I Went To Morocco!!

Sunday March 17, 2019

But first we made a stopover in NYC....

Ok, so yah I went to Morocco with Randy and my cousin Susie, and her husband Evam.  If tou remember they came with us on Safari in 2017 also.  We found ourselves some good travel buddies!

The bonus thing with them are since they both work for Hawaiian we get to share their perks.  We're on her buddy pass list so we get to fly super cheap (although it is standby...) but we do save a whole bunch of money.

So, it's nothing new that we encounter some drama right?  I don't know if you remember but we travelled at the same time in 2017 when NYC got caught in a blizzard so our flight got cancelled and we had to scramble to get to Dubai to make our connecting flight.  Welll.....this time we didn't realize that it was the beginning of spring break!  Our original plan was to go HNL-JFK on Monday, but a few days before we had to leave we looked at the seats and decided leaving on Sunday will be safer.   On Saturday we looked again and there was no way we were gonna make it on that JFK flight.  There were too many people on standby with higher seniority than them so we had to go with plan B.  We fly to San Francisco then connect with Alaska Airlines to JFK.  The morning of the flight we were numbered 12-15 on a list of 25.  I think there were about 17 seats open or something like that.  That is too close for comfort for me.  Anyways, we got to the gate and they started calling out all the standby people for their seats.  They weren't calling us.  Finally at the last minute they called us over.  Since they are both pilots Evam got to sit in what's called a "jump seat" where he didn't sit with the regular passengers, he got to sit up with the crew. If it wasn't for that we wouldn't have made it on.  We were the last people to be seated in a sold out flight.  PHEW!!  I was sweatin!!!  Randy had no clue what was going on, I didn't want him to stress out.

Sorry, plenty words to read in this post...So we get to New York around 7am.  Instead of taking the train to the city we opted to uber it.  They quoted me $56 I think to get us to the Lower East Side.  Since Susie and Evam fly into the city a lot they know the route to get there.  The uber dude took us another route, next to the Hudson River.  They were saying "oooh, this is a nice route, look! We can see the Statue of Liberty!"  Anyways, we got to our destination and we tipped the guy 10 bucks and we went on our merry way.  I then get a message on my phone that I had been charged this:

WHAT DA HELL???

Long story short, Susie ended up writing up a complaint for me (a damn good one too!) and I got refunded $47.82.  I'll post her complaint on another post so this one won't be as long.

K drama not done yet!  Sheesh!  Ok so we made an agreement with the airbnb guy that we could drop off our bags at noon then checkin at 4.  Since we got in so early we didn't want to drag our bags all around with us.  I emailed him when we landed to get instructions on where to go but I got no response.  So around 9:30 we went to a nearby Starbucks to kill time until he wrote me back.  Around 11 he sent instructions on where to get the keys from the keybox at a local store.  We walked to the place, which was a good 10 minute fast paced walk, and there were no keys.  We walked to the address of the apartment (another 10 minutes away) and buzzed it and no one answered.  It is not after 12.  At 1:30 he writes us to go ahead and go back to the apartment and call the maid and she will let us in and give us the keys.  Randy didn't trust him so he went by himself to check it out.  Guess what??  She didn't answer her phone!  So we emailed him again, he wrote back at 2:15 that we can go in now and she was waiting for us.  By then we said forget it cause we were starving and tired of waiting around so we went to get something to eat.

We went to Russ and Daughters since it was close by and we knew it was gonna be good...

I got lox and bagels

Everyone else dug in before I remembered to take a pic.  But Randy got a breakfast Martini and it was yummy!

After lunch we tried the keybox again and VOILA!  FINALLY!!

I didn't even get pictures of the room I was so exhausted.  After we relaxed a little bit we went to go get some pizza at a restaurant my brother in law told me about.  I saw a youtube video on it and it looked yummy.  It was super close to our apartment so it was perfect!

They only make 5 different kinds of pizzas, and an occasional special one.  All of them are very similar

This seems weird, Bufala mozzarella with (I think was) a blood red orange.  IT WAS DELICIOUS TOGETHER

We ordered the Margherita and the Bianca.  It may not look like much but I think these were the best pizzas i've ever eaten.  This pizza was AMAZING.  The crust was nice and chewy and it was just super delicious!

Ok so that's it for my first day in New York.  Writing this was just as exhausting as experiencing it.

Mick

We sent Mick to doggie heaven on Thursday...Valentine's day of all days....our hearts are very sad in the Kuba household.  She was the sweetest, sweetest dog.  Smart and sassy, everyone fell in love with her the moment they met her.  We got her in 2003, I saw an ad in the newspaper.  A feed store in Kaneohe was selling her for $90.  I ran over there during my lunch hour and put down a $10 deposit so no one else would buy her. Randy and I rushed back after work and brought her home.  She lived for 15 and a half years.  During the last few months she grew very weak, and she couldn't keep her weight on. The joke was that we didn't think she was gonna live past April of 2018! Surprisingly she still ate like a champ.  Boy was she spoiled!  We bought her sashimi, steak, rotisserie chicken...anything we ate, she ate.  But during the last few days she was refusing to eat and she just laid around all day, not doing anything.  We didn't want her to suffer.  She looked miserable. 

Taking her to the vet was the hardest thing we've ever done.  Neither one of us wanted to go, but in the end we knew it was the right thing to do.  The staff at Ohana Vet were very very very kind as always, and they all seemed a little choked up when she was gone. 

I hope you're happy and running free Mick, no more diapers or "panties" as I called them, for you!! Say hello to gramma for me.  We'll never forget you!!!

this is a pic from a long time ago...but she looks so happy here and this is how I want to remember her. xoxo

Meet the Pattons!

I met Melissa and her family through Kathy...such a cute family!  I love it that she asked gramma to join in on the photoshoot too :-)

who knows what was going on in this picture!!

My Thoughts About 80 Day Obsession

I have a love/hate relationship with this program...they say it's not for everyone, and that's totally true.  It helps if you are already comfortable working with weights.  They do have a 21 day fix that you can try first that I hear is a little less intense to get you ready for 80 day obession.  Here's the pros and cons to think about if you're interested:

Pros:
1.  You don't have to drive anywhere.  You can stream the program from Beachbody on Demand through your Apple TV, Hulu, laptop or tablet

2.  No one is gonna judge you...unless you have family members that are assholes!

3.  I am literally drenched after each workout.  I love that feeling.  I feel like I did something worthwhile.  It's not easy but you feel really good afterwards

4.  Even though the workouts are similar, you actually do have a different workout everyday (except cardio flow, it's the same every week within each phase).  I liked that a lot.  I really do get bored with the same workouts, especially videos.  You have to watch the same one over and over again.

5.  There is a modifier you can follow if you have difficulty doing some of the workouts.  This worked out good for me for my knees and when I had my sore toe

6.  If you follow the program strictly you will see the results.  Even though I didn't lose as much as I had liked, I only can blame myself because I didn't follow the nutrition as much as I should have.

7.  You get a year subscription to Beachbody on Demand so you have access to any of their workouts so I guess that's pretty good since you can try all of them without having to pay extra

8.  It's pretty easy to follow the nutrition plan since they give you the containers, and you don't really get deprived of anything, except sugar of course.  But you do get refeed days where you kinda can get some sugar stuff

Cons:
It's gonna seem like there's more cons than pros, but for me it was still worth it...

1.  You don't (well I didn't) get the support from friends while working out like you do at a gym.  I miss working out with my buddies!!

2.  I don't care what they say, it's not cheaper than going to a gym.  This is what it costs...plus shipping/handling.

I ordered the Deluxe Challenge Pack.  The supplements there are good for one month, sort of.  The chocolate recover was only good for about 20 servings.  If you do the recommended nutrition, you're gonna have to reorder and it's not cheap!

My shakeology lasted a little over a month.  I only reordered once for the both of them.  My gym membership was $200/month

3.  You're gonna have to buy more loops, they're gonna tear or just get too loose from overuse.  Those aren't cheap either, considering they're just big rubber bands!  And if you remember from an earlier post, I hate these frickin things!

I ended up buying this one, plus two others from Amazon.  It's not quite the same, but it was close enough.

4.  They say you need at least a 6' x 6' space to work out in.  That's very true.  There were a couple of exercises I couldn't really do to it's full potential because I started kicking furniture or I just couldn't stretch out as far.  Don't judge my messy house but this is what I had to work with.  

I did move the mats away from the door to give me a little more room but it still wasn't enough.

5.  You need to buy a pretty big variety of weights.  I already had a set of 5, 8 and 12 lb dumbells but I ended up buying 15, 20 and 25 lb pretty quick after I started.  I could probably use a 30 or 40lb kettlebell but I don't have anywhere to put it.  Those freakin things are heavy so storing them is a pain, especially if you don't have much room like me

6. Autumn Calabrese, the instructor, is really good but can get annoying sometimes, like when you're tired and struggling and you just don't wanna hear her irritating voice... :D

7.  Although the meal program is good, it's a bitch to meal prep if you have a small refrigerator like me.  All of your space gets taken up by your meal containers.  Also, unless you live alone, you're pretty much forcing whoever you're living with to eat the same stuff since you're hogging up the whole fridge!  If you're lucky you have an extra fridge somewhere to store real food, which I don't.

8.  If your co-workers are evil they are gonna offer you all kinds of yummy food that you just have to turn around and walk away from (pouting is optional...I did a lot of pouting!)

9.  If you do something stupid like run over your toe with the trash can, you can kiss the idea goodbye that it's gonna heal up before the 80 days is pau.  You put too much pressure on your feet, especially since you're wearing shoes during the workout.  My toe is still sore, but much better than before.  I think it's about 75% healed, until I kick it again.

10.  You're gonna have to watch a bunch of skinny fit bitches for 80 days and all you wanna do is punch their faces cause they don't need to be there to begin with!  (bitter much??)

So that's about it.  I'll let you know how round 2 goes.  I might even try one of their other workouts later too.  There's lots to choose from!

80 Day Obsession - Day 80

So Saturday was my last day!!!  I'm definitely gonna do another round of this, now that Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years are out of the way.  Hmmmm but I'm now stuck with Valentines day and my birthday....I guess it's not as bad though, I think.  Overall I think it's a great program.  I'll go over my thoughts in another post but here's my results - don't get excited, there's not much difference, but I guess it's better than nothing.

One thing I did notice, when I get out of the shower and I bend over to wrap my hair up in a twisty thingy, I used to see a lot of gross wrinkly cellulite on my thighs.  Now, not so much.  So I'm happy about that!

Overall loss:

Weight:  7 lbs

Body fat: 1.5% (which I consider no change at all...wth!)

Chest:  upper -2" 

original "bra" measurement: -.5"

Waist:  -3"

Hip:  -3"

Right leg:  -1"

Left leg:  -1"

Right arm:  -.5"

Left arm:  -.5"

I hope round 2 will be better.  I'll be sure to let you know!

Brannt

Brannt is a senior and will be graduating from Miliani this year....good luck Brannt!!

Meet the Le family!!

The Le family flew in for a quick visit from California...they are friends with my sister Sandy and since they just got married they asked if I could get some family pics.  This family is so so so cute!

Congratulations Rachael and Andrew!

80 Day Obsession Day 70

January 1, 2019

Happy New Year everyone!!!  Yah sorry, I've been slacking here...this last month has been crazy busy.  I'm not gonna bore you/gross you out with more pics this time, my results haven't changed.  Well it did, I gained a couple of pounds during the holiday but at the time of weigh in/measuring it went back to what it was from day 50.

I can't believe i'm on day 70 already (well day 72 now). Crap.  Only a few more days to go.  I think I'm gonna do one more round of this one to see if I can do better the next time.  I knew it was gonna be tough doing this through the holidays but I didn't want to wait 3 months before I started.

I'll see you in about a week at day 80!  I'll give you my full review of the program and my sad results :(