Anne with an E...this one's for you

Uh yum. That's all I can say. Who can look at this wonderfully grey tuna casserole and not want to stuff their face right in? No one I tell ya. Matt's new great eating plan eliminates most of my go to meals so I decided I needed to branch out and try some things in the Body For Life cookbook other than grilled chicken or enchiladas. That brings us to tuna casserole. I thought I could do it. I thought I could like it. The first few bites were optimistic. But in the end our gag reflexes were in full swing and nobody opted for seconds. Sad day. I can officially cross of tuna casserole off my dinner ideas list.

Poop Poisoning

Okay so I have a lot of wonderful, exciting new things to post about from our wonderful, exciting spring break vacation but an incident occurred that needs to be reported before further blogging can take place. We were on our way home Saturday from our fun spring break in Eugene/Newport/Florence(not Italy) and Matt's dad decided to take us out to lunch before we hit the road. I forced everybody into going to Red Robin because I love Red Robin and I always get what I want...did I just say that out loud...I think I did. (to be honest, my posterity will read this someday and i must be honest, i was totally down for going to chillies but Matt is the one who truly made the decision for RR)
I will set the scene for ya'll...
Red Robin
I ate my whole entire Whiskey River BBQ Burger...that could be a blog post in and of itself... and all of my french fries(we always prepare good for fast Sunday!)

After we were stuffed to the brim with food the waiter so kindly brought us out some more fries...I spied a fry that was half eaten sitting in Matt's basket. I pick it up. I smell an overwhelming poop smell. Not just a bad smell, a literal poop smell. I look around to see what in the world could be making such a foul smell. Nothing. Weird. I dip the fry in ranch put it in my mouth. Again I smell poop. Ugh it's on my hands! Uuuughhh it's in my MOUTH! I freak out. Spit my food out in a napkin and start yelling...."My mouth tastes like POOP!!!"

Matt: Did you just eat a half eaten fry?

Me: panting frantically trying to do anything to get the overwhelming taste of poop out of my mouth. Yes! What was wrong with it??

Matt: cracking up...I don't know but I tried to eat it and I couldn't because it tasted like poop. I thought it was rotten or something.

Matt picks up my napkin smells it...agrees that it smells just like poop. Bry picks it up and also agrees it smells JUST like poop. We call the waiter over...

Matt: smell this! it smells like poop!

Me: did I seriously just eat poop? I'm going to die if I seriously just ate poop! I can not believe this. I just got poop poisoning....

Waiter agrees it smells just like poop. He is sorry and goes to get the manager. Our whole table is reeking like poop by this point. I am hyperventilating thinking about ingesting some kind of feces. Barf. I start to feel like I'm going to barf. The manager discounts my 8.99 burger and hopes that we enjoyed our meal. Are you kidding? Gee thanks...8.99 in exchange for someone else's poop in my mouth??

We call our friend's who are smart(one is a pharmacist the other a nurse...they always come to our rescue when one of us is sick) they tell us a whole list of things we need to get and start taking to try and prevent getting food poisoning or HEPATITIS. Lauri, Matt's sister who is also smart and a nurse agrees. We spend two hours searching Eugene for Charcoal pills, pepto bismol, grapefruit seed extract and acidophiles.

Good grief. Matt takes a drink from his water bottle once we are in the car to try and wash his mouth out...his tongue was smelling at this point, yes I smelled it, and now his water bottle is reeking like poop. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. All night long our stomachs were a churning. I am scarred for life. The lady at the pharmacy said that the Red Robin in Eugene has had poop related outbreaks twice before and everyone who ate there during a certain time period had to have a hepatitis shot! AND the E.R. Doctor who is in our ward in Ashland said that the most common place people get food poisoning in the area is from RED ROBIN. Why? I love Red Robin. Sad day. All I could say the whole ride home was "holly cow! we just got poop poisoning"

Here's me preparing to take my drugs, showing off my rad nightgown that Matt just adores and my equally new, rad, sexy haircut.

This post does not even do justice to how bad we were freaking out. But it gives you a nice little glimpse. Cheers!

Super Saturdays

We had a great Lake Family work day on Saturday. We did yard work, washed all the windows...screens included, mopped the floors, deep cleaned bathrooms...the list goes on and on and on. But now I can sigh a sweet sigh of relief because my house is just the way I want it. Clean. I we can start fresh. Next up, finding a place for all our books! Before we moved last summer I sold our book shelves for some good reason I still can't remember...and now we have boxes and boxes of books and movies and no where to put them. They are piled up in our spare room...staring at me...making me go crazy.


I told Molls that she could only have a friend spend the night if they agreed to be my personal garden slaves...here they are in action...they actually did quite well I might add.


Matt getting his groove on cleaning windows. What? Oh you're afraid of that big green monster in the background, don't be! It's just our neighbors new LITTLE house that we can see from every window in our house and that lights up all our rooms a nice calming shade of green.


Nice work babe! Clean as a whistle.


I bet you can't find one speck of dirt in that window sill...


This little gem here is of Matt enjoying his Oreo Freeze...I think it might just be the most disgusting picture I've ever seen(notice the drool?) but Matt loves it because he says that even though he is looking down he hardly has a double chin! It's the little things that count right?

Oreo Freeze

Here's a non-fattening, diet friendly recipe for anyone interested in expanding your waist line...This summer when we were in my favorite place(aka Texas, which is not really my favorite place at all) I made fun desserts quite often. One of my personal favs is this oreo ice cream cake.

2 pkg Mint Oreo cookies(or plain if you are plain)
1 gallon mint ice cream
1 gallon chocolate ice cream(*or whip cream)
Chocolate fudge ice cream topping(not hersey's syrup but good thick fudge topping)

Crush up a bunch of oreo cookies and put them on the bottom of a 9x13 pan...there is no exact amount of oreos for the bottom...just enough so you get a nice thick crust. I think I used about 2 1/2 rows.

Layer the oreo crust with mint ice cream...don't make it too high because you still have another layer of ice cream to put on latter. I used like 1/2 gallon-3/4 gallon. Quick freeze.

Layer mint ice cream with fudge topping. Freeze again.

*You can either make the next layer with whip cream or another ice cream. I've done both and I like both...I feel like sticking with ice cream makes it more of an ice creamy cake! So I layered mine with chocolate ice cream. Top with crushed up oreos.
Freeze.

You obviously need to make sure that the ice cream and fudge are nice and soft or you will not get very good layers...it will turn into one big cookie/cream MESS. I put the ice cream in the fridge for a couple hours so it would get soft but not too soft.

Maybe I'll post a picture of my wonderful creation...probably not though. Lets be honest.

Emergency Life In the E.R.

Okay so this story is not about an actually emergency nor did it occur in the E.R. but don't you love the dramatics of it? I do.

Today I was outside soaking up the rays, chatting with my favorite chatting buddy Jessica about all the real problems in the world like the Bachelor, when all of a sudden something flew into my hair. I am a spaz about bugs so I stood up and started swinging my hands frantically through my hair trying to get it out all the while trying to pay attention the juicy Bachelor details I missed since we no longer have t.v.! I drop my phone, and all of a sudden my thumb felt like it was on fire. I look down and its got a little red dot that kept getting bigger. I was confused. Did I cut my thumb on something in my wild attempt to shoo the bug away? I keep chatting...my thumb keeps stinging and SWELLING...It was so swollen and shinny I couldn't bend it. Then I couldn't take it anymore. I started freaking out running around all confused, I had to hang up with Jessica, some guy came over and said it was a BEE sting. I HATE bees...good thing I didn't see it because if I had I'm sure I would have been hysterical about it. Matt made me go to the nurse station...she put meat tenderizer and some ice on it, checked my vitals and called it good. Within 20 min. the swelling was almost gone and the pain disappeared. Meat tenderizer is amazing I tell ya. So sad day for me...You better believe I will be nursing my would like no body's business for quite some time!

A Work In Progress

I just have to give a shout out to my honey. He has been kicking butt(literally) at this Biggest Loser challenge. So far he has lost 30lbs!! I can not believe it. I tempt him all the time with junk and he just won't budge. Tonight for example...we had left over pizza, I was feeling lousy from a hard day of school, so I decided to eat all the junk in the world to "swallow" all my tears. Ha. Okay well that's a bit dramatic but I really was in a junk eating kind of mood and I really did eat an obscene amount of pizza and an obscene amount of ranch and Matt sat contently by my side eating his little egg sandwich...not even tempted by my gluttony. Just after dinner we opened a package from Bry and Les that had Marg's final pictures from our photo shoot. We popped the disk in to take a look...and were SHOCKED by how different Matt looks. He couldn't believe how big he was and neither could I...I don't remember him ever looking overweight to me but looking at him now compared to then he doesn't even look like the same person! I am so proud of his will power and all that he has accomplished so far. His whole attitude about working out, eating, and living a healthy life have changed so much. He's realized that he was making excuses about how he ate and even felt like those excuses were trickling over into normal life. He's made a conscience effort to cut the excuses and be responsible and boy is it paying off!! Good job babe. You are so hott. I just love you to pieces!



























Here are some other before and "after" pictures. I wish you could just see him in person though because these pictures don't even do him justice!












You have to click on these pictures and make them REALLY big...then you'll REALLY see what I mean.
Alright now...time to finish my paper. Woohoo, yippee, fantastic!

Free Day Extravaganza

As many of you may know the Lakes are doing a Biggest Loser contest agains the Proberts. What many of you may not know is how much planning goes into Matt's free day food.

Here's a nice little picture of his free day stash...he piles things up in the cupboard all week long planning out exactly what will be on his free day menu.


Last week it started out with a nice healthy breakfast of chips ahoy. He was wondering what the heck I was doing taking pictures of him all day long. I told him he needed to sacrifce in order to save our poor blog which has been suffering greatly these last few months.


After breakfast we hit up Costco and McDonalds(which is not what I look forward to in a free day meal...yes it did cause a momentary tiff but all is well now) For dinner we had some delish cheesy cauliflour. You don't even want to know how they are made, no you don't. You might gain a pound just thinking about eating them. Seriously.


Later in the evening Matt and I went on a day and "shared" a sunday...can't you tell that we were sharing??


To end a perfect free day you must finish what you started, the box of chips ahoy.

The Driver on the Bus Says Move on Back...

My life is full of learning moments as of late...how to shower properly at the gym, how to move 10 times a year and not go insane and my lastest conquest-how to ride the city bus!!! I was very nervous, as you can well imagine, about how in the world you ride the city bus. When the bus pulled up I started to get on. That was my first mistake, you apparently have to left the people OFF the bus before you get ON. When I finially did get on I asked if the bus went to Talent. He said yes and then told me to just sit down and I could pay when I got off(probably because I was on the phone with Jessica, chatting away while searching through each of my 3 bags to try to find money). I felt like a dummy-everyone on the bus seemed to be staring at me and saying what a dumb girl who doesn't know how to ride a bus. Just as I was settling in and feeling like I had the hang of things the bus driver came up to me and said "To the back of the bus" and then cackled. Apparently I was sitting in a handicap spot and a lady in a wheel chair was trying to get on. Jessica said it was very Rosa Parks of me, I agreed. The back of the bus is where the rif raff sit. It smells back there. One boy was making dread locks in his hair.
I wasn't sure where to get off the bus, I saw what I thought was my bus stop pass, sad day so I pulled the yellow pully and waited for the next stop. The bus driver stoped at the stop sign and said I could just get off. Now I am confused. Can I pull the pully everytime at the stop sign and get off? Because that would really be the most convinient, or did he just do that because he knew I was the dumb girl that didn't know how to ride the bus OR pull the pully at the right time? Well I went to pay and asked him how much....Oh two dollars he says. I'm shocked, I thought it was like a quarter, so I search my bag again. Oh how much do you have in your hand he asks. One dollar. Oh thats fine thats fine. Well is it a dollar or two or however much I feel like dropping in the slot???