VANCOUVER NATURAL COMPETITION

WARNING!!!!! This blog post WILL be filled with excessive bragging and pictures of a VERY HOT MAN:) So...this past weekend was the Vancouver Natural Bodybuilding Show and it was Tay's first bodybuilding competition. I will start off by saying that I am so proud of how hard Taylor worked to be ready to step on that stage. For 12 weeks, he literally put his heart and soul into this competition. He gave 100% in all aspects. I watched him wake up early to do cardio and then head back to the gym later on for his weight training every day. I watched him weigh out every ounce of food that went into his body and keep track of every calorie in order to cut all the fat off of his body. He had to stick to a diet pretty low in calories and had to be exact in his ratio of carbohydrates, protein, and fats. He literally did not cheat even once on his diet for 12 weeks. He even felt bad one night after eating a couple of extra bites of brown rice because he was so hungry and depleted...that's the closest he came to cheating. The amount of dedication and perserverance that it took for him to do what he did was amazing all by itself, but the ultimate goal was to compete. I'm going to explain the process of how the show runs because I didn't know this before we went, so most of you probably don't either:)
So anyways, the competition was on Saturday April 2, 2011 and we left Moses Lake on Friday morning. It was about a 5 hour drive for us, so we decided to leave early and stay 2 nights. We got there on Friday and he had to go to the weigh in at 5:30 that night. As you will see from the pictures I will post, you have to get CRAZY tan and bronzed to go on stage. All that bronzing comes with a price...mainly a very painful back and neck for me after spending 6 hours literally painting on his tan layer by layer. So that is what we spent Friday night doing. Kent and Kathleen drove over 9 hours to come and support Tay and they stayed with us in the hotel! It was so amazing to have them there and I know that it really meant a lot to Taylor to have some extra support there. They kept me company the entire time, which was great because the competition was LONG and entailed a lot of watching other people waiting for Tay to come out on the stage. Anyways, so we woke up early Saturday morning and headed to the pre-judging. The competition consisted of pre-judging early in the day and then the finals at night. However, the pre-judging is where most of the actual decisions are made as to who is going to win it. Taylor signed up to compete in the novice division because it was his first competition thinking that he would be competing with other first time competitors. That wasn't the case....you qualify to compete in novice as long as you haven't won your division before. He competed against 8 other guys and he was the only first time competitor. This was a BIG show and the competition was FIERCE! I couldn't believe how great all of them looked. I could not believe how AMAZING Taylor looked. You could seriously teach an anatomy lesson from his body:) I am a little biased, but I thought that Tay definitely looked the best during pre-judging. After pre-judging, we knew that he was in the top 4 because of the way they arrange the competitors, but we didn't know the actual placing. So, then we went back to the hotel to wait around until the finals. I seriously can't even describe how amazing he looked. This may sound weird, but as the day progressed, he just kept looking better and better. The cuts in his legs got deeper and he just looked more shredded as the day progressed. The finals started at 6:00PM, but Tay didn't get back on stage until almost 9:30 because of all of the competitors. He had to do an individual posing routine to music for 60 seconds and then they brought out all of the top 5 from his class. They start by announding the 5th place winner, then 4th, then 3rd, then 2nd and 1st. With each name that they announced, I was screaming louder and louder because it meant that Tay was getting closer to first place. When I say screaming, I'm being serious...I feel so bad for anybody that was ANYWHERE near me during that competition because I was cheering for my man pretty loud. Kent and Kathleen were there too, so we were pretty loud and I'm sure people thought we were crazy:) So, it got down to the top 2 competitors and the announcer was asking the crowd who should win and I'm not kidding when I say that people who didn't even know Tay were screaming "TAYLOR". It was awesome!! Then they announced that he had WON THE HEAVYWEIGHT NOVICE DIVISION!!!! I was so proud of him. But, the bragging doesn't end there....he then had to go up against the winners of the novice lightweight and middle weight classes. They posed together and then the judges decided on an overall winner for the novice division. Yep, you guessed it....HE WON OVERALL!!! I have never been so proud of him in all my life and I literally could not stop jumping up and down and grinning from ear to ear! It was so great to see all of his hard work rewarded. He got 2 AWESOME trophies and was really pleased with the outcome, but you know Tay, he was very modest about the entire thing. They gave him a judges score card to see how each judge voted and only 1 of the 7 judges didn't put him in 1st place. That's amazing because it's usually about half and half for one competitor vs. another. I'll post a bunch of pictures now and they will blow you away!

This is right before pre-judging...don't make fun of the tan:)
Kent, Kathleen and I hanging out at pre-judging (for 4 hours). It was soooo good to have them there!
Kent and Kathleen look AMAZING! They both just finished a 12 week challenge and lost a ton of weight and body fat! Super HOT!

Again, us just chillin' at pre-judging.
This was Tay in his heavyweight novice division in pre-judging.


Again, here is he at pre-judging posing with another competitor.
This was at the hotel in between pre-judging and finals. I'm telling you...he just kept getting more and more SHREDDED as the day progressed!

MAN....LOOK AT THOSE LEGS!!!!
This was the top five being called out in the finals that night.

Like I said, they call out 5th place first and then 4th and move their way up to first. The top 3 are in the back there....
And of course, TAY WON, so here he is getting his trophy for the winner of the heavyweight novice class.
Then, he had to go up against the winners from the other novice weight classes to decide on an overall winner. Here they are posing..
More overall posing..


Again....sorry, he just looked sooo hot it deserves a few extra pics;)


So, then they announced that Tay had won the OVERALL NOVICE DIVISION!!!!Here he is getting his trophy from this guest poser at the competition...

Look at that TROPHY! He got 2 super nice trophies!

Here they are together...we were all SOOO excited. I think that Kent, Kathleen and I were more excited than Tay.
This was pretty much the look I had on my face all night long....grinning from ear to ear with pride:)

So, there you have it. I know this was a long post, but I know a lot of people wanted to be there that couldn't make it and I wanted to portray it like it was. It was an AWESOME day and I can't even say how proud of him I am!

COMPETITION TIME

So, I have to start this short little post off with a warning....I am probably going to get into a LOT of trouble for posting this. But, I'm a total REBEL and I think it's pretty amazing, so I'm going to post it anyways. Taylor has signed up to do a body building competition in April and has started his diet for that. He will have to eat perfectly clean for 12 weeks with absolutely NO cheating. For those of you that have tried to make even small dietary changes, you know how much self discipline and dedication this is going to take. A few months ago, he did a "mock run" of a competition diet for just 5 weeks and this is what he looked like after it was done. I am so proud of how hard he works and he would never do this himself, but I can brag if I want to about my HOT husband. Seriously, I could teach an anatomy lesson just from these pictures:)



Pretty amazing huh?

FYI: I did update our blog with a recent Christmas blog, so please keep reading!!!!

Christmas 2010 Blog & Lately

So, I have come to realize that no matter how good my intentions are, I can't seem to blog more often than every 6 months or so. I know, I know....I'm a total slacker! Anyway, since I last posted in the summer, I figure that it's time for my semi-annual blog post. I want to post some pictures from our Christmas trip home to visit our families. Hey...better late than never I guess! We started out our week off at my parents house and then went to Tay's parents house. We had such a blast spending time with everybody and ate WAYYYYY too much food. Seriously, I am going to have to spend the next year working to undo the damage I did on that trip. I felt like a sugar addict that needed to detox after that! I blame it on my mom's amazing Christmas candy making skills:) Okay, so here are some pictures in totally random order because I'm so not smart enough to figure out how to get them in a decent order on the photo uploader here.

At Texas Roadhouse with Devin and Shay. This is Tay's FAVORITE restaurant.

Seriously, does it get any cuter than that?
Here's my cute little mom and I hard at work!
Through the generation with the women in our family.
Can you say GODIVA?!?! Tay filled my stocking with my favorite chocolate. He totally knows the way to MY heart is through Godiva:)
Silly picture! Who even knows what Shayla is looking through!
Call us crazy, but we took all 3 of our dogs! They did better than we thought they would though.
Zoe is getting so big!
Okay, so now on to the visit at the Petersen house....we took family pictures and I LOVE the way they turned out!


LOVE THIS PICTURE!!
New Year's Eve with good food and lots of good company!
I just loved this picture of Nicole and Marley...they are so cute!
So, we made candy canes....I have never done that before and it was so much fun!
Here are the crazy boys doing a pile-up. I don't know if poor Kent will ever recover from this one. I'm sure there was permanent back damage done!!!

Okay, so since we have gotten back, it has been business as usual. I am back at work and am SUPER BUSY! Who knew so many people needed health care in such a small town! Tay has started back in school and has 3 semesters left before he is done! Our 3 crazy dogs keep us pretty busy and we are both teachers in the Young Men and Young Women. I love my calling and am amazed every day by the Young Women in our ward. They are so talented and amazing! It teaches me a lot to be around them!

Taylor is also getting ready to do a body building competition in April and has started his diet for that. I'm so proud of how hard he works and really admire his discipline. I'm going to post some pictures of him because he did a little "mock run" with a 5 week diet and looked AMAZING. However, I'll have to do a new post for that because I can't figure out how to get the pictures at the bottom. P.S. Don't tell him that I posted his pictures after his diet or he'll be soooo mad because he's pretty humble about it!

We love and miss everybody and hope that all is going well for everybody!

Life

Hello...my name is Amanda, and I'm a total blog SLACKER! I wish that I could say that I was going to do better, but that would probably be a lie considering I am so dang proud of myself for updating right now that it's pathetic:) So anyway, this summer has been going by WAY too fast! I can't believe that it's already the end of July! I feel like we haven't really done anything to enjoy the summer too much because it seems like I am always working, but I sure do love the WARM weather! Taylor is now in summer school and is super busy because all of his classes are condensed down to 8 weeks instead of 16 like normal. He has been so diligent about studying and I am so proud of how well he is doing in school! My job is going good. I'm surprised every day at how much I don't know about medicine. It keeps me on my toes looking things up all the time and I can't believe how much I have learned in my first 10 months practicing. The learning curve is pretty sharp, but I love medicine, so what better thing to learn about right? Other than work and school, we have been really enjoying the local farmer's market here in Moses Lake. They have it every Saturday and there are tons of fresh fruits and veggies, the BEST homemade salsa ever, and lots of other goodies. Is it sad that the farmer's market is the highlight of my week? Oh well, I really love it! Since the last time I updated the blog, we did go back to Idaho to visit family. We spent some really fun time with my family and then headed to Yellowstone to stay in a condo with Tay's family for a while. Even though this post is ridiculously late, I am still going to post some pictures of our trip. I have to thank Nicole, photographer extraordinaire, for the pictures that were taken. I realized when I was looking through the pictures that my family is really "photo phobic". They really don't like getting their pictures taken, or they pull funny faces, so I didn't even have any really good ones to put up of our time with them. It was so much fun though and, next time, I am going to force them to take pictures with us:)



Here's a picture of the girls at Carino's in Idaho Falls. Man, I MISS that restaurant!

Here are the boys at my parents house looking all manly.

This was inside the condo in West Yellowstone. It was so nice!

Wow...Tay looks like the meanest, most selfish uncle in the world right here huh?? I promise she got plenty of sweets that day! Isn't she so cute?

Again, at the condo. We were all just hanging out and having fun!

I seriously LOVE this picture. My husband HAS to be the hottest man alive and Kaydence looks adorable with her little hood on! This was outside the center with the bears and wolves. The wolves were SOOO cool! I was amazed at how huge and playful they were. I loved it! (No, this does not mean that I am a member of Team Jacob:))

In the lobby of the hotel.

Here we are at the bear and wolf center.

Okay, so there are some of the pictures. We had so much fun and just love being able to spend time with family. That quality time is really priceless! Taylor will be leaving to go back to Idaho and then Arizona in about 2 weeks for Johnny and Jess's wedding and for some family time in Arizona. I couldn't get off work, and am so bummed, but still so excited for the soon to be newly weds! Well, I hope this post isn't too boring, but we're just not that exciting!

Gracie

As many of you know, my 3 year old neice Gracie was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer about 2 weeks ago. She has been in the hospital undergoing tests in order to stage her cancer and is now getting ready to start chemotherapy. She was diagnosed with a Stage III (high risk) Neuroblastoma. This news came as a complete surprise to us and it has been a really hard thing to digest. Gracie is looking at months of chemotherapy and all of the associated side effects before it is safe enough for the doctors to try and surgically remove the tumor. I would really appreciate any prayers that you could give them at this time, especially little Gracie. She needs them more that I can say. There is a blog set up for her at www.graciecare.blogspot.com that tells her story and keeps you updated on what's going on. Hope that everybody is doing well.

Nothing New

Okay, so here's a quick post to let everybody know that we are boring and nothing new is going on with us. What can I say...when you live in a boring place, you become boring! I guess I could talk about Valentine's Day. As many of you know, Taylor is not the most romantic person on the planet. He actually asks me to tell him exactly what I want him to do to be romantic, completely not realizing that by me telling him, it takes away any romance that could have come from that action. So, I really had just accepted the fact that Valentine's Day would by like any other day. On the Friday before Valentine's Day, all of the girls at my work were getting flowers delivered or some other cute things and it really didn't bother me. I was joking around with one of the girls I work with about how she and I should just buy each other presents because our husbands aren't into the romantic stuff. So, I got off of work and walked out to my car to find 2 HUGE heart shaped and love balloons tied to my car. Then, there was the most gorgeous pink tipped white rose and a sweet card on my windshield. It was so sweet and the card was very adorable. I was pretty surprised and just loved it! It's always the best when you're not expecting anything!
I also wanted to post about Tay's Birthday because I actually took some pictures, but I didn't realize that the memory card wasn't in the camera, so it just saved the pictures to the camera memory and I can't find the cable to get it on our computer. When I figure that out, I'll post the pictures.
Oh yeah, here's something that decreases the boring factor in our lives....we were called to be the Bear Den cub scout leaders for 3 wards, including our own. Now, Tay and I don't know ANYTHING about scouts. In fact, when we went to our first planning meeting, I thought that the pack meetings were called Pow Wows for some reason and I sounded like a COMPLETE IDIOT. We have 10 boys in our group and the are all 9 years old. Holy Crap! If you ever feel like saying "sit down and shut up!" over and over again for an entire hour once a week, come to our den meetings. They are like caged animals being set loose for the first time in ages! We do have fun with them even if they are animals. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I am almost convinced that Tay and I are the only cub scout leaders ever that don't have kids. We are definitely the odd balls out there.
So, anyway, there's our boring update. I'll post pictures when I can get smart enough to download them from my camera!

Trip Home!!

So...I am way behind. We got back from our trip over a week ago and I am just now getting around to updating our blog. Better late than never, RIGHT?? Anyway, we had an AWESOME trip home to see our families! We drove 1700 miles through 4 different states in 8 days. LOTS of driving, but it was all so worth it. Our first stop was at my parents house to hang with them for a few days. It was so nice so be able to see them. It felt like it had been forever since we had seen them. My mom is so cute and she had the house totally STOCKED with all of the goodies that Tay and I love. We mainly just spent time together with everybody there and that's exactly what we wanted to do. My sisters were both there for a bit and it was a lot of fun. There was, however, a mishap with the carpet while we were there. Yep...you guessed it. My dogs chewed the brand new carpet in the addition to their house. I was SOOOO mortified! Want to know the ironic part? My sister's dog had chewed the exact same spot a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness we were able to get that fixed before we left! Here's my cute little mom! If you look closely, she was crying because this was actually when we were getting ready to leave. I miss her so much already!

Here's Sadie begging for forgiveness after chewing the carpet. She so knew that she was in trouble and kept buttering my mom up to get her to forgive her.

Here's Shay and Dev. Yes...he really is that tall! 6'8".

So, from my mom's house in Idaho, we headed down to Utah to see the new baby! I was seriously SOOO excited so see her. She is seriously the most beautiful baby! I was such a baby hog the whole time. I pretty much held her hostage the entire time I was there. It's amazing how much you can feel the spirit and reverence that a new baby brings. She brings such a feeling of peace and has such a sweet spirit. LOVE HER!!!

Here's a picture of us girls! Try not to notice the fact that Nicole is a total rockstar and doesn't even look like she has even a tiny little belly. Yes, that is her brand new baby I'm holding here :) She is such a hot mamma!! She was such a good hostess too. She wouldn't quit doing things for us even though she was hurting because she just had her baby. Nicole, I love you!

Here's the studs doing something manly on the computer.

So, Boo has been having a few problems with adjusting to sharing all the attention with Marley, so Tay and I wanted to do something with just her that would be fun. What better place to have fun with a 2 year old than McDonalds?? She was so excited and adorable the whole time. She got chicken nuggets and had to dip them in EVERYTHING she could find. There was some really good music in there and she was totally dancing and shaking her cute little bum.

She really loved her juice, but gave it up pretty fast when she found out we were going to go play on the toys.

Yes, I climbed up in that stupid toy to help her get down the slide. Don't judge me...Taylor did it first! I couldn't believe how brave she was. We went with her the first 2 times and then she totally went all by herself and made friends. I literally had to bribe her with ice cream to get her out of the play area. It was so much fun and then she fell asleep on the 2 minute drive home! She is such a cutie and we love her soo much!

Then, Kent, Kathleen, and the girls came to their house to hang with all of us. I was sooooo excited to see them. Kathleen is really starting to show now and she is so cute pregnant. I can't wait to meet their little girl too. I'm sure she will be just as adorable as their other 2 girls! Kent was trying to show Kathleen just how much he empathized with her pregnancy, so we had a contest to see who had the most pregnant belly. You decide for yourself, but I say Kent wins!!

It was sooo hilarious when Kent did this, but he really had to try to get his belly out that far!

Then, we headed back to Idaho to Tay's parents house. Here's Dane showing off his muscles. Too bad Tay's Muscles are GINORMOUS and nobody quite compares to him!

We had a blast hanging out with everybody. Marsha, Tay and I went to Avatar on Friday. I thought that it sounded dumb, but I really enjoyed it and thought that it was well done! I also elicited the help of all the girls to make the watch bands that you can switch out with beads. It was a lot of fun and I got 4 watch bands!

I couldn't get a good picture of everybody so Travis has to take one for the team on this one. I have NO IDEA what he was doing!

So after 7 fun filled days, it was time to leave. We were so sad to have to say goodbye to everybody, but on Sunday morning we left to go home.

I just thought that I'd throw this picture of Bentley and Sadie in because this is how they sat in the car on the way home. It was soooo cute!

Well, we had such a fun time with our families. We didn't get to do everything that we wanted to because time was so short. We really wanted to see some friends as well, but it was crazy busy. (Sorry Andrew and Shandee....We miss you guys!) Thanks to everybody who took such good care of us. We love you all.