Lately...

....we've been busy! I am thankful for the busy times, but I wish I had more time to blog about life as it happens instead of big photo dumps every couple of weeks. This shall do for now :-)

April was a whirlwind...we finally feel like we're settling in, making great friends, and finding out what "home" means to us in Washington. We celebrated Easter with the "F" family {who we know from Texas...see ODG < 3 ELF} and we are so glad to have them nearby -- it has made the transition quite a bit easier to have a piece of Texas here {even though neither of them are Texans...}

We stopped to see the tulips after church before lunch. ODG felt like a ballerina in her Easter dress!

Anlee has better pictures I'll post later, but this is the only pic of ODG & ELF that I got the entire day!

In April, we discovered the "touch tank" where you can pet starfish, crabs, and have so much fun!

ODG points with her middle finger at everything....no matter how many times I correct her to her pointer!

April was the opening of our local farmer's market! It's every Saturday and if we're free we head out there for an hour or so and see what all our locals have to offer. It has been so fun! From good food, to balloon fun, to fresh produce, we are loving it!

Spring has officially sprung in our town and it is beautiful! As if the views we've seen haven't been pretty enough, they just keep getting better!! The rainy days are more scattered apart and the flowers are in full bloom. 

And in addition to all of that....we have FINALLY hung curtains! We didn't even hang curtains in our old house we lived in for 2 1/2 years, so I'm quite proud of this accomplishment! Hopefully I will do a picture walk of our house soon...stay tuned!

In other exciting news, I'm scheduled to be a guest blogger on a local gal's blog here in the next couple weeks! I'm so excited to share the top 5 things I love about our new town over on BellingFAM. I'll post a link when it's available!

What was your favorite part of April? Anything you're looking forward to in May?

April Life Update

Be prepared for an insane amount of pictures from our Easter weekend!

For Brian's mom's 50th birthday & Easter, we traveled to the Wild West to spend time as a family. We started out our journey late Thursday night. Brynlee Ann has a very special message to share...


Friday was Nancy's 50th birthday, so after grocery shopping (so we can stay with our healthy eating plan) all day, we headed to a yummy hibachi restaurant to celebrate! At the end of dinner, our waiter brought out dessert for Nancy with a special gift from all of us :-)

 We custom created an Origami Owl Living Locket (stayed tuned for a website, or comment below for more info) -- the birthstones are Brian's, Matthew's, mine & Brynlee Ann's

Next, was Good Friday service at church. We went home, began relaxing, and SURPRISE! Aunt Susu, Nancy's childhood friend walked through the door and surprised her!

 This is the most still picture I could get of our little busy toddler! Isn't that little romper precious??

Brynlee Ann absolutely LOVED hanging out on the back porch on the swing with Papa.

Saturday was the day of Nancy's Grace Adele party, but what she didn't know is it was really a surprise birthday party! Nearly 20 of her closest friends, including Aunt Susu, were able to join us to celebrate 50 years, complete with a DELICIOUS cake (yes, I may have cheated and had a couple of bites...the smallest piece of cake I've ever eaten!), gag gifts, and Grace Adele purses!

 Our friend, Anlee, made this hilarious, and delicious cake!

 Birthday song for the birthday girl!

Nancy being a good sport & trying out her new cane :-)

Sunday, we worshiped together while celebrating our RISEN Lord, Jesus! He is Risen, indeed!

 I am so blessed to be a part of this family!

The highlight of our trip was watching Papa & Brynlee Ann share in their love of airplanes! We got to spend a bit of our day on Saturday "flying" Papa's airplane!

So to cap off this update, I'm so excited to share my progress on the RepairVite program! I have been enjoying delicious food, while losing weight and feeling better than ever! I "cheated" a little bit with a couple bites of cake, and I also ate about 5 bites of steamed rice at dinner Friday night, but considering I was away from home for 4 days, I'm quite proud of myself!

This week, I have a delicious marinade coming up, as well as my favorite recipe so far, tacos...yuuum! I need to eat lunch ;-)

Starting weight on 3/19 - 253.6 lbs
Current weight - 240 lbs