The Week That Was-#100 Happy Days

Another week, another 100 happy days post complete! I am pretty sure I'm going to pull this baby off! So here is the week that was September 7th-September 13th:

Day 50-I worked on some recent Project Life pages. Man, I'm loving my new scrapbookin' medium!

Day 51-It is funny because when I posted this picture of me driving home, I posted the comment, "It has been a long, bad day, so I'm celebrating heading home." I don't even remember what was bad about it, must not have been that big of a deal?

Day 52-I got my run done on my lunch break. Even though I get a little sweaty, I love when I'm done working out before the work day is over. So when I'm home, I can just relax.

Day 53-I almost ALWAYS bring my lunch to work nowadays. It is easier, and it is safer for me nutrition wise. But I decided to treat myself to some broccoli and cheese soup Wednesday from Panera. Yum.

Day 54-I pulled out my WDW Countdown app to see how far away we were from Disney! I got so excited, and then freaked out because I have to run a half marathon by this date!

Day 55-I rocked out my college pride with this t-shirt on Friday! I love my alma mater, Mississippi University for Women, so very much. 

Day 56-Adam bought a whole bunch of Atari games (yes, we have an atari)! He was in video game heaven, it was cute to see.

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Summer Bucket List Rewind & Fall Bucket List 2014

I'm so happy to report that I managed to mark over half of the items off my Summer Bucket List. So here is a recap:

1.  See The Fault in Our Stars in Theaters

2.  Spend Fridays Floating on The Lazy River at Point Mallard

3. Tubing on the Cahaba River

4. Do The Huntsville Trolly Tour

5. Running with the Goats 10k in Elkmont, Alabama

6. Glow in the Park 5k in Memphis, Tennessee

7. See Mary Poppins Play in Montgomery

8. Para Sailing

9. Deep Sea Fishing

10. Book the Disney Princess Half Marathon (once it is booked, there is no backing out).

11. Buy a Home

12. 10 Year Class Reunion

13. Garden of Wonders at Huntsville Botanical Gardens

14. Huntsville Lucky Duck Scavenger Hunt 

There are some things I didn't get to do because sometimes there is just not enough time. But there is some things on the list that I still plan to get to soon, and they might just make an appearance on my Fall bucket list.

1. Walk the Richard Martin Trail in Elkmont, Alabama

2. Loretta Lynn Concert

3. The Color Run in Little Rock,  Arkansas

4.Viva La Dive 10k in Franklin, TN (to qualify for Disney Half Marathon)

5. Packers vs. Patriots Game

6. Scarecrow Trail at the Botanical Gardens

7. Book of Mormon Play
8. Put Away Plenty of Money for Disney
9. Rock an Awesome Halloween Costume
10. Pottery Painting
11. Start Half Marathon Training (miss no work-outs)
12.  Carve a Pumpkin
13. Visit Lyon's Family Pumpkin Patch (conquer that corn maze!)
14. Huntsville Trolley Tour 
15. Lucky Duck Scavenger Hunt

Happy Fall Y'all!

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8 Month Surgiversary

I'm bringing you this post a day late because I totally forgot about my surgiversary this month! I swear I was looking at the calendar yesterday thinking isn't there something special about the 8th? And then it finally dawned on me that it was my surgiversary! I plan on doing these posts until my 1 year, as long as I can remember to do them!

This month has been a very good one for me, and I have nothing but positive things to share. I am down about 167 pounds, and I am 27 pounds away from entering ONEDERLAND (weighing under 200 lbs). Which is one of my next weight loss goals, as well as weighing less than my husband for the first time ever. I have dropped my body fat percentage by 25 points, placing me in the obese category, rather than the morbidly obese category. It really is the little things you know? I'm really rocking my new label.

I'm so happy with where I am with my fitness level right now. I'm running consistently 3 days a week, and I love it so much! Sometimes I get cranky if I miss it, so I rarely miss it. When I first started running I couldn't do much better than a 20 minute mile, and now my personal record is 13:18. I still want to get faster and little by little I will. I start my official half marathon training on September 30th, and I can't wait.

I wanted to touch on something that has come up pretty frequently during this journey I am on. People often say to me, "I bet your husband is so happy with how you look now!" And I understand why they would say that, I think it is something I would say to someone else. I don't find that offensive at all. 

Adam is definitely complimentary toward how I look now. But he does not often say much about how much better I look now, or is he over the top with his compliments. I really like that about him. He has always loved me for exactly who I am. He does not seem more attracted to me now that I'm 227,  than he was when I was 389. If he complimented me like crazy, I would be wondering, "Wow, was I that ugly back then? Why was he with me?" So I have to give kudos to my husband for always making me feel worthy of his love.

I can't wait to see what the next month holds!

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The Week that Was-#100 Happy Days

I hope everyone has had a good weekend, we have had a really low key and simple weekend. The kind that is so good for relaxing. We went out to breakfast, did a little shopping, took naps, saw the best movie (The Hundred Foot Journey), and we were total couch potatoes. 

Today we are just doing some chores around the house, doing laundry, and watching football all day long! I'm so into my fantasy football team this year, and I am hoping to pull off a win today. I really love our fantasy football league by the way, the trash talk is SUPERB.

Now onto my #100happydays from the week. I'm really happy that I am halfway through this challenge already! Who knows I might even manage to finish it (knock on wood).

Day 43-Just a simple shot of the beautiful pond taken when I was at the Botanical Gardens last weekend for Alice's Garden of Wonders.

Day 44-We took Adam's family to Franklin, Tennessee, to tour The Carnton Plantation and Confederate Cemetery. We enjoyed that day so much, I will posting pictures soon!

Day 45-I recently started reading a biography about Walt Disney called The Animated Man. I am liking it so far, and it is giving me a greater respect for the art of animation.

Day 46-I mentioned this in my last post, but I was listening to my favorite podcast on Wednesday and they read a comment I had left on their fan page on the podcast. Made my day!

Day 47- During group, I had my children make a pair of listening ears to remind them to be better listeners. People have been telling me to send one to Judge Judy, apparently she talks about putting on your listening ears a lot?

Day 48-I got to spend a hour shopping at my favorite store, Anthropolgie, before a doctor's appointment. It was probably for the best that I accidentally left my debit card at home.

Day 49-Adam and I went to iHop after dropping off his family at the airport this morning. I ordered off the kids menu and just had a bite or two of everything. It was delicious though, and the company was not too shabby either.

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How I Am Planning our Disney Trip

We are a little under 6 months away from the Princess Half Marathon and our Disney world vacation now, and I am so stupid happy about it all. My friend Jana and I text back and forth non-stop about all the little things we are looking forward to doing. I really think this trip is going to be epic.

One of my favorite things about traveling is planning the "perfect" trip. There is soooo much information out there about Disney world that I am really enjoying sorting through. I thought I would share a little bit about my trip planning process here. Maybe it will only be fun for me and not fun for y'all at all! But it is my blog, so I can do what I want! So there (just kidding).

1. Reading a Guidebook

My first step in planning a major trip is buying a guide book from an actual book store! Yes, it might be a little old fashioned in the internet and digital age, but there is nothing like having that book in my hands. This book is 700+ pages long, and other than skipping a section here and there on parks we are not going to, I read the whole thing. 

2. Podcasts! Podcasts! Podcasts!

There are so many Disney loving podcasters out there that I am listening to weekly. My favorite is definitely WDW Happy Place (a married couple who talk all things Disney, they even mentioned me on their 9-2-14 podcast), Capturing Magic (about documenting your trip), and Disney Dream Girls (to hear about all their Disney Shenanigans from two seriously funny British ladies). 

3. TouringPlans.com 

I actually learned about touring plans from my guidebook. Basically, touringplans is team who have scientifically studied the crowds and line formations at the Disney and Universal parks. For a small fee, you can plug in everything you want to do in each park, plus your reservations and fast passes, and it makes a schedule for you that will minimize waiting and walking time. I can't wait to try it, so many people speak so highly of it!

4. WDW Tools

One of the main things we want to do at Disney is eat at the newish Be Our Guest restaurant. But the reservations are super hard to get! So even though I got up at 4:45 a.m., 180 days in advanced of when we will be eating at the restaurant, as you are supposed to, the reservations for 4 were all gone. I was so devastated! But somewhere I heard about WDW tools. WDW tools is a website that watches for reservations for you (for ten dollars), and it texts you as soon as one becomes available, so you can snag it! With the help of this feature, I was able to snag the reservation for 4!! I'm so excited. This site is soooo good. It has actually found 4 reservations for me this week at Be Our Guest (although I only used one). I highly, highly recommend trying it if you are struggling to get a reservation.

5. Tripadvisor

I use tripadvisor for planning all my trips, even small weekend ones. I have been using it this trip to look at reviews for restaurants to see where we want to eat.  Not only can you read reviews, you can look at pictures of the restaurant. Although after looking at some pictures of Be Our Guest, I had to stop, because not only was I getting too excited, I didn't want to ruin it for myself!

If you have any trip planning advice, I am so open to suggestions!

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Alice and The Garden of Wonders

Going to Alice and The Garden of Wonders at the Botanical Gardens was one of the items listed on my Summer of 2014 bucket list. I really procrastinated on getting to the gardens this summer though. Not only did I wait till basically the last weekend of summer, I waited till the very last weekend they were putting on the event! 

The botanical Gardens really is one of my favorite places to go in Huntsville. Not only is it beautiful, but they always do such fun events like the Scarecrow Trail, the Galaxy of Lights, and Movies in the Park. And because I love All things Disney, I was super excited to see how they would pull off their Alice in Wonderland summer theme. I think they did a great job!

My absolute favorite part was the door maze. They had local artists come and paint a door based off the theme. The doors were covered in all sorts of imagery and quotes from the book/movie. Didn't Lewis Carrol's  write some of the most quotable literature ever? I think so.

I also went crazy for the larger than life queen's crochet set and the hand made sand sculpture. Apparently, the gardens had an event a few months ago, where you could come a watch the sand sculpture being made. I hate that I missed that!

I'm really glad that I didn't skip out on this event, I think I would have been disappointed if I hadn't made it (although I would not really have known what I missed out on, HA).

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The Week that Was-#100 Happy Days

I hope you guys have had an excellent holiday weekend! I know we have. And I have so much I want to share with you guys, but that comes later! For now, I want to bring you up to speed on last week's-#100 Happy Days!

Day 36-Just a little end of the day yoga. I should definitely do yoga more often because of how good it makes me feel. Yet, I always seem to forget that between sessions!

Day 37-I decided to take my lunch break at a local park. Reading my book in the sunshine was a real mood booster.

Day 38-I got the worst stomach bug last week. I managed to lose 5 lbs in 24 hours due to fluid loss. It was AWFUL. But I did find time to watch Cinderella, Gus Gus's shenanigans made the sick day so much more bearable.

Day 39-I went out for sushi with my mom. This was the first sushi I've had since surgery. Usually if I try something I haven't had since surgery that I used to love, I am now unimpressed. But not with that sushi, IT WAS AMAZING.

Day 40-We drove into Huntsville to pick up Adam's Mom and Aunt from the airport. It is nice to be hosting our first guests in our new home.

Day 41-I snapped this picture and captioned it, "It's Raining, It's Pouring, and I'm about to be Snoring." Rain storms + Naps= My Happy Place.

Day 42-Adam picked up these movies for me from the local flea market. I love him, he so gets me!

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