Behind the Scenes

Take Shape for Life Convention & Photo Update

This past weekend the Phoenician hosted the Take Shape for Life Convention. There were almost 1300 health coaches in attendance. All I can say is AMAZING!!! I not only learned about this fabulous business but had a chance to meet and talk to people who are changing lives on a daily basis. One lady I met said she couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs or wear high heels last year. She is now down almost 80lbs and is now helping others achieve their goals. There was story after story and all I can say is I spent the weekend with a bunch of happy, healthy and interesting people. For myself this has been a life changing experience. I now know what I want to be when I grow up! Not only have I lost the weight I've been fighting with the last 20 years I feel like I can help others do the same:). 

Heading off to Tucson tomorrow to watch Mackenzie swim at the US Opens which are being held at the U of A rec center through this Saturday. Mackenzie is pre-swimming for both duet and team and also swimming the combo event. This will be my first US Opens and the first time seeing teams from out of the US compete. Should be a good time. Go AAS!!!!

Here are some of the long overdue photos from Nationals.

These were all from her duet. I will post others later!

Back to the blog....back from Gainesville and hello 4th of July:)

It's been forever since I've posted to the blog. Life is suppose to slow down once your kids get older right? WRONG!!!!  So what's been happening??? I chaperoned the 13-15 team to Gainesville with my friend Michelle. Can I just say we were awesome chaperones and the girls arrived on time, were well fed and rocked Gainesville. Mackenzie's team came in 4th after dropping from 2nd place in their routine swim. This was due to having very young swimmers whose figures weren't quite as solid as the older girls. Still 4th in the US is nothing to complain about!!! Proud, doesn't even come close to describing my feelings towards these girls. They are strong competitors, wonderful athletes, supportive of each other, caring and the list goes on!!!

As far as the other placements go....Jamie Kuchan came in 3rd in the solo category. She's had a beautiful solo all year long and it's wonderful to see her get the national recognition she deserves. I believe Courtney just missed finals with a 9th place finish in her solo. In duets, Courtney and Jamie had a first place finish. Mackenzie and Emilee placed 5th. Not bad since this is by far the hardest category to place in. The trio placed 8th after a 3rd place swim....again, the figures played a major part in this...but, to place 8th out of 49 is still pretty decent!!!

In the below photo are the girls messing around with Coach Jessica. Cindy left on her family vacation and was the only one missing from this photo.

Thought this was a cute picture of Jamie and her Dad. He was so very proud of her!!!!

Steven has been having his own kind of fun...he's partied at Jon and Jessie's house with Adam, had a sleep over at Drew's, dinner and swimming at Matt and Jackie's and then Garrett's house for two days! He didn't even want to call me so I know he was having a fantastic time!!!

This next weekend is the Take Shape for life Convention. I can't tell you how excited I am about it. I'm now just 6lbs away from my goal weight of 135 and am very excited about helping other people reach there goals. My sister in law lost 4.5lbs her first week and her granddaughter lost 3.5lbs and 2.5 inches from around her waste. 

The menu for today is rib-eyes on the grill, roasted corn salad, baked potato and watermelon! I can't wait:) Happy 4th of July everyone.

Heading to Gainesville Florida!!!

Heading out in the morning to Gainesville to watch the national synchro competition at the University of Florida. This year Mackenzie had all three of her routines qualify so she will be a very busy girl this next few days! GO AAS!!!!

Steven has been a very busy boy the month of June attending summer school classes for 3 hrs each day. He was upset at first that I made him go because his grades were good and he felt it was a slam to have to attend summer school. The teacher had them figuring square footage, making a budget and following it based on their earnings. Each person in class had a profession....good life lessons they don't seem to teach in regular school. Today was his last day and I let him skip because he had the opportunity to go to the lake with Jon, Jessie and Adam. Jon and Jess also were meeting some friends that had a boat with a tube! That's all Steven had to hear:). I'm sure he's having a blast. Since I won't be home tomorrow he's spending the night. He and Jon have an evening of Wii ahead of them once Adam hits the hay. Then tomorrow, Jess and Steven are making some pineapple upside down cake and hanging together until John gets home from work. 

My new camera arrived and I'm totally loving it! Who would have thought such wonderful improvements had been made since my last digital purchase!!! I promise to post photos next week.

Tracy Bannon turns the big 50 today. Last Friday night her husband Kevin through one of the best private parties I've ever been to. He arranged for 10 of us to have dinner in the wine cellar at Lon's at the Hermosa Inn. I'd never been there but Tracy and Kevin go often. The place was amazing...food, service, atmosphere....the whole package!!!

Hump Day!

So glad to see the middle of the week hit! Woohoo.....we are fever free at this household. A reason to celebrate. I've accomplished a number of things on my to-do list today and am very pleased with that too!

Here's a quick card to share with you today. I really need to make an effort to get back to posting daily. 

This is using some scrap paper from cousin Tena's stash and the new Papertrey Anniversary set. Let me know what ya think!

Off to call an appliance repairman to fix my ice machine. I've gone without too long!

Cards, cards and more cards..

Just popping in to post a few more creations from the weekend. Here's a few cards I made using Papertrey's new set called "At the Beach". 

This is not the best photo due to my good camera dying and my point & shoot is not great with the flash on. Here's another card.....

Again the colors aren't the best but hopefully you get the idea:).

Off to research camera's to buy. I need to get one purchased before the end of next month when I head off to Florida.

Tomorrow the new appliances are being delivered  to the rental house. The sign is up in the front yard. Hopefully, all we go as well with the renting of this one as the last one.

Happy Memorial Day!!!

We still have a sicky among us! Kenzie is still down for the count. This will be day 4 for her and I'm hoping she starts making the curve soon. She's still running 101 temp. Seems par for the course with whatever this stuff is. Ugh!

Yesterday, Steven, John and I ventured over to Tena and Mike's for a BBQ. It was a perfect day for it. Mike made his famous ribs, cabbage crunch, fire and ice tomato dish, watermelon and pineapple, pasta salad....who could ask for more? Oh, and Tena made her famous Pineapple upside down cake. I didn't have any because I'm determined to lose this last 10-15lbs but the kids said it was awesome. It was great to catch up with everyone. I got some cute shots on my little point and shoot. Here's the first one that cracks me up!

This is Pepper trying to see if Uncle Ray would share his shrimp! That was a negative.....but she was sure cute trying.

Here are the boys and Sami playing Boccee (sp?) ball. Later Tena and I took Mike and John on and whipped them! We have a traditional dance we do to celebrate which totally ticks the boys off:) Of course that's what makes this truly fun! lol  The boys even had a practice round and Tena and I went it and showed them who the champs still were! ha!

Here's Miss Sami in all her cuteness playing in the pool. What I realized yesterday is that she is growing up way too fast! She's self sufficient and can hang with the big boys just fine. 

This next week, Sami, Trish, Tena and Michael are heading to Hawaii for a vacation. Sami gets to swim with the dolphins. They are also going to go to the pineapple fields, a hawaiian luau and just hang at the beach. Most of all I hope Trish and Tena get some quality stress free sister time which they both deserve. Here's a cute pic of them from yesterday. 

Nothing much going on today. Kelsey and I went for a walk this morning and I cleaned up some more leaves in the yard. John's off trying to purchase appliances for the rental. 

Peace out!

Oh, almost forgot here's a card for today.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

We are laying low this weekend. Steven is finally recovered from 8 days of high temps....now Mackenzie has been blessed with it. She started feeling bad Thursday evening after practice and wouldn't you know it she woke up with 102 fever friday morning. What was really bad was she had a babysitting date that day with the kids down the road. She took two ibuprofen and went about her day. She came home feeling fine and again ran the temp later that evening. She's now horizontal on the couch. We've watched Mall Cop, Appaloosa, Taken, Bedtime Stories, half of Australia and still have Valkyrie to watch. I personally loved Bedtime Stories and I'm loving Australia!!!. Hard not to like Hugh Jackman with no shirt on:).

I also did a bit of stamping trying to cheer myself up. Here's one of the cards I made. 

This is made from the set my cousin,Tena, brought me back from Donna Downey's inspired weekend that I was unable to attend. Isn't it the cutest stamp? Also made another card that I'll share tomorrow.

The reason the photo isn't the best is my Digital Rebel decided to die last weekend at Regionals when I was taking pictures of Mackenzie's team. Granted I've had the camera forever but it's really a sad day. I loved this camera. Now I need to figure out what Canon model to purchase. 

Well, I'm off to Costco with John to do a little shopping and later today the three of us that are healthy are heading to Tena's house to have ribs. Looking forward to getting out of the house.

Regionals

The Arizona Aqua Stars rocked Carson pool in Mesa this past weekend! The 11-12's, 13-15's and Jr teams all placed 1st in the team category. I don't have the total results packet yet, but I do know Mackenzie placed 2nd in her trio and missed out on 1st by 7/100ths of a point. Her duet placed third behind two other very strong medal contenders for the National event in June. Here are some photos from the weekend.
Here are Emilee and Mackenzie posing for a picture for the National program.
Here's Em giving Mac a peck!
Here's the 13-15 team screwing around before they got in the water. This is the trio along with Sydney who is the alternate:).

Enough with the synchro girls. I also put their pics up on my facebook so they don't need anymore attention. While at the meet I also took a picture of my friend Laurie who has lost the 81 lbs using the TSFL program. Here she is with her husband Wayne (he's also lost a bunch of weight!). Doesn't she look fantastic? So far, I'm down 7.5 lbs in only a couple of weeks!

The end is approaching.......

This week we've spent attending awards ceremonies, meeting new parent groups and looking at the end of another school year fast approaching. Before I forget I want to  to post this card I made for Mrs. Bishop, Steven's wonderful 5th grade teacher.
I thought it turned out ok..........I'm a little rusty from not stamping much lately. I used the Papertrey polka dot background set as well as the Teacher's apple set.

Tuesday evening Mackenzie was presented with two awards at school. One for academic excellence ( her current grade point is 4.0) and one for Photography (wasn't expecting this one!) Here are some pics of the ceremony.
This is when she got the photography award.
Here's the one for academic excellence.......and BTW there were three sets of kids up there for that....I was impressed.

Here's just a cute picture of her and one of her good friends Brittney.

Last night we attended a meeting for her new IB program at Westwood. Honestly, I'm a bit stressed at what's to come these next three years and hope that Mackenzie is really prepared to stick this out. She will be challenged:).

Steven is also rocking in the grade department! He received a 65 out of 65 for his state report. He did the entire thing by himself without any help from me!!! Love this.

Steven is plotting to have a pool party the day after school gets out with all his friends. He really wants to invite all boys except one girl, Eileen. I'm hoping it will just be a little boy pool party......we'll see.

Oh, one more thing......Alyssa, cleaned out her closet and gave Mackenzie four garbage bags overflowing with clothes. Let's just say Mackenzie has been in hog heaven. A new outfit every day. Here's a picture of the loot.
I'm off to work. Have a great day.

Howdy there folks!

Life has been a bit crazy around here. Last weekend Mackenzie came down with the temp and had a runny nose for a couple of days. Luckily, she was able to head back to school on Monday. That's when it started to hit me....sure enough by the time I came home from work I was miserable. Blew through a box of kleenex, got a very sore and red nose. Thought I was making the turn on Wednesday morning and ran out of steam about 10:30 and remained in bed for the next two days. Then my voice disappeared and I thought my throat was closing up....hello posterior sinus infection! Never had one of those before. I'm now on drugs and the proud owner of a sinus irrigator! It's  not a very fun toy...

So, today I had a laundry list of things to accomplish. Washing the dog who is shedding profusely was a top priority. Of course in order to do that I need to wear her out throwing the ball for her.

   Mackenzie and I are now watching Bride Wars and taking it easy. She's been working on her on-line Geometry class. So far so good, of course she is only on Chapter 1. Lucky for her she has plenty of friendly tutors available cause certainly her parents have no clue!!!

I'm still working on learning my new laptop. So far, so good and I had to say it but I don't think I'll go back to using the PC.