Happy New Year

Wow, its now 2017 and I haven't blogged since April of 2016! Boy oh boy, my plan to keep up to date on here completely fell by the wayside! To be honest I debated on whether I should ever post again and I am kind of stuck on where to start after so long but I thought I would give it another go and so to get me going I will do a little update on 2016 as well as share some of my plans for 2017.

If you were following me last year you will know that in January I joined Weight Watchers with the intention of shedding some weight along with getting a little fitter. Well I am happy to report that I succeeded on both counts....I managed to lose 2 stone (that's 28lbs for those that count that way). A little of that has gone back on over the last couple of weeks but I am back on track now and am heading for my first weigh in of the year on Thursday. So many people have commented on the weight I have lost and tell me that I am looking very well, that makes me feel so good because for the first time in my life I am actually feeling good about how I look. I am two/three dress sizes smaller than I was this time last year and I feel a whole lot fitter and healthier too. I walk more, ache less and generally have a fair bit more get up and go. I am determined that I will get to my goal weight this year, hopefully that will happen before our holiday in May (more about that later in this post). I wouldn't/couldn't have done this without Weight Watchers, sure I may have gone and lost a little weight alone but I know that I wouldn't have got this far without the support of my group leader and friends.

We had two holidays last year, a week in Portugal in July and then two weeks in Spain in September. Both were fabulous, filled with lots of sunshine, good food and wine and great company. We spent the week in Portugal with our friends from Scotland although we had our own apartment just a stones throw from the villa they had rented. We both love Portugal, we stayed in an area called Cerro Grande which is just a short walk from the main town center of Albufeira. Its a great place for couples and families alike as there is something for everyone including beautiful sandy beaches with water sports plus there are shops, bars and restaurants to suit all tastes and budgets. In September we returned to the Costa del Sol in Southern Spain, we stayed in the same apartment that we had when we were last there in 2014, located between San Pedro and Estepona in Benavista. We had a few days on our own and then our friends Cath and Martin came to join us for the duration of the holiday. We spent a lot of time just chilling out and relaxing which is what we all needed. Gosh it seems so long ago, I could really do with a dose of that sunshine right now!

In early December I signed up as a consultant for Scentsy.....for those of you that are not familiar with the brand you can find out more by clicking the link below which will take you to my consultant page or you can see the link to my Glowing Star Facebook page over on the right hand side of this blog. I also plan to do a separate post about it all in the very near future.

Glowing Star Independent Scentsy Consultant.

After the holidays the months whizzed by and before I knew it we were celebrating Christmas, I have to say that the older I get the faster the years seem to go by. Christmas this year was a fairly low key affair for us this year. We spent the big day at my Mums and then we went to see Toms family in the evening. The rest of the time was mostly spent at home watching film, going out when we felt like it and relaxing - it was just perfect. As usual we spent NYE at home, we are very lucky in that we can partially see the London fireworks from the top of our block so aside from an early dinner out that was the only place we went. To be honest it was quite nice just to stay at home this year and do what we wanted to do, to be honest we didn't do much at all, mostly we watched lots of films, did a bit of sale shopping and went for a couple of walks.

So here we are in 2017, this is a year that has a lot in store for us. In April Tom will be 50 so there will be a few celebrations for that. At the end of May we are off on our hols, we are flying to LA where we will stay for 4 nights before we drive to Las Vegas for another 6 nights. As yet we haven't booked a hotel for the LA part of the holiday but we are hoping to get that sorted soon, we are currently looking at staying in or around either Santa Monica or Marina del Rey. For Vegas we are going to split our stay and will spend 3 nights in the Encore and 3 nights in the Cosmopolitan. We are both really looking forward to this holiday, and if you have followed me before you will know just how much we both love Vegas. the holiday is partly for Toms birthday but also for our 15th wedding anniversary which we will be celebrating in June so this is a big one for us. I have already started planning and making lists and a itinerary, its going to be a blast.

So that's about it for now, I hope that you have all had a great Christmas and New Year. Thank you for stopping by my little blog, please feel free to leave me a comment - its nice to know that there are people out there reading.