Jaclyn with her beautiful family

As of 11:14pm last night my good friend Jaclyn Ehli joined me on my journey to create a journey of her own. I couldn’t be happier. She is going to be Mrs. West Coast and help raise awareness for mental health issues, sharing her story and her brother’s. I have known Jaclyn my entire life. Her family is so much more than family friends, they are family. I’m excited for her to use this opportunity to do good for herself and others and I am so proud of her for speaking up about a topic no one else will. I have loved every minute of this pageant stuff and know the positive changes it has brought into my life and know it will do the same for her as well. Look out world here comes Mrs. West Coast!

So now to the point of this blog post. This Saturday, January 28th, Matt Kazam has come back to Seattle for a one night show at Snoqualmie Casino to tape his comedy special. This is a show you don’t want to miss. Not only is the man hilarious he is a good person. Please join me this Saturday for a show you won’t forget. And who knows you may even make an appearance on TV? So get over to Ticketmaster and get your tickets. Why are you still reading? Click on the word “Ticketmaster” and get your tickets. Seriously do it now. Go!

I’ve experienced racism in my life including against me but to see it happen to a child from a child hurt my heart. I so wanted to believe the world was getting better. That kids were revolting against the past. I know I taught my children well and they don’t see people by the color of their skin color. I’ve had many experiences in my life due to being extremely fair where hurtful things were said, I was left out of things, discriminated against and even pushed to the ground and had dirt thrown in my face. The worst experience was when a grown woman grabbed me (I was about 8 years old) by the arm and dragged me to her friend to sit there and ridicule me by laughing, pointing and completely embarrassing me and I didn’t even know her. That is something I never wanted to children to experience or even see. It was so much better before today when I thought things were different. Please parents teach your children by leading by example. They may not learn hate from you but your teachings of lover will affect them so much more than their friends’ hate.

I grew up in a home with Seattle Seahawks fanatics. Every Sunday during football season we either went somewhere to watch the game or we had people over. My parents and brother are even in the Seahawks Fan Club. Yet, after all of this I never cared for football much. Yeah I cheered on my home team if the game was on and I watched the Super Bowl in 2006 in hopes of a Seattle win but still didn’t have a passion for the sport. Then I met Eric. He grew up in Denver then moved to Washington at the age of 8 or so (which is why he is also a Mariners fan because the Rockies did not exist at that point). He was, is and always will be a die hard Broncos fan. We even have a pool table that he felted orange and painted blue to go with his Bronco pool balls and stick. It’s out of control really. I started to have interest as in I bought clothing and an Elway jersey but still didn’t watch the games all the way through. Mainly I cared because it was important to my husband. Bring on 2011 and add Tim Tebow. Wow! I absolutely love football. I love to watch because it now keeps me on the edge of my seat. Before Tim Tebow I got so bored because of the commercials every five seconds but now they are there to build up suspense. It also helps that he’s a good human being and a Christian. He has as big of a heart, if not bigger, than me. It’s crazy. It’s great to root on someone that has morals and is a great role model for kids like my son that live on every word of a professional athlete (oh please, please LeBron James look at yourself and be the man you should be). I look forward to Sundays now and I even watch ESPN. I don’t know what’s happened to me but I am loving every second of it. GO BRONCOS!

So I thought I’d start this post by sharing a little bit about me and my weight struggles. People tell me all the time how lucky I am that I’m thin or that I don’t understand. Well I do. After having my son in 2001 I weighed 201 pounds (yes 201, seriously couldn’t have been 199). Growing up I was always the skinny kid. I had a large rear end, yes, but the rest of me was skin and bones. That all changed when I got on Depo-Provera as a form of birth control. I instantly gained 40 pounds and went from being 125 to 165. It was devastating. I had never experienced anything like that before. So I got off of it and got pregnant (intentionally). I ate so healthy, after all it was my first pregnancy and I wanted to do everything right. I went walking at least 3 times a week with my friend Angie but it made no difference the weight just kept packing on. I don’t even know what I weighed by the end because I didn’t want to know. I was in a healthy weight range (from beginning to end) so the doctor was kind enough to keep it to herself. Then my baby boy Ethan was born and everything changed. I took control of my weight and my life and worked my tooshie off to get that weight down. Thanks to Power 90 (now P90x) and Tony Horton I got down to 145 in only 9 months.

I cannot believe I'm sharing this picture with the world, but here it goes

Then in 2002, as a surprise, I got pregnant again. I couldn’t believe it. I had worked so hard and I was about to get it all back and of course I got got pretty close; this time 185. However, when Nadia was born my brother decided to get married and I had a maid-of-honor dress to fit into. At this point I didn’t even fit into a 16 so I only wore sweats. I was determined to fit into a size 8, so that’s what I ordered. David’s Bridal didn’t like that much but I knew I was motivated. So 6 months later the dreaded fitting came and I did it. I fit into a size 8. I was so happy. How’d I do it? A lot of hard work and a healthy lifestyle. I still keep those philosophies which is why I didn’t gain any weight with Kira other than her.

I eat every 2-4 hours consistently. I work out at least 3 times a week, usually 6 and I splurge when I want just not excessively. The biggest and best tip I can give is cut out soda, juice and alcohol. I was able to lose 32 pounds in three months with that and my workouts being the biggest factor. I still struggle to keep my weight down and it’s far from easy. The difference now is I do it because I want to, not because I have to. I feel so much better overall. I have more energy and even my skin has cleared up tremendously.

So why am I doing the Reboot Challenge? One I got off track at Christmas, two my cousin needed a team and I know how that can help and three, my digestive system can use a reboot. So day one has been easy because it’s not far off from what I was doing before the holidays (minus the meat aspect). I think this will pay off big time. And don’t let that green stuff fool you it’s actually really tasty.

I have had the chance to see his office and meet some of his co-workers but last Saturday night was the full experience. First we walked into El Goucho in Seattle after the company paid for a cab ride to the restaurant and are immediately blown away by this outrageous ice sculpture. It was crazy and awesome. While waiting for the bartender we look over and there is custom made Pokemon White Wine.(which Eric won a bottle of later in the evening). I was taking a picture of it when the lady next to me asked what I thought and I said it’s so cool. She said, “that’s awesome because I’m the artist behind it.” That was crazy. After we found a seat with Eric’s team we had this lavished dinner of lobster, steak, crab, shrimp, this really great mac and cheese and any other expensive food you can think of. It was so good. Eric’s team member Serena Robar and I laughed it up, talked about the pageant (because apparently she enjoyed Eric’s stories about me doing it, in fact I’m trying to get her to do it as well).

After dinner and dessert galore we headed downstairs for casino night. I’m not a gambler so I just got my groove on, on the dance floor. It was great. Everyone I met that evening was fun, friendly and AWESOME! I even got a group of guys to do some “Tebowing”. I am looking forward to many more years of these parties.

Mr. Blitzen himself

Ethan’s Honor Choir had the opportunity to perform at the Lake Wilderness Elementary Santa Breakfast this year. I was really excited to see him perform. As usual my son was the life of the party. They did a song called Blitzen Boogie or something like that where Blitzen (or as we know him, Ethan) danced around on stage. It was hilarious. I was cleaning up a syrupy mess from Kira when all of a sudden I look up and there is my son, center stage with everyone chuckling and he is eating it up. It was great. Well I’m glad my craziness rubbed off on one of my kids (okay it did on all three but Nadia and Kira know the appropriate time and place to show it, home, lol). What cracks me up most though is when he had the chance to meet Marshawn Lynch and other Seahawk players he totally froze, just like I did when I met Ken Griffey Jr. as a kid. I swear sometimes it’s like watching myself. I love that kid.

Oh and on a side not, Ethan made the Rock Creek Select 10u baseball team. I’m so proud!