This is the time of year when people are planning their vacations.  So I thought I would share a few of our favorite vacations.

Here we go.

First- The Grand Canyon:

In 2003 Rich, Brooke and I went to the Grand Canyon with my parents and my two brothers.  It was amazing.

If you have never seen the Grand Canyon in person you can not comprehend how spectacular it is by looking at pictures.  You just have to see it in person.

After seeing the Grand Canyon we went to Las Vegas and visited all of the hotels, saw lots of shows and ate lots of food.

And did a little relaxing by the pool.

And we saw a real, live cactus.  At the airport in Las Vegas.

Next- Rich and I took a cruise in 2004.

We took a Carnival Cruise to Key West, FL and to Cozumel Mexico and It was wonderful!  Cruises are an excellent vacation choice.

One of the things that amazed me was the color of the water in the ocean.  I just love this color blue.

Third- a trip to Disney World in 2004.

Rich, Brooke and I took a trip to our favorite vacation destination in 2004.  We love everything about Disney World!

And a trip to Disney World in 2007:

Hailey having some fun at the pool at our hotel.

Hailey biting Mickey Mouse on the nose…

…and now biting Tigger on the nose.

And Disney World in 2009:

Our host for Fun Monday this week is Grace and here is the assignment she gave us:

“…tell us about a diet or two (Atkins, Sonoma, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the You on a Diet, Best Life, The Abs Diet, The Zone, Cabbage Soup, E-Diets, Dr Phil, Jenny Craig, The Meditterranean Diet, Nutrisystem, Slim-Fast, Suzzane Sommers or No Name diet etc etc) that you have tried and what you liked or did not like about it. You can tell us about one diet that you had so much success with, or another that was a torture to follow or both.”

So if you’re a woman, chances are pretty good that you have tried a diet or two in your life time.  I know I have tried my share of diets.  I was actually really tiny (wearing a size zero kind of tiny) up until I went away to college.  Then all of the sitting around in class, at work and then sitting around studying caught up with all of the fast food and before I knew it I started gaining weight.  I have tried all sorts of diets and only had real success with one of them.  I have picked two diets to share today.

Atkins- I tried this diet about 6 years ago.  I don’t remember all of the details of this diet but you basically can’t eat many carbs.  This diet did not work for me because I can not completely remove a food group from my diet.  Besides, that doesn’t seem very healthy.  The one thing it did do though- it got Rich and me to stop drinking soda.  And both of us lost weight because of that.

Dr. Phil- I used this diet and it worked for me.  I actually lost about 65 pounds using this diet and got back down to a size 2.  This diet plan made sense for me and I very highly recommend it.  Not only did I reach my goal weight but I was able to maintain my goal weight for a year.  Then I got pregnant with Hailey.  She turned 2 in October and I still have 14 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose.  I need to use the Dr. Phil plan again and get back down to my goal weight.

So- there’s my dieting story!  Stop by Grace’s blog to see who else played along this week.

I haven’t played Fun Monday in quite a while but I decided to join in this week.  Today is actually the 2nd anniversary of Fun Monday.  On the first and second Fun Monday everyone was asked to take a picture of what it looks like looking out their front door.  So, our host, Another Chance Ranch gave us this assignment:

“I have decided to put a twist on the traditional Fun Monday. Instead of standing in your front door and taking a photo of what you see outside, let’s turn around and take one of the inside. Maybe that will prompt some of us to pick up a tad (you know who you are). ”

 Here are my pictures (and I did not clean up).

When you first come in my front door, if you look to the right you will see this little stand.  It is always decorated for the season or holiday that is here.  So for now my stand has some snowmen decorations (and yes, Santa is still there too.)  Off to the right of that is the door that connects to our garage.

Then if you look past the stand and down you will see our downstairs.  You can see our computer desk (with lots of wires underneath) that never, ever gets used since we both have laptops.  Our family room, Hailey’s play room and my laundry room are down there too.

Then if you look up you will see our upstairs.  On the left you can see the back of our piano.  And then you can see Hailey waiting to greet you.  Actually she was waiting with a handful of books for me to read to her and I’m not sure why she has her eyes shut so tightly.

So- there you have it.  A little peek into my front door.  Visit Another Chance Ranch to play along.

Wow!  It’s been a really long time since I participated in Fun Monday.  It’s mostly due to being busy lazy.  But when I saw the theme for this week I decided to join in.  Our host for Fun Monday this week is RDH Mom, but actually her daughter Cassie is hosting for her.  Here is the assignment:

“My assignment this week was to see inside your closet, without your organizing it before the picture!!”

Easy, right?  I don’t have to clean or think- just snap some pictures of my closets.  So, here ya go:

This is my half of the closet.  I know I’m going to have some major closet jealousy when I visit the other participants and see the lovely walk-in closets that I’m sure many of you have.

This is Rich’s side of the closet- and I realize it is a bit blurry.  But I am much too busy lazy to go retake the picture.

We are actually in the process of switching some rooms around in our house and there is bunch of stuff stored on the right hand side of the picture that I was trying to hide (not in the closet, but up against the wall)- which is part of the reason it came out a little blurry.  We are switching around Brooke’s and Hailey’s rooms.  Brooke (my step-daughter) lives a few hours away from us.  When she was younger she spent every other weekend with us as well as school breaks and time in the summer.  Now that she is older she has a job and a lot of activities at school and isn’t able to come and stay with us anymore.  Lately we have been traveling to go see her.  Anyways, because of this we have decided to switch around Brooke’s and Hailey’s rooms.  Brooke had the bigger room and Hailey was running out of room in her room.  So, Brooke will still have a room here for when she is able to visit us but it will be a little smaller.  It just makes sense to let Hailey use the bigger room since she is here all of time.  I have very mixed feelings about all of this- I’m happy that Hailey will have more room in her room and I won’t have to trip over all of her toys in the living room because there will be room to keep them in her room.  But, I’m sad too that we don’t get to see Brooke very often anymore.  Anyhoo- who knew that my Fun Monday post was going to turn into this?  Not me.

Here is an empty closet.  This is Brooke’s old closet and will be Hailey’s new closet.  And right now the closet is (mostly) empty because Rich is in the middle of painting this room.

Here is Hailey’s closet, which will be Brooke’s new closet.  And usually all of that stuff is not on the floor.  But those are bags of clothes from Brooke’s old closet.

So hop on over to RDH Mom to see the other participants who were willing to share the secrets in their closets.