This is where Owen found Katie. He thought it was so cool he made her hide again and had Gramma come find her. Then Gramma thought it was so clever she made her hide again and had mom and dad come look for her. Of course, she gave herself away with the giggle. 🙂
Then we had her pose for us. 🙂
Gramma and Katie toes…
And a cuddle…
Watching the Lady Gaga Super Bowl half-time show.
I knew a friend had moved to Florida but I couldn’t remember exactly where so I was planning to text and ask her. Well, Tom and I were out running errands when she texted me saying “Are you in Fort Walton Beach?” Why yes, I said (I had posted our whereabouts on Facebook). She lives two towns over. So we made plans for her to come pick up me and Katie for lunch!
We came home and I told Katie I had a surprise for her…she was going to get to see her friend Monti. It took her a moment to remember, but she did. This is her, excited, on the way down to meet them.
The two were fast friends in the back seat and jibber jabbered the whole way to the restaurant. They both ordered Mickey Mouse pancakes.
And then things went south when Monti decided she was done letting Katie share her sunglasses. I gave Katie my phone since it wasn’t her fault her friend was being a poop. But that caused even more upset because she thought she should get her mom’s phone and that was denied.
Katie did end up sharing the phone with her and there was happiness for a few minutes…and then Monti got upset about the equality of the sharing so the phone got taken away.
But we were still happy!! It was so great catching up with Melissa!
Our first trip down to the ocean—just to look—ended up with two totally soaked kids! We weren’t surprised. 🙂
Me and Gramma Jean could NOT get the twirly sticks to fly. Tom was easily able to.
I looked up and Owen was just standing the ocean with his hands in his pockets. LOL
Gramma Jean took this awesome picture of Katie. I think I’ll be hard pressed to take a better one this week.
Quite different from two years ago:
Thanks to Gramma Jean and Grandpa David…a wonderful week in Fort Walton Beach!
We stopped to eat a late lunch on the way home from the airport.
Gramma ordered mullet and the waitress asked if she wanted the gizzards and/or backbones. We all looked at her like WHAT? EWWWW. WHAT? But then we said what the hell, we’ll try the backbones (no fish gizzards, thankyouverymuch). And turns out they weren’t as scary as we thought…they were tasty!
We were a tiny bit late due to a lavatory issue that had to be fixed before takeoff (which meant we left a half hour late) but all ended well! Gramma and Grandpa were waiting for us!!
Tom parked at one of the Pentagon lots near the metro (but not at the metro) so the three of us walked to the metro station while he walked over to meet us. This is walking through the Pentagon bus depot.
On the metro!
Katie: “This is fuuuun!”
Since we had two hours to kill at the airport, I dropped a Lure. 🙂
This may look like a lot of stuff, but we normally drive and take four times as much stuff! This time? We each have a carry on and personal bag.
They’re more than ready!!
First plane ride selfies!
Our route! I liked this plane—it was newer so had touch screens, movies or TV to watch (free), and multiple USB charging outlets per seat!
Owen was amazed by the outside temperature (-74°F if you can’t see it).
Owen read all the way so he could do less homework at the condo (he finished two books!). 🙂
After snacks it was time for drawing!
Then we switched planes (and kids!) in Atlanta…so I got Katie.
Gum for takeoff. She was super excited as she rarely gets gum. 🙂
Katie, looking out the window as the plane was climbing: “I can see the world.” 🙂
Tom, to Katie: I’m glad you like flying.
Katie: Totally awesome.
Or what I’ve lost thanks to Naturally Slim! (Thanks to friend and fellow NatSlimmer Brad for helping!)
I originally wanted to do this with tubs of Crisco but just never got around to it at home. Then I told Marcia about it and we were going to stop by Sam’s Club but we just never seemed to have enough time!! So after lunch at Ida Claire, I asked my Brad Uber if there was a Costco between the restaurant and the airport and if we had time…and he said yes! We did get a few strange looks while we were unloading and rearranging the buckets, but not one single person said one word!
Ida Claire. Say it. Now say it with a southern accent. Listen. Bingo! I missed it the first few times, too. 🙂
This is Brad. He’s a Tivo peep I’ve known forever and met once almost 10 years ago. He’s lost 90# on Naturally Slim.
This is a delicious Bloody Mary. I learned I liked pickled okra. 🙂
This is Brad, me, and Smeek (Jeff). I’ve met him a few times before over the years but it’s always good to see him. He’s one of our resident foodies so he picked the place. I also got to try two of his fancy drinks. 🙂
And here’s a pic of me and Smeek from 2007 (that last guy is not Brad, unfortunately—it’s Peter):
Here’s Brad from that same weekend, just to complete the group flashback:
And my super delicious lunch. [Thinking about it now, days later, still makes my mouth water.]
So we had our Naturally Slim Dinner at Venezia Pizza Cafe—there were 10 of us including Marcia, one of her daughters, me, Bryan and his wife, and then Brad (another Tivo NS person), Jannie and Rich (a married Tivo NS couple), someone from Bryan’s church, and—SURPRISE!—Andrea! I’ve been online friends with her for years now and when I knew I’d be coming to Texas and she lives in Texas AND IS A NATSLIM MEMBER, I told her she HAD to come to the dinner. She has a lot of stuff going on, but she said she’d try to make it. Then she said she likely couldn’t. So I was thrilled to see her when I walked into the restaurant!! YAY!
And Tivo friends Jannie and Rich who I hadn’t seen in almost 10 years!
The most interesting thing we got to hear was some of the backstory about how Naturally Slim came to be. NatSlim as we know it really only came to be in the last 10 years or so. We knew her mom came up with the TrueThin philosophy 30 years ago and she taught classes in person and then Marcia taught classes in person (and still does), but the online video part didn’t really start until 2003 or so. And back then it was like “We really need to put these videos online, but there’s really no good way…” (For a data point, YouTube started in 2005.) There’s more to the story that I actually heard during some of our drive times over the weekend, but of course my mind didn’t retain all the details.
My next birthday weekend treat was a massage and facial at Marcia’s spa…I hadn’t had either of these things done since Owen was six months old and Tom got me a half spa day so I was REALLY looking forward to it.
Marcia was such a good sport about me wanting to take pictures of everything. 🙂
Post-massage and post-facial…completely relaxed and pampered. I told Marcia this was NOT a good thing as I was going to want this a bit more often than every six years now. 😆
And lastly, my spa selfies, pre- and post-makeup (getting ready for my official filmed testimonial for Naturally Slim):
The offices are in an unassuming strip mall type office park.
The decorating is absolutely gorgeous. Marcia is actually a little sad that they’re moving to the other offices next year because they JUST finished redecorating these (well, that and her commute goes from five minutes and no traffic lights to 20-30 minutes on the highway).
Sitting in Marcia’s chair. FEEL THE POWER. :p
Getting ready to be weighed on a $10k Tanita body composition analyzer (Marcia is programming it for me):
My results:
I think there was a mistake during programming—she didn’t enter a target body fat, but I remember her entering a 1-6 at one point and then it stopped, so I assume that’s where that came from; so, disregard that stuff.
I was SHOCKED to see that I weighed 167 because before I left I had weighed 171 at home! I told her I couldn’t believe I had lost 4# in two days (though, honestly, it is entirely possible with Naturally Slim…especially if I was following the principles). And that’s when she told me she was pretty sure her $10,000 calibrated scale wouldn’t be wrong. 🙂 I told her that may very well be the case, but my weight loss is tracked via MY scale, so I had to weigh on my scale for it to be official. 🙂
The kitchen, where Marcia loaded me up with a bunch of Naturally Slim peanut packs. She was going to send home some more insulated tumblers but I just didn’t have the space! 🙂
First we had lunch at the Neiman Marcus Cafe with her two daughters and the two employees who helped with the Facebook event. I actually introduced them all to the delicious wonder that is Green Goddess salad dressing (it came on two dishes and no one had ever tried it so I asked the waiter to bring a sample; they all loved it) and they let me in on the secret that the little cup the waiter brought was not tea, but chicken stock. Sounds odd, right? But it was DELICIOUS. 🙂 At dessert time we hoped for something chocolate and surprisingly they didn’t have anything! But! The waiter said “Let me see what I can do” and he came back with a huge slice of chocolate cake! (Turns out he got it from another NM cafe on another level.) Then the table sang Happy Birthday to me. 🙂
Then it was off shopping at the mall. I had complimented her daughter Candace on her gorgeous necklace and she said she actually got it at Chicos…so we headed there (I usually get something “big” as a souvenir instead of a tchotchke). So I was looking at all the jewelry and Marcia and her daughter were looking at clothes. I was trying to decide between pieces to just pick one and Marcia offered to hold them for me while I was looking…and I turned around and she was buying all three for me!
What?! I told you she’s awesome.
Then we walked around some more and we ended up at Sundance where Candace tried on a bunch of clothes. The stuff was way too expensive for me, but I tried on a few things for fun (I mean, that’s what you do when you’re out shopping with the girls, right?!). And then they both tried on this coat—which I had noticed and thought was cute but figured there was no way I would be buying it so why tempt myself—but peer pressure got me and I tried it on and it was SUPER cute…and Marcia immediately said “Excellent! I’ll get this for you, too! Happy birthday!” WHAT?! Holy crap. I told her she couldn’t but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I now own this coat. And, actually, all three of us now own that coat!! 🙂
And then it was off to get all our nails done…another birthday treat! I opted for a basic French manicure. I forgot how much I LOVE them…
And then it was off to dinner at Gloria’s Latin Cuisine with Marcia, her daughter, and another coworker/friend! It was delicious, and I enjoyed a strawberry margarita and fish and brisket tacos for my birthday!
On the way home, Marcia said (paraphrasing) “I was going to get you dessert and have them sing happy birthday, but they get crazy with it so I changed my mind.” See? LOVE HER.
So the Live Facebook event was actually going to take place at the combined offices of Holmes Murphy and ACAP Health, both new partners of Naturally Slim. I was VERY anxious about the event, but Marcia assured me I would do just fine. I was put a little more at ease when she told me it would only be about 20 minutes long—I had thought it would be an hour or something! Phew!
We got there early and Marcia showed me around the offices and introduced to many, many people…most of whom were all like “Oh, wow! I know you! You’re Jennifer Hudson! I recognize you!” It was VERY surreal. They were just as excited to meet me as I was to meet them! The offices were super fun and trendy, with named meeting rooms like the Vineyard (with a wall of bookcases and wine racks) and the Bead Room, which is where we ended up filming—yes, a “room” in the middle of the office space with floor-to-ceiling hanging beads encircling four chairs and a table!
Getting ready to start!
Our view during the event:
And then we were off and running…
Live Q&A with Marcia Upson, President of Naturally Slim
[iOS users, if Safari isn’t showing the Facebook video below, try Chrome]
And suddenly it was over! What?! Already?! Wow that went fast! I had a lot of fun and the time just flew by—I probably could have answered questions for an hour! Of course watching the video later I noticed things I didn’t like (like my roll of belly fat and a few strange looks I made) but overall I think I did pretty well!
And then on the way out, I got to meet Todd (Todd Whitthorne, President, ACAP Health—he’s in quite a few of the program videos)!! And just like Marcia, he was just the same as in the videos, too. And boy was he tall (I’m 5’9″ and you see how he towers over me)! 🙂
What a memorable way to spend my 43rd birthday!!
They also shot videos in her back yard, though the place she was sitting was just off camera to the left and she said the camera was about where the dog is.
So, it’s just as gorgeous in person…but I think it actually looks a bit smaller. The camera must work magic.
I have to say it was very surreal to be in that kitchen—and especially so when making my H2OJ in the morning (I tried Marcia’s pre-mixed strawberry banana but I didn’t like it!) and going in the pantry for Crystal Light packets and insulated cups. Yes, I just made myself at home. 🙂
This was waiting for me in my texts. 🙂
We were sitting out by the pool talking after we got home from dinner and I was telling her about the kids and Pokemon and I was showing it to her on my phone and figured I might as well ask for the wifi password since I was going to be around for a few days. Of course I am always interested in what people name their networks, and hers did NOT disappoint. I love it.
Mom, this is also when I gave her your hug. 🙂
