Fair 2010

So.... this is about 6 months late, but that's alright! In March, I went to the fair with Cody, Carrie, Justin, Katelyn, and Michelle! Since we are all old now, we go just to eat, and the fair has some of the best bad for you foods!!! I found my new favorite meal there - steak kabobs! Cody and I used to always get a slice of pizza and a pork kabob, but I found this other place that has steak kabobs, and OMG they were amazing!!! We always eat so much food, but it's once a year so we figure it's alright! The best thing to eat at the fair are the fried oreos! We discovered those a few years back and we get them every time!

This year, we had Katelyn with us to experience her first Southeast Texas State Fair... she was so young back then, but she seemed to enjoy what she could and slept through some of it. It was fun to go with her - especially around the animals! And.. since this is from 6 months ago, that's about all I remember from it... so here are some pictures! : )

The BEST part of the fair - Fried Oreos!!!! The bad thing is I learned how to make these at home... so dangerous because they are SO good!

Katelyn's first fair!! If you don't see Justin in this child, then you're just crazy! She's like a miniature Justin!

Me and Katelyn at the fair!

Katelyn visited the petting zoo - she seemed to enjoy looking at the animals!

Katelyn getting a good look at the cow

Katelyn's first pony ride... she seemed to like it until the very end.

So cute!! Justin played a game to win Katelyn a prize

He won a giant banana!

Don't think she liked it very much.. haha!!

Weight Loss Update

Well... it's not been 4 months since I've started the B-12 injections, and I'm down 25.5 pounds and 10.5 inches! It's weird to think that I've lost that much! I mean... last fall I wasn't able to see the need for losing weight. I just kept gaining weight. I definitely knew it was happening, but I just didn't care to make it stop. I never really got on the scale to see how much I weighed because I honestly didn't want to know. Now that I've lost the 25 lbs. it's almost weird to think I had that much to lose and then some!! It just shows me how unhealthy I had been in the last year to let myself get that huge!

I'm getting to the point where people notice that I've lost weight and they don't know all I've been doing to try to lose it. It makes me feel accomplished when other people notice my efforts.. and this is a huge effort! I feel wonderful!!

My favorite thing about losing the weight these days is the clothes! Because I'm lazy, I never took a bag of clothes to Goodwill. They must have been sitting in my closet for about 4 months now. Back then I had cleaned out my drawers of all the small pants that I knew would never fit me again. I'm so glad I never took those clothes in! I dug through that bag last week and found a practically brand new pair of Express jeans that FIT!!!!!!!!! And... they are 2 sizes smaller than the jeans I got for Christmas!! I found about 4 pairs of pants that I can fit into again in that bag... I was super happy that night! About 1 1/2 years ago I bought some black Express pants (the best black pants I've found that fit me good), but very soon after I bought them I grew out of them. I just found them at the bottom of my drawer the other night, and they are actually a little baggy on me! It's a great feeling to fit into old clothes again! Tonight I bought a plastic bin to put all of my "fat clothes" into. I'm not throwing them away just in case... not that I plan on gaining the weight back, but you never know what kids will do to your body...

Can you tell a differnce?

This picture is from August 2009.This is from April 2010.

The Gusher Half Marathon

On May 1st, I completed my first half marathon. That's 13.1 miles and , for me, 3 hours and 5 minutes of running. It was pretty much the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was a lot of fun!

I started running at the end of February just to get in shape. Not long after, we decided to follow the training schedule to get us ready for the half marathon. We didn't really commit to the marathon for a long time, but we used the training schedule to keep us on a regular running regimine. We ran 4 times a week. Our week day runs were either 3-4 miles each day, and our Saturday runs were the long runs. We started with 4 miles and added a mile each Saturday. It got pretty rough at times, but we all did really good and were very dedicated to accomplishing this! At the end of March, we all signed up for the race, and we were pumped!

May 1st finally came around. I woke up around 5:15 am to get some breakfast and get ready. When I drove over to meet up with my friends, it was drizziling.. and it drizzled until right before the race started. This wetness mixed with the heat made it MISERABLE to run in! The air was so thick that at some points it was hard for me to breathe. But depsite all of that.. I did finish the race! Now for some picture of the race:

My running buddies: Top Row - Lauren, Phyllis and Steven

Front Row - Me and Rebekah

We are all nice and clean here... didn't last long!
Ready to run!
Can you find me?

This is around mile 2...

Still around mile 2... looking pretty happy at this point. I was not so excited later on that day!

Me and Cindy running on (I don't run with Cindy during the week, but she's a church friend I met up with... I sort of left my running buddies in the dust!)

Running down MLK - that's one of Cindy's kids. They met up with us during the race to take pictures and cheer her on!

Crockett Street - maybe around mile 5 or 6

Back on MLK - mile 10. That guy next to us was the full marathon winner. While we were on mile 10, he was at mile 22 or so... he totally lapped us! He went twice as far in a WAY shorter amount of time...

One more lap around Lamar.... this is around mile 11.5 and this is around the time I thought my feet were going to fall off!!
Runing towards the finish line - my friends Heather and Cindy ran it in with me!!

And I'm DONE!!

Getting my medal

WOOHOO!

Me and Cody!
Finally found my running buddies! I lost them after mile 2. I never saw them again, but they made it to the end together!

Way to go guys!

I'm a marathon runner!!

I'm still not sure how I managed to run for 3 hours... I could definitely think of some better ways to spend three hours, but this was a fune experience! I can't wait until the next one!!