Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Last day in McCall and drive home

Our last day in Mccall and the first day of rain.

Cole, taking care of business on the way home


Dawn and Cole at Bryce Canyon. Good photo, but Dawn was not impressed by Bryce.....oh well ??
Me and Cole liked the Canyon.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Friday night in Mccall



No big party here on my Birthday. Just me Dawn and Cole sitting around watching "Dateline" and the "tonight show" woohoo...........I know the photo makes me look like I haven't lost much weight, but remember the camera adds 20 pounds....just to my face! I really have no idea what I may have lost, because I decided when I got here that my whole problem in the past with weight, is that I set a big goal, work by buns off, hit my goal, and then go right back to my old eating habits. So this time around, I really really just want to focus on eating healthy, exercising and feeling good, and not ever getting on a scale, because that's not what it is all about. It's about a serious lifestyle change and eating this way forever, not just until you hit some magical number on the scale. So hopefully over the next few months, with that philosophy, Dawn and I and Cole can make these changes last for a lifetime, for all three of our sakes. It's been great and we have all had an unbelievable time together.

Cole's last day of school in McCall


Cole on his last day of School in McCall. He did 3 weeks hard labor here. Hopefully he didn't fall too far behind all his buddies back at home. He had a great time here and made some new friends.

Ryder Cup baby


me on my birthday doing what I wanted to do.......chillin' out, watching the American's smoke the Europeans on the first day of the Ryder Cup

Apple and the tree



Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...........my kids will understand this even if no one else does............Okay I better explain.........this is EXACTLY how I sleep. I never knew what to do with my left arm, it was always flopping around, so I got in the weird habit on tucking it on the left side of my shorts. I love Cole, he has been such a great kid on this trip.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Yea......it's my turn


ok! ithought i should take a turn, and of course my husband decided to get another beautiful picture of me to post....We have had so much fun on this trip. We have also busted our butts everyday with major exercise routines. I feel as though for as many miles as we have biked i could of made it back to Arizona by now.. You have to understand i dont think i have been on my bike in over 2 years, never mind the fact that i have never mountain biked before, but man i love it. It is so beautiful here its like a slice of heaven. I wished you all could see it for yourseves. But you will just have to take my word for it. If i ever hit the jackpot i am going to get a place here, it has everything..... Ther is another thing that i have to mention and that is, the men in my life, i dont know what has come over them since we have been here but they have been awesome, making dinner doing the dishes, being so sweet, ladies you have to bring your guys here..... its crazy......... As much as i am having a great time here i am getting anxious to get home to my other kids, i miss them like crazy.... Hopefully they have missed me,

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Travis Hatfield......the politician


Cole made us turn around and take a photo of this sign. He thought is was way cool that their was another Travis Hatfield in the world. To us though, their will only ever be one Travis Hatfield !!!

Dawn's getting skinny........






We had a great ride today. I took a few pictures of Dawn, while I was riding and she was riding. After our ride today, Dawn wanted me to post a picture of her not on a bike, or in a lake, but after she had done her hair and put on a little makeup, so here it is........I think she looks mighty hot, but who am I..........by the way, we spent 10 minutes trying to take the photo 'cause Dawn couldn't figure out what to do with her hands, so we finally settled on the old faithful of hands on hips.......I like it. As you can also see, another beautiful day, it actually hit 80 degrees about 3 p.m. so it was a great day.
This afternoon we went out on lake payette with a really nice 73 year old real estate lady named Jean Odmark, a good friend of Jim Harrison's. She was really nice and we had a great time. Then tonight we went out to dinner with Shayne's parents, Rory and Donna and had a really good time with them. Cole stayed at their home and had a good time with Shayne.

Sunday, September 14, 2008






Okay, so little Cole still has a way's to go before he starts sporting his 6 pack abs, but I gotta tell you, he has been one awesome kid since we have been here in McCall. His attitude towards everything has been amazing. He loves, loves exercising, both swimming and bike riding. He loves eating healthy and learning what foods help you grow lean and strong, and which foods detract from that. We've been trying not to distinguish "good foods and bad foods" just foods that help fuel your body and which ones don't. He has had a great attitude about going to school up here and making new friends. I think his favorite thing of all though is swimming in the freezing and I do mean freezing cold lake. We must look like retards, we are the only ones in the lake and people cruise by on their pontoon boats and you can tell they are looking at us like we just escaped from the loony farm. This afternoon after Church we took a drive to another place that has a hot spring. We went to check it out for Jason and Mallory, in case it was a good place for them to visit on their honeymoon up here. It was actually quite nice and it's much deeper than the other one that our whole family has been to. The water was clean, and they had this one pool, about the size of a jacuzzi, that the water was sooooooooo hot, I mean absolutely burning hot. That's one one photo and me Dawn and Cole together, we were in that pool for maybe 30 seconds before you started to smell burning flesh!!! Now I know what lobsters feel like right before their untimely endings. After the hot springs we came back and like I said Cole loves the lake so we went out in the water for almost an hour. Dawn did the kayak, and was kayaking all over the dang lake. She has gotten real good at it and it's a pretty good workout. Cole and I just swam and froze together.
Afterwards, while Dawn was still kayaking, Cole and I came in a made healthy homemade peanut butter cookies, using all natural peanut butter, light brown sugar, wheat flour and a host of other good ingredients. The cookies turned out great, and they only have 3 grams of fat per cookie, and it's all monounsaturated fat at that !! So we each had a couple and locked the rest up for Cole to use in his school lunches during the week. It was a great day and we are looking forward to another great week ahead.

Last night's dinner and early morning church, then great pizza









Okay I don't want this whole blog to be about food, but we are trying to learn to eat healthy and make new stuff, and last night was a good one. We made Panang curry, which is what Dawn and I get from Mint Thai Cafe, but we made it here, put in pototoes, onions, mushrooms and ate it over cooked brown rice. It was awesome, just as good as the resteraunt, but way healthier.


This morning we went to the 9 a.m. church. It was really good, the Stake Relief Society Presidency all spoke and each talk was really good, mostly about families, really good. We came home and I made two more homemade pizzas from scratch. I'll post some photos of that for sure!!
Okay, actually, I just uploaded the pizza photos and they came out on top, and I have no clue on how to move then around so there they are. I made a half pepporoni (turkey) and half cheese, and the other one was awesome, me and Cole made a barbeque Chicken pizza on the wheat crust. They both were awesome, and healthy, so we are full now and going to go on a nice afternoon car ride up to a place called Bourgoin. Lots of fun !!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Cole's field trip and afternoon ride






This afternoon Dawn and I and Cole went for a great car ride. While we were out, Cole remembered the road that he was on last Friday, when he went on a school field trip. It was amazing, his memory and sense of direction were incredible, (just like his mom, haha) seriously it was amazing, and Cole led us about 8 miles up and around and he found the trailhead where he and his classmates climbed up the the top of boulder lake. The photos are just various shots down by the trailhead. But to get to the trailhead we had climbed in the car up a bunch of dirt roads just to get there. The lake is kind of on top of a mounatin called jug mountain. Anyway is was really beautiful and Cole was so excited that he found it. By the way do you like the photo of me and Dawn???..........it's not too obvious is it that I'm sucking my belly in as much as humanly possible........you can't tell that, can you? Anyway we had a great afternoon and we were out and about for over 4 hours.

Golf............finally a reprieve




See how happy I am!!! My foot finally felt good enough to go for a round of golf. I golfed with a friend of Jim Harrison's named Ballard Smith, (sounds like a good ol' Mormon name). Ballard is a great guy and quite the background. Ballard was married to the daughter of the owner/founder of Mcdonalds resteraunts for 16 years. During that time they owned the San Diego Padres baseball team and Ballard was the President of the Padres for 11 years, including the year 1984 when they went to the world series against the Tigers. He is now married to a great lady named Lori and they are building a real pretty home in Mccall. He loves to play golf and we could play every day, if Dawn would let me!! After the round of golf, I took this other photo on the way back to the cabin. Jade and Jason and Alexa will remember riding on this road on the snowmobiles, that's why I took it, so that they could see what the roads look like without 8 feet of snow all around it.
Well Cole is yelling at me in the background, we are going to go eat a healthy salad at our favorite place, so I gotta run..........................

Dawn showing off and lunch time





Okay, Dawn kicked by booty again today on our bike ride and she wanted one victory photo, so there it is, Queen Dawn, victorious in today's ride, however I must admit that I felt awesome today on our ride. Then we went to lunch and had salad, and Dawn and Cole had a mini cheese pizza, and I had a turkey and ham sandwich (no mayo, thank you very much) and then we went for a great car ride, which I'll post the photos of next

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Woohoo........Dawn in the freezing lake !





Still September 11th. After we picked Cole up from school we came home and Dawn wanted to get in the kayak, so she did. She went up and down the whole lakefront along the properties that line the lake, she was awesome at it. Then me and Cole talked mom into the lake, which I must admit is quite cold right now. It was a beautiful day today, so it wasn't super bad. The high today was 70 degrees, a far cry from the 100 plus in Mesa. We finished off the afternoon by hopping in the jacuzzi and warming up.

today road bike ride and gym workout






Okay, I'm well aware that I look like the before pictures on the "biggest loser" but today I felt like I rode like Lance Armstrong. Today Dawn and I went on a 1 1/2 hour road ride out in the country. It was great, I actually beat Dawn up 1 hill, first time in 10 days...woohoo!! Then we went to the gym and stretched, (Dawn has no idea I took that picture of her on the medicine ball) and went swimming in the pool for 1/2 hour. It was a good day of exercising. We had a great salad for lunch at our new favorite place, can't remember the name but it has a great salad bar.