My Life and Weight Loss Through NS

: Name: Amy; Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

I'm BACK!!! (pics too)

Hey guys!

Long time no blog. :) LOL. It's been a rough time this past month or so, but I am here and ready to start posting again. I have a gazillion pics and such that I would love to post here, but only so much time today. I've already spent too much time on the computer today (as usual, LOL).

OK, following will be a few different pics. We had a NS get-together up in Denver this past Saturday- June 9th, 2007. It was a great time with a few of the same people from the last couple get-togethers, as well as a bunch of new faces. I got to drag Mike and the kids along too, which was nice, except my 10 yr old apparently decided to drive my husband batty for the entire meal. UGH, gotta love these stages they go through (and we're not even close to the teenage years yet, LOL). Anyway, it was a great time meeting people nonetheless, and I'm so glad we were able to do it! Unfortunately, along with the difficulties of this past month I have had a hard time sticking to my good eating plan, so I was a good 5 lbs more in these get-together pics than I would've liked, but such is life (and the maintenance battle for me). Up and down and up and down. As long as I stick under 130 lbs I will be happy.

This Thursday is my 29th birthday, and will also mark my 2 year anniversary since meeting my NS goal weight of 130 lbs. Two years on maintenance already... WOW! I really do think I can do this for the rest of my life! I mean, it will NEVER be easy, but it is SO worth the effort!

OK, other pics will include some that Mike snapped of me this past Sunday in all my new hockey gear, some of Katrina from her last hockey tournament when they won silver, and a couple of our new baby bunny- OREO. hehe. He's a cutie- about 2 1/2 months old now and just sweet as can be. The story with me in the new hockey gear is that the WHOLE family except for me plays inline hockey. Mike has been trying to get me to play for a while now, and I finally signed up last week. I will start playing on a novice league in about a week and it should be fun (and funny for spectators too, LOL). We'll see how that goes! :)

Hope you all are doing well and thanks again for letting me share my life with you all!

Amy Smith

NS get-together in Denver, June 9 2007
Left to Right (kinda):
Abraham and Rochelle (PharmDGril,in the blue shirt); Nancy (divinemsn, blonde in the pink shirt); Sy and Liz (snowhyte0621, back row behind Nancy); Katrina, Tyler, me, and my hubby Mike (don't mind the bad pic- we were all staring into the sun); Wendy (USMC-WIFE in the pink top, next to her husband Dan and their 3 kids); Julie (MOM2NN, white shirt) with her son Noah in the front row (blue shirt); Kate (musgal, the gorgeous redhead with the white top); and Sharon (skb26) who asked not to be in the front row again (LOL, sorry Sharon!!!) Missing- Bonnie (jersey89) who had to leave before we went outside to take pics...

Me + Liz (snowhyte0621)

Me + Bonnie (jersey89)

Me + Kate (musgal)

Snapshots from lunch:

Man, does Tyler look excited or what?! LOL. He of course put bunny ears over Katrina's head when he noticed I was taking pics, but I missed getting that one on camera... Figures. I ALWAYS miss those good Kodak moments!

Oh, look, bunny ears! LOL. Here is me in my new hockey gear with Tyler making fun of me. :)

Pic before Mike cut down my stick to size and wrapped the blade and the top of the stick in the HOT PINK stick tape I picked out. hehehee. :)

Katrina after their hockey tournament a week ago

Katrina receiving her silver medal from one of the rink employees

Katrina with her hockey team and their assistant coach Albert

Katrina in her tap dance costume, before her dance recital (the Friday before the hockey tournament)- talk about the 2 extremes. LOL...

Nothing like massive amounts of makeup on my little 7 yr old "baby" girl!

Little video clip of Katrina's tap dance (this was during the dress rehearsal; they don't let you record during the actual performance) CLICK TWICE TO PLAY:

(Katrina is the one right in front of the wood post thing)

Pic of Katrina and a few of the girls from her dance class, right before the recital (Katrina is 3rd from the left)

After the recital with her flowers

I also took the kids to McDonald's with my parents after the dress rehearsal. A few snapshots of them playing:

(REALLY hard to get any decent pics of Tyler; he HATES getting his picture taken!)

(A little blurry, but I loved her reflection in the fish tank on this one, LOL)

And some of our new baby bunny "Oreo". He is much cuter in person, and has black eyes (not red like they show up in some of the pics):

OK, that's all for now! See ya! I'll leave ya with a couple of my most recent comparison shots from April:

Jan 2005 and April 2007

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Vow Renewal Videos... Singing to Mike

Hey guys!

Here are some video clips of the part of the vow renewal ceremony when I was singing to Mike. Following are the words from the ceremony text before I sang:

As teenagers, Mike and Amy danced together to the song
"Have I Told you Lately",
and it quickly became THEIR song.
On their wedding day 10 years ago,
in Amy's parents' backyard, in the snow,
Amy sang that song to Mike.
Today they'd like to relive that moment
by sharing that song together again.

Click twice to play...

Friday, April 27, 2007

More Vow Renewal Pictures

Hey guys!

I've been working on pictures for a few days now and even though I'm not even close to getting through all of them yet, I wanted to share a bunch with you guys. Here's a bunch of pictures that Jan took the morning of the ceremony, while we were getting ready, and then a bunch of my favorite pics from during the ceremony and after. Hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.

Love, Amy

Sat morning, having hair done at the salon:

Katrina pouting since I told her that "No, Cheetos aren't a good idea this morning after you've just had your hair and makeup done" LOL:

Me checking out if the curls are even, hehe:

LOVE my hair stylist:

At the ceremony location, the dress is waiting:

Jan REALLY never misses a shot, LOL, though I won't even post the risque one that Chris (cygnet2) captured:

Nope, STILL not as bad as the one Chris got, LOL:

Jan shot this pic while I was getting my thigh highs on I think, LOL:

My mom, helping me into my slip:

Into the dress:

Almost... Hey, I spy Chris back there helping too. :)

Helping Katrina with her dress while mine was going on also:

My mom helping, and check out that reflection in the mirror, hehe:

Katrina being cuddly while I was getting dressed and hey, what's Chris doing in my purse back there?!?!:

Tighter, tighter... suck it in:

Helping Katrina secure her tiara tighter:

She was sooooo sweet:

Tyler, Mom, and Katrina:

Almost time now:

I was sooooo ready to get the ceremony started... Jan snapped some pics while we waited for some late guests to arrive:

More pics while we were waiting for the "go":

I walked up to the aisle with both kids, and Tyler hesitated a bit forgetting that he was supposed to walk done the aisle 1st, so here is Katrina reminding him:

Katrina dropping the flower girl petals, awwwww:

I SPRINTED down the aisle apparently (hey, in my defense it was a SHORT aisle, LOL) so Jan couldn't get a very good shot of me. Here is Mike helping me up the step to the stage though:

The start of the ceremony:

My beautiful flower girl:

and the handsome ring bearer:

Mike and I said a few words of appreciation to all of our friends and family:

As a complete surprise to our parents, we asked them all up on stage and honored their marriages as well. My parents have been married nearly 38 years, and Mike's parents have been married nearly 40 years. WOW to them both! We presented them with plaques that said "Love Withstands the Test of Time" and we had them engraved with their names and wedding dates:

There were a LOT of tears up on that stage that day. Me with my parents after presenting them with their plaque:

Katrina sang a beautiful song to us "Love Will Be Our Home":

Me helping Katrina a little to not be so nervous, since the microphone was off at the beginning to her song and I'm sure that unnerved her a bit. Poor girl. She was a trooper though:

Glancing at Mike and Tyler as Katrina sang:

Me singing to Mike "Have I Told You Lately", the same song I sang to him 10 years ago (I need to work on some of the pics for this part still):

One of the most special parts of the ceremony to us was making vows to our children:

The closest I think Tyler will ever get to tears on camera:

I think we all teared up a bit:

Mike and I exchanged new rings:

The new rings...

The kiss:

Of course the kids HAD to look away, LOL:

We "danced" back down the aisle a little to the song "Funky Town". (We LOVE jamming in the car with the kiddos to funky music and knew this would be a fun song to surprise the guests with at the end of the emotional ceremony. It did a good job of transitioning the mood to "party time"):

The main table setting:

The other tables:

The cake set-up. I was so proud of how it turned out! I made a "cookie cake" with double layers of giant pan cookies I made, with frosting between the layers and milk and dark chocolate drizzle, all topped off with chocolate covered strawberries. I ordered all the cake stand pieces separately and put together a design I sketched out with a fountain I REALLY wanted to include under the main cake. It turned out just as I had hoped, mishaps and all (those pics are coming on another day!).

Mmmm:

Oooooo... ahhhhhh... LOL:

Some of the table set-up:

A close-up of the place card holders:

The wedding favors. I ordered custom printed M&Ms with our names on them. Some of them said Mike&Amy, 10 years, and others said Tyler & Katrina. The kids really loved this idea. :) The other favors were a true labor of love by my dear friend Jan. She worked for a LONG time on perfecting these wedding cake cookies and I sketched out designs that I wanted on the cookies and she made each one with love just how I had envisioned. She shipped them out to me overnight a few days before the wedding (we won't mention how much THAT cost!!!). They were the perfect wedding favors. Thanks Jan!

The sand ceremony vases. We did a special sand ceremony with the kids during the vow renewal ceremony. Each vase had our individual names engraved on them with our own color sand. We poured our sands into the "family vase" during the ceremony and created this beautiful sand art. It was quite touching and we have the whole set-up displayed in our house now to keep:

The whole group at the ceremony. It was a small gathering of our closest friends and family, but it was just PERFECT! Can you find Jan and Chris hiding in there???

LOVE my family!

Mommy and Flower Girl:

Daddy and Ring Bearer:

And following are just a FEW of my favorite pics that Jan took after the ceremony. Some in color and some I've converted to black and white with a glowing effect. :) I know Jan will work magic with all the pictures when she gets her hands on my favorites for the album. Can't wait!

This one was actually a pic during the ceremony:

Monday, April 23, 2007

Vow Renewal and 2nd Honeymoon Pics and Video Clips

Hey guys!

I haven't had much time to upload pics yet from our vow renewal and 2nd honeymoon, but here's what I have so far. I will just edit and update here as I get more done on it all... It was an AMAZING time and one of the best days of our lives, as I hope you can tell by the pics. (MANY thanks to Jan-jannyanne for taking all the vow renewal pics for us... can't wait to see the rest!!!).

Amy

After Vow Renewal Ceremony:

A couple before and afters of my face... after#1 is from the lingerie shower Jan and Chris threw for me on April 12, and after#2 is from the reception on April 14 of course:

On the plane to the Bahamas:

Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort:

View from one of our hammocks, hehe:

(can you tell how windy it was???)

Still windy:

Mike at the beach:

We're REALLY bad at taking pics of ourselves, LOL:

Resting in a hammock:

Ummm, LOL:

Our view from the hammock, part 2:

On our way to our private candlelight dinner on our last night there:

Our AMAZING private candlelight dinner with our own white-gloved waiter, champagne, and a red rose:

The sunset during our dinner:

Video Clip of sunset during dinner:

After dinner:

Sandals at night:

STILL chilly, LOL:

and a couple video clips from the wedding renewal ceremony, this is as far as I've gotten so far...

Saturday, March 31, 2007

New pics... March 30, 2007

OK, so here I am again with a few more pics. I know when I look at these I should feel good about how far I've come, but instead all I see are the 5 lbs I'd love to lose to be in the bottom of my maintenance range instead of the top of it... Mike's and my vow renewal is just 2 weeks away now and I wanted to feel PERFECT on that day. I will just stay 100% with my eating between now and then and that is the best I can do. The stress of all the wedding planning has really gotten the best of my nerves this past week and I am an emotional basketcase. I just hope I can get it together and not let all the fun of this experience slip away from me. Breathe Amy, breathe... (thanks to all my NS buddies for talking me down off the ledge this morning too)! I don't know where I'd be without all of you guys. I am blessed in so many ways in my life. Thank you to all of you for being a part of it.

Before at 180 (Jan 2005) and Now (March 2007) at 128 lbs

(awful before pic from Jan 31, 2000- Tyler's 3rd birthday, at about 175 lbs):

All pics from March 30, 2007:

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Pics and Video from CO NS get-together (March 10, 2007)

Hey guys!

We had a wonderful NS lunch get-together today in Denver, CO. We had a nice large group of NSers that were able to make it and it was a really wonderful time (and hilarious too, LOL). I hope we can do it all again very soon! I'll do my best to remember everyone's real names and NS user names also for the pics here. Let me know if I get any wrong... sorry, I'm REALLY bad with names. LOL. My other excuse is that I didn't get to sit by all of you, so I don't remember spouse's names. haha. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. ;)

Amy

P.S. I'll do my best to give names for this group shot, but geez people, could we all stand in a straight line already? hahaha. :)

Entire Group (We've lost a total of 835 lbs altogether so far!!!)
KIND OF from left to right:
MJ (AutumnGal) and husband Paul, in black leather jackets
Suzan (Kaylasgrammy) in red/black top
Kelly (bigloser45) and husband Nick (Kelly in blue pullover and Nick behind her)
Michelle (Happychick74) is the other cute blonde behind Nick
Phillip (Uke) behind Michelle, with wife Nancy to the right
Bonnie (jersey89) to the right of Nick,in white top
Me (Amy- amysmithr)with my daughter Katrina in the front
Sophia (CestMoi, in brown top) behind me with daughter Kaliandra
Sharon (skb26) in white and black, next to Kaliandra
Nancy (divinemsn) to the right of Sophia, in denim top
Karl (klford) behind Nancy
Kate (musgal), the cute red-head to the right of Karl :)
Cathy (hotbody145) in black top and jeans (wife of Karl... come on, stand together people! LOL)
Cindy (cmur7994) hiding just to the right of Kate, standing with husband behind her
Deb (getergone) with devil horns (are you surprised, really? LOL) and Ken, her husband

OK, I think I got them all, LOL...

How cute are Sophia and Cindy? :)

Nancy, Karl and wife Cathy

Kaliandra, Sophia, Katrina, Cindy and husband, Kate (in red), Kelly and Nick facing the other way, and Suzan standing

Cathy in background, Sophia and Amy, Katrina

Sharon talking to Deb, and catching Michelle talking and taking pics (sorry about that, LOL)

Sophia and me :)

Cindy and me :)

Bonnie and me :)

She'll kill me for posting this one... we SOOO weren't ready for this one, hehe

Me, Cindy, and Kate :)

Kaliandra- age 9, and Katrina- age 7 (Sophia's and my daughters)

Click the play arrow twice to play:

They were laughing at me standing on the booth to take the pics and video... hey, it was the only way to get that whole huge group! LOL.

Ummm, this one was supposed to be a still pic, but I left my digital camera on video mode, haha, oops:

Man, I'm LOUD!!! LOL

Well we sure had fun, and the girls managed to keep themselves entertained as well! :) That's all folks.

Friday, March 09, 2007

New pics... March 9, 2007

Hey you all!

Just wanted to post some pics here real quick. I went SHOPPING (YAHOOO!!!!) today and had a blast picking out some clothes. Just thought I'd share. :)