I am truly blessed with friendship, true, deep friendships.  I don’t get to see my friends daily, seems life lately is busy with the kids doing their things and time passing.   Our family is big (we have 4 adopted and 3 foster babies right now) so we rarely get invited places and truth is, it’s tough for us to enjoy an evening anywhere w all the littles.
Anyhow, we have friends who have made it a point to focus on their family and live intentionally.  They have travelled to 22 countries in the last 2 years and were home shortly before heading off to their next adventure.  I admire them having the courage to do this, leaving what’s comfortable and known for new places, cultures and experiences.  They have been blogging (www.livology.com) and you can subscribe to their Daily Livits, too.
Back to friendships…as I was pulling into daycare one afternoon to pick up the babies, I saw Colleen and the kids pull in beside me.  What a pleasant surprise!  I had known they were in town but wasn’t sure we would be able to connect before they left again.  We gave each other big hugs and caught up briefly and made tentative plans to get the kids together for a Nerf War.  It just made my day to have someone go out of t
their way and follow me into the parking lot just to say hi.

On Friday we got a chance to have coffee, a BYOC very casual get together for the kids to play and us to catch up.  Mary, Alice and Grammy came, too.  I baked up some blackberry scones (http://www.marthastewart.com/317388/blueberry-scones)
and Grammy brought fruit salad.  The kids took off into the yard and it was if time had never passed, they played and laughed and I’m fairly certain they were so consumed in their play that they didn’t even know we were there.  The adults got a chance to sip coffee on the porch and catch up on life, time seemed to slow down and it was truly a perfect morning.
I cherish these women, how I feel when I’m with them and can’t begin to express how lucky I am to have them as a part of my life and my children’s lives.
It was sad to say our “see you laters” but also know that we will never forget that morning at the house, when all was right with the world.

We have had an awesome week with our nieces visiting.  Cousin time is always fun, rarely do we get them for a whole week so that was a  treat.   My parents had booked a hotel room for us to spend a final summer getaway (as long as we found places for babies to be).
There was a lot of juggling, babies here and there, a house sitter for the puppy and everything finally fell together.  We were packed up and just waiting for me to be done working so we could jump in the car and head to the beach.  Got all loaded, sat in ferry traffic and had just made it across the bridge when there was a distinct thunking under

hood.  Not good.  I pulled over, text our friend who always gets us out of car binds and waited for him to come save us.
He came and looked and turns out some little piece had broken off and the spark plug had come loose.  It wasn’t drivable so he attached a tow rope, we loaded all the kids in his truck and let Dee man the wheel of mine and towed us back to the island.  Poor Dee!  She was a rock star and white knuckled her way through it.  He fixed it enough for us to drive home until he got the parts for a true repair.  Now 2 hours later than we were hoping, we drew names for who got shotgun in which car and headed out.  You would think that would be easy, but one of our guys has some anxiety issues and the minute we got rolling again, the tears came.  My heart breaks for him, as I try to look at the bright side “we weren’t in an accident, we’re all fine, we are just getting a late start, we will get to the beach soon”  Finally got him calmed down, yes it was stressful, yes it was scary but all in all it was ok.
We finally got to the hotel around 10:30, said a quick Hi to Nana and Papa and tried our best to get kids settled in to go to bed.  Looking forward to some stormy ocean beach time with the family.  Incredibly thankful for our friends who are there to support us, help with short ones, rescue us when we get stuck and listen when I need to vent about it.  We are here, we are safe, we are enjoying some desperately needed core family time.

When they say “home is where the heart is” I always thought how cliche and cheesy it was but it’s the truth.  We had lived in our little paradise since Dee and I were first together and our puppy was our baby.  We brought all of our kids home to our beach house and couldn’t imagine any other reality.
What a whirlwind the last year has been.
I remember the day so clearly, sitting at Carlos’ Island Cup soccer tournament and finding out that the house was going on the market.  The stress of losing what we thought of as our home, not having hard feelings because we knew we were just renters and that as much work and love as we had put into that home, it was never truly ours.  We had a friend start up a fundraiser for us, learned that our community is pretty amazing and we are supported by so many.  We ended up with a house that actually fits our family, that we love and that we are making a home.
Dee and I were sitting here thinking how amazing it was that the newest foster baby we have now is the first to ever be brought home to this house.  It felt like a new start.
There is room here for people to have their own space, but I find that many nights we are all in the bonus snuggled up watching a show just like we were in the old house.  Our family is stronger and closer than ever and it feels good.
As tough as moving was, the tears, the hard work, the emotion of it all…I’m actually glad we did it.  It feels right.  I truly miss waking up to the smell of the water, the amazing view, the garden and the yard but the weird part is that I don’t actually miss the house.  We have pictures to capture those memories and it’s sad that in the next few weeks that cool old farmhouse will be rubble, but our memories will live on, it was about the people and not the building.

So let’s take a minute to be honest here.  Three years ago I started on a journey to lose weight, needing to take off a significant amount for my health, but physically and emotionally.
After trying different diets, Weight Watchers and Paleo I started on the Dukan Diet.  I have to say, the weight came off fairly quickly and there wasn’t much exercise going on.  It was basically (there is more to it for sure) very strictly eating lean proteins and vegetables.  Yup, no fruits, no cheating.
It took a year but I had lost 68 pounds!  Not shabby.  I felt so much better, proud of my accomplishment and it showed.  No more cargo shorts and t-shirts, I got a cute haricot and stepped up my fashion game.
Well, there is something about losing a lot of weight that didn’t change, that nobody told me, that would truly effect how I felt about my body.  When you lose a lot of weight, you end up with a lot of extra skin.  That makes for what looks like a fat roll around your stomach and flappy under arms.  It’s very discouraging.  I supposed the rich and famous opt for surgery but for us poor people, you just live with it and still feel fat.
   Two years has gone by since I was at my lowest adult weight and the pounds have been slowly coming back on.  I am not doing Dukan anymore (and to be honest, I tried it a couple of times and my body doesn’t respond to it by shedding the pounds) and have tried a few other diets.  I even had a woman come up to me and ask me if I was going to try Dukan again because it was clear that I had put on weight.  First off, WHO SAYS THAT!? But secondly, she was right.
On some level I want to say “screw it” and love my body, but I can’t.  I’m an emotional eater, I know this about myself but that still doesn’t stop it from happening.  I crave sugar.
So here I am again, putting it all out there as I start again with clean eating, exercise and dedication to lose weight slowly.   Support would be awesome, just an encouraging word here and there to keep me going.  Just know, that it’s not out of laziness but I don’t find exercise to be enjoyable and always hurt after (fatness makes your joints really hurt).  Ready to ditch the cargo shorts and t-shirts again, get slimmed down and back into my cute jeans.