Assuming the scale in the Clement Monterey Intercontinental fitness center was not way off, I’m still in Onederland.  Barely.

Our third stop this trip was a house we swapped in San Diego (friend of my brother’s, who will use our house in Paris next summer).  He had a bathroom scale that showed dreamy numbers … until my other brother (who was staying with us) mentioned that it was 10 pounds off.  I knew it read low, but 10 pounds?  Yikes.

A few days later, at the end of the day, the hotel in Monterey showed 199.5 so I’ll assume a decent morning weigh in would be lower by a bit.  It was also my birthday, and the celebration lasted longer than it should have.  The day before my birthday I had onion rings and french fries largely because we hadn’t had dinner and by the time we found food I was starving and both were served as appetizers.  The next day was my birthday, and both breakfast and lunch were low carb, but dinner (and dessert) were not.  The morning after I did not have a low carb breakfast (had on piece of toast, 1/4 of a waffle and several bites of pancakes).  Today was the end of the carb festival, with 6 french fries and my long-sought real cake for dessert at lunch (on my birthday I had ice cream, but the restaurant had no cake…).

All in all it hasn’t been hard to eat low carb on vacation here in California.  I’m sometimes tempted but I’ve learned that goes away quickly once I eat my own food and have calmed the hunger beast.  Everywhere I go I carry walnuts and beef jerky with me, and I’ve eaten a lot of sunflower seeds.

We have a few days left.  My stepson is asking for In n Out burger again, so one more meal that is easy for me.

The trip has been great - we really liked Sequoia although there was too much driving between where we stayed and the Giants Forest.  Saw 2 bears and 6 deer the day we were there, so it was pretty cool.

The other big news?  I think we have found our gestational carrier.  A friend of my sister’s, the woman is a midwife and really serious and has been looking into being a surrogate carrier for several months.  We talked live today and it seems like we’re on the same page, so next step is finding a lawyer and drawing up a contract.  Yipee!