Wow! I'm back from a wonderful time at Country Thunder!!!! The weather was fabulous this year! Could not have asked for better. In years past it has been much warmer in the daytime, in the 90's. That makes it more of a challenge to sit out in the hot sun for the earlier shows. This year it was in the 80's with breeze. In fact, one day the wind was WAY more than a breeze. Tents were flying, chairs were rolling, etc. But it made sitting out in the sun to watch the shows much more comfortable. (We will ignore the fact that the winds were so bad for awhile that the grit on our skin and dirt in our hair was unimaginable!) Anyway, the weather was great, the shows were great, all was good! This was my eighth year, seventh camping. Already looking forward to next year.........man it's a long way off!

I admit, while I was out there, I was not my best in the food department. Everyday I had something not on plan. But, it wasn't all day long. And I did lots of walking. We figured the walk from our tent to the show was about 3/4 mile one way. So, on Wed I walked 1.5 miles, on Thur I walked 4.5 miles, on Fri I walked 3 miles, and on Sat I walked 4.5 miles. That's just the back and forth, not all the incidental walking I did across the field for the venders and food and portapotties. So all in all, I am not feeling badly about my time this weekend.

Oh.....and the important thing. I stopped for weigh-in at the Biggest Loser on the way out of town on Wednesday. I was down another 2.8 pounds! Woohoo! After not getting to work out as much the previous week, I was concerned. That meant a total of 25.1 pounds for the contest. Vera told me I lost 12% of my body weight. Well, on Thursday I got a text from my friend that is also in the contest, and she said I won!!! When I signed up for this 12 weeks ago, I had no belief in the idea of winning. I just wanted some motivation, some accountablilty, and to see if I could get some friends to join in with me. I NEVER expected to win. But now the challenge starts all over. I have joined the next group and the first weigh-in for this one is this coming Thursday. There will be new people there, and there will be another person there like me, that has just decided to take care to lose pounds and will be able to outdo us all. I know how this works. The more recent the pounds are put on, the more easily they come off. Well, I think I have taken off my "easier" pounds at this point. I know I will have to work harder to keep accomplishing what I have done so far. Knowing that, I don't expect to win again, I just expect to stay motivated and making progress. For me, THAT will be winning!

Also, for those of you that stopped by to say hello from my brother's (David) blog, thank you. It is amazing how helpful it is to be able to share these struggles and successes with others that really understand.