What an awesome day! Since the shock and awe day August 27th, 2011, Tammy and I haven’t stopped. We work out nearly every day, we eat clean, and looking pretty good!

First, Happy Anniversary babe! We have a special couples retreat planned that will celebrate our anniversary, our Valentine’s Day, my birthday, and our fitness. I just can’t wait!

So what’s so fantastic about today? Well, I just weighed in, and the scale said 239.8! As of today, I have officially lost over 50 pounds! I can’t begin to explain how gratifying it is to be half way to my goal weight I set on August 27th of 190 pounds. I’ve gone from 290.2 to 239.8 in 172 days, or 24 weeks and 4 days. I’ve been averaging a little over 2 pounds of weight loss per week!

As for diet, I’ve reduced the amount of coconut oil I’ve been eating. I haven’t been drinking tea lately, so the only way to get coconut oil in is by cooking with it (it makes food taste amazing, BTW).

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve actually been on a juice fasting diet, but not taken to the extreme. After watching the inspirational independent film “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead,” I decided to give the juice fasting diet a try. Initially, I was going to go full on fasting with no food for 30 days, but I decided against that due to the extreme fitness program I am on, P90X. I currently use juice as a meal replacement for breakfast and lunch while still eating dinner with the family.

Since then, I’ve lost 6 pounds in two weeks, with no stop in weight loss in sight. It’s amazing. For today, my current juice drink is:

• 1 bunch of Kale
• 3 medium leaves of Collard Greens
• 3 Sticks of Celery
• 2 Grape Tomatoes
• 3 Carrots
• 1 Yellow Bell Pepper
• 2 Brussels Sprouts
• 2 Red Apples
• 1 Green Apple
• 1 Peeled Orange
• 1/2 Peeled Lemon
• Thumb Size of Ginger Root

I normally also add a Pear and 1/2 Lime but I’m out of those today. Talk about loading up on vitamins and minerals! When I wake up, I am starving because I don’t eat 5 hours before bed, yet this drink makes me feel filled up, increases my energy like I’ve had a pot of coffee, and I just feel absolutely amazing!

February has been the first month where I haven’t had any health related issues at all. Acid reflux, heart palpitations, consistent coughing (caused by acid reflux), EXTREME gas, irritable bowel syndrome (always had this since my gall bladder surgery), headaches, and chronic fatigue are all gone!

Well, thought I’d update the blog since the last post was such a downer. Doing amazing, feeling amazing, and refuse to stop. This isn’t some fad diet for me, this is a lifestyle change. I plan to continue working out and eating better for the rest of my life, no excuses!

As required to track progress, Tammy and I decided to weigh ourselves for the first time since Tammy was six months pregnant.

The shock and horror? I weighed an obscene 290.2 pounds on August 27th. I was iffy on starting P90X again, but once I saw that number, it was game on. Tammy and I decided to do the P90X Lean program to get this fat off our bodies. The lean program has a lot more cardio and sweating than the regular program, which is exactly what I need.

Anyway, I’ve already posted this on Facebook and Twitter, and as ashamed as I am, admitting my overweight problem and overcoming the issue is how I best conquer the issue.

As of today, we’re on day 2 of our first P90X Lean session, my entire body is sore. In fact, when I woke up today, I asked Tammy if I had been in a car accident! Nothing wants to move. This made the Cardio X DVD extremely hard today, but we got through it at about 2/3 pace they show on the disk.

Someone on Facebook told me about this great iPhone/iPad app that allows you to easily track calories today to keep yourself on your way to fitness. The app is called “LoseIt” and is in the app store for my favorite cost of $FREE. It synchronizes with their website at loseit.com.

My goal is set. I will lose 100 pounds by June, 2012, 9 months away. This will allow us to run 2 90-day P90X sessions and a final P90X2 session. P90X2 is not out yet, but is coming soon.

Anyway, wish us determination. We’ll need it.

A friend told me that this means hell to pay in your teenage years, I hope he isn’t right, haha!

This is my current status on facebook. Thought I’d share.

Blue Shield of California seeks rate hikes of as much as 59% for individuals

I think our family plan was a little over $700/mo for the four of us at that time which was what, about four years ago? Yikes.

Tammy only took two Motrin 800s after the birth of Alysa, one directly after birth and one pill two days after and has recovered exceptionally well.  Her nurses couldn’t believe her refusal of pills and was shocked to hear Tammy say her pain was 0 out of 10 on the day after delivery.  Amazing.

Alysa was our first jaundice baby and had to undergo phototherapy for a full day. Our room was slightly on the cold side and was hard to watch Alysa shiver under the lights. At times, I put Alysa in Tammy’s arms on the hospital bed and shined the light on her that way which seemed to help.

During the entire hospital stay, I was there 95% of the time. I only left to get more clothes for the extra night and to get food since the hospital only provided one complimentary meal for the husband. Speaking of food, the provided hospital food was actually really good here, something I can’t say I’ve ever experienced before at any other hospital I’ve ever been in. They had a long list of breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals (including steak), and you had your pick of two sides and a delicious dessert. I was expecting to run out and get food for us 3x a day but only had to get food for myself as Tammy was very pleased with what they served.

Alysa had her checkup yesterday and they said her jaundice appears much better based on her skin coloration. We were thrilled that Alysa didn’t need to get yet another poke on her heels.

The spelling of Alysa means “noble kind” or “princess.”
Born 11/22/2010, 8 pounds even, 19 3/4 inches.

Anyway, I put together a collection of photos over the last 7 days. Be sure to see the last photo in this collection, it is, by far, our favorite one! See below:

Alysa Just Delivered!

Everyone is Exhausted

Papa holds Alysa

Brittany and Cole say hi to Alysa

Alysa smiles in the hospital crib.

They wanted to sit in the hospital bed.

Alysa's first time in her new carseat!

Alysa arrives home - Brittany gets to hold her first

Alysa arrives home - Cole holds her next

Alysa feels the love!

We put Alysa in our master bedroom window for the morning sun (weather permitting) to help with her jaundice.

Brittany feeds Alysa

Brittany, smile for the camera!

Cole feeds Alysa

Grandma holds Alysa for the first time

Alysa wide awake, enjoying company

Thomas holds Alysa for the first time

Grandpa holds Alysa for the first time, grandma caught passing off the baby to Grandpa!

Grandpa gets alone time with Alysa

Grandma plays with Alysa

Grandma feeds Alysa

Alysa hamming it up for the camera

Our favorite photo of Alysa done by Tammy. The hand pose was entirely random and just a very lucky shot. Great job hun!

That’s it for now! All pictures can be clicked to enlarge to 800×600. All photos available in full 12.1 MP size (4000 x 3000), just email us a request and we’ll send it to you.

By the way, I’ve installed a new email notification plugin and this is my first post using it. Hope it all goes well and everyone receives just one email. If not, I’m sorry in advance. If you didn’t get an email and would like to join our mailing list, use our contact us link and we’ll get you added.

Carson & Cole in Red Canyon

Cole and I checked the weather, and it was supposed to be really nice up until 2 pm that day, so we decided to go on a hike near Bryce Canyon.  My co-worker and friend, Trecia, along with her youngest son, went with us on this hike.  We stopped by at Red Canyon along the way, and the boys had fun climbing on all the rocks here.  It was really entertaining watching the 8 and 10 year-old boys trying to take pictures of Trecia and I, but after seeing the results, I must say, they did pretty good!

Cole & I in Red Canyon

The Mossy Cave Trail is in the northern section of the park, but the really great part is that there is no park fees for this trail!  It’s on Highway 12, about 4 miles past the junction of Highways 12 and 63.  Look for a small parking area on the right-hand side immediately after crossing a little bridge. The Mossy Cave itself is at the end of a short trail. Here you can see hoodoos and windows without having to hike a steep trail.  The left fork takes you to Mossy Cave, while the right fork takes you to the waterfall.  The trail is only .9 miles round trip.

Along the Mossy Cave Trail

The Mossy Cave Trail is easy and mostly level, following beside the fast-flowing, sediment-laden stream, across two footbridges to a junction. The left fork has a short but steep climb through a patch of pine woodland to the cave, actually just a wide, mossy overhang in the limestone, kept moist by water dripping from the ceiling. This freezes in winter, and the large ice pillars beneath do not fully melt until midsummer, partly as the cave faces northeast and hence receives no direct sunlight. The soil at the base of the grotto is often soft and muddy so the path ends at the edge, so there isn’t much to do apart from taking photographs but the cave is interesting enough.

All of us in front of Mossy Cave

The right branch of the trail leads a little further upstream to the waterfall, where the stream tumbles 15 feet over a ledge into a circular pool; above is a swirling channel and several quite deep potholes, formed by the water eroding into the soft, orange-colored limestone.  There was an optional trail on the opposite side of the waterfall and stream leading up to a window, that we climbed, and had a wonderful view of the canyon below.  As we were heading back down this steep trail, it started raining on us, lightly at first, then it just drowned us.  With no shelter around, we just got drenched, and Trecia and I could do nothing but laugh, as it was supposed to be still sunny for a few more hours!  Just gotta love Utah weather!   After heading back to the car as wet rats, we ate our picnic lunch in the car, and then headed home for the day.

Mossy Cave Waterfall Trail after we got rained on!

Other things Cole and I did on our mini-vacation was go to Pirate Island Pizza in Saint George, one of his favorite places, I swear!  We also went school clothing shopping, played lots of board games, Wii games, and went to The Lake at the Hills Reservoir several times.

Building Sand Castles

The Lake at the Hills is an 11-acre reservoir on Leigh Hill built to hold pressurized irrigation water that is now open to the public for swimming, fishing and even floating in small, non-motorized boats.  The reservoir is stocked with rainbow trout, catfish, large-mouth and small-mouth bass and blue gill.  Cole had so much fun swimming, floating, and building sand castles.  We are so lucky to have this close to where we live.

Floating at the Reservoir

To see all pictures from Mossy Cave & Waterfall, click here!

To see all pictures from The Lake at the Hills Reservoir, click here!

According to the ultrasound, the delivery date is November 19th which is right in line with what we predicted of November 24th. Tammy has only gained 13 pounds so far which is really good. All of the hiking and added activity has attributed to normal weight gain. The doctor even encouraged her to continue the activity!

The only thing we were lagging behind on was getting ready for Baby Girl Buehler. Up until 2 weeks ago, we had absolutely nothing purchased, no baby necessities, no crib, not even a diaper. Just before the vacation, we were able to find lots of baby specials and purchase most of the baby items we needed.

So far, we have:

• A crib (no mattress) on sale at WalMart.com. The crib can be turned into a daybed, toddler bed, and a even a full size headboard. The crib is beautiful and has wainscoting detailing on the headboard. Similar cribs were found at babies r us for $350 and we paid $150 with free shipping.
• Crib bedding
• Mattress pad
• Bassinet for our master bedroom on sale, $41. Baby rocker and bassinet combo.
• Clothes  – all on sale at various stores
• Baby bottles, bibs, receiving blankets, pacifiers, etc.
• Diaper bag
• Baby monitor (required for our multi-floor house)
• Baby health care kit (on sale)
• Grooming kit (on sale)
• 1,000 wipes
• Huggies size 1-2 192 quantity, 3 boxes (so far) on sale at amazon.com – NEED MORE

There’s several things we still need. Our biggest struggle is finding a good stroller, car seat travel system combo that is safe, reliable, and fits in the car. We’ve found two but WOW do these travel systems cost a fortune, even on eBay.

Our favorite travel systems are:

• Chicco Cortina Keyfit 30 Travel System (Rated the best and safest)
• Graco Quattro Tour Hamilton Travel System (not on Amazon, saw at babies r us, $250)

Anyway, we put together a small list of things we still need on amazon.com. The diapers can be purchased cheaper than list price if you subscribe to their 30% off subscription offer and then cancel it after the diapers are shipped. We paid $72 for 3 huge boxes of size 1-2 diapers, 576 diapers, or $0.13 a diaper, an AWESOME deal.

Our Amazon baby registry link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1HJ5I3100HKKA

Thanks everyone!