Back from NJ and NY

I did not take the laptop up to NJ and NY, so there were no blogs for awhile.  It's been a fantastic four days.  We did everything we wanted to do: dinner Monday night at the Gaertner's, trip to the cemetery on Long Island and visit with Mark's cousins on Tuesday, trip into Manhattan with Leslie to see Newsies on Wednesday, and a drive back to MD with a visit to the new casino on Thursday.

My back has shown steady improvement and barely bothers me at all now.  My cold is improving with just a little bit of snuffling, sneezing, and coughing hanging on.  We ate SO much delicious food, both at the Gaertner's and in restaurants, that I thought for sure I would have gained a TON of weight.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that my weight this morning was the same as last Thursday morning, 256.  That's not a good weight, but to have remained the same for a week with so much eating out was pretty impressive to me.

Our northern trip is almost at an end.  We will be getting on the auto train on Sunday afternoon and sleep in our own bed again on Monday night.  I also want to get back to regular exercise and eating at home.  Mark and I both feel like we really need to get back to our normal eating habits.  There are four weeks at home before we head out west for a three week trip.  My plan is to try to lose 10 pounds in that four week period, back to the mid-240s, before heading to Nevada and California. I'm sure I'll put them back on like I did on this trip, but at least I'm starting from the 240s and not the 250s.  Once I get back to walking in the morning, doing weight machines at the gym, and tracking my calories around 1200 a day, I'm sure I can drop 10 pounds in four weeks. 

Here are some pictures from the trip.  Enjoy!