thing was that Chris thought to bring his night vision goggles that he uses at work. At first we didn't want to use them, because you couldn't see the whole sky... but later after we tried them, we were fighting over them, because you could see so many meteors. It was lit up almost like daylight, but with a green tint to everything. We could see the mountains and fields as clear as day. In fact, I was paranoid to look too close, I was afraid I would see a mountain lion or something. If I would have seen a squirrel, I probably would have screamed my head off. We were out until 2 a.m. at which time Ally was half frozen and I had to go to the bathroom and work the next day. We will definitely do that again when it comes around.

Ally and I played beach volleyball in Coronado this week with our friends from Lemon Grove. Had a great time and plan to do it again this Thursday evening. It was hard to play in the sand, and we could have used a few more players. It was really nice out and we went wading in the ocean after playing. The water was pretty warm.


I overdid the late nights because Friday I woke up with a bad sore throat and cold. Today I still feel pretty lousy, hopefully tomorrow I'll do better. I lost a few more pounds this week and got to the gym a few times before I got sick. Ally's back to her Cross Country practices and is getting in good shape with all the running.

Amy and I had our cell phones replaced this week. Amy after dropping hers in the toilet at Burger King and mine because the vibrate mode has never worked on it, and I wanted to get that fixed while it was still under warranty. Had quite an escapade getting mine up and running. After activating and getting ready to ship my old one back, I accidentally wiped out all the info on my new phone and reset/deactivated it instead of the old one. Took over an hour on the phone with Verizon to get it all straightened out.

Tomorrow is church, and I usher in the first service. This week I am making some candy for an event... word is spreading and even though I said at first I didn't want to make candy as a business... now I am having second thoughts... we'll see!

Candy and More Candy

Had a fantastic week this week. On Saturday I made thirteen boxes of candies for the missions auction at church. Candy and filling everywhere! Caramel, peanut butter, peanuts, maple filling, krisped rice, raspberry crunch... I think the boxes sold for around $150 -- was happy to help out! Plus bought a couple cakes -- Ally took her ladybug one to her friend's house, and I am sending the apple caramel cake to Chris' work, but I did have a small piece and it was delish!

Lost a couple more pounds this week... with all that candy making, I was good -- I only ate one piece. Best two points I had all week.

On Tuesday, I took Ally and Bree to the Zoo. Bree was getting ready to have knee surgery, so it was our last hurrah for a few weeks and then summer will be almost over. We had so much fun. I am going to post a new slide show at the bottom of this blog, so check it out when you get the chance.

Just thinking today how content I am with my life in this season. So thankful for God's blessings!

A Weekend to Myself

Ally got really sick after VBS with a sore throat and bad cold. Soon as she was better, she was off with friends and to a youth overnighter, so I won't see her until Sunday. I had Friday and today to pretty much do what I want which was rest, play on the computer, catch up on reading, go to the gym, and drink Starbucks. Great weekend so far!

My cousin Ethel, the oldest person in Ohio at 111 years old, passed away this week. She was the 32nd oldest person in the world. She was my Great Great Aunt Mandy's daughter. My Aunt Mandy lived to be 104! Maybe I'll have some of those lucky genes passed on to me -- the males in my family, not so lucky. Ethel said she liked the saying "Respect your elders." Because she didn't have to respect anyone. HA!
This week Chris and I are going to see the Mets play the Padres on Thursday night. The tickets were Chris' Father's Day gift. We are four rows behind the Met's dugout, so watch for us on TV!

I added a bunch of pics on Facebook, here's one I scanned of us both with longer hair -- about 20 years ago! I started a ticker at the top of the page... I set a goal to lose 21 pounds and have been doing great so far -- eating well and going to the gym. I have lost six pounds this week, but my official weigh in and posting will be on Monday!