Manic Monday

So after A nice beautiful weekend ,why do we have to have Mondays..... UGH !!!! 5:30 AM wake up call I, found myself hitting the snooze button for 10 extra minutes & was finally motivated by my soon to be large cup of joe, followed by A busy morning of getting my boys up and going ( i'm so grateful this is easy for me ) I had A nice morning chat sesh with hunter while packing lunches for the littles.It went something like this Good morning Hunter,morning.... mom, did you wash my white Nike shirt and black basketball shorts ? Yes I did their hanging in your closet.k Thanks. Mom.... can I open A new bag of cereal ? Yes you can, put it in the cereal bucket.K. Mom.... can I have A piece of gum from your bag ? Yes you can. K thanks. Bye mom i'm leaving for school now. Bye Hunter have A nice day I love you. I feel A real connection here.... Threw some bagels in the toaster for the littles, and started the eggs for the hubster. Packed my lunch consisting of grilled shrimp with an assortment of veggies i.e. carrots, jalapeños, zucchini ,onion, & red bell peppers. Dashed the top with some store bought kung pow sauce and A few peanuts. I also cut up A great big gala apple for my mid morning snack.Fed the boys , read our scriptures said our prayers and we were out the door.Had A nice drive into work, so glad My morning drive was dog on the freeway free.My Mondays are always busy at work therefore my lunch is still at work. Thank goodness I had my bag of tricks where I grabbed somme beef jerky which is perfect snacking and full of protein. Kept me full I followed that with my apple.Busy afternoon once I grabbed the kids from school we found ourselves at home and doing chores.Dinner was late I spent some time with my mom so I had a bowl of pumpkin oatmeal.No pictures today it's ok though most of us know what beef jerky, apples and oatmeal look like.

Busy Day

Started my day this morning with A wonderful cup of coffee, I love coffee it is my breakfast, I'm not really A breakfast person.I intended on spending A nice relaxing Sunday morning doing nothing before getting ready for church... hahahah none of these things happened.Before I new it Flynn and I were off driving all over town collecting things we needed for our liquor store. On one of our stops in phoenix we pulled into A strip mall on 16th st and southern across the street from our phoenix store and parked in front of A store called Raspidos.This is not the best neighborhood in the world and one might think they will not make it out, you will.....during the day.Flynn left me in the car when boardem hit I got out of the car and went into Raspidos and four this.....

Where have you been my whole life.....This was the best drink ever,mango with chamoy...now if you have ever had just mangos with chamoy you know what i'm talking about.This is the drink version.It is A drink with crushed ice layered with mangos,chamoy,tamarind pieces, peanuts, more chamoy,and A tamarind stick.I was in heaven and considered this my morning snack. Don't judge it was totally worth it,and I got 1 full serving of fruit.We finally made our way to Coolidge where we put everything away worked A little and I got to hang out with my oldest son Adam.By the time we left it was 1:00 and I was starving so Flynn and I shared A small bag of pretzels. Not the best lunch choice but on the other hand we could have grabbed the flaming hot cheetoes.We found ourselves spending the afternoon working on this fun little project with the boys, A new table for the backyard.We built and stained it and I love it.

Later during the day after we were finished with the table And we were feeling hungry but not quite dinner time yet I busted out with these little beauties.No bake monster Cookie Granola Bar bites,now I know what your thinking,THERE COOKIES, but they are not cookies in fact they have no flour or sugar and it is A quick little protein energy snack to tie you over. you can omit the m&m's but then you could hardly call them monster bites.I used the mini m&m's. You can find them in the baking isle in any grocery store.The boys love these and they are great for packing in their lunch boxes as well.Heres the recipe and you can also find it on my pinterest board under Time For Snacking.

1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 1/4 cup honey 1/3 cup mini m7m's 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips Dump all the ingredients into A bowl and mix well. scoop out A small amount and roll into balls place in fridge to set until hard and store in container or zip lock bag. I doubled this recipe and it made quite A bit. I have recently learned about PB2 for those of you who are unfamiliar with this it is powdered peanut butter.I just picked some up from the store and have not tried it yet but I will be trying it with this recipe. Basically calories are crazy low.Regular PB is 200 calories per 2 TBSP and PB2 is 45 calories per 2 TBSP.This is A great swap calorie wise and I can't wait to try it. Dinner was fantastic tonight. We had Pork carnitas. I love making this and we have it often, I have A great recipe for it but tonight I tried Nicoles and It was the bomb !!!! You can find it on her blog foodfaddyflight.weebly.com. It's A crock pot recipe so it's perfect for Sundays or just busy days in general. Set it and forget it.Minimal prep work. you will love it.

We ended our Sunday playing board games. I love time well spent with my boys. We played clue and Oliver blew it when he was absolutely sure he new Mr. Green did it in the Dining Room with the Rope. He was not even close.

It's Been A While

So I originally started this blog when we decided to take our boys to my husbands home country of India,it was difficult to keep up on this in India because of the internet (internet has changed since our trip ), so I let it die. I need to mention our trip to India was amazing this is A beautiful country and it was so great to finally meet more of Flynns family and to see where he grew up. I can't wait to go back again.Recently I have been inspired by my dearest friend Nicole and her blog foodfaddyflight.weebly.com to bring this back to life. ( i'll get to that later ) It's been 6 years so let's catch up A little. My boys are now 14, 10 & 9, they are still the loves of my life and we are busy as ever, Hunter is going into High School next year and already doing football at the High School with the freshman coaches preparing for the 20016-17 school year. I can't wait to be A football mom. Noah & Oliver are busy with scouts every week and we love it,not to mention school for all three of them and just every day hustle & bustle of life in general. My husband Flynn and I are very busy running our 3 stores. On our spare time we spend as much time as we can with our dear friends Nicole & Vj and there 2 sweet girls, hanging out with our boys, hiking, camping, boating, traveling,quading, or just hanging out with my sisters & parents.Our life is great and extremely busy.

Since this blog we have gotten to travel with friends & family to some great places and make wonderful memories we have been to Mexico, Colorado, San Francisco,San Deigo, Newport beach,Seattle, Vancouver Canada & Camping in Greer,& Forrest lakes, and zip trips every fridays with my family last summer, for those of you who are un familiar with zip tripping, it's basically day trips within your state/area that are time/cost effective, we are looking forward to this summers zip trips.Lastly not to mention 4 wheeling & quading ,here are some of my favorite pics of our adventures.

So that's just some of our travels in A nut shell, we had so much fun already I, can't wait to see whats next. So now I am at the reason I decided to start my blog again. My dearest friend has this blog foodfaddyflight.weebly.com go check it out it's great, anyways she blogs about the ups/downs of losing weight and she posts these great recipes and just the trials of losing weight. I love it. I have used lots of her recipes and they are great. I have my own struggles and we talk about it with each other and share things in general so I would like to do the same thing she is doing with her blog I just love following her. I am down 28 lbs already ( yay ) and she has been A great inspiration for me. We are the best of friends and our families do everything together so why not join her in this journey.I am also going to blog about my life in general.So my eating down falls : 1. Date Night with Nicole & our husbands.... I love date night so I try and make good choices but it usually goes right out the window when appetizers are ordered.It's A good thing date night is only every few weeks ( sometimes ) 2. Chocolate I love dark chocolate.enough said 3.Ice cream/frozen yogurt ...... enough said 4.Diet Dr. Pepper, Usually have 1 every day but the last 2 months I have not had any & I noticed A big difference however.... this week I tanked and have had 1 every single night not just 1 can A 44oz cup. 5.chips..... I don't even keep them in the house, well because everyone in this family likes chips. ( remember I have 5 boys in the house ) So these are my current struggles.The last 2 months have been salad only fresh fruits/veggies(this is A given for us we just like lots of fruits/veggies) I cook a lot of authentic Indian food which I both love and have stayed away from so it helps that Flynn & Hunter have jumped on the salad bandwagon, now I don't have to cook 2 different meals A day. Bonus the little boys love salad as well. So I am pretty excited to share my journey and daily life which is huge for me to share my struggles.

The Train

Well I don't think I will take another train ride anytime soon.It was very cramped in the train the only nice thing about it was the lady we got to sit with.She was traveling with her 8 year old twin boys an her older sisters daughter.They were going much farther than us.The kids all just ha A ball,she also was sharing Indian snacks with the kids.They just loved it.Just as the kids were winding down on of the twin boys fell off the top sleeper bunk an must have hit his head on A huge screw,he had A very large hole in his head,it was awfull.It did not bleed much,thank goodness.Some how Flynn told the lady I was A nurse ( she also was A nurse) so I ended up helping out A bit.They called ahead for the next stop for A doctor to come on board.When the doctor came on he gave medicine and she took some ace bandages and what not but for some reason everytime the doctor suggested something she asked me what she should do,so I said listen to the doctor.Everything was fine for the boy the mom decided to ride it out until she was home.Did not sleep at all on the train it was so uncomfortable.Sometime during the night I had Flynn take me to the restroom,well let's just say I am surprised I am not in A hospital dying of some scarry ass disease.That was very hard to use the toilet.I am going to thank my dad for all the years of camping and roughing it and teaching his girls how to hover. LOL!!!! When the sun finally came up and we were entering the outskirts of Kerala it was beautiful,so much water and greenery it was amazing.I have never seen so many coconut and banana trees in my life.

Finally In India

So we finally made it to India.The flight to New York was just terrible,however the flight to Mumbai was much better.I can't believe all our luggage made it.we are having so much fun here.Mumbai was quite the experience,I now have A much more deeper and meaningful respect for My parents and Flynn for how hard they worked to give us everything we have ever needed and continue to need.I will never for the rest of my life take simple things for granted.Flynn took Noah and I out to have breakfast the day after we got here we were on about 36 hours of no sleep,anyways we took the rickshaw,that thing and traffic is more scary than any roller coaster I have ever been on.Breakfast was soooo good.Indian food is so different tasting than back home,even when I cook it.

I finally got to meet some of Flynn's friends and they are so funny.I wished we all lived closer.So on Saturday we got to go and see the India gate.That was pretty cool and right next to it was the Royal Taj hotel that was attacked A few months back.It is such A beautiful hotel.We passed by the Victoria train station what a beautiful place.It was built when the british were here.We also went to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum also known as The Prince of Wales Museum of Western India. when we got there to pay for our tickets some official guy there at the ticket counter made Flynn go back and pay full price for my ticket because we could not prove we were husband and wife. Flynn said it was because I was Amercia and he was just an ass.There are so many neat things there I could go on and on about it But the most neatest thing we got to see was all of the hand carved ivory it was stunning all of the detail in each and every piece.We were not allowed to take any photographs in the museum so I have no pictures. Next we went to A church that was famous I forgot why though it was beautiful it overlooked the Arabic Sea.We then went on A new expansion bridge out and across the ocean again they would not allow us to photograph the bridge.We also went to another church that Flynn went to on A regular basis we had to park away from it and walk in,and this is where my life began to change.There were small homeless children sitting along the streets some small children were carrying other small children maybe siblings.no shoes and so dirty and hungry I felt so terrible for them I smiled at one very small girl and she followed us all the way to the church,she waited for us to come out and followed us all the way back to the car.I could not take it anymore so I told Flynn to give her some money so he gave her A few rupies and she cursed at him for not giving more.Our driver then took us to a resturant that was safe to eat at and on our way he took us through the slums.That was truely the saddest thing I have ever seen.I found myself crying at what I saw.Make shift homes built in any area they could find.Under bridges,around run down buildings,near heaping garbage piles,water ways,near and around the train tracks.It was small communities of the slums everywhere.We passed through the area where they filmed Slum dog Millionaire.It was heart wrenching.We called it an early day because it was so humid the kids were not having A good time.

Almost Ready To Go

So it's like 1:00 in the morning and I can't sleep.I am so nervous about flying,I think I would rather climb Mt.Everest than be on A plane that long.Well our bags are packed and we are ready to go.Our boy's are so excited to see amamma and apappa ( grandma and grandpa) Noah thinks we will be taking A short trip in the car,He has spent every morning for the last 4 months asking if we are going to India.We finally get to tell him yes.This is the longest I will have ever been away from home,I will miss talking to my mom every night on the phone before I go to bed and I will miss talking to my sisters and Sherane during the day.Well I better try and get some sleep,it's going to be A lond day.Next time I will be chatting from Mumbai. WOW!!!!!

35 Days In India

I'm so excited I can hardley stand it,Flynn is finally taking the boys and I home to India after 14 years.So I decided since this is A trip of A lifetime I would journal about the whole experience.We do have a house their so we will finally get to see it.We will travel 2o something hours to Mumbai then 18 hours by train to Kerala.I will finally after almost 10 years together with the most amazing man get too see where he grew up I get to relive all the things he did as a child and watch our children do the same things he did and vist all the amazing places he told me about.I will finally get to place A picture with A memory and our story will finally come full circle.So as I go on this 1st time adventure sit back and enjoy it along with me.I hope you will find it as amazing as I already know it will be.