Honeymoon Pics

I will be posting some pictures from our honeymoon at our snapfish group account located here

Well its been 6 months since my last post. so I'm right on target with my normal blogging routine.

The wedding is in less then a month and things over-all seem to be going smoothly. I am really excited, it is going to be a fun time. we have a bunch of family and friends coming, the venue is great, the cake is going to be phenomenal. Soon I will officially get to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love. We are writing our own vows and I have some stuff jotted down. I promised Sam I would write it out and not just go off the top of my head I just hope it makes everyone laugh and awwww.

Now for the complications;

1. none of my east coast friends can make it out for the wedding. which given there different situations is completely understandable, and I know if they could be out here they would. However that does not make it suck any less.
2. For those of you who might not know I am not close to my father (understatement there) the last memory I have of him is being seven years old and visiting him in the Santa Cruz mountains with my sister. that means it has been 23 years since I have had any contact with him. he attended my sisters wedding but I was in Oki at the time and could not get leave to come home. People ask if I hate him, or am mad at him and what i tell them is.

" how can I hate him I do not even really know him. I am however disappointed that he chose not to be involved in my life".



My philosophy for life is to be understanding and open, so in trying to be the better person I initiated contact with my father and sent him an invitation to my wedding, its not like he was going to come anyways right. right. So i got the response card back last week, not only is he coming he is bringing his wife as well. I am a bit shocked and totally clueless on how things are going to go. So what am I supposed to do? what do you say to someone you have not seen in 23 years? hey want to go play some halo? I will probably wing it, let it progress how it will and react when I get there.... in less then a month. meh


Ariks life philosophy
1. Be understanding Open and forgiving
2. Why plan for things that you can wing perfectly well?
3. Be fiercely loyal friend.
4. Things will work themselves out if you do what is right.
5. Its OK to TK Steve, and sometimes he deserves it.


Think those need some work.

Ill let you know what happens.. probably in another 6 months.

Wedding date

Its now official, we have a wedding date and place. Put it on your calendars November 3 2007. that’s the first Saturday in November a year from now. We are getting married at Crystal springs in Burlingame. The location is incredible huge scenic views of the lake and mountains in the background. They are even going to let Gideon participate in the ceremony and have a deck attached to the hall that he can stay on during the reception. We are both really excited.

Arik

Two days of surfing

Well I spent a good deal of the morning on both Saturday and Sunday Surfing. The waves where pretty nice and it was the first time that surfers had had waves to surf in a while. Let my tell you after the last wave I caught on Sunday my arms where like noodles. Even though I was hurting I could not help but be stoked I am catching waves more frequently and doing more with the waves I get. Got my bottom turn back and even cut back a few times. Needless to say I am happy I get to go surfing more often

Should be booking the wedding sight this week Sam and I are excited. Ill let you know more when it happens.

about time

Well it’s only been 10 months since I last blogged so I thought …you know what the heck lets get it on.

September is the beginning of school, not only for me but for the High School too.
Work is going well nothing to report there. There has so far been considerably less drama so I won’t complain. My contract job is moving so I have a few extra hours to work with them as well. Extra hours and money are always good, but it is extra good when you are planning and paying for a wedding. All those extra hours and funds I get plus all the pet sitting money that Samantha gets is going to the wedding fund. We are even cashing in our change jar to put in the fund.

Speaking of wedding stuff, it looks like we have found a site. Woot ! I don’t want to say too much now but we found something that we both like and is fairly reasonable. Oh and I get a free round of golf for me and 3 of my buddies. There will be More to come on the wedding later.

So leading up to the wedding next year (November sometime) Samantha and I have been working out. I go surfing twice a week, or more and run two to three times a week. Samantha has been religiously going to the gym with her sister. We decided to make it a contest. Who can loose the biggest percentage the fastest? But we can only loose it the healthy way, no binging and purging people. As of last Friday I went from 255 to 235, that’s 20 lbs people. I had actually avoided weighing myself because my goal rally is to be healthy and in shape. The weight loss is a byproduct of my goal though. My surfing is getting much better again I actually caught a barrel the other day. It was small but I was stoked. I am up to two miles running plus some soccer sprints lunges push ups and sit-ups as a cool down.

The forecast

This winter looks like it is going to be a good one, busy but good. I with the motivation of some friends started surfing again. I plan to go out at least once a weekend twice if I can (probably while Sam is sleeping or at work on weekend mornings.)

I have started to run again so that I can get strength back in my legs and shed a few pounds that I have packed on. I run by myself on weekdays (Tuesday and Thursday with my puppy). Friday yet another friend is helping motivate me and keep me on track she is running at rancho with me and its kicking my ass.
I have looked at a few websites and how they suggest getting back into running after an absence or when you’re starting for the first time. I am taking some of their advice and modifying it to fit me. I have a two-mile course that I have tracked out near my home that I can jog on. I stretch for the first five to ten minutes (that’s the part my puppy hates, he cant wait to go running) I walk at a brisk pace for the first one hundred meters or so about until the end of the first block. During the second block and its eventual two left turns I run at about eighty five percent (that’s for about three minutes or so) then I slow to a nice jog for the next Three minutes run for three more and finally walk the rest of the way home. My eventual goal is for me to run at eighty five percent the whole two miles. And then expand it to more distance from there. I will be running this course two to three times a week.
Weekend activities like surfing snowboarding hiking should help keep my heart rate up. I am thinking about going to yoga classes with Sam on her days off to help my flexibility. I have started to cook my lunches for the week on Sundays and packing them so that I don’t eat out as much (saving me money and calories)
As I continue with this program (the best weight loss system in the world its called “Proper Diet And Exorcise”;) I should start to lose some of weight I have gained. My target goal is around 195 the weight I was in 2001 getting out of Corps. I also want to be able to do splits again. Well see how far we get doing that

working hard or hardly working

Studying is hard
I know some of my friends are still in school and can sympathize with me here. I was never really all that good at studying I used whatever time I had in class to do assignments and rarely read what I was supposed to. Now this isn’t to say I did not read I read tons of books growing up, just not necessarily the ones my teachers wanted me to. Thank goodness I pick things up quickly otherwise I would have been completely lost I am sure I pulled ok grades about a B average but I also never tried to do any better. I was always one of those “you have really good potential but you don’t try hard enough” kids.
After high school it was the same my college classes I only did outside of class what I had to. I wrote my papers and did my projects but never really picked up a book. My training in the Marine Corps at Twenty Nine Palms and fort Gordon where really easy at least for me. I finished second in my class in almost all the classes I was in.

Fast forward to now. I have taken all the requirements to transfer to whatever college I want to with an ok average all I am working on now Is specific classes for my major. Meaning I am taking calc and physics classes. Lately I am taking just calc classes my class now is 1B which is integration and the like. I am finding my study habits don’t work to well. Unfortunately for me I have not changed them all that much even though I know I need to. I think ill study tonight and tomorrow for my test on wed.

All this talk about school is leading me up to talking about that word that everyone hates. Change. I have been lazy, not like sitting on the couch with my hand in my pants ala Al Bundy lazy but still I have not been doing everything I should for myself. I have not been exercising as much as I should. I know what your thinking, welcome to your average American lifestyle buddy. But I don’t want to be an average American. I run maybe once or twice a week and I am pretty active on the weekends but it’s really not enough. I need to have a goal and I need a schedule and some motivation about getting fit. I need to start painting again I have a project I am working on but have not started the actual painting part yet. I have been feeling kind of down and depressed about my life lately (Well as depressed as I get which for any one who knows me really is never that bad) and I need to turn things around. I will be posting in my Blog my progress

Anthar