Adam and Heather Hayes

I am continuing to paint so I will continue to post paintings as I finish them. This was a very fun piece to do. It has more of a "classic old oil painting" look to it.

The original painting was done by William Bradford and is called "Fishing Boats on the Bay of Fundy". This one had more small detail and it took a white to figure out how to get the waves to look like actual waves.

I was going to take my painting stuff up to the Quinn reunion (Heather will post on that later), but we filled the car to popping as it was without my painting stuff. The reunion was a blast and now we are in the heat of things with Jaleesa getting married tomorrow.

I figured it is my turn to give everyone an update.

I made my goal of losing 30 lbs. I got back down to 175 which is about the weight I was when I graduated. I haven't been below 180 since before I got married, so I was very surprised to make the goal. I've been hovering around 175.5 and 177 for the past couple of weeks, so I didn't just "bounce" up after losing it either.

I rode my first horse last Friday. We went up to Daniel's house and I got my first ever chance to ride a horse. It was ok. They told me that trotting isn't the most enjoyable and that I should go gallup, but I'm not sure that I enjoyed that any more than trotting, but that could have just been because of how far down the stirrups were. (I have short legs and Daniel has really long legs.) All-in-all it was pretty fun. Darcy threatened that we should go for a trail ride. So we'll see how/when that happens.

T-ball. Heather finished her season (I'll let her tell you about that more herself.) But from my position as designated 3rd base coach, I thought her team did excellent. Heather was soooooo patient with the kids.

Erith and Tric were on her team and they did amazing. Tricity hit two home runs this season (which is pretty hard to do in T-ball.)

Erith keeps getting taller and her long legs kept her ahead of most anyone (even when I thought for sure that she would get out, she always beat them to the base... even if the ball was hit directly at the base she was running to.)

Overall Heather's team had a winning season and I am very proud of her and the girls. 

I've started painting again. I haven't painted in a lot of years, and I've never done oil painting. I did water color when I was in high school, but I haven't done anything since then. I convinced a very nice lady in my ward to teach me how to oil paint. I've been planning this for a while and had asked for oil painting equipment last year for Christmas, so I had most everything I needed to get going. I've completed two paintings so far, one an abstract picture based off of a Paul Klee painting that I really like. The second is a still life of a couple of bottles. I think I'm getting better and I'm really enjoying painting again. I had forgotten how much fun it can be.

Well there is my update. I'll get the pictures out here as soon as I can for people to see. Please let me know what you all think.

Viola is now 4 years old!  I wanted to get her something different and enthralling to a 4 year old.  I decided on a Crowntail Beta fish.  She loves it.  I think it's name is Seedy, but she changes it a lot.

I wrapped this open bottomed box thinking I was so clever and creative to hide the fish.  Well, she loved it. 

I put it in a fish bowl and put the box back on to suprise the family  that night when everyone came over for swimming, cake and icecream.  I somehow tipped the bowl over when I was jostling presents and soaked all the other presents and was left with a flopping fish on the table.  My father in law kept his cool while I was screaming my head off and swiped the fish off the table back into the bowl.  The fish is still alive and well a week later, no thanks to me!

Adam and I went to the Miss Idaho Paegent last week and did some buisiness advertising and had a fun get away from life. 

We went to an Art Museum, which had exhibits of Idaho Artists.  It was okay, nothing that inspired us too much.

We then went to Camel's Back Park to hike up the camel's back.  It was steep up onto the hump and then had a bunch of winding trails around the top and down the sides. 

I thought we were lost after 45 minutes and finding a stream instead of the park. 

But we were just one hill curve away from the park.

We spent 5 hours in the Boise Temple Saturday, it was a great oppurtunity to get ahead on our family names.  Thank you to all the Quinn family helping with our family names, we should have enough to do a huge 8-12 couple sealing session by the end of the summer, thanks for all your help!

We were happy to see our kids again when we got back.  They have been having tons of fun feeding and collecting eggs from our 4 hens everyday. 

(I highly recommend a few hens for teaching kids responsibility!)

We used a trail of cracker crumbs to lead our neighbors free ranging chickens into the coop.  (they gave us permission to take them) We got to play Momma kitty to a batch of kittens as well, that story does not have a happy ending I'm afraid.  We tried!

Well another club volleyball season has passed. We ended the season with 2 perfect tournaments, and a 85% game win rate and a 77% match win rate. My best season ever. If our setter hadn't gotten hurt during one of the tournaments, we would have even done better.

This team was amazing and I had a great time.

I somehow became the face of Ririe mothers over the past month.  I did three interviews with local news stations a few weeks ago, then last Saturday I took the kids to an Eagle project walk-a-thon and what do you know, someone from Channel 3 showed up and taped us.  Hopefully the 20 lbs. less of me is noticeable!  We donated the 240 sheets of Crayola construction paper that they did a close up on, isn't it pretty?  The middle link below tells the story but they didn't link the video to that one.  I still need to pop on over to my friend's who TiVo'd it for me.

http://www.localnews8.com/video/23299897/index.html

http://www.kidk.com/news/local/91565694.html

http://www.kidk.com/news/local/91873304.html?tab=videol

Well, we loved our vacation, but we brought home something we're not crazy about. 10 pounds each! (Adam and I)  So the day after we got back we each weighed, frowned, and decided we needed to make some serious changes.  I know it's boring to hear about other people's weight loss but, I figure the more people who know, the more you can all help us to stick to the plan.

Our Plan: To lose 30 pounds each by July 1st.  We've been at it 5 1/2 weeks so far and today I was down 18 pounds.  Adam is down 22.

We were eating over 3000 calories a day, we are cutting that in half, so 1500 calories a day.  And at least 6 hours of excercise a week.

We are hungry a lot, but it isn't taking as much too make us full now.  We've eaten out twice since we started and knowing we were eating 1500 calories in one meal was really hard to swallow.  That is a huge way to make a difference I think.  We ate out almost every meal for the week of vacation and those calories add up fast. 

Having our 2 lane highway ripped out while they make it a 4 lane plus turn lanes, has cut down on our going to town.  Which means saving money on gas and saving money and calories on eating out. 

These changes seem to be working for us, help us keep it up!

We were married in October 2000 but didn't go on our honeymoon till June 2001. 

Here Adam is at Disneyland 9 years ago.  Below is Adam as he is today.  Has he changed?

We definately have a better camera now!  I was 2 months pregnant with Erith by then, and got nauseous after almost every ride, poor Adam thought I was a pansy. (this picture is space mountain for the 3rd time in a row, that was my closest moment to puking.)

We are in the very back of this Splash Mountain picture.  We've definately grown since then, no more sharing a log!

As fun as it is going to a theme park as a couple, going with kids was 100% more magical!

Nine years, no regrets.