Bring in the New Year and follow it up with Vegas....

So this year to bring in the new year we decided to stick to a new tradition of going to spring lake to a cabin with the Spencer's and the Jones. And for the second year in a row, we had a blast. Basically we do dinner, play games and watch movies for the whole weekend. It's nothing special but it has sure been a great way to bring in a new year. We added some extra fun this year but doing a little sledding (as you can see from the pictures we cheated and got rides to the top of the hill.) So much fun though.
Then a few weeks later the six of us got together again in Vegas. Rob and I went down for a flag football tournament but managed to get away for a night out with everyone to go see the Broadway musical The Lion King. It was fabulous I loved it. The pictures are from dinner and then outside the show. We love hanging out with great friends and can't wait for another fun trip!

So far So good!

It's been a little over a week since we started the new diet, and so far we love it. My struggle over the years has been convincing myself that eating six small meals a day is normal and that I wont blow up like a cow if I do. This last week I've packed a cooler full of my clean eating meals and set a timer on my phone to remind me its time to eat. It's been wonderful, I have way more energy and I haven't had a headache daily like usual. Who would have thought! It's working great for Rob too, he was a little bummed when he got on the scale at the beginning of the year and weighed more then ever before. The combination of 2xdays (cardio in the morning, weights at night) and eating cleaning has been proven for him by watching the scale go down. I on the other had HATE scales because I have a lot of muscle and it makes me feel even bigger than I really am so I just take measurements and watch them get smaller! Hopefully we can keep it up, we're heading to Vegas this weekend for a flag football tourney and my real test will be to stick to eating good foods while on vacation.... Wish me luck!

New Beginnings

So like most one of my resolutions for the is to get in better shape. Rob and I are already big gym rats and don't seem to struggle like most in actually working out and getting to the gym. Our issues lye in our diet. Which is a huge issue when you factor in nutrition is equal to 80% of a diet and exercise program and the other 20% is split between cardio and strength training. We've mastered that 20% so our goal to this year is to learn the other 80% of good nutrition. To help us on our journey we adopted The Eat-Clean Diet (www.eatcleandiet.com). I got the book for Christmas and cleared out our cupboards to start the new year off right. It's not really a diet more just a life style change, were you learn to eat clean fresh food as opposed to fast food, eating out and prepackaged foods. I'm excited to see where this new journey takes us! Hopefully I'll be diligent in keeping updates coming!

Yay for layout changes!

This is maybe my second attempt at a background change to our blog.... Now if only I could stay on it and keep this updated. I think I'll add some summer time pictures an give some updates on how we kept ourselves entertained throughout the summer.

Blog Update Needed

So I've decided our page needs a face lift. There aren't enough pictures and I don't keep it updated on things going on in our life. I just wanted to give myself a written reminder that it's time for a blog makeover. Stay tuned for the new an improved Sirstins Page!

If I knew then what I know now....

So I got my first bill from the higher education system today and it's time to start paying off my student loans!! Ahh. $208.00 a month for the next four years and then it will increase to who knows how much. How crazy is that? I guess I never thought I'd be paying it back so soon or that I would spend so many years paying it off. It's really kind of depressing. Four years of college turns into ten years of debt. As much as I enjoyed the higher education if I had to do it all over again I probably would have only attended on scholarship and if that didn't work out I would have just gone to a two year trade school, got a degree in something that would get the bills paid and called it good. Unless of course I had stuck with the plan to become a doctor in which case all this debit would have paid itself off in due time. That's what I get for becoming lazy and losing my motivation. Getting that bill in the mail sure did spark the fire again though, maybe going back to become a doctor isn't such a bad idea after all. This is definitely the kind of situation where I sit back and say to myself If I knew four years ago what I know now I would have done things much much differently, I guess it's just one of the wonderful journeys my life is being filled with so I can't complain. There are however lots of other things I know now that I wish I had know when I was younger.... So I decided to create my list of things I wish I knew then that I know now...
1. Marriage, while fun really is not easy. And everyone that says their marriage is perfect and they love it all the time is full of crap. Thanks girls for the heads up after I got married :).

2. If you want something done, do it yourself. I've learned throughout the past couple of years living on my own with roommates and now my lovely husband that complain about things other people don't do isn't going to make them do it any faster or at all for that matter. So I am better off just doing it and avoiding the drama.

3. Good friends are hard to find. When you find ones worth fighting for, you need to do whatever it takes to keep them around. And never take them for granted because they might have to leave this world before you know it.

4. Hard work doesn't always pay off. My parents used to tell me that if you work hard enough good things will happen. That isn't always the case, I worked hard for four years in college and got a piece of paper that says I'm smart and ten years of debt. How did that pay off?

5. Don't talk about people unless you're ok with them finding out what was said. Because no matter what some way some how they always seem to find out.

6. Don't sweat the little things in life, because 20, 10, 5 years from now it's really not going to matter! ( this would have been nice to know when I was in Jr. high and High school. I for sure wouldn't have gotten angry or cried about such silly things.)

7. Don't speed down the same road twice if you got caught the first time. Cause otherwise the cops just think your special and will wait for you to do it again. (Third times a charm)

8. Sorry doesn't always make things better if you keep doing the same things wrong, really changing and not doing whatever you did wrong in the first place will make things better.

9. Don't go down dirt roads past your curfew unless you plan on getting in double trouble.

10. Staying up for a party when you know you have to work at seven in the morning is not a good idea, really take my word on this one.

I have a couple more they involve boys and college life, things that I'll probably save for my kids someday, things that my parents never warned me about. Things I probably should not share with the world...

Frustrations

So I am officially frustrated with this whole blog thing. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it. It probably doesn't even matter that I can't figure it out either because I have no idea how to add my friends on here so really no body reads these expect for me. It's becoming my own personal journal that I suck at writing in. And I don't know how to put pictures with my blog entries so the end up just where ever they feel like going. It's just terrible. I do however, know how to post a blog and I guess If I were looking on the bright side that's all that would matter! And being able to blog my frustrations really seems to help! Ok well I'm going to go complain elsewhere and hope that eventually this blog world begins to make more sense to me. :)