Blessed event

First and foremost, happy two year anniversary to my wonderful wife LL!! The time has FLOWN by!! It seems like only a few months ago that we were huddled on the edge of the bay under umbrellas as the remnants of hurricane Irene left the area. A few days later, under perfect conditions, we had a great wedding!!  I'm so lucky.

Last Sunday we baptized our little darling at St. Alphonsus Church.  It was a bit toasty, low 90's, with no A/C in the 100 year old church, but it was still pretty great.  There were two other babies getting baptized including Bill the Bear's nephew!! What a small world. Our church holds baptisms on Sunday's after the regular masses at two times: 1:30 and 2:30. Up to four babies are baptized at each time. We wanted the later slot as it's closer to dinner, which is where we went afterwards. It was just a huge coincidence that Bill and his wife Nadine were going to be at our service anyway!!

After the service, we went to our favorite Italian restaurant, Sapori Tratorria, and had a solid meal with great service for 18. Good stuff.

Picture time!!

LL's mom made this through Walgreens I think. It's a 6' banner that we hung on the wall of the restaurant. 

Clearly Marissa wasn't as bothered by the heat or attention. 

The big plunge!

LL and I each blessed her as well.

Too....many....flashes!!

Okay, I've recovered. The priest, Fr. Michael, also blessed her cross.

There we are with Fr. Michael, the Pastor, and the God Parents, my sister Lori and brother-in-law Steve.

With LL's parents.

With my parents.

The steeple of St. Alphonsus. 

Final Weigh In

This week ended our three months on Jenny Craig. LL went in for her final weigh in and measurements and she lost 32 pounds!! Today I went in and I lost 27. Pretty awesome. Though my morning weight was under 183, at 11 for my appointment it was 185 exactly, my revised goal weight. Excellent. They also gave me the following stats on my measurements (none were available for LL!):
Chest went from 41.25 to 39 (not nuts about this actually)
Waist went from 40.5 to 34.75 ( I can tell because none of my shorts fit!)
Hips went from 44 to 41.5 (I have no comment on this actually)
Weight went from 212 to 185.  The starting weight was my post lunch weight that day as my morning weight was 207.8. Still, a fine job over 3 months!

Just the cutest video ever. It sounds like she starts to sing along in the middle.

Weight Loss Myths Debunked

The other day I came across this article regarding some debunked diet thoughts. I found it really interesting because almost every single diet I've investigated has said 1) eat a good breakfast (most important meal of the day) and 2) smaller, more frequent meals to keep your metabolism going. They are two of the main principles of Jenny Craig, which has been hugely successful for me. That said, the OVERRIDING message from Jenny is calorie intake versus calories spent. Still, the article was pretty surprising to me. 

On a non-diet related topic, Bears season is upon us!! Had our first tailgate yesterday starting at 3 and I didn't get home until 11. That's a long day my friends. And I did not do well diet wise. I did not show restraint on the consumption side of things at any point during the day, though I did end up only having 5 beers (only 1 AT the actual game) as I was feeling a bit tipsy. Sobering up for 3 hours with water was the ticket though. In the end, at least the next morning, I had gained less than a pound, so maybe I didn't do as badly as I thought. 

This picture is from our 16-2 over 40 team this year. We finished first and got a huge-ass trophy, so that was cool. The top two teams got moved up a level for the playoffs where we won our first game (against two guys my high school class) and a bunch of younger guys. Then we lost a close one against the #2 40 and over team and lost our last game as well (11-1 if I'm not mistaken as the team was too old to play three games in one night). It was a fun season though!

So far behind!

Haven't had much time to read or write a blog! Here are some pics though:

Game day for Marissa! Go Bears!!!

My niece, Sommer, at her birthday party at Sapori. 

LL out with Marissa!

Our August wedding calendar shot. Our anniversary is coming up!

Little Marissa turned 5 months!

And a picture of us on the swings. I do NOT like the way I look here....almost like I'm handicapped or something. Not good.

Catching up

So much going on this past week. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I had three separate tournaments, one each day, and played 12 games in total. Saturday night was the Bears practice at Soldier Field which I also attended, so it was a pretty crazy weekend. Then ESDNM arrived Monday around noon so we had client calls for the next day and a half. Very busy.

The work meetings went well and softball went pretty well. Though I struggled hitting on Friday and Saturday, I started off on Sunday going 9-10. In games 5 and 6 on Sunday though, I went 1-6, so I guess I finally got tired, though I did hit the ball hard on a few of those outs. Anyway, due to a bunch of factors, softball on the weekends may be done for me for the rest of the year. More on that later.

Everyone knows I love LL and here's just another reason why:

Each morning before she goes to work, she'll put out multiple bibs that match or go with what Marissa is wearing that day. How awesome is that? 

The evidence.

LL started taking Marissa to the swings across the street and she seems to really enjoy them. 

But it's hard to tell because she's usually very smiley!

That said, I somehow managed a not smiling picture. I thought the "little black dress" outfit was cute.

Back to smiles!

Of course with ESDNM in town, there was excessive eating. It started at The Bagel, a traditional Jewish deli and then dinner was at Sun-Wah, a Chinese bbq restaurant (food is pictured above). On Tuesday I was better though as I had a Jenny Craig breakfast and lunch, before being joined for dinner by Ricardo at Mirabel's, a German restaurant near Ricardo's new apartment.