V-day 2010 and General Update!

Since moving to California I have been lucky enough to have visitors (seriously almost every month). I guess that is the great thing about living a warm fun place that people always want to visit. Dorothy and Greg and their boys came for a visit just before V-day and I was lucky enough to join them for a couple days of Disneyland fun!  Dorothy and the girls we were with all went to lunch at Aerials Grotto! I know what you are thinking... princesses? YES!  It was actually kinda neat to see the princesses up close and personal and it was really fun for the 8 year old we went with. The food was SERIOUSLY great! It was less expensive and better than the blue bayou (in my humble opinion).  It was a fun pre-birthday thing for me so it was so great to spend time with my big sis! Thanks Dorothy for coming to visit and letting me hang with you for a couple days! 


Friday I had to rush back to Burbank in time for the Babysitting fundraiser for the girls in my ward!  We had a pretty good turn out and it was great opportunity for the girls to raise a little money for camp.  We will be doing this often so locals check back about more of these in the future.

Saturday Chad and I spent the morning at this amazing event held in a hanger at the santa monica airport.  It was the first annual Inspiration show put on my Rin Tanaka who wrote the books of everything vintage.  It was for Kulture recycling and vintage clothing. Tag-line: We need to reset the world with vintage freaks!  Chad's Oscar line that he has been working on for the past few years had a retro themed booth at the show which Chad designed the concept and the layout of the booth.  (Stay tuned for pics) There were so many amazing booths with denim, leather jackets, and everything vintage. The lounge was sponsored by Modernica.

It was fun to meet a few of Chad's friends and people he has worked with in various streetwear stuff.  One of my favorites was meeting Jason and seeing the Parabellum line of leather items made from buffalo leather and ceramic and kevlar parts. Chad as designed the logo for them so it was cool to see something my husband designed in the form of a radical booth at the show, the awesome jackets (see here and here), and the items that he helped come into the world! I am so proud of him and was so excited to go to a show were vintage style and products are given place to thrive. 

After that Chad and I headed to downtown Disney where we had a lovely V-day dinner and then went to see Casablanca on the big screen playing there.  It was a very romantic and spontaneous night and I have to say that I am definitely a fan of Casablanca. Neither of us had seen it all the way through so it was nice to see a GOOD romantic movie, that is classic and classy. Afterwards we stayed in Anaheim thanks to Dorothy letting us use her hotel since she headed back to Utah. We soaked in the hot tub and enjoyed an amazing continental breakfast. 

Sunday we headed down to newport to go to Balboa Island where we kinda just relaxed and enjoyed the sun, ate at one of the best fish taco places on earth, rode the ferris wheel, and reading on the beach. It was a very relaxed and fun and basically perfect valentines day topped off with a perfect sunset! I love you Chad thanks for an awesome Valentines day!

Losing it week 6 and 7 down 1 lb

OK... If you must know I havent been keep track of my points as strictly as I should. Basically I have friends and family in town and there was valentines day and I just have feel like I needed a little break.  Since stopping the points counting I have still lost 1 pound and maintained that weight. I think it is just a matter of making better choices and eating small portions. I am for the next couple weeks going back to the points just to see the change, and now that I am healthy again I can start exercising like a mad woman!

This week I am into cooking fish and will be posting a salmon recipe soon!

losing it week 5 up 1 lb

This week was an off week for me ... and I will just leave it at that I guess.  But... I will do better next week I promise! For the recipe of the week, I decided to get a couple low fat chocolate cake recipes from the Weight Watchers site to share with you.  I may end up making one of these...

 Chocolate-Raspberry Heart Cake

Ingredients (5 points per piece)

	1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
	2 cup(s) unprepared devil's food cake, mix
	1/2 cup(s) water
	1/4 cup(s) fat-free egg substitute
	1/3 cup(s) jam, seedless raspberry
	4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate square(s)
	6 Tbsp jam, seedless raspberry
	6 Tbsp fat-free creamer, such as fat-free half-and-half
	1/2 cup(s) raspberries    Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350ºF. Coat an 8-inch-round disposable aluminum pan with cooking spray and sprinkle with flour. Bend sides of pan to form a heart shape.
• Mix together cake mix, water, egg substitute and 1/3 cup of jam with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds; change speed to high and mix for 2 minutes more. Pour into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Invert onto a plate and remove from pan; place right side up on wire rack and allow to cool completely.
• Meanwhile, melt chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water; allow to cool, then stir in remaining jam and half-and-half. Frost cake with chocolate mixture and outline perimeter of cake with raspberries. (Note: If chocolate mixture stiffens while frosting cake, microwave for 30 seconds to soften.)

 Dark Chocolate Cake


Ingredients (4 points per piece)

	1 spray(s) cooking spray
	2 cup(s) all-purpose flour
	1 1/3 cup(s) sugar
	1 1/2 tsp baking soda
	2/3 cup(s) unsweetened cocoa
	1/2 cup(s) butter, melted
	1 1/2 cup(s) hot water
	1 tsp vanilla extract
	1 cup(s) sauerkraut, pureed until smooth
	1 tsp unsweetened cocoa Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a Bundt pan with cooking spray.
• In a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking soda and 2/3 cup of cocoa. Add melted butter, hot water and vanilla extract; mix well. Add sauerkraut and blend thoroughly.
• Pour batter into prepared pan; bake in center of oven until a tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan for about 20 minutes and then turn out onto a baking rack to cool completely. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder before slicing into 14 pieces. Yields 1 slice per serving.
• 
  

Happy Valentines day Everyone!

Need a Date Night?

For all of you in Burbank or surrounding areas... Are you looking for a babysitter for Valentine's weekend? Well Look no further. Friday February 12th at the Sunset Ward building ( 136 N. Sunset Canyon Rd. Burbank) we are having another babysitting fundraiser. All of the Burbank 1st ward Young Women and leaders will be at the Church to babysit. We will have Games in the gym, toys in the nursery, and a Movie in the Primary room. We will be serving light snacks but make sure that your little ones get dinner before you drop them off.

Last year was a HUGE success and this year will hopefully be the same. The price is $30 dollars per family for the night, no matter how many kids you have. What a great deal! So, enjoy a night out and at the same time help the Young Women earn money for Girls Camp!

Thanks!

Losing it week 4 down 1 lb

OK, so this week I didn't do super great, but hey, I lost 1 pound and I am happy! That is better than gaining a pound. I felt this week was different for me because I am still recovering from surgery and kind of testing the waters with food again. I haven't been cleared for working out yet but I did try to squeeze in walking on a couple days. I think losing weight is not only about controlling and disciplining your eating but also your mindset. I think the reason why I lose a bunch, then the next week not so much... It is because I am on some sort of psychological sea-saw. I lose a lot one week, so in my brain I think 'GREAT! You can relax and give yourself a little break' but then when I do that I don't lose the weight. So the next week when I gain or lose less, my brain freaks out saying 'EMILY! For crying out loud, you HAVE to regain control'.

So this coming week I am really going to concentrate about not letting FOOD or my desires for food, control my choices. In a world of so many constants and variables, I can have complete control over my body and what foods I put in it! It's sad that such a control freak like myself, is just NOW having this epiphany. Eating is ONE area in my life, that it is OK to control what I eat. It's not to say that I won't ever get stuck at a friend’s party or a ward function where I am not preparing my own food or making healthy choices on what to cook, but rather controlling what I choose to eat. Hopefully next week, I will have good reports about my weight loss, and I can step off my 'sea-saw' and just get on a even keel of consistently and steadily dropping weight.

This week’s recipe comes from SUNSET magazine. First off let me tell you, this Magazine is awesome! (Thanks Ellen for the gift subscription!) It has great bits about healthy cooking with recipes, beautiful fun day trips around southern and northern california and in the west, and it has stuff about decorating and other goodies. I cooked this recipe with shrimp but it is also fabulous on chicken (Thanks Ellen for making it with chicken, and Julie for trying it on shrimp!)

Points: For Sunday dinner last night we had Grilled Montreal steaks (about 5 points for a lean, fat trimmed, small cut), grilled asparagus (about 1 point or less, tossed with s/p and 1T of olive oil, and Cilantro lime Shrimp (about 5 points for 2 shrimp skewers with 5-6 per stick).


Cilantro Lime Chicken or Shrimp

Yield: Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
4 boned, skinned chicken breast halves (2 lb. total) or 1 to 1 1/2 lb, cooked shrimp
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Preparation*
1. Pound the chicken breasts to an even thickness (about 1/2 in.) and place in a shallow baking pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix lime juice, cilantro, garlic, honey, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pour over chicken and turn pieces to coat evenly. Cover and chill at least 30 minutes or overnight.

3. Lay chicken on a grill over medium heat (you can hold your hand over the surface only 4 to 5 seconds) and cook, turning once, until no longer pink in the center, 4 to 6 minutes per side.

*for the Shrimp preparation cut this recipe in half because I didn't want to over power the shrimp, also I had less than a lb of shrimp. I totally thawed the shrimp then laid them out in a re-sealable container. Once you have the combined ingredients make sure they are covered and mixed evenly over shrimp. I let it marinade for several hours in the fridge. Since they were pre-cooked I tried two methods. Half I put on my George Forman Grill (thanks mom!) and cooked for about a minute. They came out perfect! The second half we grilled on the charcoal grill for about 3-4 minutes per side (med heat grill). They came out a little dryer and very smokey, which Chad prefers. I personally think the non-charcoal was better because you could really taste the lime and flavors of the shrimp, instead of just the Smokey flavor but either one is great! ENJOY!

I took the picture, and NO I do not claim to be a good food photographer, and this was at night so forgive the picture please!