My Poor Car...

As I was leaving the grocery store yesterday this lady in a big suburban back right into the front of my car... bummer man... totally her fault but I will have to deal with getting it all fixed...

Ground Chicken...

I was in the mood for a burger this weekend so I made 2 variations with ground chicken rather than ground beef - an awesome substitute...

The first were mini burgers with grilled mushrooms on crunchy little wheat rolls -

with just a dollop of lite mayo they tasted awesome!

The second was a recipe I got from WeightWatchers.com; Buffalo Chicken Burgers. You mix buffalo wing sauce, minced green onion and celery into your ground chicken and give it a toss...

I grilled them into nice sized patties and covered them with reduced fat blue cheese when the came off the grill; served on a whole wheat bun with lettuce and tomato they were so tasty...

who knew eating right could be so yummy!

I'm a fatty...

So I decided that something had to give... I put my 32" waist pants away... and now the 34"s are getting tight... I eat and eat and eat... I don't know why... possibly boredom, maybe deep emotional issues... sniff... or maybe I'm just a fatty that loves to stuff food in my face...



The latter is the most likely... so I started Weight Watchers this week... so far it has been really educational... The first day or so I found myself out of points 1/2 way through dinner and certainly not able to drink half what I used to... But it's all for the better... since I quit smoking I have put on 30 pounds... that's right - 30 flipping pounds in less than 2 years... no wonder my pants are so dang tight...



I need to eat better, I want to be thinner - so I will give weight watchers a try... Karen from work lost 37 pounds on it, Amanda 25... I'm shooting for 30...

Week one will be over soon... I have already lost 6 pounds... 24 to go... Wish me luck...

Don't Snug & Drive

Thank God someone tested this before I got hurt...

nada...

I did nothing exciting this weekend... it was great - oh so great... life really needs to slow down for me... I am so tired...

I did go to my first Honduras meeting... I really want to go its only 5 months away... it will be here before I know it...

My Little Sister Got Married...

The weekend finally came! Lisa and Doug got married last Saturday. The wedding was perfect - honestly how could it not be with my sister as the designer...

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner; Doug's mom put on a great Mexican fiesta complete with a margarita machine...


Lots of family came into town for the wedding:

Mom and Jim

Uncle Charlie & Aunt Jane, Dad's cousins; Patty and Margie

The day of the wedding all the guys met at Dads for Hot Dogs, beer and Jack Daniels...

The girls met at Lisa's for Champagne cheese and crackers...

There was about 130 people at the church for the ceremony... Dad looked spiffy in his tux...

My job in the wedding was to dance down the aisle with Doug's sister; then light the candles on my side of the stage...

The theme of the wedding was rainbows so all the bridesmaids wore the same dress in a different color - it was very... colorful ;-) Shel was the maid of honor; Celi, Nicole, Ashley, Andrea and some other girls I didn't know followed... I was at the end of the girls side, as Doug's sister was at the end of the dudes side...

Lisa looked amazing... she even dropped 5 pounds from her already skinny body to look good for the day - Doug didn't look bad either...

Pastor Rob did the ceremony in our church which meant a lot to our family...

At the reception even more people showed up... I think close to 200 - the place was packed!

The cake followed the rainbow theme, it was moist and delicious -

Lots of boozing and dancing ensued as the night went on... everyone had a great time...

The next day I put on a lunch for the newlyweds; about 40 attended and the setup was beautiful...

To eat I served sandwiches with 3 meat choices on either wheat, ciabatta roll or croissant with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mayo, mustard and 4 kinds of cheese... Side dishes were potato salad, fresh veggies with dip, chips and fruit...

after lunch they opened all their wedding gifts... Doug's mom gave them relaxing clothes for their St. Lucia honeymoon...

I was still suffering from jet lag when the whole weekend started - Now I am totally exhausted

I am so glad it all came together and is now over... Lisa and Doug are on some sandy beach in the Caribbean enjoying the first week of married life... Thank you Lord for being with us this week...

Sightseeing in Tokyo...

We woke up in the morning and had a very nice breakfast together on the 25th floor of our hotel - It was great to have a tasty meal as we knew we would do a lot of walking today...

HA! Mike took this picture out his window...

the rooms were less than spacious!

Dori from Asian Access was kind enough to take us to the fun tourist spots around town...
We started on the 45th floor of the Tokyo City Government building... the observation deck was a 360 degree view of the vast city... truly spectacular!

Then we walked on to Harajuku where all the cool shops were... We snacked on crepes and bought some Japanese junk to take back home...

Hello sad baby...Hello Japanese School girls...

Two places we had to stop were Starbucks and the Snoopy Store...

We hopped on the plane this morning and arrived safely at home Tuesday afternoon.
God really showed us some amazing things while we were in Japan... The missionary kids we cared for were awesome little people... Please pray for the spiritually dark country of Japan... the harvest is great and the workers are so few.

On to Tokyo!

We left the retreat chalet this morning for Tokyo... Jeff and Nozomi took us for a light lunch at the Shinkansen station before we got on our train - the Japanese have high speed train travel down to a science... the train did not rock or move at all - it just glided at 100 mph across the countryside which put me right to sleep...

Jeff left us at one of the stops along the way so Nozomi, Zack and Ellie took us into Tokyo where we transferred to the JR subway...

That train took us to The Johnston's neighborhood where we stopped at Mister Donut - YUM!

After a snack we stopped by the kids school - Christian Academy Japan. We met lots of friends and teachers...

From the school Nozomi led us to her favorite bakery (why do we seem to eat every hour or so?)

We also popped into a grocery store - man those are big bottles of sake...

We stopped to pray over a temple... this was a very dark place... we prayed that those who stopped at the temple would come to know Christ as their savior...

Then on to The Johnston's home and neighborhood where we were able to go on a prayer walk to pray for their friends and neighbors... It was a very special time...

At the end of the night we went for a potsticker dinner before we boarded the subway back to Shinjuku and our hotel for the night... Once we hit the street level the lights of downtown Tokyo were amazing!
We all got a good nights rest for our sightseeing adventure the next day!