A White Christmas!

We got a wonderful Christmas gift this year! Sure, the games,books, puzzles and the sweaters were great! We love them all, but when we were up at Gramma and Papa’s in Auberry on Christmas night, we got snow! SNOW! It wasn’t very deep and it was really wet, but it was snow! The girls were thrilled!

It has only snowed in Fresno twice in the last twenty years -- once was when Amanda was about a year and a half old. In the past we have taken the girls up in the high mountains to play in the snow, but the last time we did that, Rebecca was about a year and a half old. Katrina has never seen snow before, and she was enthralled! She ran out into it before we could even get her coat and hat on. She was startled when she slipped and fell, but she got right up and kept going! We had to convince them to come inside after a while so they didn’t get too cold. (Our apologies to those of you who are now existing in four feet of snow and below freezing temperatures to so blithely say that they were cold in their sweatshirts and hats.) We hope your Christmas was filled with wonderful surprizes too!


Katrina runs outside without her hat and sweater on

Katrina slips in the snow

Katrina makes handprints in the snow

Rebecca and Amanda run through the snow

our footprints in the snow

Bond. . . James Bond

Kevin and I went to see the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace the other night, and I just wanted to put my opinion out there for anyone who is interested in knowing it. I have seen every James Bond film, as our family were fans as I was growing up. We were big movie fans in general, but there were several, like James Bond movies, that were essential. My favorites would have to be Goldfinger and Dr. No. Those were the best villains ever! "I don't expect you to talk Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

I have to say, first of all (and I am sure that most of you will agree with me), that there is no other James Bond than Sean Connery. He was, is, and always will be THE quintessential James Bond.

Now, most of the actors who have played James Bond since Connery have done a decent job, with the notable exception of Roger Moore. The only thing that Roger Moore did was play next to great villains, like Jaws.

That being said, I am really enjoying the newest James Bond, Daniel Craig. He has definitely brought back the gritty, physical, sexiness that is what James Bond is all about. (One major change however, is that the sexism that was prevalent in the early movies seems to have been diluted. I LOVE Judy Dench as M!) Gone are all the gadgets and back is the use-what-you-can-get-your-hands-on kind of fighting that makes James Bond what he is! That is why we also like Jason Bourne (remember the pen in The Bourne Identity? Ouch!).

He still has the one liners, the cars (Wow! The '64 Aston Martin! Okay, the new one is nice too.), the women, but it is on a greater scale than we have seen in a LONG time! I would even say on a different scale than we have ever seen. The opening scene in Casino Royale is amazing in it's physicality, complexity and sheer length. Who would have thought you would say that about James Bond?

In short, I am glad they picked Daniel Craig as the new James Bond!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have been seriously busy this last few weeks, so we haven't been able to stop and share all the fun stuff we have been doing!

Thanksgiving was great! That is one of my favorite holidays. No gifts, no decorations, just focusing on good food and what we are grateful for in life. Not to mention the fact that I have Mayflower ancestry. Isaac Allerton and his family. Kevin's parents were in Nevada with his sister, so we got together with the Molloys and Kaufmans. We each brought a part of the meal and then all got to take home leftovers. It was great! We all played games and had a fun time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we put up the trees. This year we bought a new 6.5' pre-lit tree and absolutely covered it with thirty-two years of ornaments. You can barely see the tree! The other tree is all my nativity ornaments. We get a new ornament each year. This year I got a monarch butterfly ornament for the family. Amanda got a silver A, Rebecca got a pink tiara, and Katrina got a handmade Little Einsteins ornament (I just can't justify paying Hallmark $15 for the 3D one that plays the theme song).

On 2 December, we went for the opening walk-thru night of Christmas Tree Lane with the Molloys and the Kaufmans. We walked the two mile route in two hours (including a potty break with a very long line) and got to see all the displays up close. Many of the displays have been there since Kevin and Lora were kids, and others were brand new this year. We have many favorites that we look forward to seeing each year. The older kids were so excited to get to look for all of Santa's reindeer up close! They found Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. When we got back to the cars, we had hot chocolate, hot Tang, and really yummy gingerbread cookies that Andrea had made. It was a late night, but a lot of fun.

On 4 December, the girls went to make gingerbread houses at the Library. We have been doing that since Amanda was eighteen months old. Amanda is glad that there is not an age limit so that she can still go and do them. I am glad that Amanda is still wanting to go and that it has not gotten too "cool" to do it anymore.

On the 7th, Lora and Andrea Kaufman sang a song called "Baby Christ Child" for the prelude in Sacrament Meeting. That night we went up to Mom and Dad's in Auberry and we helped Dad put the lights on the tree out in the yard by the driveway. They had a live tree about six years ago when they first were building the house, and they planted it next to the driveway. Every year Dad puts lights on it. This year it is probably 12-15' tall! We were going to take a few photos next to the tree so that we could play around with the ideas tat we had and and then retake them later. Well, as luck would have it, we actually got the nearly perfect photo! The tree looks great, we are all smiling, the sun had just set so there was a beautiful glow in the background, AND. . . there was a star in the sky right behind us! (It is actually Saturn, but at this range, it looks like a star.) It turned out great!

On the 9th Rebecca went to the library for a Christmas Storytime and got to make an ornament. It is pink.

In between all of this Amanda has been having meetings twice a week at our house with the Odyssey of the Mind group. They are just about to get their first trial structure made so that they can test it.

On 11 December the Relief Society had their Christmas Party and I was in charge of it. It went really well. We had a progressive dinner of sorts and the soups were especially delicious! The focus was on service and we had a Christmas decoration swap and a Service Swap. Each sister filled out a card with a service that they would be willing to give to another sister, and then the cards were drawn in a "White Elephant" type game. It was a lot of fun! We also had several really wonderful stories that the sisters shared about how giving and receiving service has affected them. It was a lovely evening, and, as we hoped, the fog delayed it's encroachment until after we were done and home.

On 12 December we went to the Ward Christmas Party. This year was a dessert party, so we made fudge. Yum! We took the photos of Amanda and Rebecca with Santa just like we did last year. (Katrina again refused to have anything to do with Santa, even when we offered to sit on his lap with her.) Members of the ward shared family traditions and memories of Christmas and we sang songs. The kids got to decorate cookies. It was fun.

On Saturday I got together with Andrea, Cory and Camille to practice "O Holy Night". I am really proud of myself, because the version that we are singing did not have an alto line, and so I figured out what notes I would sing and created the alto line for Camille and I to sing. I took it to my piano practice on Wednesday and Sister Moses was really impressed and helped me to tweak a couple of spots so that it sounded even better. We practiced really hard and got to the point where we could have sung it a capella if we had to. We got so many compliments when we sang it on Sunday. It sounded so good!

Now we just need to make our Christmas cards and get the last few presents taken care of so we can get things in the mail!

Blogging my weight loss journey - Month 11

I was hoping to do better in the two weeks remaining in November, but with Thanksgiving and too much fudge and a root beer float, I didn't get to where I was hoping to be, but I am heading back in the right direction.

I need to remember the phrase I said all the time at the beginning: Let the temptation pass. Temptations don't usually last all that long, so if I get the temptation to eat something I shouldn't, I should wait for a little while, and then my mind will have moved on, and I won't crave that thing any more.

I have been exercising in the mornings, getting up at 5:00am, to get in a 30-45 minute workout before the girls get up at 6:00am. I resisted getting up that early for a long time, but it is working out okay. I also need to get out and walk more again.

I lost 3 pounds and 3.5" in the last two weeks. I am really going to need added strength in this next month as there are many of my favorite foods that are going to be readily available around me. Let the temptation pass! Let the temptation pass!

Checkmate!

This year Amanda joined the Chess Club at Liberty Intermediate school. She practices a lot, playing against her friends and her mom, and she has improved dramatically since she only started at the beginning of the school year. The Chess Club meets twice a week and the members practice with each other.

This Saturday they had their first tournament. Amanda did really well. She ranked 14th out of 53 in her division. She won two matches, lost two matches and the last one ended in a stale-mate. We were really proud of her! Her next tournament is in January.

See all the pics HERE.

Blogging my weight loss journey - Month 10. . .and a half. . .THE DETOUR

Okay, I needed the kick in the pants to write this month's blog post about my weight loss journey. (Thanks Shea!) I was really depressed about this last few months. I have taken a HUGE detour on the weight loss journey, and I am having a very hard time getting back on track. I am not happy right now. I am upset with myself. I don't feel good. I get headaches. I am tired. Why would I purposefully make myself feel this way?

I do not understand why when I start to stray off the path that it means that I should go running as fast as I can in the other direction! After school started I got thrown off my exercise schedule, and so slowly I started to eat the wrong foods, but rather than just maintain where I was, I went completely off the deep end and ate everything in sight!!! ARG! Seriously! What the heck is wrong with me? Why can I not control what I put into my mouth?

I am telling you the answer right now - IT IS AN ADDICTION!!!

I have to treat food the way that a recovering alcoholic treats alcohol. Can a recovering alcoholic have just one drink? No! Can I just have one cookie? NO! I can't, because in my mind one cookie is the open door to eat as many cookies as I possibly can. Why? I will never know. But, with me that is the way it is. Lots of diets tell you that you have to splurge every once in a while, but I can't. A splurge leads to a surge, and I have to stay as far away from that as possible.

Hello, my name is Lora and I am a recovering foodaholic.

I have to accept, no matter how painful it may be, that I cannot eat chocolate chip cookies. I cannot eat ice cream. I cannot eat candy. I have to accept, no matter what my brain may tell me otherwise, that food is fuel. Food is not friend, just fuel. (Say that with the voice of the sharks from Finding Nemo.)

I whine about how unfair it is that I can't just eat whatever I want and that I have to work at this forever, i.e. I can't lose the weight and stop working at it. I have to do this forever. Well, if the doctors told me that I had a fatal, incurable disease, but that I could stay alive indefinitely by not eating chocolate, don't you think I would do everything I could to stay alive? I wouldn't be willing to risk my life by eating chocolate. So why am I so willing right now?

Satan is trying to kill me, and he is doing it with food. That sign is on my refrigerator. Currently it is buried by Katie's drawings and school lunch schedules, but after I post this it will come back out to the front.

Okay, I am getting more and more energized the more I write! So, gulp, here is the current stats (I have to accept the consequences of my actions):

weight gained: 13 lbs.
inches gained: 18"

Goals for the month of November:

*Pray like crazy for help every single second of the day!!!

*Exercise, even as little as twenty minutes, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Get up earlier on the days that I have to!

*Write down everything that I eat! Get back on course with the five meals a day! PORTION CONTROL!!!

*Get back down to the weight I was in August!

This is a journey right?! Sometimes you run into hazards along the way. As long as you are going in the right direction, you will eventually get to where you are going. Sometimes you go slow, sometimes you go fast. I will get there. I have already lost 41 pounds. I have already reached many of my goals. Granted, I have to meet several of them again, but I will. If you sit on the side of the road feeling sorry for yourself, you are not going to get anywhere.

I am going to get back on track. My name is Lora and I am addicted to food. I will overcome that addiction! I will be fit! I will be healthy! I will be strong!

By the way, it is good to have road signs and AAA to help along the way, so all of you out there feel free to be my road signs and say, STOP! WRONG WAY! SLOW DOWN! CAUTION! when you see me eyeing that piece of pie or a cookie or telling you that I am off track like that makes it okay. You don't have to be the police, just a positive, gentle reminder. Thanks!

The good news: I have still lost 28 pounds and 39.25". I have not returned to where I was before. I am facing up to my mistakes and getting back on track. Back in the right direction.

Butterfly Road Trip

This year we "hatched" some butterflies, and Katrina's favorite DVD is Little Einstein's Big, Huge Adventure, in which they meet a caterpillar that eventually changes into a butterfly and migrates to his "butterfly family reunion". Our friends, the Kaufman's "hatched"some butterflies too. So, when we heard that we could see the butterflies at the Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, we planned a road trip to go see them!

We left early this morning, driving through the farmlands of the Valley and then up into the foothills of the Coast Range. It was a cool, autumn day, but clear and sunny! Gorgeous! We did a lot of geocaching along the way. We found some caches that we had not found before and also stopped at several caches that we knew that the Kaufman's would like.

As we got into Pismo Beach, we went to the Butterfly Grove. That was so neat! The count for the day was 7500 butterflies! Wow! The butterflies were absolutely dripping from the trees. There were some flitting here and there, but most were just hanging out. We got there just in time to listen to the docent talk about the butterflies and their life cycle and their migration to and from the Grove. One thing that we learned that we did not know was that the butterflies that lay their eggs there and that move on do not ever come back to the Grove. It takes four or five generations for the butterflies to come back, which means that the children of the butterflies that leave there will never see this Grove. Yet, their descendants all know to go back there. That is amazing! We will definitely be coming back here again!

After the butterflies, we drove down to Santa Maria to visit with my Gpa Marshall. He recently moved to a retirement home there, Santa Maria Terrace. The girls played with Gpa's walker and we got to visit with him for a little while before he had to go down for dinner.

Afterwards we went to dinner at a restaurant in downtown Pismo and then walked out onto the pier and then we got back on the road to head home. As we left, it began to rain, so our timing was perfect!

Date Night!

This weekend Kevin and I went out on a triple date with our good friends Eddie and Cory Molloy and Steve and Andrea Kaufman, to celebrate Steve's birthday. We went to the Yosemite Falls Cafe for dinner. We laughed a lot, ate some delicious food, and took some great photos! The staff of the restaurant even came over to sing to Steve and brought him a special ice cream sundae. After dinner we went back to the Molloys for a movie and root beer floats. It was a lot of fun! It is so nice to spend time with good friends!




Andrea Kaufman, Cory Molloy and Lora Nehring lookin' smokin' hot!



Lora and Kevin

Halloween costumes

The girls costumes look great this year!

Amanda is dressed up as Marco Hietala, the bassist/vocalist for our favorite Finnish symphonic metal band, Nightwish. She looked great! I made her costume by painting the band name on a t-shirt and making a foam core replica of Marco's guitar. (A Warwick Infinity NT) Because most people do not know who he is, we put photos of Marco, the band, his guitar and one of me and Marco, on the back of the guitar. We made her goatee by gluing crepe wool on with spirit gum. (I spent an amazing amount of time trying to figure out how to do the goatee, as I could only find ones that were black or brown, and then finally I found crepe wool and it was PERFECT!!)

Rebecca was a fairy. We got her wings and skirt from a neighbor down the street who was giving away costumes last month. All we had to buy was the leotard. We painted her face and she really liked that part!

Katrina was a princess. She wore the same dress that Rebecca wore when she was five, but we bought her a new tiara that was just hers! She loved it.

We went to the Ward Halloween Party last night. There were a TON of people there (word sure gets around!). It was fun. There were lots of game booths, like the ever-favorite cake walk, etc., and then afterward everyone went out to the parking lot for a trunk-or-treat.

We did a booth that people could get their photo taken in their costumes. We had a backdrop with a big spider web and spider on it and a table with a candelabra with drippy candles, a skull and a cauldron with mist coming out of it. People stood next to the table and we took their photos and then we printed them out for them. It went really well.

Amanda gets to dress up in her costume on Friday for Halloween, but at Rebecca's school they do mismatch clothes and crazy hair day. Tomorrow Katrina gets to "trick-or-treat" at the library for Storytime. This is a fun time of the year.

Primary Presentation

Today was the Primary Presentation in our ward. Amanda was the Narrator and Rebecca had a talk and sang the first verse of "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" with her friend Brooklyn Kaufman, who sang the second verse. The girls both did really well and the whole Presentation was really nice. The children did a great job. One of my kids from my Valiant B class gave a talk about prayer and told a story about how his family had prayed to find his mother's car keys. I was so proud of him for sharing such an important experience that he had.

Speaking of my Valiant B class, I was released today. I have known about it for a while, as they told me about the change a little over two weeks ago, but I wasn't going to be changing until after the Primary Presentation. So, today I was released and taught my last lesson. It has been a hard change for me. As much as I have complained about the kids and how much they drive me crazy, I was heartsick to learn that I wasn't going to be their teacher any more. I love teaching the Book of Mormon, so I was sad that I won't get to finish that either. Their new teacher is going to be great though, so I am not too worried. The release also means that I won't be the Activity Days leader any more either.

Change is the most unchangeable part of life.