One door closes, another opens

We are back from Australia and it was amazing!! I loved everything about it... well aside from the rainy speed boat adventure. Anyways here are some pictures to tide you over. I have a lot to catch up on with school & work plus I need to unpack. But a description of the fun we had on the trip will come soon.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go....
Standing here outside your door...
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye...

I'm leaving on a jet plane to Australia tomorrow morning. I will be frolicking in the sunny 70 degree weather. How sad is it that I don't really know how to judge what 70 degrees is going to feel like. I've lived in a constant 80-90 degree place for too long.

Anyway our itinerary is full and I am excited. Mom, Bob, Alexis and I are pretty much packed and ready for the 10+ hour flight. We will be in Sydney for four full days arriving back into Honolulu on Sunday morning. Stay tuned for details and pictures from the trip!

What a day...we had a early admin assistant celebration since I will be gone next Wednesday. We ordered healthy foods... salad, veggies, summer rolls, fruit, plus some rice and cookies for everyone else. It is really nice to see the support from my co-workers. They are all very positive about my program and life style change. During lunch Dr. Wee gave me a card that everyone had signed wishing me a safe and fun trip. I was very touched because it was Dr. Wee's idea (he never even signs people's birthday cards) plus he gave me some "beer" money. It was very cool and very unexpected.

After work, I had an appointment with my trainer. She is great, so friendly and positive. She worked with me for over an hour and boy did she make me work. I never thought squats, lunges and ab work could be so intense. I have another appointment set-up with her on Sunday afternoon.

This weekend is going to be great!! I'm super excited... Mom and Bob will arrive tomorrow night!! We will be relaxing for the next few days then on Tuesday, we are on a plane to OZ! I'm really excited about their arrival and our upcoming trip!

Alana, is my new best friend. Actually she is my personal trainer at 24 hour fitness. I met with her for over an hour this evening so she could get to know me and gather enough information to formulate a fitness plan for me. During our meeting we did all the measuring and weighing plus some additional squat tests to check my form. She seems very nice. She is easy to talk to and seems to relate well to me. She is also a competitive person and really wants me to win. I can't wait to see my fitness plan, I meet with her again on Friday.

The day finally came... I was up at 5:30am and we were to the park by about 6:05am. I requested the MA/COM team to be there at 6:30am and they were pretty much on time. 12 team members made it and we were off. It was a smaller turnout then I expected but it was still nice. We even got to meet Dr. Andrew Baldwin this season's "Bachelor" on ABC.

After the walk I headed to K-Bay with Lynn to help out a a car wash for Special Olympics. It was fun for a little bit then it got boring. We raised a lot of money but I was really tired. Alexis joined us for a few hours then we headed home.

So is it stealing when you attend (arrange) a function set for 40 people, buffet style and you bring your own plastic bags to smuggle out food that they were going to throw away anyhow?

It was an odd thing... plastic Ziploc bags were provided just for this crime. The food was even brought to the "criminal" by others that knew what was occurring. I think it is justifiable because the crime was arranged by the criminal and indeed aided by others all because the food would have been thrown away otherwise.

The random life I lead in this magical island paradise....

FYI... I did not purchase the Ziploc bags.

Movie Premiere night... we went to the theater and found ourselves at the very end of a long line to get in... luckily our friend Kristane came to the door to meet us and two of her other friends just as the opened the door so we slide in. Yes, I did feel bad about cutting line and thought everyone was going to give me the evil eye... but Alexis said something like sometimes it's ok. Anyway, the movie was interesting. Not as scary as I thought but I did jump a couple times. It opens nation wide tomorrow.

As for the rest of the day... we had a MA/COM club meeting where I took over the vice - president position for next fall and we voted in some other new people. It was great, our executive board now consists of five people and two of them are males. That's pretty good for the Communication College. I also pushed for the MS WALK one more time because the walk is in two days. As of tonight, our club has raised $3,120.50. I am very happy and I know more money is coming. Plus, I am so close to $1000, that I have decided that is my new goal. I only need $92 to make it. Plus, we have 30 days after the event to raise money also.

Well I met with my nutritionist, Mia this evening. She analyzed my food log from 3 days last week and determined where I was and where I need to go. We discussed how to change my diet and get fit. I set a goal for myself, to lose 24 pounds from today's weight over the next 11 weeks. She thought that was a very reasonable goal and should be easy to obtain.

We went through dietary changes and she gave me the 24 hour fitness information I need in order to start working out. I will call my personal trainer, Alana, this week and set-up our inital meeting/weigh in etc. Mia also gave me a ton of coupons for free milk, cottage cheese, and yogurt.

So the idea of the challenge is to meet your own personal goal. They will then compare everyone and see who did the best at meeting their goal and that person will be the winner.

Friday night was the April foolish party at Aloha Tower. Every year Will (Alexis' boss) buys tickets for his employees and their guests to attend this charity event for the Make a Wish Foundation. There was live music, drinks and heavy pupu's. As usual we felt a bit out of place, mainly because it was an older crowd, but we enjoyed the outing anyways.

Saturday I met with a group for one of my classes then went to the library. Busy day of studying for me. In the afternoon we drove Heidi to her new 'Chinese Tree house Mansion' as she affectionately calls it. She officially got the keys this weekend and she wanted us to see it. It has a killer view of Diamond Head, the ocean and downtown. Only problem is the house has been vacant for 2+ years and it needs serious help. It looks like one of those fixer upper types. But it has great potential and it's on Roundtop Drive.

Today we went to church in the park with a nice lunch provided by the church afterwards. It was nice to be outside for a change. After that we had to make a pit stop at the grocery store in order to get extra supplies for Easter dinner. We ended up making ham, mashed potatoes, veggie casserole, salad, potato salad, rolls and our guests brought an assortment of yummy desserts. It was a success as usual with our holiday parties. Alexis even hid 24 plastic eggs in the living room... you can see from the pictures it was a hit!!

We were up early this morning to prepare for our MS Bake Sale. Talsha picked us up a little after 6:30am so we wouldn't have to walk with all of our crazy baked goods. The bake sale was a huge success. It's all about location, location, location. And my building was a success, instead of trying to sell baked goods to students on the mall we set up by the elevators of a huge office building. We were pretty much out of all of our merchandise by 9am. We made $260, all going towards the MS Walk. It was a very good day...everyone involved did an awesome job!!

My first official photo shoot for the 'Challenge' was today. It was pretty cool, like a real photo shoot. We met the other two contestants, one dropped out and they aren't sure if they are going to replace her. We started with a group photo shoot... we all had to stand close together and hold glasses/containers of milk. Then we had are individual photo shoots. We sat for our head shots then we posed with more milk. The final pictures will be published in the Midweek Newspaper and Smart Magazine.

Well it is official.... both Alexis and I have been selected as two of the FIVE competitors in the Meadow Gold Women's Challenge. We are scheduled for a photo shoot tomorrow afternoon where hopefully we will find out all the information we need to know about the weight loss competition. All I really know is the official start date is April 9th for three months.

I am a bit scared to take on this challenge as the whole state will be watching my every move, but at the same time it is very exciting. What motivation having a bunch of strangers track your progress and keep you in line. There will definitely be more to this tale...

It is nice to know that the doctor's office is open on the weekends here. I was in and out from my appointment with little wait time unlike back in Wisconsin. The doctor spent a fair amount of time with me, it was hard for him to determine what was wrong because I really had no information to tell him...no incident or accident that caused my pain. In the end he gave me two prescriptions, one for muscle spasms and one for pain. He thinks I pulled a muscle. And no he didn't give me any narcotics... but I think the pain pill helped at least for the first few hours, after that the pain came back. Too bad I can only take that one of those per day.

This evening Alexis, Lynn, Amanda, Heidi and I went to Cha Cha Cha Salsaria in Hawaii Kai for dinner and margarita's. It was good then we went to Walmart to buy a board game to play. We purchased, Worst Case Scenario, so we actually learned a few things.