Pirate Party!

Guess who had a birthday?

I decided to try throwing a real birthday party for Asher. Last year I did nothing, and I felt slightly bad about it. So this year I decided to invite friends and cousins over, make a cake, plan games, have a theme and decorate. The theme we (or should I say I) chose was Pirates. Arrrr!

First I had to decorate my front room pirate style, you know, with random booty hanging around. Some of it was even edible.

I might leave our light fixture like this. I kinda like it.

I made a cake. My favorite part is the candles sticking out of the sides, like oars or cannons. And before you think I'm brilliant, I must confess that I got the idea from this website.

The kids played piratey games...

Including a freeze dance game to pirate themed songs. Man, these kids can dance!

At the end of the party they looked for "buried treasure" under pillows. I just couldn't bring myself to make them go outside and dig in the actual dirt in the middle of the day. I wish I had a picture of the little burlap bags of loot I made, but you will just have to believe me when I tell you that they were way cute.

P.S. I have to include a picture of Gwen. She was a complete angel the entire time. Asher wanted her to dress up like a mermaid, but I was already in a little over my head. How do people throw big awesome parties more than once a year? I was so tired afterward!

After the cleanse

I just finished a 7 day detox from the GOOP website. (If you want the details follow this link.) Well, actually I did the eating program for 3 days, went on vacation and completely anti-cleansed, and then went back on it for 7 days. The total loss from all of that was about 7 pounds, but if you are just counting the 7 consecutive days, it was 5 pounds.

My review:

This was the easiest diet/cleanse I have ever done. Much easier than the Master Cleanse, but that probably goes without saying. I was rarely hungry, and most of the food was good. I LOVED the whey protein and fruit shakes I got to drink every day, and those filled me up for a long time. I also loved the carrot-ginger dressing and the teriyaki chicken. HOWEVER I did not like the beet/carrot/apple/ginger juice or the cucumber/basil/lime juice. I had to choke that stuff down. I thought I was going to hate the super greens juice, but that ended up being my favorite of the juices, although I wouldn't make it for fun. Also, I had to flavor my brown rice and my quinoa with a little bit of almond oil and balsamic vinegar. I put my quinoa in an arugula salad, actually. And I never made the salmon, because I don't like fish. I didn't make the cucumber avocado soup because I didn't have an avocado at the time.

I exercised more than half of the days, burning at least 300 calories each session. It was easy to have the energy for exercising since I was getting a lot of protein each day.

I would totally do this again. And I would recommend it to anyone who wants glowing skin and a smaller waistline in 7 days.

One last word about the miso soup. You will probably have to go to an Asian market to get the ingredients, but it is worth it. You HAVE to get miso paste for this diet. I got two types, a white paste and a darker grains-based paste. I liked the darker one in the soup for sure.

Oh, and it tasted JUST FINE without the fish flakes.

The Final Chapter!

The Shumways + 2 strokes of luck = seeing the final Harry Potter movie last night at 7:00pm for FREE!

Stephanie and Aaron won some free preview tickets to see this movie a few days before the general public. They had 4 tickets, so they decided to invite us. That was the first stroke of luck.

We had to go "early" to make sure we had seats, since the theater usually over-invites for this type of shindig. We got there an hour before the showing, and we were the LAST 4 people to be let in. We were filling in to seats that were meant for press, so they were the best seats in the house. Woot!

The movie was amazing, and I am a harsh critic of movies. The only part that slightly disappointed was the Snape memories/flashbacks. Mostly because that is my favorite part of the entire series (as far as the books go). I want a t-shirt that says "Team Severus" on it. I love him. Anyhoo, the end made me snicker a little bit too, and you will know why when you see it.

Last but not least, here is a picture of the four of us in our 3D glasses. I know we look like the 4 blind mice, but they look less dark and more Harry Potter-ish in person. And if you look at yourself in a mirror when you are wearing said glasses, you look like Professor Trelawny.

PS We saw people dressed up as Death Eaters (with the masks and everything... they didn't speak even when ordering food), Hogwarts students with wands, and I saw one guy that looked like he should be at Magic Mountain. His arms and shoulders were completely covered with tattoos and hair. I think if we were playing, I would have gotten a "Premiere Bingo" for sure.