great holiday weekend

mr. c & i had a fantastic weekend camping in wisconsin dells. we stayed at the Arrowhead Resort Campground. we had some interesting LOUD neighbors, so that was not the best thing. oh well. more details are below.

saturday:
we did some final shopping & packing and got to the campground around 1:30pm.
the first thing we did was figure out where to put the tent. mr. c's parents got us a new 2 bedroom cabin tent with a screened in front porch. here's the final product:

the rest of the day we just set up camp, and ran to walmart to get towels, tiki torches/citronella stuff & a new air mattress pump. for dinner we had burgers on the grill. then we sat around the fire for a while, walked to the bathroom building and then went to bed around 10.

sunday:
we got up around 9 made bacon & eggs on the coleman propane stove with fresh raspberries on the side. we hung around the site had turkey pepperoni pizza pudgie pies for lunch with peaches on the side. after we did the dishes, we ventured into the dells where we went horseback riding and go-kart driving. the horse ranch had a petting zoo as well, so here are a few pictures from that:

the little bunny that i wanted to bring home.

the ass that kept coming up and nudging us in the butts so that we'd give him food over the other animals.

the two of us in front of the waterfall at the horse ranch.

mr. c on his horse. i think he looks pretty good up there!

when we got back from our adventure we made brats, baked potatoes & grilled asparagus. we sat around the campfire, then walked to the bathroom building to get ready for bed, and went to bed around 11. the next door neighbors were drinking and LOUD as i stated earlier. more and more people were showing up to their site, as well as the neighbors on the other side of us. i sort of fell asleep and woke up cuz i had to pee REAL bad. i woke mr. c up around 1 and he drove me to the port-a-potty in our site area. we got back to the site, and mr. c fell back asleep right away, but the neighbors kept carrying on - it was after 4 the last time i checked my phone. that was super lame.

monday:
we got up around 8 and had strawberry pancakes, eggs & bacon. mmm. it was delicious. after we cleaned up, we packed up the site and headed for home!

once we got home we unpacked the truck, washed all the dishes, and repacked the stuff. then we did our grocery shopping for the week. when we got home from that we grilled bbq chicken and corn on the cob. i made a spinach & strawberry salad to go with. YUM! then we did laundry.

man that was one CRAZY long weekend!

cute green & brown stuff

a couple of weeks ago mr. c & i went through a bunch of stuff that was just collecting in our spare (guest) room. i really want it to be a room where i can have my sewing machine and a place to go and relax and read a book on our AMAZING verlo futon. so we got a really nice bookshelf from home depot and a bunch of storage stuff from target. here is the result:

the big bag down on the floor is a goodwill bag of stuff that mr. c didn't want anymore. way to go purging!

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along with that, we have a platform bed frame from crate & barrel. so, with a platform frame, you don't use the boxspring from your mattress set. so...ashamed to admit, we had the boxspring propped up against the wall in front of the window in our bedroom for like...6 months. YIKES! so in this great purge that i spoke of above, i found the extra fabric that i had ordered of the bridesmaid fabric in the off chance that one of the girls (mrs. d, ms. z & ms. s) would need some. so, since it's a really nice brown color, and totally goes with our bedroom, i thought that i could fashion some type of window covering out of it. my parents got me a new "singer advance" sewing machine for christmas 2007 and i haven't really used it very much, but it has cute decorative stiches. so, last night i just sort of came up with something, this is the result:

Memorial Weekend Plans

i'm SO excited! mr. c & i are going camping in the dells for the holiday weekend. this weekend also happens to mark 2 years since we started dating. so that's pretty special, too. it's going to be so nice just spending time with eachother since it's such a rarity with our different shift lifestyle.

we planned our menu last night, and i'm going to run out and do some grocery shopping in a bit. then, i'll go to our storage locker in the building and pull some stuff out that we'll need.

it looks like it's only supposed to rain tomorrow morning, and after that the weather should behave beautifully. so, i think we're going to go horseback riding, go-karting, maybe mini-golfing & probably some hiking. i'll be taking tons of pictures, so i'll post all of that when we get back.

i'm especially looking forward to trying out the new tent that mr. c's parents gave us for Christmas. it's a 2 room tent with a screened in porch! so we'll see how that goes.

Macro Photography

while in NE with my aunt, i played some more with the macro on my digital camera (a Canon PowerShot SD1000 - Digital Elph). here's a sampling of my favorites:

Week 3

was on a road trip with my mom most of the week. had to try to make good decisions when there really aren't good decisions available.

i haven't weighed myself yet this week. but, here's how i did on vacation. there was a lot of water drinking in the car, and some 100 calorie packs, and fiber granola bars eaten as road snacks.

my mom and i left for IA / NE (the flatlands) on saturday morning.
i had a quizno's salad for lunch. saturday pm i got to meet my only full cousin on my mom's side for the first time! the last time my mom saw him, he was 4 ... now he's 33. my uncle is a hunter and a super good cook. he brought vennison loin to grill for dinner. along with that my mom and i split a twice baked potato, and there was a delicious spinach salad with strawberries, almonds, and vidalia onion dressing. for dessert there was rhubarb cobbler.

sunday there was continental breakfast at the hotel. i splurged and had a waffle. that afternoon brought a personal sized hawaiian pizza (my favorite) from Lansky's in Omaha. sunday pm, my mom's cousin Linda put together a very perfect portioned roast beef sandwich, a handful of potato chips, and a nice glass of milk.

monday brought a bowl of raisin bran & coffee of course! lunch time on monday i had a chef's salad wih a raspberry vinagrette at Petro's in Omaha. monday night i splurged and had a beef quesadilla and a strawberry margarita at a hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant called La Hacienda in Omaha.

tuesday morning was another delicious bowl of raisin bran (i love that stuff!). i can't for the life of me remember what we had to eat for lunch. tuesday night we had dinner with rachael and andrew in Iowa City at a super cute place. i had a super good bok choy salad, and a mushroom pesto pasta. also, a bit of red wine. i had a bite of andrew's creme brulee.

wednesday we drove home and had continental breakfast. once again, raisin bran and i had an english muffin with peanut butter. for lunch i had a kid's meal at culver's with applesauce instead of fries. i did have gummi worms for a driving snack. they were just loaded with sugar and not much else.

so basically that was our trip, and i didn't do great, but i could have done A LOT worse.

"well I'll be darned!"

grandpa: you're married now right?
me: yeah, we got married on your birthday last fall.
grandpa: well i'll be darned!

(he doesn't have the greatest short-term memory anymore. in the fall he thought it was super special that we were getting married on his birthday.)

Moral Support

so, mr. c has historically just gone to wherever to get his haircut. inevitably, a few days later when getting ready, he rants about how much he hates his hair. we both have SUPER thick hair and it grows pretty quickly. he would get very upset about the sides getting poofy. so i made an appt for him at the salon that i go to. mr. c, being the somewhat shy person he is, wanted to make sure i would be there with him. due to unforseen circumstances, our stylist had to be out of town the weekend i had made the appt, so we had to reschedule during the week. due to mr. c's work schedule, i had to take my lunch hour and go sit at the salon while he got his hair cut. i also got my eyebrows done, so it wasn't a totally lost cause i suppose.

mr. c and his new "big boy" haircut.
i think that it's super cute.

Week 1

well i'm 1 week into making a conscious decision to make a change.

big news! i'm down 3 lbs from last week! there's a huge table of candy at work for a fundraiser, and i walked past it ALL week! i didn't get ONE thing! i'm so proud of myself. i never thought i'd be able to do that.

i had salad for dinner 2 nights this week, and had way more fruit than usual. what a good week. it was a pretty stressful week at work, and that wasn't the best, but i think i actually coped with that pretty well.

along with all the other changes/improvements, i really need to work on going to sleep earlier so i can get a full night of sleep. i also NEED to get to work on time.