Just Me...Jess: Finally getting around to blogging!

I have not been in a very chatty mood lately...sorry! Let's see...what have I been up to over the past week and a half?

Well, Memorial Day weekend was kind of nice. I say kind of because it was nice to be off of work but we worked on a ton of projects around the house and outside (yet when we were "done" it didn't look much different). We took Collin to ride a train for one of his birthday presents. He had a blast! We actually had a good time too...well...almost all of us. Adrian had a near breakdown towards the end of the ride because he was on sensory overload. I forget sometimes that he will always have Sensory Integration Dysfunction and just because he has outgrown a lot of his issues doesn't mean that he won't always struggle with some. I felt so bad for him! :(

I did my second/last public speaking engagement on Thursday (the 28th). I did SO much better than I did the first time. I had zero negative comments this time on the feedback forms and actually had a handful of clients say that they liked my segment the best. :) I would definitely speak again next year...I have a feeling that I might be asked again since not many people enjoy public speaking. It's a huge rush and once you find your niche, it's fine.

We had the boys' birthday party this weekend. It was nice because it was just close family. We got to spend adequate time with everyone and the boys didn't get too much stuff. Adrian's big gift was a Nintendo DS Lite and Collin got a bunch of Thomas the Train toys among other things. Adrian has close to $250 saved now so he's SO close to getting his PlayStation 3! I'm so proud of him for saving for it since January. :) He actually made the Merit roll this year too so we'll be giving him some more money for that and so I have a feeling that he'll have it by the end of the month...Oh, I made Collin's cake too. I'll post pics down below. I'm so proud of myself, although Matt and my sister Kelli did help with the "cars" since I was running really behind and didn't have time to make them myself.

Other than that, just trying to figure out where we're going for summer vacation. Originally, we were going to go to South Dakota for my mom's family's reunion and our tribal pow-wow. Mom then changed her mind because she wasn't going to have the money so we had decided that we weren't going to go since she wasn't going and we then planned a "staycation". Well, my great Auntie Clara isn't doing so well (my maternal grandmother's sister) and since she's the closest thing I have left to my Grandma Amos (she died before I was born), I would really like to go and meet her and get to know a bit more about that side of the family; especially since our culture is dying and there aren't many elders left. I think it would be a great experience for the boys to experience that side of their culture as well as for all of us to get to know mom's side of the family a little better. Matt isn't too crazy about going (understandable...it's a 16-hour car drive with no stops! plus he doesn't have much vacation time for the year) so I don't know what we'll do. We have to decide soon though because if we go, I have to cancel the staycation (set for the week of June 15th) and then I'll have to start planning for the week over the 4th of July. Ahh...decisions, decisions!

As far as the eating/exercising goes, it's not been terrible but it's not been great...kind of in between. I did get down to my lowest weight in 2 years last week...226.6 lbs. I have decided that I'll still kind of loosely have an official weigh-in day but I'm just going to record my lowest weigh-in for the week in my actual tracker since I'm all over the board anymore.

And here are a few pictures of what we've been up to...

Collin enjoying his first s'more of the season