I'm Moving

Well... I'm not technically moving, but my blog is!  I got married and needed a new blog url :-)  So if you'd like to continue to see what I'm up to, check out kimberlyandmatt.blogspot.com.  Also, I've started a Picture a Day blog - kimberlyhudson365.blogspot.com.

Yes, I Know...

...I am going to be one of those moms.  I have been blogging for over 5 years now, and have faithfully followed many friends and family members' blogs for just as long.  At this stage in my life, most of my friends have kids, and I notice how their blog posts are mainly focused on their kids.  At times I have thought, "But I want to know what you're doing, not just what your kids are doing!"  Well, here is my first (of what I'm sure will be many more to come) post all about Kylee.  I can't believe I will be a mom in 11 days!

For Christmas, I bought Kylee gymnastics classes - her classes started a couple weeks ago and they will go through the beginning of June.  The first day we went was "show night" and was for all the parents to see what their kids had learned over the last 20 weeks.  My original plan was to drop Kylee off at gymnastics and go next door to my gym for my bootcamp class, but I just couldn't leave her on her first day, especially since all the other parents would be there cheering their kids on.  I was a little worried how Kylee might do since she hadn't even learned any of the things the kids were demonstrating, but she did great!  She wasn't shy at all and was excited to perform for all the family members in attendance.  Here's a little video of one of her "performances."

This last Monday as we were leaving gymnastics, Kylee told me, "I loved that.  Thanks Kim."  Ahhh, melted my heart.

I had this last Monday off work because it was a holiday, so I got to spend all day with Kylee.  One of the things we did was paint her bedroom.  We decided she probably didn't want one orange wall (although we're already brainwashing her to love Boise State!), so we had asked her what color she wanted to paint her room. She said white.  Perfect.  Three of the walls were already white, so we painted the fourth wall the same color to match.  We had decided to let her help paint since it was her room - we thought if she helped decorate her room that it might make it an easier transition.  Anyway, she had a lot of fun and I decided to post this little video too.  I love that you can easily see where Kylee painted.

That night we made gingerbread men cookies.  One of Kylee's favorite bedtime stories is the Gingerbread Man.  She loves helping by saying "Run, run as fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." every time we get to that part of the story.  Here's a picture of some of our gingerbread men, and a little video of her helping "read" the story.

18 Days... and Counting!

I can't believe I'm getting married in 18 days!  I hope these last 2 1/2 weeks go by as quickly as the last 2 1/2 months have gone.  I am so excited to marry Matt!

I've had several people ask me lately how the wedding plans are going and if I need help with anything.  Even though we just set our date a couple weeks ago, I had a lot already planned.  Like our invitations... I think I had these designed before Thanksgiving (thanks to pinterest!) and ready to just plug in a date once it was set.  I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

I will still need to make wedding announcements to send to those who aren't coming to the actual wedding ceremony, but I still have time to do that... realistically, I will probably send those out after we are married!

Our photographer is booked, we've sent in our deposit for our post-ceremony dinner venue, I've ordered my cake and bouquet, I have my dress and will get it back from getting altered this Thursday, I have my hair and nail appointments booked, we have our marriage license and appropriate church documents... I think we're ready!

Only 27 more minutes and I'll be able to say 17 days :-)

Driggs Family Vacation

The week between Christmas and New Years, I joined Matt and Kylee and about 50 people from their extended family on a vacation in Driggs, Idaho.  I was told we would be staying in a cabin.  I was picturing sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in a room with 10 other people.  Instead, this is what we pulled up to:

Okay, this isn't exactly what it looked like... there was a little bit of snow on the ground, but this is the same style of cabin.  And the inside was incredible.

High-end finishes, beautiful wood beam ceilings, plush furniture, tons of bedrooms with walk in closets and luxurious bathrooms.  Seriously fabulous.  We had three cabins between all of us, and I even had my own bed.  I shared a room with Kylee and got to experience a tiny little bit of what it will be like having a kid sleeping in my house.  I got to calm her down after she had a bad dream and get her a snack when she woke up hungry.

The three days we spent in Driggs were great!  I got to know Matt's family (I only had to repeat everyone's names in my head a hundred times to make sure I got them straight), played games, ate delicious food, watched some BYU football, and celebrated and early New Year.  The trick will be if I can remember Matt's relative's names at our wedding in a couple weeks :-)

We Set a Date!!!

Since both Matt and I had been married before, and because we wanted to get married in the LDS temple, we had to go through a process with our church before we could set a date.  I had heard all sorts of time frames, from just a few weeks to six months all the way up to a year.  I had no idea what to expect, but it was important for us to get married in the temple, so we decided to wait it out and see the process through.  Starting the week or so before Christmas, the first thing I did when I got home every day was check the mail.  I'll be honest, I was pretty disappointed when we didn't hear anything before Christmas (we had decided that would be a pretty awesome Christmas present).

On December 28th, we headed out of town to spend a few days in eastern Idaho with Matt's extended family.  It was lovely (I'll post more about our trip later)... but the best part (for me anyway) was Friday evening when Matt got an email on his phone from his stake president that we had heard back from the church and could move forward with our plans to get married!!!  I literally started crying.  It was such a relief to know that everything that needed to happen had happened and that we would be getting married soon!  We had already decided on a tentative date of February 2nd (hoping we would hear back in time to move forward with our plans), and now that date was realistic!

I called the Twin Falls temple the next afternoon (December 31st) on our way back home to Boise.  But I didn't get through to anyone.  Instead, I got a recorded message that the temple was closed through January 16th for cleaning and would resume normal operations on January 17th.  Ugh.  Seriously?  How was I supposed to finalize plans and send out invitations without confirming the day/time with the temple?  I was SO disappointed.  I texted my mom letting her know what had happened.  One of the members of the Boise temple presidency lives in my parents' ward, so my mom called them to see what they thought.  They called the Twin Falls temple president for us, who made a special trip back to the temple that afternoon, and got us all set for a 1:00pm wedding on Thursday, February 2nd!!!

I am so thankful for everyone who helped us get to this point.  I can't believe that I could be so lucky to meet Matt, and I can't wait to be his wife.  We will be married one month from today!!

2011 Fitness Recap

2011 was a great year for me as far as fitness - by far the best I've ever had.  Here's a recap:

• I went to the gym 177 different times.  That doesn't include the almost-every-Saturday morning training sessions with Brandee that took place at my house or the park and doesn't include any of the times I went running in my neighborhood or on the greenbelt.  All together, I know I had over 225 workouts during the year.
• I ran over 300 miles throughout the year, including getting a PR on a 5k (24:46), 10k (52:14), and half marathon (2:10:25).  I successfully completed the goal I set at the beginning of the year to run one 5k each week... I missed only three weeks - two weeks in March when I was sick and one week in April when I was in Africa.
• I lost 13 pounds and have maintained my weight within a couple pounds for the last six months.
• I lost 25 inches (10 different measurements).  My biggest accomplishment was losing 5.5 inches on my biggest problem area - my abdomen.
• Probably one of the things I am most proud of is my body fat percentage.  I successfully dropped from the "acceptable" category to "athlete" and have maintained at 19-20% body fat since June.  My goal for this next year is to get to 18%.

Here's to another year of health and fitness!  I hope that 2012 will be just as successful in maintaining an active lifestyle.

Dashing Through the Snow

For Christmas this year, my parents took the family on a sleigh ride with Bogus Creek Outfitters.  It worked out perfectly that the one day we received a little skiff of snow here in Boise (Tuesday, 12/27) was the day that we had reservations (Bogus still has basically no snow, but they received just enough to cover the ground that day).

We got there a little early, so took advantage of the snow by doing a little sledding.  We all bundled up and Matt pulled BJ and Bryce behind his car for a little hooky-bobbing, and I pulled Kylee around in her sled.

Kylee was pretty excited when the horses arrived.  We took the 20 minute sleigh ride to a warm cabin where we had a delicious dinner of steak and prawns, complete with live music and cowboy poetry.  We had a lot of fun - thanks mom and dad!