mckenna raye

i got to see my friend geri's little girl mckenna raye! i haven't see her since she was like 3 months old. she's so cute! she has 2 bottom teeth, and finally has the chubby cheeks, legs and arms; she even has the "rubber bands." she puts everything in her mouth and is a smiler. she's also starting to make noises and she's "very vocal" (as geri puts it :)); she's a loud one!! she can sit up on her own and loves to swim in the tub. can't wait to see her again and babysit and dogsit so poor mike and geri can go out!! (plus it'll help me with my baby fever!!)

this is her best friend, as light up fuzzy bear that is now full of slobber :)

soreness is good, yet bad...

i have been working out with my personal trainer for 3 weeks now. i thought that the first week was going to be the worst as far as being difficult and soreness. however, i was very wrong. i was hardly sore the first week and for the past week have been sore in multiple places, namely my quads, triceps and abs. which makes me hate stairs and picking up things. :) but i am loving it and can't wait to get results, especially to make me a better softball player. ok, so my trainer is al's roommate and one of my good friends, shane (and i kinda get a deal on the sessions). but he's very good at what he does and he's so motivating!

i didn't get much sleep on sunday night and have been dragging ever since. so today when i met with shane, he realized i wasn't as up beat and ready as i usually am. he gave me a little break as i only had to lift for 40 minutes instead of the hour, but i had to do lunges which i dread these days because my legs are not used to them. and we also played racquetball for 25 minutes. all in all it was still a good workout and i can guarantee i will still be sore tomorrow.

i thought i'd throw this bottom picture in here just to emphasize just how sore my quads are after lunges!! :) hopefully with all this work (his and mine) i will be able to throw harder, hit farther and better, and most importantly, run faster. for those of you who don't know, i am one of the slowest runners ever. so even to improve my speed a little will be a big deal.

bbrrrr...

i am so sick of the cold today. i usually love winter and don't mind the cold, but when it's below zero in the middle of february that's just wrong! so i dug into the picture archives and found some of summer.

i chose some from this last august at sunset lodge on potato lake in park rapids, mn. this is my *favorite* place in what i've seen of the world!! it's so relaxing and the lake is wonderful. some of the best memories of my childhood are from our week long family vacations here. spending all day on the beach, in the sun and playing games all night with my cousins, aunts and uncles. for the last couple of years my family hasn't been coming to this resort (although we do go to the same lake) but we went with the "grubby's cabin" crew. it was just as fun and beautiful.

i wanna lay on the beach and go tubing and wake boarding and.... hmmm warm weather would be great right now!!!

kris' wedding

i just found some more pics from one of my best friends, kris' wedding. it was so much fun and i miss her so i thought i'd post some of the fun ones! kris is a firefighter so we got to take pictures in and by a real fire truck that i got to ride in!! we also had a huge party-limo bus in which we went bar hopping in between the wedding and reception. it was a blast. then kris left for hawaii on her honeymoon and when she got back she went to vegas without me!! (i couldn't get off work, but i wish i could of gone!) and i haven't seen her since!!

kris and her hubby, wedding party dance, kris and her bridesmaids in the party bus, and kris with her to go cup from applebees (me and mike, jeff's brother in the background)

miss you kris!!! can't wait for softball season!!!!!

a beginning

there are so many times in my life where i come to a realizaton from learning or from interacting with people and i would love to keep these insights (as i call them) somewhere. so gina has inspired me to put them into a blog. i hope to use this for anything useless (possibly useful) that i would like to remember in the future. i also hope to do a lot of "thankful" blogs in order to show all that i am thankful for but may be held back from expressing. i might also just use this as a "day in the life of vanessa" type thing to keep people (especially my mom) informed as to what goes on in my life here in cheese-head-ville (better known as wisconsin), because if no one else is wondering i always know that my mom cares and wants to know.


so this first post is dedicated to my mom!!! she truely is my rock, my inspiration, and my number one fan (as cheesy as that sounds :))

i love this pic of mom and me in cali with the beautiful flowers in the background.

this is a great pic of mom from new years eve this year!

i could go on and on about how much i am thankful for my mom (and i probably will at some point) but i will leave it at "i love her!!"

another thing that i love to do is pull great quotes from books that i read. i left my notebook full of them at home in st. paul where i have composed all the great ones. some of the quotes are only meaningful (or even more so) if you have read the book, but some of them are just great. so when i go home again, i will grab that and finally put those quotes into circulation. for now, i will use one from the book i am currently reading, eat. pray. love. by elizabeth gilbert. i am only about half way through this book and can't seem to find time on a regular basis to read it, but i am liking it and am relating to a lot of things she says in it. there are just some statements in this book that make me go "wow," for example:

"human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. we're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. we wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. we have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. we don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace. that supreme self is our true identity, universal and divine. before [we] realize this truth...[we] will always be in despair."

ok, so i actually found two i wanted to put into text here:

"you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. this is a powe you can cultivate. if you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. that's the only thing you should be trying to control. drop everything else but that. because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever."

eau claire is currently under a winter storm warning, so here's hoping for spring soon!!!