Weight Loss

My initial three months Weight Watchers has ended, and since I haven't been tracking myself officially on there for a while, I canceled my subscription. That is not the end though. I still have about 30 pounds to go to goal! :) I will make it this time!

It's funny, the more weight I lose the bigger I feel. It's a strange phenomenon that I wouldn't have believed until I experienced it. It's probably because I expect to be a whole lot smaller after losing 25 pounds, but it's really not that much of a difference after all.

I'm going to be back home in Florida for the next month starting on Tuesday. I am so excited! I plan on keeping up my running routine while I'm back, which I hope will include running with my dog and on the beach! I'm definitely looking forward to it!

Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival

Last Saturday my friends and I went on a little trip to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, UT to go to the tulip festival.  They have these huge gardens there with tons and tons of tulips, and it's really pretty!  I took TONS of pictures of course, but I'll just share a "few" here, which will still be a lot. :)

The colors of the tulips were so vibrant!

Danie, one of my best friends

I handed my camera to Reid and told him to take a picture of me, Rachel, and Danie.

Instead he held the camera facing him and took this. :)

 Me laying by the flowers.  

I realized afterwards that they look kind of dead in this spot.  Oops.

One of the Thanksgiving Point waterfalls

Reid pushing Danie in her wheelchair, with a foot pop.  Cute.

Danie and Rachel, some of my besties.

Jake, Reid, Rachel, and Danie looking at the fish in the pond.

Danie, me, Rachel, and Brandon by the kid's pond.

The Italian Garden, with lots and lots of bathtubs. :)

Me!

My favorite flowers of the day.  So bright!

Jake atop the hill

Rachel and me in the tulips

Reid posing for photos

One of my favorite shots of the day

Stopping to smell the flowers

Rachel, Danie and me

Reid chilling in Danie's wheelchair :)

Yellow tulips!

Reid pretending to take a nap under a tree

Rachel resting among the flowers

My favorite color arrangement of tulips in the garden:

 Jake the self-proclaimed photographer

Second favorite color arrangement

Mustafa, our Muslim friend.

He "died" here.

Reid holding up a pillar

We were lucky that it was such a beautiful day outside!  One of the first truly warm days we've had this spring.  I even got a nice, painful sunburn to show for it.  :)

Summer Reading: "Ender's Shadow"

My first summer reading of the year was Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card.  It's a companion novel to Ender's Game, meaning that it's the same story, just told from the point of view of another character, in this case Bean instead of Ender.  I really love the story in Ender's Game, so this was right up my alley.  It was really interesting to see another side of things at Battle School.  Bean's background was also really, really interesting to find out about, too, and see how it influenced his experience.  There were also things at Battle School that we missed from Ender's perspective.  And Bean was so intelligent that he figured out a lot of things that Ender missed or had to be told.  I think it would be neat to read the same story as seen by some of the other characters, too, but, alas, there are none such books to be found.  There are some sequels to Ender's Shadow that follow Bean back on earth after the Bugger war, which I will take a whack at later perhaps.  If you liked Ender's Game, I'd recommend this one.  If you haven't read either, why not??

WW Weeks 12 and 13

Well, my friend who lived down the hall from me whose scale I used to weight myself every week moved out and I haven't found another way to weigh myself until today, so I'm a little behind. Let me catch you up...
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Loss since last weighed: -3.9 lbs.
Total loss: -27.6 lbs!!
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Gosh, I'm just so excited to still be losing weight!  I've noticed a definite change in my appetite (for the better) and I am really enjoying running everyday.  It's great to feel these changes in my body and feel myself getting stronger. :)

Here's a graph of my weight loss (it doesn't go all the way back to the beginning, though)


Get your own graph at skinnyr