Catching up! 4.24.08

We are still swamped with things going on here at the Puhak house! We are back from St Louis & things are still nuts around here!

March of Dimes walk is coming soon!!!! Thank so you much to my friends & family that have donated online or sent me checks! I am so excited to have so much to turn in on May 4th! I am over 1/2 way to my goal (HINT HINT any one else want to donate to the walk!?!?! Click the purple widget on this page!!)

The photo business is picking up now that the word is getting out more! I have even been brave enough to approach strangers & ask if they will model for me! Ok really I want their business. But if I cut them a deal its a win win for everyone right!?!? I have several friends getting ready to have babies! which means several friends who want maternity & newborn pictures! AWESOME! Even better news today we discussed where this money goes in the budget, John says I get to decide what to do with it! I can save it for new gear!! Gosh my husband is awesome!

Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University is actually kinda fun. It makes you open your eyes a bit wider to what your spending but its not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now ask me how it is in a month. We start the real "Envelope System" May1st! I hate carrying cash around. I dont feel safe but I hope to get use to it.

Puhak biggest loose, was a wash this week. Thats all I am going to say about it! We are back on track & doing great this week! We will get some extra walking in tomorrow!

Adoption... its all moving way faster than I expected. We handed in our paper work for the homestudy on our way out of town friday April 18th(Our 5th Anniversary) Wed I got a call at work & we set up a homestudy for May5th!

We are in the MAPPS class, a foster & adoption class that the state of Kansas offers & part of that class you have to have a home study also. We have that one set for May 2nd. WOW!

So tomorrow morning John & I are going to go to the neighborhood garage sales & look for baby security stuff, gates, plug covers, what ever else we can find! Exciting!! :)

We will keep you posted! There may be a Puhak adoption blog coming soon but who knows I cant even keep this one up! Maybe I will get John to do that one & link it here!

Friends & Family*** I have a new email address jenniferpuhak@gmail.com

(Grandma I cant get emails thru to you, but I am going to call this weekend If I dont hear from you!)

Special edition! Posting on a weekend!??!?!

Are you confused? I am posting on a weekend & shortly after my last post...
We are in St Louis Missouri this weekend. We have had a great time doing a bunch of NOTHING! Its nice to just relax. We went to a few scrapbook stores yesterday, the NIKE store(MY FAVORITE!!) At the hotel last night I even walked on the tred mill. Only for about 15 minutes but I still did it!
Todays walking was done at the ZOO. St Louis has a FREE Fantastic Zoo! We had a great time!
We walked a lot, I mean a whole lot! We did the entire zoo(except the bug house & snake house). Then we went to lunch & came back to the hotel & took a nap! It was great! Look for pictures soon on my flickr page! :)

Tomorrow we are back to eating healthy! We have enjoyed our 2 day break. We even went to JACK IN THE BOX! I love JITB! I love it when we travel & there is a JITB(the last time we went was Seattle) since we dont have them in KS. All I like there is the breakfast sourdough Jack. So that is what I had for breakfast today. YUMMM & the lady working there was super nice, she gave us 2 free Jack balls! Made me pretty happy today. Ok so it doesnt take much.

Well with all this talk about food, we are going to go find some dinner. :) I will post photos later.

April 15th

Did you do your taxes?


Tonight was week 2 of our adoption class thru the state of Kansas. I am not enjoying it to say the least. I leave very stressed out. I think the class is more focused on foster care than adoption. I am overwhelemd in all the information we are getting & it doesnt pertain to us. I really try to stay open minded & learn something that might help me in the future but its tough. Its a long 3 hrs that we are there. Then we have homework.

I think it we have too much on our plate right now & though its all just as important as the next item on the list its just getting to be alot to take in. I am going to try to stay positive & rememeber that in 10 more weeks all of our classes will be done! Also we will be done with our Puhak biggest looser (ROUND 1).
I bet your dying to know the details on that huh...
I won this week. I lost 4.5 John lost 5, but I lost more percent wise. Because we are following direction from our Dave Ramsey classes rather than eating out we had a "cheat meal" at home. However, it was fairly healthy & we did go out for ice cream (& Used a buy 1 get 1 coupon!!).

We are learning alot from everything we are doing. We have been very successful with all we have going on! John has lost over 40 pounds, I have lost over 20, we have paid some things off, made some changes to make things work better for us. We have a long term plan for all the things that are going on. Adoption, Weight Loss, Paying off Debt... its all going to take time & we have to stick to gether & stick to the plans that we have laid out to get to our goals!

On the adoption home front, we are done with the homestudy packet we just need get a letter back from the Dr(its been a week where is it DOC?) then we will turn it in & wait for the agency to prepare the info & conduct the home visit. In the meantime we have a reading list, we have the tuesday night class, & a nursery to prepare! :)

For those who read & are curious how the photography is going... I have several sessions booked this spring, I have a client interested in discussing a wedding even for 2009! After we get through our classes I am going to focus on getting my business "legal" & getting the paper work in order to protect myself & the business. I might even make enough this year for to invest in new gear! NIKON D80 here I come!

Good night friends! Its late.

*** John if you really are reading this, I love you! I am so thankful every day that I have you by myside. It has been wonderful to be your wife for the last 5 yrs! Happy Anniversary!! YSW.

whoops!

Long time no post huh... sorry life has been hectic a little bit...

Lets get the WW stuff out of the way, week 2 I lost 6 pounds, I was the winner & for cheat night we went to Mi Ranchito! YUMMY We were still smart & didnt go crazy, she ordered soemthing we both liked & shared it! I still had left overs to bring home.
Week 3 John won! I lost 2.5 but he lost more! I am down a total of 12+ pounds(but down about 18 since november) this past week we went & had pizza we had both been wanting to have pizza for so long. Since we lost we went! We have a deal if we have a week we dont loose we dont cheat!

Next piece of business to blog about. I shot another wedding. I was the 2nd shooting but I still got some awesome shots. I really enjoyed it. Though I HURT after shooting over 1800 images I still enjoyed it! Now for the part I dont enjoy editing!
I know understand why the pros say that its atleast 2 wks until you can see images online! Its takes that lonmg to edit & post them all.

I may have another wedding butnot until next year... I will talk to thebride to be in May! I will keep you posted!

The adoption front is coming along I plan to get my stuff done this weekend. I think I am driving my husband nuts by not having it finished yet! We have gotten our reference forms to almost everyone. Its a step in the right direction.

Well I am cutting this short. Its late I am tired & I have images to finish working on.