Happy Turkey Day!!! (Late!!!)

I am so behind in posting!!!  I have spent the past two weeks both house-sitting for my sister & her family and then in spending time with them for Thanksgiving!!  Backing up ... my has been on both sides of the country for the past few weeks.  My sister, Denise & her family were all in Orlando at Walt Disney World for a week.  My nieces loved it - the 2 year old was star struck by all the princesses and Disney characters that she got to meet!  While they were there, I went and stayed at their house and kept watch over it and their dog, Lucky.  Lucky & my dog, Rascal, have never been best buddies - but they tolerate each other and Rascal loves having a huge yard to run around and play in.  At the same time that those 5 were in Florida enjoying the sunshiny weather ... my parents & other sister and brother-in-law were snorkeling in the warm waters of Hawaii!!  Rebecca & Jared were the only ones of our family who had never been before - they're hooked now!  It doesn't take long though - the Big Island of Hawaii makes everyone happy!!  So ... half the family is on the east coast of the US and the other half is across the country & half an ocean!  I, on the other hand, was preparing for what they kept saying was going to be our first snow and ice storm of the season in North Texas.  I'm super glad that they had the forecast incorrect - but it was still very cold here!!  Good thing Denise's house has a fireplace!!

Denise & her family were home before Thanksgiving so I spent Wednesday - Saturday of last week with them.  We took the girls to go see Disney's Frozen (great movie, by the way!), we had a small little Thanksgiving dinner, Denise & I braved the crazy Black Friday shopping, we had an after-Thanksgiving dinner get-together with the rest of the family Friday when they got home from Hawaii, and Saturday I bought my new Christmas tree!!  It has been a REALLY busy, REALLY crazy, REALLY fun two weeks!!  I hope that everyone reading had a great Thanksgiving as well and had fun with their families for the beginning of this holiday season!!

I have done pretty good the past two weeks with my diet ... I am now at 37 lbs lost! Yay!  I've experienced a little bit of problems ... some regurgitation of my food because I've eaten too fast or taken too big of a bite.  I have to remember to slow down sometimes and well, I'm not a patient person - so I just don't do it every once in a while.  It's not a comfortable thing and it pretty much kills me when it happens, but I'm getting better and learning.  I have added in some exercise ... but not too much.  I had actually been doing more prior to about a month ago - that's when I got a really awful cold and my breathing became really bad.  Every time I ride my bike or walk for too long, I get very winded and wheezy.  It has gotten quite a bit better the past few days, so I'm hoping that I can pick back up in the next day or so.  I feel so much better when I am able to exercise and I feel like I'm doing more to help myself.  Oh ... and just so everyone knows ... we did GREAT with the Thanksgiving dinner this year!!  Since it was just me and Denise's family (as seen above - aren't they a great looking group!?!) ... we decided we'd keep it very small and simple.  We had a smoked turkey that one of the men who goes to church with Denise & Jeremy did up for us ... it was DELICIOUS! Denise made a broccoli/cheese/rice casserole, green beans, carrots, salad and cranberry sauce.  That was it.  We didn't have rolls or any other kind of bread and the only sweets that we had were mini-Chocolate cupcakes (made the WW way!).  Now ... my mom did get home on Friday and it was requested that she make her apple pie (it's just not a family holiday without it!).  I was really good though and I had two little bitty slivers and I didn't eat much of the crust.  I'm sure that made everyone else happy because it left more for them ... but it was totally enough to make me happy that I got a taste of my favorite dessert!! (and it wasn't a huge slip from all my good eating!)

Okay - I promise I'll try to be better at keeping you all updated!  I'll post some Christmas decoration pictures later this week.  Eventually I'll get someone to take a decent picture of me so I can post it on here ... I'm not great at the selfie!!  Maybe I'll get someone to take one of me & Rascal in front of our tree this year!!  We'll see!!  Thanks for reading!