The One in Where I Post a Lot of Photos (part 1)

I can't even begin to cover everything that has happened in the last year so I will just post pictures and hope you can follow them.

Feb.'12
Phillip turned 11 and  earned his Arrow of Light award and moved up to 11 yr. old scouts

March '12
The kids and I hiked Table Rock for the 1st time. And Phillip got to be an missionary for the night.

 April'12
Phillip was continuing with safety patrol at school and Emilie was making spiders at the library.

 May '12
Emilie was student of the month in 2nd grade.  Phillip continued playing the violin. 

Both kids earned hall of fame awards, so proud of both kids and all their hard work in school.  They are both great students. Emilie's art piece was chosen as one of two art pieces from her school that would travel around the school district next school year.  

Emilie's art piece.

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 Emilie shows that she has her own sense of style.  She seems to be channeling Miss Kitti.

I traveled to Utah to watch my nieces Miss K & Miss M graduate from high school.  So proud of these girls!!

Miss Kitti also came to Utah to visit also and we were able to see our niece Miss C get married in the Draper Temple.  Here are the 5 Holmes girls together again!

June '12
Saw me back in school for the summer. The kids spent time with friends and family while I was in class.  The kids spent time at the water park, in the pool, reading, and we all hiked Table Rock again.

And I went shooting for the first time and realized I loved it!

July '12
Phillip & Emilie got to spend the 4th of July with their dad & his family.  And I met some friends in Melba and watched an amazing firework display.  Reminds me of the ones at the Santa Rosa Fair growing up.  I took the kids to the Boise Music Festival where we saw Kelly Pickler, SmashMouth, and LLCool J.  Emilie wasn't thrilled with how loud it was, but we all had a fun time and no one got sunburned!! And then we went with some friends to see a movie in Julia Davis park and the kids got their faces painted and henna tattoos on their hands. Lots of fun!

Miss Magoo

Miss Magoo practicing her curtsy

In January Miss Magoo turned 8.  It was a very exciting day for her.  My parents came up for the weekend.  And my sister Lorna & her 2 daughters also came, which was a total surprise to Miss Magoo.  As part of her turning 8 she choose to be baptized.  It was a long awaited day for her.  She had been talking about being baptized ever since her brother was baptized 3 yrs ago!!
She decided to have to her dad baptize her.  We choose to have it on a different day as the stake baptism as I really wanted my parents to be able to be there, so it was just her.
And as much as I wanted her baptism to be special for her, I also wanted it to be short, sweet and no problems. I was slightly stressed as I realized that I had never been to a baptism where the parents weren't married, and I wasn't sure what to expect.  Well it went fabulous!  I think it was probably one of the quickest baptisms that I have been to.  My parent both spoke, Miss Magoo's grandma Lois sang, her dad baptized her, she was confirmed and it was over.  I was so relieved that everything went so smoothly.
But what I was the most pleased about was the feeling of peace that I came away with.  As I sat with my mom on my right and Miss Magoo on my left, I felt peace.  On the other side of Miss Magoo sat her dad, and I thought as it began that I would be emotional, but I wasn't.  I had asked my ex's wife to play the piano, and as I sat and watched her play and looked at my daughter and then at my ex I realized that all was as it should be.  None of ours lives are right now what I had thought they would be, but for me and my kids we are good. We are happy and are mostly adjusted to our new normal life.
In all it was a wonderful day, which is all any parent hopes for their child's special day to be.

New Family Pictures

For Thanksgiving the kids and I spent the weekend in Utah with part of my family.  It was a much needed break from school for all of us.  The kids had a great time playing with their cousins.  I got some time with my parents and my sisters.  And while we were there my very talented niece Maddie took some family pictures for us.  I haven't done Christmas cards in several years and really wanted to do ones this year.  I was absolutely thrilled with how they turned out.

Still Kickin'

Wow it has almost been a year since I last posted.  I would say that I felt guilty about it, but I kinda sorta don't. 
Life has it's way of moving along whether you want to move or not.  And my life this last year has been a whole lot of crazy. 

Let's see in the health department I've made so huge strides in some parts and little steps in others.  I took most of the summer off from actively trying to lose weight.  I more or less just maintained my weight, which I know was a huge accomplishment in itself, so that made me happy.  I picked back up where I had left off in August with another weight-lifting class at school.  And I added a little running to my program.  A friend told me about a running program called C25K, couch to 5k.  And I decided to try it.  I have never been a runner, in fact before I started the program I had never even run a full mile without a whole lot of walking in between the little bit of running.  So I was a little hesitant that I could finish the program, but I decided to try and see where it went.  I finished the program and for the first time in my life I ran not only 1 mile but 2 full miles.  I was thrilled, and so proud of myself for doing it.  I wish that I could say I love to run now, but I can't and I'm good with that.  I am still trying to keep up with the running and would like to slowly push my running time, currently 30 mins, to 45 or 50 minutes.  And then I would like to increase my speed.  I really do want to be able to run a 5k, just to say that I've done it.   In November I hit my 50 lb weight loss mark.  I actually hit it while in Utah for Thanksgiving, surprising even me! 

School wise, well that's had it's ups and downs too.  I finished Spring '11 with decent grades, not as great a GPA as I had hoped for, but I passed all my classes and was ready to move on.  I was a hard semester in that I really overloaded myself with classes.  Summer I took 3 classes and was again glad when it ended.  Fall'11 semester just about did me in.  I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, but I made it through.  I failed my first class ever (calculus) and that was really hard for me mentally and emotionally.  But I'm moving on and will retake calculus this summer all by itself so I can really focus on it.  At the very beginning of this semester (spring '12) I met with my academic counselor and we decided that if I pushed my graduation date from Dec'12 to May'13 it would be a better path for me.  That means that not only will I graduate with the 150 hours I need to sit for the CPA, I will also graduate with a minor in internal audit.

The kids are alive and well.  They too have kept me busy.  Miss Magoo turned 8 in January and was baptised.  It was a wonderful day and a post all it's own.  PJ turned 11 last week and has moved from being a cub scout to an 11-yr old scout.  He decided somewhat last minute that he wanted to earn his arrow of light award.  And after much scrambling. hard work, and tears on both our parts he finished the day before his 11th birthday.

So while that short clip doesn't even come close to describing out last year, there it is the shortened and very much condensed version of 2011.  My hope is to be more consistent with posting, more for myself to keep track of all the ups and downs of our life.

More Updates

So while I realize that it's Tuesday and I should've posted yesterday, but I didn't and I'm pretty sure that I'll live.  So here we go.
As of yesterday I'm down 2 lbs for the week.  I was hoping for 3 but I'll be happy with 2.  This last 9 lbs has been the slowest to come off.  On Christmas Eve I was down 29 lbs, and as of yesterday I'm down 39lbs.  So it has taken me a little over 7 wks to lose those 10 lbs.  That's a long time considering most months I was averaging 9 lbs a month.  So yes I'm a little frustrated, but I knew that once school started and my schedule changed things might slow down.  And added to that I only did my water aerobics class once each for the last 2 weeks.  I have found that I am really missing that class, it has been a great stress reliever for me.  I just hoping that I can fit it in once this week too and then maybe next week I can get back on track.  My weight-lifting class on the other hand is going good, I am loving doing the weights again.  It is such a great feeling to push and pull heavy weights and see what my body is capable of.
On the kiddo's front it has been up and down.  The kids are both busy with school and homework.  Near the end of last week Miss Magoo was complaining of a sore throat and was doing a LOT of coughing especially at night.  And while at first her coughing wasn't keeping her up, just lucky me.  By Thursday night it was waking her up too.  So Friday after a busy running around day I got her into the Dr's.  Good thing too, she tested positive for Strep.  Poor kid.  By Saturday she was back to her happy bouncy self.  We even went to the BSU men's bball game.  The main reason for going was the BSU was honoring all the students that achieved a gpa of 3.50 or higher. Before the game they had a reception where there was pizza and they handed out certificates for those who made the list. Then during the half-time portion of the men's game all of us who made the list got to walk out on the court and wave to those in the crowd.  It was a little geeky feeling on one hand, but also cool feeling too.  I mean I worked HARD for my grades, and I'm proud of that.  The kids got a kick out of seeing their momma on the court waving up at them. I want my kids to know that college is important and that I'm doing all this hard work for them too.  And in the long run (hopefully not too long) all this hard work it going to pay off for all of us.

Whinny Me

So school has been extra hard this semester, and in reality it will only keep on getting harder. Which makes me what to hide under a rock.  And I keep thinking it's not fair, I liked it so much better when I understood exactly what the instructor was talking about. But now they are talking about things I only kinda understand or don't get at all.  And I'm not liking that so much.  This morning while my Econ professor was trying to explain to several of us who didn't get it (see it's not just me) about how to calculate the yield to maturity on a bond it finally clicked, again.  I'm not here to learn the easy stuff or re-learn the stuff I already know, I'm here to learn the hard stuff and learn new things.  That's what is making me a better student and a better person.  I know that I didn't pick a fluff major ( but really at this point any major would have it's challenges), there is a lot of hard stuff that I am going to have to learn over the next year and 1/2ish.  And most of it is going to have me doing way more stretching and growing than I want too.  But I know it's for my own good.  That in the long run it will be for my benefit and the benefit of my children. So here's to growing and stretching and learning new things about life and about me.

Different Week New Numbers

So the last two weeks like every week since I started back to school were crazy.  I think I'm getting used to my new normal, craziness.  Last was good for the most part.  Only lost 1lb last week, not thrilled but it was a loss not a gain so that's good.  This week though I feel like I'm getting back into my grove that I had going before Christmas.  Today the scale showed that I was down 3 lbs.!  That's the kind of numbers that I like to see. I wasn't able to get on the treadmill as much as I wanted last week but I still walked a total of 8 miles, so not bad.
In other news:
Friday Jan. 28th I took the kids to see the Living Legends, it was so fabulous!!  Both the kids loved it, even if before hand they both were a little whinny about having to go.  The performers were incredible, if you have a chance to see them I highly recommend it.
Saturday Jan. 29th I took the kids to see the BSU women's basketball team play.  We lost, everyone was very sad, but it was a ton of fun.  Again both kids weren't so sure about going, but once we were there they couldn't sit still in their seats.  The crowd was sadly rather small so the kids had a lot of room to dance around to the music.  They both made it on the big screen 4 times each, which made their night.  Part way through the game Miss Magoo leans over to ask me where the "women" were.  I pointed to the court and said there they where.  She was a little offended and told me that "those were teenagers" and reminded me that I had promised to take her to a "women's" basketball game.  So we had a little talk about how women's and girl's basketball teams were really  the same thing, just different names.
Earlier in the day on Saturday I had taken the kids to BSU for their Engineering Day.  It was crazy busy.  There where demonstrations, exhibits, and hands-projects around every corner.  The kids got to build with keva blocks, helped to make a balloon replica of some kind of molecule or other, try and build a earthquake proof house, ride a hoover craft, made a miniature catapult and finally made a spool car.  All in all it was a great weekend, and it took me all week to recover from it.
Last week was just more school, kids at the dad's and me trying to catch my breath and get ready to start this week and do it all over.

Totals so far:   37lbs

On another side note  Miss Magoo and I went and saw Tangled Saturday while her brother had his birthday party.  Loved loved loved the movie, this is one we will be buying when it comes out!!