A Busy Surrey Weekend

Home sweet home! I always love to go to Surrey for a visit but I am always really happy to be back home after it. Especially if I have to leave my husband here! 

I flew down on Thursday at 11, and from there Vanessa picked me up and we went for lunch at Jenn Brooks house! It was fantastic because I haven't seen her since our wedding, and we just got along as if it hasn't been 1.5 years! After lunch Vanessa and I did some running around shopping and then went back to my parents house and hung out with them for a little while! 

Friday was another day spend shopping, but it was with my second family! Pindy, Vanessa, Alex and I went to Metrotown to find shoes for the wedding, we got frozen yogurt too...which is always a good idea! Friday night I was supposed to go over to the Botha's for dinner and bonding but they had the flu so that was a no go. So sad! So I got to go out with Vanessa to watch the Christmas production with a bunch of ladies! Woop woop! 

Saturday was a crazy busy day! Saturday morning I had breakfast with my family and then met Calla for coffee, which was fabulous as always! After our coffee date we met all the girls at David's Bridal for bridesmaids dress shopping for Vanessa's wedding! We had to go to a bunch of places to try and find a dress because we just couldn't find a good enough one in the colour we needed!! After dress shopping I headed over to Ashley's house for another bridesmaids get together for her wedding in November! We made plans for everything for her wedding and had food and just hung out! A couple of us spent the night, which I haven't done in a looooong time! 

Sunday was church, which I was really excited about because I never get to go to JH and Clint was speaking, but after the first song I got called down to work in Children's Church because the girl who was working there was crazy sick! Oh well! After church Mom, Jordan and I went to the mall to buy brother new shoes, and then I met a lady about buying her computer! Which I did and am super stoked about!! It is a MacBook Pro in super awesome condition, thanks to Justin for finding it on Craigslist! :)

It was a super awesome weekend, but definitely not restful!! To top it off I woke up this morning and was having an allergic reaction to something!! :( My legs and hands were super itchy and red, and my face was red and blotchy and my eyes were almost swollen shut! Definitely not how I wanted to see Justin for the first time after a weekend away! But Benadryl saved the day and it is gone down, especially in my face!! I have NO idea what I am allergic too but hopefully it doesn't happen again!

Now off to a baby shower for one of my very dear friends and then home to bed! 

Excuses

I have been thinking about how easily we as humans make excuses for everything! Mostly because I keep making them! Excuses about not wanting to clean after I work and just wanting to rest, excuses about not putting the laundry away, excuses about not eat healthy, and mostly excuses about not working out.

I know once I get in the habit of doing all these things that it will just become second nature, its just a matter of actually getting in the routine. I just find it interesting how we can so easily come up with excuses as to why we shouldn't do something that is good for us and so many reasons to be lazy!

Justin always impresses me with his work ethic. He works 12 hour days, leaves our house at 5:15 in the morning and doesn't come home until 8 at night. Still he will often plow the driveway, or I will wake up to the dishwasher being run, or a new load of laundry in. If he can do it there is no reason why me, who works about 20 hours less than him a week can't do it as well.

This is a completely random post, and more so about motivating myself to become a better person and a better spouse! But maybe it will be an encouragement to someone else.

We can do ALL things through Christ who gives us strength. If we ask for it he can give us the help we need to become the person that He wants us to be!

Changing it up

So I figured I might as well blog! Its been a while! I came to the realization that I never blog because I never feel like my life is exciting enough for people to want to hear about. But then I realize hey! No one else's is exciting either! We are all generally just as lame! So I shall too will bore you with my daily life tasks! Hehe!

Recently Justin and I decided that it would be wise for us to make a budget and stick to it. Together we bring in a decent amount of money and sadly didn't pay much off of our debt last year. So maybe if we got a better idea of where our money has been going and make a payment plan we can stick to it and have financial success! So here is hoping that we can stick to it this year!

We also decided that in helping budgeting we should do a meal plan, I know that meal plans cut down on the amount of groceries purchased as well as make life easier by not having to decide every night when I get off work what I am going to make us for dinner. So I sat down and put one together! I've followed meal plans for myself when I've been dieting before but never necessarily had to put one together for myself! I'm sure as time goes by it will become second nature and it won't take crazy long to put one together!

I also have started to want to use my crockpot more! When we were doing our registry both of us were very anti crockpot. We didn't scan one, we didn't want one(we got 3 for our wedding), we thought they were silly. But now...good old pinterest...I have seen a couple crockpot recipes that peak my interest. So if you guys have any awesome crockpot recipes send them my way and ignite my love for this household item!

The new year has just begun and already I am so excited for what the year has to bring! Last year brought many adventures and I am looking forward to the ones that will come along with this year!

Here is to boring you more with the mundane activities of my life this year! Wahoo!!!

Life on "The Skinny Rules"

So last time I wrote I mentioned that I was going to start following The Skinny Rules which I had just finished reading. I have successfully finished 4 weeks of the "diet" and plan on continuing until I reach my weight loss goal. It has been a lot of working changing what I'm used to, and how I cook and eat. But the rewards have been lovely, I have lost 15 pounds this month and haven't even worked out! hehe!! So, if any of you are looking to lose weight just by changing what you eat, this is the plan for you! All the food has been stinking delicious, which makes staying on the plan easy. I will not deny cheating....chocolate has a special place in my heart, one that cannot be removed ever.

These are the rules.
1. Drink a large glass of water before every meal - no exceptions
2. Don't drink your calories
3. Eat a protein at every meal - or stay hungry and grouchy
4. Slash your intake of refined flours and grains
5. Eat 30-60 grams of fibre a day
6. Eat apples and berries every day
 7. No carbs after lunch
8. Learn to read food labels so you know what you are eating
9. Stop guessing about portion size and get it right
10. No more added sweeteners, including artificial ones
11. Get rid of those white potatoes
12. Make one day a week meatless
13. Get rid of fast foods and fried foods
14. Eat a real breakfast
15. Make your own food and eat at least 10 meals a week at home
16. Banish high salt foods
17. Eat your vegetables - just do it
18. Go to bed hungry
19. Sleep right
20. Plan one splurge meal a week

And so the second month of my Skinny Rules living begins, yummy food, weight loss....perhaps I will actually exercise this month, see where that takes me! Oh, did I mention that Justin, to help motivate me, is paying me $10 per pound I lose! YAAAAY!! So that means I have earned $150 so far!!

This past weekend was Stampede so my family and Vanessa and Joel came up to visit, which was so much fun! I love having people visit up here, I love that people come visit and actually like it, and I like to show them how much I love it up here. As a family we went quading, which was hilariously awesome and they had a blast, so hopefully that means they will visit more :)

Until next time!
-Elya

Changes...

Justin cancelled our cable on Friday, which was the plan when we bought our Boxee Box, but now that it has happened it's crazy! It  is really good because now we can't just mindlessly watch TV, we have to watch with purpose. I think our Boxee was easily one of the best purchases we ever made, and we are saving tons of money, which is always nice! I have started to read more, gotten some use out of my glorious Kobo, I always forget how much I enjoy escaping inside a book.

Speaking of books, I just read "The Skinny Rules" by Bob Harper and it was a super good weight loss rule book and guide. So, since I have tomorrow off I'm going to do any of the cooking I need to do to and start it on Wednesday. There are 20 rules, but it is basically just eating non-processed foods and just being smart with your diet. So I might just have to take a before picture and then an after picture once I finally reach my goal weight, maybe it will push me to reach my goal. I have been unsuccessfully trying to lose my last little bit of weight since I lost 50 pounds on weight watchers years ago. I have been unsuccessful because I have been LAZY which I have no problem admitting :) So the time has come, I want to get in shape before summer is over, before we go to Kenya, and before we have babies. So I will be updating my blog with my progress and making you lovely readers keep me accountable! hehe!

Write soon!!

I just might have a new hobby...

So, as some of you may have read on facebook, I was forced to start gardening this year. A task that I found daunting, and didn't want to be the girl who killed the beautiful gardens in her backyard. So I started to "garden" although I had no clue what that looked like. I thought the best way to start this was to weed my garden, problem was, since flowers were already budding...I had NO CLUE what was a weed and what was a flower. So I just pulled it all, to my dismay this was not the best idea. But after reaching out in desperation to my lovely gardening neighbour I realized all is not lost!! I learned what actual weeds were, and how to properly prepare my garden. Praise the Lord a bunch of the flowers that were left in my garden beds were perennials, so I didn't have to plant lots of new flowers. I did, however, have to plant some vegetables in my raised garden beds. So Justin and I went to the store and picked stuff we liked and then picked stuff that looked least likely to die from me! :) I planted cucumber, spinach, radishes, and carrots. I was terrified when planting them, and seriously took forever. I nearly peed myself when Justin text me this week to tell me that stuff was sprouting in my veggie garden! AHHHHH!! YAAAAY! I didn't kill them!!! So now they are my babies. I had to plant new flowers where I ripped them out of my flower bed thinking they were weeds....so pray they grow! That would be victory #2!!

I have been stuck in my house since Thursday, zzzzzzz. I got my top two wisdom teeth out Thursday afternoon and have been inside, watching TV and reading, it has been quite nice actually. I was super frightened to get them out because my bottom two were ridiculous hard to get out, and were still inside my gums. I ended up having a massive square face and was in a T3 coma for 3 or 4 days. This time my teeth was super easy to get out, thank you God! They were popped out in like a minute, it was fabulous. Plus Justin has had to take care of me and cook me mushy noodles, which is fun in itself. But Monday I go back to work and reality.

That has basically been what I have been up to! :) Good times!!

-Love you all!

I'm still here!

So, it has been a ridiculously long time since I have blogged, but here I am, for all of you who were weeping in want for a new post :)

It has been a pretty relaxed 2 months, with a few surprises and purchases, which is just life! Lets start with Easter.

So about a month before Easter my Mom and I were chatting about them maybe coming to visit, since they hadn't visited since Christmas *cough waaaaay too long cough.* Anyways, she has said that they would most likely come up for a visit for Easter weekend, obviously I was overjoyed. But then, dun dun dun, I received an email from my Aunt Karen asking the family about when works for our family Easter dinner, whether it be Saturday or Monday, and minutes later, much to my surprise my mother responds that either one works for her....ummmm whaaaat?! Anyways, I told her basically that she was a goof, but that it was fine.
......fast forward to Good Friday, and I am lying in bed and get a text message from my Mom asking me what my plan was for the day. So we were small talking for a bit and was asking if Justin was awake, I told her no, then she asked if Lexy(our dog) was awake, and I told her no, and then Justin rolled over and asked who I was talking to, so I told him. The next words that came out of his mouth were "Lexy do you want to go outside?" and she bounded off the bed very excited to go pee. I told him that it wasn't fair to her unless HE was going to take her outside, next thing I hear is "Lexy, Mommy's going to take you outside" I could have kicked him, I was so unimpressed. But nevertheless, I got out of my warm cozy bed to let my fuzzy angel outside, and start heading to let Lexy outside when I see my Mom sitting on my couch!! AHHHHHH!! There are a few lovely videos of this on my Mom's facebook and I'm tagged in them too if you haven't viewed these gems yet. So I got my lovely Mom ALL weekend long, which was such a blessing because Justin was working nights. Boo nights!

 ITS OFFICIAL!! We booked our flights to Kenya! YIPPEEE!!!! So we fly out of Vancouver on October 29th at 9:30 pm which means a red eye flight. *gag* cue extensive gravol!! But we get into London at 1:40 pm the next day and have until 10 am the next day before we fly out, so we can see London a bit and have a sleep so I won't be a super crab! Woohoo! We will both be grateful for that one! And we are in Kenya until November 28 and return into Vancouver on the 29th! We also get a 12 hour layover in London again on the way home. I think I will be very grateful for a break in between the 8+ hour flights! We are starting on our plans for when we are over there but are planning on keeping it pretty open so we can be led to the work God wants us to do over there.

We also redid our ensuite, FINALLY! It was the nasty old blue one, for those of you who read my post about our house!  Here are some pictures, a little in between so you can see the place where our medicine cabinet and toilet are, and our new flooring! Woohoo! It is so nice to have a modern ensuite and didn't take that much time or that much money. I love that my husband is so handy! *sigh*

We also have made some purchases since I last blogged. We have bought a Boxee box (for those of you who don't know what it is look it up, it is such a great purchase!!), we then had to buy a new 47" LCD tv for our living room, we bought a dirt bike, a dune buggy, a quad, a 5 man hot tub, a new dining room table, a new dresser for our bedroom. I think that's it.... Keep in mind, most of these are second hand, and Justin is a mechanic and a craigslist junkie so he finds good deals and can fix stuff up!! We also have a seadoo in our backyard too. So, since summer is coming, COME VISIT!! We have lots of space and toys and would love to have you come up!!

Anyways, time to work and bring home the bacon. I promise I will blog again soon!!

xoxo