Elaina's 4!

From the first moment we held Elaina she put smiles on our faces and tears in our eyes.

Taken the day we left the hospital.

First birthday

Second birthday

Third birthday

And now she is a beautiful 4 year old. (She's still asleep, I'll update with a real birthday pic tonight)

Vicki's weight loss (Goal #1 reached)

Lets start with a few before shots.

These were taken at Disneyland about a week and a half before starting the diet.

The new me began on April 20th. My friend Soraksa gave me a month supply of Medifast meals, it wasn't right for her, but she new I was fed up with my weight.

This is a picture of me on April 19th, our 7 year wedding anniversary.

I won't lie, the medifast diet is not easy at first, I'm use to it now, but at first it did feel a bit like torture. However my boss is also doing to same diet so there was a lot of support and encouragement from her. Claudia has also been a priceless support by being my walking buddy after work (she is also doing a great job on her own weight loss).

Okay, this next part is more for me to keep a record of my daily weigh-in journey, and also to embarrass me to never go back to where I was.

Wednesday 'official' weigh-in are in bold

Start weight on April 20, 2010: 224.2

221.6, 219.5, 216.8, 216.5, 215.5, 215.8, 214.9, 214.5, 214.8, 214.8, 215.7, 213.5, 213.6, 211.4, 211.0, 210.0, 208.8, 209.8, 208.8, 209.4, 208.2, 208.0, 206.0, 205.8, 207.2, 206.0, 206.8, 205.2, 204.6, 204.0, 204.6, 205.2, 205.6, 204.0, 204.0, 203.8, 203.2, 203.6, 204.0, 203.2, 204.0, 202.2, 200.6, 200.2, 200.2, 200.4, 200.8, 198.6, and today's weight.....

Drum roll please.... the new me 198.5 lbs! 25.7 pounds down, 23.5 to my next step goal, or 43.5 to my final goal of 155 pounds. I CAN DO THIS

This is the skirt that I have worn almost every Sunday for I don't know how long, size 20, compared to my new size 16 shirt! (So far I have lost 5 1/4 inches around the waist, and 1 1/2 around the hips) I like how Elaina is trying to show off too.

Head shot


Here is a picture of me at my goal weight (from back in 2001)

And now, after seeing all those pictures of me, let's end with something cute : )

Rancho Spring Festival: A Visit to Old California

How about....

This past Saturday 5/22/10 started off normal enough, we went to the Cerritos farmers market, and then went down the street to Heritage Park or as Elaina calls it, the "horse park."

Then we had lunch. That is when the "how about...'s" started. How about after lunch we finally go check out that Hopkins Wilderness Park that's in Redondo Beach, just a few blocks from where Elaina's friend lives.....

Not quite what I expected, but it was still a nice 11 acre nature getaway in the middle of the city.

Since we are already all the way out here, how about.... we go to the Redondo pier?

How about.... we add to the pearl collection we have going.

My oyster had 3 pearls in it! Elaina and James' pearls were exactly the same size

Hmmm, last time we tried to go to the sea lab over that way it was closed. How about... we go check if its open....

We then went over to check out the Sea Lab, little did we know that we got there 3 minutes before closing. Luckily they had a birthday party that was still wrapping up, so they let us go in for a very quick explore. It's very small, but worth a second visit to absorb all the info the sea lab has.

Driving home we passed by an English shop. How about... we stop there?!

We ended our day by going to the English shop, getting yummy treats!

Mustard

Ya know, instead of ketchup--->catching up
Meh, it's Vicki humor, just smile and nod.....

Okay, so I have REALLY fallen behind on this blog / journal thingy, so lets take a very quick trip back in time and see what the Miles family has been up to (or at least the things I thought to take pictures of, hee hee.)

Last Friday 5/21/10
Every year the school where I work puts on a community carnival. It's great, all the kids have a blast, and all the adults stress out, well actually that sounds like the usual, but especially at this time of year : )
The great thing about work is that my boss has kids too so she understands and has said that if it's a family event Elaina can come too.



Elaina's two favorite things about the carnival was, of course, the cotton candy, and the dinosaur game.


On Saturday 5/15/10 My parents, Elaina, and I went to check out the Paul and Mary Muth interpretive center in the Upper New Port Bay.



I had found the place out of desperation the week before. At work some of the kids are using curriculum called O24U (oxygen for you) that all about the environment. Well, they were going to go on a field trip to the Long Beach Civic Garden, but that fell through the day before. Since we actually had permission slips and transportation I didn't want to cancel, so I started typing in different environmental tag lines into the Internet search engine to find a suitable field trip and WaLa! I found this place. The kids loved it, so I figured I might as well check it out for myself.


Elaina wanted me to take a picture of the big bird hanging from the museum ceiling. So just to make my special girl happy....



They had a lot of cool hands on stuff in the center, including a huge room completely devoted to kids. She really didn't want to leave, but we did eventually to go walk two of the nature trails just outside of the center.

Going even further back in time, we find ourselves on Sunday 5/2/10. This was the night that we went camping in our yard! Of course it took absolutely forever to get the little one to sleep that night she was having so much fun, but it was so worth it.

There were other cool things we did as a family during that time, I just don't have pictures for them. Well this brings us almost up to date. Since this post is already long, I'll put this past busy weekend on its own post : )