Kara's dirty thirty, jtree style

one of my bff's celebrated her 30th birthday a few weeks ago.  we all went camping in joshua tree to celebrate the special occasion!

her sister{my other bff} and i decided the weekend before camping over a bottle of wine that we needed to have t-shirts made! thanks to the wine, microsoft power point, both of our marketing skills and tony's {kara's husbands brother who lives in michigan} chicago t-shirt company hook up we made it happen!

 {kate and i sportin the awesome t-shirts we made!}

much of the day is spent doing whatever you want, reading, drinking, hiking, game playing...

 {kar opening her gifts}

on Saturday we had drunk tank Olympics or DTS 

{kind of like GTL for those trashy jersey shore creeps}for short.

the games included horse shoes, bean bags and flip cup.

the teams were girls against guys, 5 guys and 4 girls.

the guys were up when V and i were playing horse shoes...I was having an amazing game of horse shoes.

The score was 20-19 girls, i was the last to throw, drew said i wouldn't make it, the horse shoe left my and what happened next??

A RINGER BABY! 3 POINTS!

this meant that we were tied so flip cup would be the tie breaker.  best out of three

since the girls were a player short i played twice.

the 4 of us girls are the best flip cup players ever! we won all the games and thus the boys were our beer bitches for the rest of the night!

HOLLA!

 {v, rob, andrew, john, kara, me, scott, drew & kate}

{DTS winners, and flip cup champions!}

 {kate made a round of tasty shooters, we decided we were going to

 roast kara, a round of nice things and a round of naughty!}

{greg, me, scott, john, v, andrew, kara, liz, kate & drew}

it was an amazing camping trip and i think by far the best camping crew to date. 

we did a ton of walking and hiking and it was really a bonding experience.  helping each other out, cheering each other on and just hanging out. 

it was a great way to celebrate kara's 30th year of life!

{note to self: kara is not in her thirties she is in her thirtieth year!}

Ashlee's baby shower + family dinner

a few weeks ago i had the pleasure of co-hosting my sisters baby shower with her bff Alli.

Alli and i did all the party planning via email, text and facebook! gotta love technology {cue the justin timberlake/50 cent song} We did a sports theme. Nothing to over the top because of course it is a baby shower, but it was fun to have little touches of footballs etc.

We played the obligatory "chocolate candy in a diaper" game as well as the "taste the baby food" game.

How freakin cute is this beanie i got for baby Colt?! {ash and john are huge longhorns fans}

{found it on etsy!}

It was great for my sister to see all of her SD friends for a few days!

{the sign i made for the shower and then the baby room}

{thanks for baking the cupcakes kara!}

{the yummy spread. Alli did a great job!}

{me, ash, kenny}

{one of the centerpieces, gotta love the farmers market}

 {baby food game}

 {another centerpiece}

 {group shot}

{another etsy find}

Later in the evening after the baby games were all said in done, ash, kenny scott and i all went for pizza in pb.

we went to woodstocks and had a great time laughing and eating. It was great to get some time with the brotha and sista together.

front row seats at the air show

A few weekends ago we went down to San Diego

Thank you to my bff kate for letting us use your fantastic studio a block from the beach, it was heaven!

The hubs and I woke up at butt-crack-thirty am on friday (around 430am) to get in the car and head down to San Diego for the weekend.

We were in such a hurry to get down there asap because we were going the Miramar Air Show to see the one and only Blue Angels! {I used to see the Blue Angels as a kid, they are so freakin' cool!} This was going to be an extra funflippinfantastic adventure because we would be enjoying the show from the Media tent! our pastors daughters husbands brother is the PAO officer for MCAS Miramar so naturally we were in! {quite the connection huh? but Shelah is great fun and the 4 kids are adorable...}

After a fast drive to SD we arrived at Kate's pad, unpacked and begged and pleaded with my bro and sis to come and pick up khloe so we could get our little butts to the air show! {Scott has been wanting to go to the Air Show since he arrived in California in 2005 and this was the first time it actually worked out!}

A quick shower and change of clothes {again bff kate is the best, in my rush to pack thursday night i forgot like half of everything, and of course the bff had everything i needed!} and kenny and ash were there. this was the first time I got to see my sista with her prego belly, so cute!!

We made incredible time. Being that i lived almost half my life in San Diego i knew just the short cut to take to the base! Soon we were parked in the special parking lot for Media and after just a few minutes of standing around we were on the back of a golf cart whizzing by all the walking folks. We were dropped of just in front of the Media tent.

Our view was amazing, we could see the flight line and all that was going on. We also got to see all the news crews out there all day filming their live coverage. This air show was about a million times bigger than the air show we had up here at our bases. {we also had the Air Force Thunderbirds, and they just don't compare, sorry cousin danny and gina :)}

We walked around all the exhibits, won a few prizes and took it all in. At about 1130 am the sun came out a blazin, it was smokin hot! Thus I just HAD to buy this hat!

We enjoyed the day in the tent with food and drink and SHADE at our disposal. We were SO THRILLED to get to be so close to the action! The Blue Angels still amaze me, when they all fly in formation they are at most 18 inches apart from one another, can we say CRAZY!!

Simply put, they blow my mind! I keep asking Scott if he has any interest in becoming a pilot just so we can fly for the Blue Angels, no luck :( {one of the media spectators did inquire if my husband was flying one of the planes, hehe}

hello weight watchers...

{this post should have been published last friday, so pretend it did, kay, thanks! :) }

I made a big decision on Monday, it was downright life altering.

After weighing myself on the scale at work and realizing our tropical vacation/honeymoon is in 6 weeks I decided it was time to join Weight Watchers…

This is something I have been thinking about for about 6 months or so.

I have heard great things about it, so I bit the bullet and signed up for the online membership.

So far I am loving it {ok, except for the fact that I am still craving carbs! Bad!}

It is surprisingly easy. I get 21 points a day, and they tell you how many points everything is work.

Carrots  zero {thus I eat buckets of carrots a day to replace the crunch of a chip or cracker}

1 cup of blueberries  1 point

4oz piece of chicken 3 points

They also have a zillion recipes online, which has been beyond helpful.  I have made dinner every night this week, which is a first for a very long time!

The hubs even loves all the recipes I’ve made.

The biggest factor I think that has helped me out is portion control.   To have the potatoes I make and only use up 3 points I can only eat 1 and ¼ cups.  Thus I am getting out my measuring cups about 6 times a day! {You best believe I am enjoying those carbs like they are the last carbs on earth!}

I really feel like it is working…

So I think ill be bold and share with you what the scale said on Monday morning….

153lbs!!!

{I was really bundled up so I will give myself 2lbs for clothing and shoes, so ill say 151}

I weighted myself this morning on the same scale and it said…

148 lbs!!

{I am wearing linen pants, a cotton top and sandals, so I def am not wearing 2lbs of clothes so ill stick with 148}

This is a huge accomplishment! I’ve been around 150-152 for the last year. To get under 150 feels great!!

About 2 years ago I had surgery for a cyst on my ovary {it was like the size of a grapefruit!}.  Since the surgery my weight has not been as easy to manage. There have been studies that show that having a cyst removed can sometimes affect your hormone levels, which helps control weight loss. 

So for about the last 2 years I have been between 148-152lbs.  To finally be fewer than 150lbs feels great!!

My goal is to get to around 138-140 and most of the weight is carried in my lovely Buddha belly!

Here’s to hoping WW keeps working and my Buddha belly shrinks before bikini time in the warm Caribbean waters!

{this is the idea, to slim down more...}

image via google