Petting the plecostomus

Brinlee loves to feed our fish and lately, she likes petting the nose of our plecostomus. It comes to the surface and uses its big sucker mouth to skim the food off the surface of the water. When it comes up, Brinlee will reach in with her finger and pet it's nose. The funny thing about this is she refers to it as the "colostomus". I'm not sure where she comes up with that name, but I'm trying to imagine what a "colostomus" would look like. Then I look at our "colostomus" and I think to myself... Yeah, that's about right!

Kisses

Aynslee is going through a stage where she doesn't like kisses... At least from Dad. Lately, she's been cringing when I lean in for a kiss and screams, "don't kiss me, Kisses make me gross!" It's actually more incentive for me to scoop her up and give her a full fledged kiss attack! I actually tried to take a picture of her "be-scusting" face she makes when she tells me how "be-scusting" my kisses are, but whenever a camera is brandished, the photogenic smiles come out of her.

Just like on Seinfeld

To start with a little background, I have to tell you that last Saturday, I ran my first 5K. Took 3rd place by the way, and pretty happy abut that.

I've been totally loving running lately. Maybe too much since I run all the time now and my knees start hurting. Well, I did my usual 4 mile loop the other night and my knees were killing me. I think I need to take a break for a while. So over the last couple of days, I've been kind of gimping and limping when I stand up and start walking after sitting or laying down for a while. So with that background in place here's the rest of the story...

This morning was Dad's and Donuts at Brinlee's school. We were walking in from the parking lot and my knees were bugging me from having just gotten out of the car and I was limping along with Brinlee and noticed some Grandpas that were coming in with their grand kids for Dad's and Donuts (not all dad's are lucky enough to get off work and go). Well the two different grandpas I happened to be around were both limping too, maybe from an old war injury or from working hard on their feet all these years, I don't know, but it made me feel pretty old that I was just as gimpy as the two seniors I was walking next to. But then I noticed them looking at me like they thought I was mocking them and felt a little like Jerry when his foot falls asleep and it looks like he's making fun of the appliance store owner "leapin' Larry" he's about to do a commercial for, who happens to have a bum leg. I tried to stop limping but couldn't help it. I think both Grandpas pretty much hate me.

Isn't it funny how pretty much every day, you can have something tie into Seinfeld?

Mission Accomplished

If you notice the ticker to the right, I have officially lost 25 lbs as of today. I will let Suzanne post her progress, cuz she has lost more than me. Way to go Suzanne!!

Watch Travis Run

OK, so I finally figured enough was enough and decided to lose some weight. I tipped the scales at 200 lbs and got disgusted with myself. That was a psychological barrier of sorts and I was ready to get serious. So about 2 months or so ago, I got on Lance Armstrong's site and got on the Daily Plate page and started tracking every calorie of everything I ate. I downloaded the app for my blackberry which syncs to my free online account and I was amazed at how many calories I was pounding a day. It lets you set a goal of how much you want to lose a week and asks what kind of lifestyle you live. So I said I want to lose 2 lbs a week and I live a sedentary lifestyle of couch sitting, TV watching and other various and sundry forms of slothfulness. It gave me a goal based on my height, weight, and age and goal of 2 lbs a week, of 1469 calories a day. It took some sacrifice but I gave up sodas all together. I had to pick healthier options instead of my daily Arby's or Burger King lunches. Up till about a 2 weeks ago, I had lost 14 lbs just watching what I ate. I seemed to plateau at the 14 lbs though and wanted to get from 200 to 175 as my goal weight, so I picked up the P90X vids off of the infomercials. Yeah, the one and only infomercial I'll actually buy anything from. I think if we wanted to extrapolate vital information from our enemies, we could just force them to follow these videos. They are BRUTAL. But I'm sticking to those too over the last 3 days since I've started them and I've lost another 2 lbs right off the bat. We'll see how I look in 90 days since that is the promise that you will go from Dough Boy to Ripped in 90 days. Suzanne is even going to join my quest.

I figured I will hold myself accountable by posting my tracker on the blog (to the right) and all of you can follow along at home and send me words of encouragement. I think my little figure guy is a black guy, but there wasn't any fat white guys to select from. Just use your imagination. If I really get brave, I'll post the before and after pictures on here too if I meet my goals.

So cheer me on and if anyone around Stansbury sees me or Suzanne out for a run, honk and wave, or better yet, join us.

Day at the Gateway

These pictures are kind of small, so you might have to click on them to see them bigger. We took a little trip to the planetarium for the first time since it's been in the Gateway. I know, it's about time!

Brinlee and Aynslee on Mars.

Aynslee on the moon. I guess you can handle the vacuum of space if you just plug your nose like this...

Brinlee giving the weather report in person...

... and on the TV screen

Aynslee having a major melt down because she didn't get a turn on the scale of different planets right when she wanted it. This is a common scene whenever we are in public. We are used to it by now. We just stare back at people when they stare at us.

Brinlee being cautious as she ventures out onto the splash pad

Aynslee has seen enough before the fun even starts

Brinlee loved the steam (or smoke as she put it)
the best

The girls were wearing flip flops and their feet were sore from all the walking, so we devised a double decker of sorts to get them back to the car.

More New Pics

Ready to get ripping on the swing

She usually turns the other way and grabs leaves off the tree with her feet.

At Stansbury Girls Soccer Camp, about to score a goal on a much bigger opponent

hauling down field in the time trial... She shot out of the gate so fast, I couldn't get off a picture till she was already way down there.

Ball dribbling drills

She can't wait for Soccer to start up again this fall.