This is where I live which is in a master-planned community that is a family-friendly neighborhood and includes a community-oriented lifestyle with recreation, entertainment, top-notch schools and all with 31,000 residents. There’s a golf course, club houses, sports, gyms and a big water park. Pretty much everything a family wants.

My parents moved our family from Seattle to this town* in Arizona in 2001 when I was in high school. I would have never thought that years later Tyler and I would buy a house in this town. We would have not been able to afford it but because of the economy we were able to buy a bank-owned home. It was just perfect!

We’re so happy to be living here and be only less than 4 miles away from my parents. I love running into my parents and friends at the grocery store or any other store in this town. Sometimes we even drive by each other. Remember that surprise birthday party we had for my parents? I was so nervous about running into my parents at the store when we were all at the grocery store with out of town relatives. Later my dad admitted that he almost came over to my house on his way home from the hardware store on the day of the party. I’m so glad he didn’t! It shows that this town is small but that’s what we all love about it and we all share the same appreciation for this town.

Anyways, I could swear that more than half of the people living here don’t work or one spouse makes enough that the other spouse doesn’t need to work. There are some days where I feel like I’m the only one going to work. The other day I was looking at the community center schedule to see what kind of fitness classes I could take and it seemed like there were more options during the work day than before/after work. The town just looks so alive during the days that I feel like I’m the only one that doesn’t have a tree with money growing on it.

The only negative thing about living here is rules of HOA. We have gotten a few letters about parking. We’re not supposed to park on the street EVER. We even asked where our guests are supposed to park if someone stays overnight or if we have a party. They didn’t even give us an answer and just said no parking on the street for any reason. Seriously!?! We have noticed that they usually check during office hours so we just will be sure to not park on the side of the street during the days. I have already told our frequent visitors to park on the street at the house across the street. Who cares because that house is a vacation home and it’s barely occupied, ha!

A lot of families here have electric golf carts to get around in town which is smart when it comes to saving gas for our vehicles! I swear if the gas prices continue to go up this summer, we’re going to have to consider buying a golf cart! It’ll be perfect for Tyler since we only have one car and he has a company truck. He obviously can’t use the company truck for personal use. I’m sure Tyler would rather buy a brand new car or a motorcycle (keep on dreaming, Tyler!).

This place is home to us and we are proud to live here!

*Even though the picture gives the name away, I don’t want to type it out and have my post appear when someone searches the town.

Tyler rarely uses my camera….and usually he only does when I ask him to take a picture. The other day when I decided to download the photos off of my camera, I came across about 10 photos of Tyler. I thought it was so funny since it’s usually me that takes a lot of pictures of myself. He claims he wanted to take pictures because of his new facial hair. Yep, he’s excited about that!

If you know me well enough you’d know that I am was so vain! I’m pretty much sure I took 20+ pictures of myself daily in high school.

I used to struggle with which photo to use for social websites – MySpace & LiveJournal because I thought I looked awesome in all of them. Now when I take 20+ pictures of myself I still struggle with which photo to use…BUT for the opposite reason – because I hate the way I look in all of them.

I’m not happy with the way I look at all. Most of it has to do with my weight. But other than that… overall I’m just not happy with myself. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear from Tyler how beautiful I am. I have no doubt that he thinks I am. But I need to be happy with myself and I need to think that I’m beautiful because clearly I don’t. Most of all, I need to learn to love myself again.

I’m trying so hard to not let all this let me become depressed. Even though there has been some days where I was depressed. Lately I’ve been trying to remind myself how I can fix it and to move forward by making changes so I don’t need to feel this way anymore.

Right now I need a goal. I have decided that goal is to exercise everyday for a month starting today. I realize that might be a little bit too extreme for a goal but I know I can do it. Even if I can’t go to the gym, I’ll just work out using Kinect or run around the neighborhood. So ultimately my goal is to break out a sweat everyday for a month.

I went to the gym tonight and was overwhelmed with how I felt afterwards. I forgot what it’s like to feel great physically & emotionally until tonight. Knowing I’m doing something better for myself and my body is a great feeling. I’m looking forward to this and being on the right path to learn how to love myself.

I love me some seafood! My mom made salmon for dinner over the weekend. Salmon is good especially to dip in ketchup. Don’t tell me I’m not the only one that does that!

Mama Vik’s Recipe
- Put some lemon juice on the salmon
- Season it with garlic salt and lemon pepper
- Put a few butter pats on top to keep it moist
- Slice some thick onions and put it on top
- Wrap in foil and bake in oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or grill it

Anyways, my life has been out of control lately….heck, even our house is out of control! I’m determined to get my life and house back in shape this week or weekend. Who says spring cleaning needs to be done in the spring only?

I have been going to the gym a lot more lately. Last night dad and I were on the treadmill while Tyler went downstairs to play some basketball. There were some guys playing basketball and they asked Tyler to join them. He didn’t really want to play a game since he’s more of a football & baseball guy than a basketball guy. I smiled and quietly laughed when Tyler looked up at me. It was so funny… like we both knew he wasn’t going to make awesome shots and he didn’t. It was fun to watch him play anyways.

I asked him if he got any of their phone numbers and he looked at me like I was stupid. I guess girls only do that.

Lately Tyler has been talking a lot about P90X since he is going to do it. I swear he cracks me up when he explains how he wants to look. Starting with his arms, he will show me how big they’re going to get then show me how his chest is going to be ripped with a beautiful 6-pack and the entire time he’s saying pow-pow-pow for each one of them (in sign language). He says I’ll be drooling over him soon and not Nick Lachey. :)