May

MAY
In May, Zak finished his first year of preschool. Here, they can go 2 days a week when they are 3 so next year he'll get to go 3 days a week.. Zak loved it and made some good friends in his class. The last month they went to the fire station on a field trip and enjoyed some water parties and BBQ's. Nate finished his first year of medical school in May as well! One year down, three to go. He did great! I was amazed at how well he was able to manage school along with husband and fatherly duties. We sure appreciate all his hard work and dedication!

                                                         Swinging was just too relaxing!

                                                         Gardening with Papa Berg

  

Nate Dogg's Sexy

So I its been a month or so (like two months) and a half since I started trying to lose weight.  I have had good days and bad days.  I bought a deep fryer for hot wing, sorry for all the die hards out there- gotta maintain a high quality of life, and life without hot wings is not a life for me!  Despite my weakness,  I still lost weight- 10 lbs from my last blog, and 16 lbs total!  Yeah, yeah!.  I also started P90x.  My best day was like this:  I got up at 5:30 am and played basketball, then I came home and did P90x, I ate really well this day (less than 2000 calories), and then I ran 3 miles that evening.  I think that if I would have had more days like this I could have lost more weight.  My worst day was to the effect of- I did nothing, ate a lot of bad food and ended the night with cookies!. The good news is my drive to lose weight is still strong.  I also lost a few inches from my belly and thighs- and my chest, which I was hoping would bet bigger from P90x- can't win all the battle at once I guess.  Here is some pictures for you all so you can all see the 2 inches I lost from my stomach.  

Getting Nate's Sexy Back!

Yes- it is true I am going public to get my sexy back.  Graduate school and medical school has taken as much toll as I will allow.  Within the recent years many things have happened to inspire to to get my body into a more functional state.  These reason's are as follows:
1.  I have become the fattest Hogg brother in the Norman L. Hogg family- unacceptable!
2. My father was diagnosed with Diabetes- in med school I learned that this type of diabetes can be cured and prevented in most cases via a more healthy LIFESTYLE!
3. My mom had heart surgery and was diagnosed with coronary artery disease.  This disease is mostly genetic, but a healthy LIFESTYLE can delay the onset and decreases the amount of stress on the heart prolonging additional heart complications that can be associated with CAD!
4. My stomach sticks out further than my.................................chest.
5. I want to be able to play sports with my kids.  I tried to keep up with Zak on a recent 3K he forced me to do and realized that I couldn't.  Unacceptable!
6. As a physcian I will have to encourage healthy lifestyles- practice what you preach Dr. Nate Dogg!

Life is good!

February: This is a little too far away to be able to totally remember BUT I will try. We had a fun little visitor come and stay with us for about 4 days. Yes, Kable came to play with Zak and Cole while his Mike and Amy were in Vegas. It was fun so fun being able to have him stay with us for awhile! I have a picture of us in Idaho, so apparently we went to Idaho, but I don't know what for. Oh, I think to meet Jeff's girlfriend and just hang out. We stopped in La Grande and Nate's sister Shauna's house on our drive home and got a little bit of snow! Not too eventful.









March: March was full of fun! Zak's preschool went on a field trip to a museum and the Soda Shoppe, we went to Heppner for St. Patrick's Day, and went on a family trip to Seattle for Nate's spring break. Heppner goes all crazy for St. Patty's Day. Nate and I, Mike and Amy and my dad all went to a smoker and watched some rad boxing the Friday night before. Saturday morning we got up and walked around "town", participated in a Welly Toss (our team won 2nd place! ha!), watched a parade and hung out at the park. Nate's sister Shelbey and her kids came and met us for the parade and to play at the park afterwards. It was fun to see them and get our kids together! Seattle was next. We got home from Heppner on Saturday and took off to Seattle on Sunday. On Sunday we just had dinner with my cousin Scott and his wife Adrienne and their daughter and then chilled. We got up on Monday and went to the space needle, children's museum, Pike's Market Place, Waterfront, Aquarium, then dinner. The boys were EXHAUSTED by the end of the day. We walked so much and it was so cold out but we had a lot of fun. The next morning the boys slept in late so we leisurely headed out to the North Bend outlet malls and then just headed home so Nate could study the rest of his spring break for his tests the upcoming week.






















April: This month isn't even half over...but I thought I might as well catch up to this point. It started out with a bang! On April 4th Zak had his tonsils and adenoids out. He wasn't having a ton of obvious trouble with them but they were just abnormally large and his dentist, pediatrician, ENT pretty much all thought they should come out. So after MUCH stressing, and almost cancelling his appointment many times...April 4th came and we were to be at the hospital by 6 a.m. for his 7:45 a.m. appointment. He was super brave going into it but having them wheel him away back into surgery was definitely not fun for me. I thought that would be the worst part because afterward I could just cuddle him and he'd have medicine, etc. but that was not the case. Watching him come out of the anesthesia crying..with itchy eyes/nose looking uncomfortable was so not fun! BUT he did well and has been working on getting all the way better ever since. He pretty much refused to take his pain medication 90% of the time but today was the first day that he took no pain medication and ate almost completely normally AND acted/played normally...so hopefully things just keep getting better and better. We also had some fun visitors...Nate's brother Jeff and his girlfriend Kelly came and visited us for Easter weekend. We colored eggs, frosted sugar cookies, went for walks, went out to eat, Jeff hung out with Zak and ton and built blanket forts and it was great having them!

Last 3 or so months in an attempted nutshell!

Oh great....my last post was in SEPTEMBER!!! Wow. I'm awesome. Guess I'll try to give a quick overview of what we've been up to since then!

October highlights: In October my little sister Jillyn and her 2 kids came to visit us. Nate was busy with school and her husband had a busy week combining so we thought we might as well get together for some fun! We did a craft, took our kids to the park multiple times and stayed up late chatting! Zak went on his first field trip with preschool to the pumpkin patch where they got to do a hay stack maze, a slide on hay stacks, a hay ride and pick a pumpkin to take home. Nate's school also hosted a harvest festival where the kids did a pinata, went on a hayride, did 3-legged races, etc. We did trunk or treat at church and then took the kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.



Zak's 1st field trip to the pumpkin patch!

One of 3 costumes Cole debuted on Halloween. The other 2: shark and skeleton
On the hay ride at the harvest festival.

Henley and Cole watching Zak and Heston throw rocks in the river.

Henley and Cole swinging!
Just too cute not to post!
We had to FORCE the boys to take a break from the tire swing when their faces were turning green!
Heston and Zak enjoying push-ups!

November highlights: November 17th I turned 27! CRAZINESS! Nate totally surprised me with a Kitchenaid mixer! I never saw it coming! I was super excited! What a sneaky and awesome husband I have! We took a long overdue trip to Utah for Thanksgiving and got to see both my grandmas and a bunch of my cousins. We hadn't been to Utah since before we moved to Hawaii (over 2 years!) so it was great to see everyone. We also got to see the Garners who were some of the first friends we made in Hawaii. They live in Utah now and drove to Ogden to hang out for an afternoon. So fun! The boys did great traveling but both got a 24 hour bug while we were there which was no fun. All in all a great holiday!

Cole not wanting to wait for Zak to feed him a bite of his berry smoothy.
Zak thinking it's hilarious!
Now they've got it down.
With my mom's mom and her husband Roger!
With my dad's mom!
Chilling with the Garners!
Zak and Julien reunited!

At the big Berg Family Thanksgiving!
Different cousins brought all kinds of fun crafts/projects/games for the kids to do during Thanksgiving!
Zak painted this bird house for like an hour.
My new kitchenaid and birthday cake.
I couldn't believe when I found Zak asleep on this wooden chair. Holy uncomfortable.

December highlights: In December my sister Amy and her son came to visit us for a couple nights. Her husband was going out of town on business...and as usual, Nate was busy with school so she came to Christmas shop and hang out! We didn't get too many pictures because our kids got sick but we had fun hanging out! We went to a "Christmas parade" in Selah and were surprised to see about 4 cars drive by and then it was over. I think we stood there shocked in the shortness of the "parade" longer than we actually watched a "parade." It was ok though, we got to take Zak to see Santa who was there, went out to dinner and then went Christmas shopping as a family. It was a fun night that we hadn't even planned on having. Cole got his first haircut by my friend Leah. Cole started taking some significant steps and started walking! Santa came to Zak's preschool. We went to Idaho for Christmas and got to see the lights downtown Caldwell, visit lots of family and friends, celebrate our 5th anniversary (which I have no pictures of), spent a night in La Grande with Nate's sister's family, and just hung out. Zak and I got sick over Christmas with sore throats and fevers but we still had a great time. Back to our anniversary, we just went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, shopped and stayed out overnight with no kids! Thanks grandmas and grandpas for watching our kids! =)







Zak coloring/snacking with cousin Eli. Libby and Eldon in background.

At the Caldwell lights downtown with Aunt Jill, Heston, Papa Berg and us.
Nate's brother, Jeff, Nate, me and Heston
Zak helping make Christmas treats. He lasted in the kitchen MUCH longer than I anticipated. Very impressed!


Santa and Zak's preschool. Siblings were invited to visit! Cole LOVED it! =)
My friend Leah, cutting Cole's hair for the 1st time.
Zak visiting Santa after the "parade" in Selah.
Getting a picture with Dad before the "parade" started. Good thing too, because the parade was over before I had a chance to get another!
Cousin bath time!

January highlights: I know we're just at the very beginning of January but I'll update up to this point. We had 2 families over for a small New Year's party here in Yakima. It was great ringing in the new year with friends. Nate bought me a plane ticket to HAWAII!!! Woooohooooo! 6 days with no kids and sunny beaches and GREAT friends!! Can't wait! Leave the 20th! Now for the big news......ZAK turned 4!!! He was pretty excited for his birthday. He was so excited to turn 4 like his friends across the street (who are now 5!) I had planned on not making him a cake because each year on his birthday, he never eats the cake. So I planned on ice cream sundaes but when I told him that, he insisted he wanted a cake. He asked for a chocolate cake with "no white and no sprinkles just chocolate." So that's what we did. The most basic chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with no decorations or anything that might not taste right. Just chocolate. Well we went bowling and to Burger King (Zak's choices) then came home and opened presents and then I asked if he was ready for cake and ice cream and he kept saying no, he just wanted to play with his new toys. After a bit he came in and asked if he could have a popsicle! I was like "No way! We have cake and ice cream!" So FINALLY he was ready and I gave him cake with a slice of vanilla ice cream and he ate ALL his ice cream and one bite of cake! That's it. Good thing a made his chocolate cake! haha Some of Zak's favorite things are animals. He loves watching national geographics on animals, cartoons about animals (Wild Kratts being a favorite), he loves giving us random animal facts, loves playing superheros, loves trains, and wrestling. He is such a good brother who is almost always willing to help make Cole smile when he's fussy or share his snacks with him when Cole wants a taste. He's great at helping Cole walk (even though he doesn't really need it anymore) and is always there to regulate on other babies that might take something out of Cole's hands. =) He loves helping me clean and cook and is definitely a rule-follower. He's such a good boy and is great at telling the truth. He stresses a little more than Nate and I which we're not sure where he gets that. Almost every morning when he wakes up he comes and gives me morning loves (a big hug/snuggle). He moved up to the Sunbeam class in primary at church and feels like such a big boy. He likes to show us how big his muscles are, how tall he is, how fast he can run, etc. We just love him to pieces!

Zak's uneaten cake and gobbled up ice cream. Lame.

Track Dad built!


Zak with his loot of gifts! A tad excited? Maybe?
New swords! Let's fight!
Zak helped me make the frosting for his birthday cake.
Shared his frosting beater with his bro.

Looking good in his new apron getting ready to make frosting!


Happy Birthday Zak video!