Weekend Events

I had the most amazing time with Mike this weekend and we really didn't do anything that grand! On Friday night, we met up with Mike's old flight commander (and now friend) and had a few drinks...Well, I'm being nice when I said Mike had a few but it was Friday and lets just say he had a good time. Surprisingly I did too even though I was the dd! We got in really late that night and weren't able to sleep in because Mike wanted to go skiing again. It was so fun, just the two of us on the mountain most of the time. Mike told me that I was "a very good little skier" which is saying a lot from him because he's great at it. There aren't many physical activities we can do together besides running and skiing so its very fun to create memories like that. Plus, although we look forward to our weekends together, we sort have a routine that involves running a lot of errands. It's so fun to change it up a bit! 

Right now I'm at the airport on my way to my sister's bridal shower! Shhh...it's a surprise! We're actually hosting it for both Molly and Ben and I'm not going to give any details away on this in case she does read it. Although, she is so busy she never has time to but just in case. I will post pictures of it next week. 

Leaving Mike for my four day weekend was not hard but just different. I'm so relieved that I don't have to be in a long distance relationship with him anymore. So when I say different, it's just funny to say bye when we're at the airport cause it's not this long drawn out process. We had a good laugh this morning when he dropped me off because we reminisced on our usual goodbyes. Basically we hug and kiss like thirty times and give each other a long speech about how we'll see each other in a month, how its good that we're going back because we both have a lot to do and it won't be much longer til we live together. Today it was like a slap on the butt and a "c-ya later" kind of good bye. But back to the leaving part...It's good to get away sometimes because we're living in a tiny room and basically on top of each other. He's really excited to have his "guys" weekend. He has plans to go eat at Rhudy's...a good bbq place in abq, ski with the guys for free (military special), and play lots of playstation while I'm away. I don't know how that equates to a guys weekend though cause I let him do those things even when I am around! 

One last thing that has nothing to do with my post is but is good info for you guys is to go see the following movies: The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke and Grand Torino with Clint Eastwood. Both are GREAT movies to see with your spouse and leave you thinking about it for days afterward. I'll be honest and say that neither have a really happy ending, but they are well worth the $10 you'll pay to see it. I highly recommend them both. 

Car Accident

Yesterday afternoon I was in a car accident. I was sitting at a stop light and had about a cars length distance between me and the car in front of me. I left some room in front of me because there was a school bus in the residential neighborhood (to my right--I was on the far right side of the street) that was waiting to turn onto the busy street. Unexpectedly, I was hit from behind while in Mike's truck and the whole truck was surged forward about four feet. Thankfully there wasn't a car close in front otherwise I would have been hit from both ends. Anyway, I immediately turned into the residential neighborhood (where the school bus was still waiting) and parked on the side of the road. I had not a scratch on me and felt fine...just shaken up. I figured the car that hit me would also turn into this neighborhood so that we could wait for the police to arrive. I got out of the car and took a look at the damages. Luckily, there wasn't much done to Mike's truck although I can't say the same for the car that hit me. They were driving a Lincoln town car and their hood was totally crunched. There was steam coming from from the front of the car and their trunk was also open. As I gathered the courage to call 911 (never have  before so it was a scary thing for me to do) I saw that the car that hit me was starting to drive off! They didn't get far before the stop light turned red again. While I was on the phone, I ran after the car and took down their license plate number. Also, a witness started to run after the car as well and knocked on their window and told the driver to pull over. They didn't listen and kept on driving. She ran back to me and told me that the drivers were an elderly couple and that they were both bleeding...not to mention that their air bags were deployed as well. She told me she was going to go after them to get them to pull over. I stayed on the phone and was told to wait for the police to arrive. Ten minutes later, I got a call from the police telling me to meet them three blocks up because they were with the elderly couple that hit me. As you can imagine, I was shaking pretty bad but I was more concerned with this couple. My worries increased when I got to the location as there were two cop cars, two ambulance trucks, and a fire truck. The paramedics were both working on the elderly couple. I was quickly informed that they would be both be okay, that the wife sustained some injuries that required her to go to the hospital, and that they were both 90 years old. The witness was able to get the elderly couple to pull over. She told me that when she got there, the husband got out of the car and wanted to know what happened to his car. She said they both didn't realize what happened to them. I felt totally awful at this point and had no amount of anger towards them. I pictured them as my grandparents and was very worried that minor injuries would turn into something greater. Long story short, I exchanged information with the police and Mike and I are now waiting on an estimate for the damages done to his truck. I am still very worried about this couple and have prayed several times since it happened. I am so lucky that this accident was not any worse,  but considering this was my first (and hopefully only) one, I hope to never experience such a shake up. 

Some Wedding Photos...

Cindy Patrick recently posted some of our wedding photos on her blog so take a look! 

http://www.cpatrickphoto.com/blog/

Skiing & Moving Update!

Last weekend Mike and I went skiing on the Sandia Mountains. It was amazing! We had no idea how close the ski resort was to us (only 30 minutes!) or how big it was going to be! It cost about $100 for the two of us to buy half-day passes as well as rentals but come on, that's a great deal! There were probably 30 trails with PLENTY of snow on them. It was kind of eerie at some parts because there were times when Mike and I had the entire trail to ourselves. Here are two videos that we took with our new flip video mino.

In other news, we got new information for when we will be moving to Japan. Originally, we were told that we would be there by the end of Feb. That would have meant that Mike would have completed the N model training in the middle of Jan and then sent off to survival school right after. However, Mike's training at Kirtland has been relatively slow which pushed his completion date til mid Feb, moving survival school mid march, and moving the big move to mid April! That's a mouthful of mmms huh? To sum it all up, we SHOULD be in Japan by the middle of April. 

Anyway, since September, we have both grown accustomed to the idea of living in Japan but still had our worries and anxiety. We knew it would be hard on our family (and us as well) being so far away. We weren't too excited about the idea of having one tv channel and constantly buying phone cards to make long distance calls. We worried about what we would do with our cars (since we have to sell them both) and the possibility of collecting lots of transformers since we only had American appliances. These weren't things that we talked about often, just little moments of concern when we thought about regarding the upcoming move. 

All that changed last Friday when we got a soft little knock on our door. Quick back story, I made a cheap little sign that said "The Quinn's" on the front of our hotel room door. I had to make our hotel room a little homey alright? 

Anyway, we got a knock on our door from Mike's boss who lives out in Japan as well! (He was there on a business trip.) He saw our sign on the door and knew that "The Quinn's" would be PSCing there soon and wanted to see if we had any questions. Of course, Mike was extremely polite and somewhat nervous meeting him for the first time. Me being bold and friendly, I went right in with the questions and found out some pretty neat stuff. He told us all about the houses and what our home will be like. He talked about the free flights that are offered stateside and around the Pacific on a weekly basis. He knew about all of the schools where I will hopefully get a job and about the local community outside of base. Some really exciting things that he told us was that we would be issued an AMERICAN telephone number! That's right, that means no long distance calls on either end! So when we call you or you call us, it will be like using your cell phone! We will also get 50 US channels on the tv. I don't know what they will be but let me tell you, I would be sad to miss out on The Food Network, TLC, and HGTV. Mike would miss his sports...so this news is great for us! Also, he said that buying cars over there are really inexpensive. If you wanted to buy a top of the line car (used of course) we'd pay at most $3000 for it although most people spend around $500 for a car over there. And lastly, he talked about how the base and work environment will become our family. We are SO excited to move there now...make some friends, get settled, go on vacations. We are done living in the hotel room and are so ready for our "new beginning" which seems to be the common theme in our marriage.

Some Nutrition Tips

So I've gotten a few comments from people saying that they have similar health-related resolutions and I wanted to put down some things that I've found helpful in the past (and present.)

The first thing is CARBS. They are not bad despite what a lot of people may say. The important thing is that you eat whole grain carbohydrates and not the white stuff. Examples of whole grain carbs are wheat bread, wheat pasta (Barilla is a good brand), oatmeal, brown rice, and whole wheat couscous. Anything that says "Enriched wheat flour" is not the same thing as whole grain/whole wheat flour so be sure to read the labels. When eating carbs, try on most days to eat them with your breakfast and lunch but not with dinner. This is because carbs are foods that we use for energy and by the end of the night, we're not using as much--therefore the carbs turn into sugar which then turns into fat in your sleep!

A pet peeve of mine that I see people do quite often (myself included when there are no other options) is to eat processed foods. That means ANYTHING that comes from a package. I know a lot of you are busy and don't have time to cook absolutely everything on your own but its SO important to check and see if that packaged food that you're about to eat contains partially hydrogenated oil. This ingredient is very bad and it quite often means that there's trans fat in that product. When you eat trans fat, it aids in clogging your arteries AND the scariest part is that once its in your body, it will stay there for the rest of your life! It is a chemical and should not be eaten! So again, check your labels!

What else? Oh yeah...artificial sweetners=BAD. These things are found in all kinds of things--splenda, diet sodas, some waters, and low-fat or fat-free yogurt. Any kind of artificial sweetner is a chemical. Just think about it. Is it really healthy to drink a sweet drink that has zero calories knowing that it is a chemical? I know a lot of people that love this stuff. I used to drink diet coke all the time in college. Even now, if I feel a craving and there's a diet soda option, I may drink it. It's okay if you have that stuff everyone once in a while, but having it on a daily basis is not a good thing. I mainly drank diet sodas for their carbonation...such drinks made me feel full. Now if I'm at a restaurant, I always order water with lemon. That's it. If seltzer water is an option, then I'll have that with a lemon and still get my carbonated-full feeling! There are so many natural waters at grocery stores that have natural flavorings in them and are carbonated. Get out there and try them!

I know you guys all know that fruits and vegetables are extremely important. Colorful vegetables are great such as peppers, beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, and leafy greens. Eat lots of berries, apples, clemintines and oranges. Just include them in your diet. That's all I need to say.

The main things I can tell you are: don't diet...don't count calories...and don't weigh yourself. Not right now. When just starting off, get used to your new way of eating. It's overwhelming to exercise and eat healthy. There are days when you will go out to eat and dine at a friends house so you won't have an exact routine of what you should eat everyday. That's good because you're training yourself to making healthier choices outside of the comfort of your own kitchen.

My (Many) Resolutions

Here's my list of resolutions for 2009:

1. I will stop saying bad words...but lets be honest, it's going to take a while. My plan is to limit my foul mouth to one, maybe two bad words a day and then gradually decrease my allowance until I am not saying any naughty words by the end of the month. I need to focus on replacement words such as "fudge" "shnikey" "geez louise" "gosh darn" (Please feel free to provide any other suggestions)

2. I will floss my teeth everyday. I'm honest when I say that flossing is not my favorite thing to do in life and I'm lucky if I squeeze in a good floss twice a week! My dentist says my teeth are great but that's still not an excuse for not keeping my gums healthy. 

3. I will get back on the wagon with a healthy diet. In college, I was great at making sure I had enough fruits, vegetables, and protein throughout the day. Now that I live in a hotel room and don't have a kitchen...it's hard to maintain that balance. I also need to take my vitamins. 

4. I will exercise 5-6 days a week. Sounds like a lot huh? Well, I have done extensive research on health and fitness throughout my life and I'm going to honest when I say I've sort of fallen off the bandwagon. Before thanksgiving, I worked out everyday at the gym and was very happy with my effort...BUT then I'd go home and eat Oreo cookies so that kind of cancelled my exercise out. Heck, last year I was in grad school and worked 30 hours a week and I STILL had time to train for a marathon. It's almost better when you're busy cause you're less likely to develop this laziness. I will make the effort to alternate cardio and strength training every other day. Research says that you burn more calories and fat when you incorporate strength into your exercise regime rather than just cardio alone. This is because your body burns a lot of fat and calories to repair those torn muscles hours after you have left the gym. That sore feeling is a good feeling in other words : ) 

Okay, I think four resolutions is enough for me to conquer this year. It's official. I've posted it on my blog for all of you to see. I understand that I will not see changes overnight, and may not actually master any of these resolutions until the end of next year. But I've got time. 

Happy New Year!

Mike took me on our first mini-honeymoon in downtown Fayetteville. We stayed at the Hilton and ate at a nice restaurant called Pierro's Italian Bistro. We kept it low key by having a drink with dinner and another at the hotel bar. It was exactly how I wanted to spend my new years...although Molly said we were huge nerds cause we didn't go out! 

Trust me, I've had my share of fun outings for the new year--Celebrating the millennium in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, ringing in 2004 and 2006 at Times Square in NYC, and partying in the year 2007 at Wild Bill's in Atlanta. Here's a group of us at Wild Bill's close to Becky and Casey's one year anniversary. 

Now I'm sitting with Mike while watching Clemson play against Nebraska at the Gator Bowl. I enjoy watching Clemson play...although I'll admit I'm not a huge football fan. Plus, when the Tigers start playing bad, that's when Mike starts to get in a bad mood. I am on pins and needles hoping that they play well, otherwise my day won't be so fun : (