Silent Auction Night!

Since all of our kids are Autistic, we are very fortunate that they have been able to attend the Northern Utah Autism Program. It is such an amazing program. It is run off of a grant from the state. That grant mostly pays for teacher and staff salaries and the rent for our classrooms. Other than that we are dependent on donations. As parents we get a list each week of supplies that the class needs. Most of the time it is food for breakfast, snack time and paper goods. Unfortunately, alot of the familes are low income and dont have funds to help out with the weekly lists. It then goes back to the class going without and hurting our kids. We try to reach out to grocery stores to donate gift cards for the program to use, but that doesn't always go through. Each year we have a silent auction. After paying for the food, entertainment and whatever else, we normally make a couple grand. It is very helpful! It helps buy ipads, ipad cases, compression vests and so much more that our special kids need. This past Christmas I had the amazing opprotunity to be in charge of getting shoes for the kids. The teachers got to read The Elves and the Shoemaker. The teachers then walked the kids around the school to look for elves and ended up back in the classroom with a present for each kid. To see the happiness on their little faces, it was hard to hold back the tears. They were so excited to put on the new pair of socks and their new shoes. SO EXCITED! I love going to the school and seeing their new shoes still being worn so proudly. I am so looking forward to doing it again this year. If you are ever needing a cause to donate to, or just want to help out 30 special Autistic kids, here is the link. Click on Fundrisers to see upcoming fundraisers and for a link to the paypal account to make a donation.

Errands and Distractions

We had to run a few errands this morning after taking sisters to school. I'm so glad I had Spider-man by my side!

While we were on our walk we found a new friend. Super friendly girl! Luckily my neighbor was able to bring me one of our leashes, cause Animal Control was short-handed today and wouldn't be able to get out for a while.

After we got the harness and leash on her, we walked home and jumped in the car to head to the animal shelter. I personally don't like taking strays to the shelter, but she didn't have a collar. I already made up my mind if they didn't find a micro-chip, I would take her home and we would try to find her home on our own. Don't want to run the chance of her being put down. The sweet girl wanted to sit by Spider-man in the car.

Luckily she had a micro-chip! Yay! They said her name is Maurie or something similar to that. Her family lives pretty close to us but no one answered the phone. They went ahead and took her to hold on to her til her owners can collect her. I'm going to call later tonight or in the morning to check on her.

More Salad!!!

A few days I ran out of my salads... :(  So I made some more today! Yay! Makes me very happy! I need to go to the store. I want to make a different kind of salad just to give me variety. But I don't know what. I am pretty happy with this south-western salad I got going on. Any ideas? I love having my dressing and toppings all measured out. Makes me feel in control of my meal.

Uptown Funk

Uptown Funk can be a catchy and motivating song. I like walking to it. Great beat! I saw this clip last month... Check it out then keep reading...

After I watched it, I knew I wanted to try and do this. It would be such a great an work-out. Plus, it would be fun! Well, today I finally did it! I'm nowhere near what they can do, but when they do their sit-ups, I can do that while keeping my legs straight! In the past, I would of had to roll to my side and push myself up. I'm definitely going to keep trying to do this!

New Discoveries

Last night I worked and I discovered a couple of things. First off, when I use to massage, I would get winded. My cardio was so out of shape! All thanks to DDP Yoga, my cardio is in better shape then ever! And it can only get better from here! Also, I noticed I started to sweat a little. (Not the nasty kind of sweat.) I was thinking of my stance trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong with my body to where I was having to work harder. Nope. My stance was great. Want to know what it was? My body was engaging muscles that I don't normally engage. My core was engaged. My back. My legs. Everything was engaged! It was my own mini work-out while I was helping someone relax and feel better. It was AWE-SOME!!!! LOVE DDP YOGA!!!! www.ddpyoga.com

Tracking My Nutrition

I have found a new love with My Fitness Pal. I have really been enjoying entering my food to count calories. It links up to Map My Fitness and it tracks my exercises and how many calories I have burned. It has been a little hard trying to reach my calorie goal. I normally am under by a few hundred. I started back to work yesterday. Everyone was happy to see me and it was nice to meet the new therapists. I started my day with a couple of new clients but ended the day with one of my regular clients. Love my regulars! They make me happy! It makes me feel really good that they all waited for me to return. I have my work cut out for me. Get my clients back to where they were and better. I am feeling really tired today. It feels like I didn't get enough sleep. My Spider-man won't let me lay down. He wants me to watch a movie with him. Maybe I will close my eyes while we cuddle on the couch... That sounds delightful!

Spinach Meatballs

So since Troy found out he is pre-diabetic, has high cholesterol and some other issues, we have done a huge turn around on our diet. We don't drink soda anymore. Just water. We are eating diabetic friendly mostly. Tonight we made spinach meatballs. They sounded so deliecious! So excited to make them. So I went to work this morning for the first time in a month and a half. It went so great! Got home and got to work on the meatballs. Troy even helped me. When we put the first few meatballs in the boiling water, they started to fall apart. So that was the first thing wrong. Turned the temp down and moved on. After you cook them in the water you transfer them to a tomato sauce that we made. Well, they started to fall apart in the sauce. We tried frying them a little in olive oil. Started falling apart. We let them cook longer in the boiling water and they were finally starting to stay together. Then we get to the eating part. The was absolutely no flavor! Anna enjoyed them because she likes spinach. We decided this recipe isn't a keeper. But it was fun to try yet frustrating to make!