Fat Hawaiian Update

Do you watch the Biggest Loser? You should. It is inspirational and awesome. You will laugh and cry (from laughing) and be angry at Heba and Vicky. I just want to know why they are so mean! I feel like i am back in middle school. The show also makes you want work out as these people are trying to lose weight for life.

For six weeks, I was involved with Bob Anderson’s boot camp in Ferndale, WA to help me lose weight. It is a 10 week program, but I was able to hop in in the the middle of everything. I’ve been trying to lose weight before the baby gets here. Here is how it is going so far:

I weighed in on 9-27-08 at 227 pounds and could do 29 push ups and 28 sit ups.

Today I weighed in at 214 pounds and I did 45 push ups and 40 sit ups.

Improvement! I love it. I will do all of the measurements (chest, arms, legs and waist) and a final weigh in at the end of 10 weeks on Dec 6th.

So Much to Talk About!!!

I am getting into a really bad habit of not being here on my blog…I apologize.

-Since I’ve been gone, the economy has gone to the birds and now we wait to see which presidential candidate will lead us back. I know who I am voting for.

-I’ve found out what self chosen pain feels like. I started a “boot camp” class to shed a few pounds before baby pai gets here. My body is so sore that it hurts to try to even sit in a chair. I can feel my lats while I type, and also it takes a deep breath to muster up the strength to stand up again.

-I’ve been trying to find out what “sabbath” looks like. This idea of resting is interesting to me, because is it simply laziness or a requirement of living. To all my church friends out there reading this, I challenge all of us to take a lot of this as the “busy” season is coming for us that are the holidays.

-I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately. Some of my favorites are:

Sean Hayes, Otis Redding, Vampire Weekend, Kelly Joe Phelps, David Bazzan, Bill Withers, and Amos Lee.

-Baby Pai is coming along nicely. She likes to do somersaults in Cynthia’s belly and really seems to react to spicy food. Cynthia’s ankles are getting big and she seems to be grumpy and tired. Can you blame her though? She’s married to me and she’s pregnant. I’d be grumpy also.

Life is getting kind of crazy around the Pai household. Work, Baby, and Remodeling house stuff. That is my life. How is your life?

The Ultimate in Whatcom County Dating

If you are married, you know the importance of “Date Night”. It’s a night to get out and away from home to connect with your significant other. Last night I went to the Ultimate Date here in Whatcom County, Washington. Cynthia and I were “lucky” enough to get tickets to the Lynden Fair to watch the hottest ticket in town. Randy Travis? no. Chicago? no again. Though both of those shows are really going on this week here in our little section of the United States, the hottest ticket in town every year is the demolition derby. Yep. You read right!

So we had an evening filled with Fair Food and smashed up cars. Break out your John Deere Hats and “Git-R-Done” t-shirts, because here are some pics for you (Incidently, this first pic is the first pic of Daddy with his baby pai…it’s a family pic of sorts):

All in all it was a fun night. Cynthia and I had a great time. Cars were smashed. Fords and Chevy’s were rivaled. All was right in this neck of the woods.

Mi Vida Loca

Lately, my life has been a little nuts, thus why the sporadic blog entries. To catch you up to speed, here are some of the things I’ve been planning and doing and trying to do:

- Cynthia is 4.5 months along. She is getting more and more adorable. She can’t sleep some of the time because she has to sleep on her side. That means she wakes up with me at 4:30 in the morning when I am working at starbucks. Sorry. We find out if it is a boy or girl on August 22nd (the same day we go see Amos Lee in Vancouver!)

- I’ve been trying to be outside as much as possible. A lot of my work for RCC I’ve been doing at my local starbucks up the road. Really, outside at Barkley Square they have an amazing soundtrack playing. I heard Lucy in the Sky…, Maggie May, and Tiny Dancer all in the same hour! Later they played Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. If you live in the bellingham area, you could probably find me sitting outside working here.

-Speaking of work, I’ve been working a lot these days! I work at RCC (25 hours), Starbucks (20+ hours), Give Guitar Lessons (3-5 hours), and mow our lawn for money from our condo association. I work about 50+ hours regularly. Maybe I am more in ministry than I realize, because don’t all people in ministry work this much?

- I’ve been recording a CD fueled by Burger King (I feel another diet coming on!). I’m really kind of gun shy about it. I like it, but that doesn’t mean other people are going to like it. So my question is why should I play out? When I get it done, I’ll put some tracks on my music MySpace to give you guys a listen. My friend Chris Cochran is helping me with it. He’s amazing really. I swear, all of my friends are so talented. I just wish that it would rub off on me. Chris is moving to Hillsboro, Oregon. He is working in the school district with Kids with Behavioral Disorders. I’m going to be sad when he leaves.

- Cynthia has a birthday coming up on the 13th. I really suck at this, because ”an evening of good loving” doesn’t count as a gift. I think that I disappoint her every year. Hopefully this year’s gifts will be fun for her. (cross your fingers!)

-I’m thinking of doing an “Evening of the Arts” at RCC in November. I don’t know totally what this will look like, but I think it will be awesome.

That’s about it on my end of things.

What’s In A Name?

One of the hardest parts of having a kid is naming them. You want the name to be strong and meaningful. The problem with this is that you start thinking up names that don’t exist or you start going to trendy names. That’s lame. Everybody is naming thier kids such wierd names like that name for food and numbers! Even worse, my last name is Pai (sounds like Pie). Growing up, I’ve heard all the names (apple, pumpkin, blackberry, etc), and so now we have to take even more consideration into normal names.

Case in point, Cynthia and I really liked the name Calvin. It’s not a theological thing or even the other half of Hobbes. We just liked the name. Problem: Cal is short for Calvin. When said fast, Cal Pai sounds like Cow Pie. Do you see our dilemma? I guess we’ll just stick to a Hawaiian name of some kind.