Lee's older than he's ever been, and now he's even older

April 30th was Leland's golden birthday.  That's right bloggies, Leland is in his 30's now.  You would never know it, right?  He keeps ME young.

We started out the day with me going to traffic school! YAY!  Ok, not.  It was kind of a bummer, but Lee was able to sleep in and play some video games.  After that I picked him up and we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch.  I don't really need to say much about it, it is always incredibly delicious.  I gave Leland a card that said "For "REAL" this is all you get, I told you not to get too excited'.  He laughed and said "Thanks babe".  After having him read it a couple of times, he got it!  For his birthday present we are going to:

Get it? For REAL? He has been dying to go to a game for a long time so it was a great gift (if I do say so myself). Then we just came home and relaxed until about 6.  I told him that we had to be ready to go somewhere then and he was suspicious, but played along and was ready at 6.  There was a knock on the door and when he went to answer....SURPRISE!  Some of Leland's friends growing up had made it over with their families to Leland's surprise party.  We had food, played, games, and chatted until late hours of the night.  

Although Lee seems younger than I am, I still have fun teasing him about his age.  This song is one of my favorite ways to "rub it in".  Enjoy! (And happy birthday to you Lee, you are the best husband I could have ever asked for.  I love you....ya old man ;) )

Proof Justine is Awesome

Justine was nominated for an award by her dear friend Jessica.  She was given a service award by the Utah Council for Extraordinary Children......erm...I actually don't remember what it is called. BUT she was given an inscribed trophy for her service leading the hymns in church every Sunday.

She was so excited to get an award and I am very happy that she got it.  She is such a great sister and a blessing in my life.  Now everyone knows how great she is.

New Years Resolution

We have decided to get healthy. 

After the junk food overload from the holidays, most people decide to make a new years resolution to lose weight.  Most of us gain weight over the holidays, even I will admit that I did!  When it came time to make my new years resolution I wanted to make one that I could actually stick with.

Deciding to lose holiday weight (plus more) was a good idea, but not a good goal.  I have done the weight loss thing, multiple times.  Every time, I lose the weight and then I just gain it back again.  I go back to the lifestyle that I had while being fat and guess what happens?...fat comes back!

This year I decided to make my goal simply: to be healthier.  This way I could have more long term effects than short term.  Weight loss is probably a side effect and definitely welcome, but that is not the goal.

In the search for health we made some changes around the Liu household and have stuck with them pretty well!

 I started Weight Watchers (yay!), so far it has been a good way to try to adjust to eating healthy instead of a strict diet just to lose weight.  It helps me make better decisions and I have already seen good "side effects" so far ;)

 

 I had recently gotten into Zumba before Christmas, and was having fun doing that at home.  Meanwhile, my family got Just Dance 2 for Christmas.  If you haven't played it before PLAY, it is a serious workout and sooo fun!  After that, Lee and I couldn't help ourselves.  We bought Zumba for the Wii and Best Buy version of Just Dance 2 (more songs).  The Zumba is awesome because I can do it at home, yet I can change the levels and dances that I couldn't do with the DVD's.  Plus who doesn't feel sexy after they do all those latin moves?  Ok...after you practice them for a few weeks...and if no one is watching.  :) But all the dancing and fun doesn't make it seem like exercise.  Just Dance 2 is great because even Leland will play with me and we have a fun workout together to songs we both know and sing along to.  It is the hit of all our gatherings and everyone we have played it with has LOVED.  In fact, I think we are introducing it to some people tonight...

I saw this on a friends blog a while back and decided to finally check it out. This documentary totally blew my mind.  Too much information to share here, but everyone should check it out (Instant on Netflix).  I researched some of the information and thought about it for a long time.  It may be hard, but to me it makes perfect sense.  Naturally grown fruits and vegetables are what God gave us as a huge source of food. Of course we should eat as much of it as we can. Also, the benefits of juicing just astounded me and seemed like such a good idea.  Soo.....

TADA!  Isn't she a beaut?  Leland worked hard in overtime hours for us to afford this.  It is great because it cold presses the juice with a grinder instead of cutting it up with a blade (killing the nutrients by raising the temperature).  We have been using it almost every day since we got it.  We love the fruit juice it makes.  Lee and I both noted how good we felt after the first day of drinking the juice. Ask me about the fruity tutti ;) As for the veggie juice....we are trying.  The first time we made it, the filter was set to let through pulp.  Bad idea.  We were chewing our juice! Bleck!  Needless to say, it was hard to get down.  We changed the setting to no pulp and had a carrot-cucumber-apple-basil juice today (Basil from the plant I have been growing since Nov.  I am so proud of her). I actually thought it was pretty good for vegetable juice!  Leland is still getting used to it though.  We are excited to soon be using it for a cleanse.  I will post later about that! 

All these healthy habits are really making me happy.  I hope we can continue with them.  We have done well so far and it's March! Pretty good for a new years resolution I'd say.  We may seem like we are becoming health freaks but believe you me, we have a long way to go still.  These are just things we are trying to incorporate into our unhealthy life.  Hopefully in the future we can be health freaks!  

I'd like to close up this post with the benefits of juicing! OK not really, it is just a funny video spoof of the Juiceman (if you have ever heard of him, this is a fun interpretation) by Jim Carey.  We can't become invisible or fly yet like him, but we are looking forward to it in the future!