Is anyone out there? We're still here.

Hello...is this thing on? Is anyone out there? I know, I know, I vowed to blog regularly. That was back in January. Hmm whats been going on since. I know we went to Disneyland! In February we surprised the kids and told them a few days before we left. We had so much fun. So many good memories. It is the happiest place on earth. And we even had friends who were there the same time as us. Hows that for awesome. The Rooks and Brisson Families. The kids were so happy to be able to ride some rides with their friends and get a break from each other for awhile.

See that's us. I'm the big fatty on the left. Yep that's me, the fat mom.

So you see when we came home from this family vacation and I saw the pictures, I threw up in my mouth a little. I couldn't believe that was me. I mean I knew it was me but how awful. Thank you Jim for always loving me for better or worse, because that was the worse. Yuck! So now I am 30 lbs., ok 29 1/2 lbs., smaller. And I WILL NEVER BE THAT FAT AGAIN! Swear, on the life of my dog. I owe it to Zumba, my bike and treadmill and nothing good to eat for the last 4 months. That's a lie I have eaten some alot when no one is looking really good stuff and drank a few alot of beers. But everyone needs a cheat day here and there.Enough about that.

Jim got a promotion kind of and is working with the Shell employees instead of with his Greysam coworkers. And they like him alot, or so he tells me and he really likes them and working with them. Man I hope he gets a job with Shell and he can retire young and we can travel the world or probably just pay for our kids to go to college.

That was a nice little day dream.

The company I am contracted to do work for The Reed Advantage moved to a new location. So now I get to be in a nice sunny office all day, with lots of windows. Oops that's right I live in Washington and we don't get summer. Just fall rainy weather all year long. Is this the end of the world? Is 2012 really coming? Makes you wonder.

That's enough of the crazy talk.

Hmm..what else. My new obsessions. Lets talk about that for a few minutes.

 #1 Ancestry.com. and genealogy. Love it. I decided I needed to find out who I am. I know who I am but not where I came from. OK I know that too, but not who was involved along the way in making that happen because my family is crazies and no one wants to tell me. So I started digging. I found my egg donors mothers parents (did you follow that?) information and way back. I don't call her my mother, or mom or any of those other loving phrases people call the one who gave birth to them. But that's a long story. Thanks to the help of some lovely ladies Norma and Sandra that somehow I am related too, great great aunts. Now my egg donors father, that's a different story. He seems to have fallen off the face of this earth. So if you are reading this and your name is Ralph Edward Cathcart JR. and you are from Fairhaven Massachusetts please send me a message.

No seriously, I wonder why people close off parts of their lives and never look back. Lots of questions and little answers when it comes to that side.

 I will continue to dig but am getting really frustrated.

On the other side, my biological fathers side, his mama, my grandma Carol did the Szopinski side. Yes you read it right I am a Pollock (sp). Actually a mutt. But she didn't do her side. Just her husbands, my grandpa. So more digging but that will have to wait. And I also am working on the Lee side for Jim and the kids. So we have a full picture of who we are and what breed our kids are. And then I will do the Perry side. Which will get pretty interesting since my grandpa was an orphan. Maybe they are royalty of some great country and we will be rich and have lots of jewels and servants and I will never have to work again.

OK #2 Couponing. Maybe not extreme couponing, but I am obsessed with coupon matching and saving as much money as possible when it comes to our weekly grocery bill. I use to clip a few here and there and had a little coupon wallet. But now I have a whole coupon binder. I will post some of my favorite sites to find coupons and all my handy tips and how to's I've come across and use in a later post.

Whats next. Well its summer so we should be camping and enjoying the sun. But instead we are working and saving money to go to HAWAII for Christmas. Actually a few weeks before because we aren't rich and its much more expensive to go for the 25th, but we will pretend and call it Christmas while we are there. So we aren't 100% but we think we are going to Molokai.

Its supposed to be not so touristy. We want laid back, sun bathing, spear fishing, cooking up the island fair kind of place. Can't wait. We need a vacation from this crazy life.

Well that's all for now. I promise I will not wait 7 months to blog again.

Till Next Time, even if no one reads this -Amanda