AMY

There has only been two times in my life that I met someone and immediately felt connected to them. The first moment was when I was in college and I was rushing new girls for my sorority house. I met Stacy, and we instantly became friends. We were BEST friends. She had to move away after we could only be sorority sisters for ONE year. But we have stayed friends ever since. She was in my wedding and I was in hers. We have always enjoyed the same things, and were always there for each other.

The second moment, was last Friday. When I finally met Amy face to face.

I guess this was a little different because we have been sorta "pen pals" to put it into words. She and I write each other on email weekly and we text each other a few times a week and every now and then call each other. She has really kept me sane through this whole process and I have appreciated her so much. When I rolled up her driveway, I saw her getting out of her equally impressive to mine sports car. She is only about 5'2", and the smallest "buff" girl, I have ever met. She looked at me with the biggest smile ever. I couldn't believe how big her smile was. She looked great for just getting home from work. As I got out of my car, she came to help me with my stuff, and exclaimed "hey you bring as many bags as I do when I go places!". After all, I had a gym bag, backpack, overnight bag, lunch bag, cooler, and purse. Ridiculous.

She led me into her adorable town home which was decorated in all creams and browns. Everything looked super clean and new. She took off her platform Jessica Simpson wedges and exclaimed when she saw my even taller, same size 6 Guess platforms. She immediately grabbed them and put them on her feet.

That evening, her husband Steve cooked us dinner. This guy is the body building version of my own husband. He apparently is "half chef" as Amy says, and cooked us a dinner that any competitor could be proud of. He ground up chicken breast and cooked it with salsa and tomatoes, then seasoned it. This we ate on top of some baked tostada shells with low fat cheese. He had squash and broccoli seasoned better than anything I've ever tasted. It was a great meal. Plus, Steve loves jalapenos and seasoning just like me (one thing Amy and I don't have in common)...so we made our "Mexican plates" extra hot. It was great!

That night we sat around just chatting and called it an early night. The next morning Amy and I rushed off to do cardio which was conveniently next door at a place called "snap fitness". I really wish we had this place in Houston it was too cool. Open 24 hours a day and you just walk right in with the key. Way cool. We knocked out our cardio (we both HATE cardio) and then came home to eat breakfast and get ready for more workouts.

We ate and Amy spent about an hour putting makeup on. We definitely don't share this in common....I can not work out in makeup. I don't know how she does it. And she really LOVES make up. I like it and want to go out with it but I can not spend this much time on makeup! Anyway....we went off to the Post Office and picked up my suit. As many people know by now this later turned into a disaster...but at this moment we both ooohhhed and awwed over the suit. It is beautiful!!!

We went to the gym and had a great plyometric bootcamp workout with a guy named Jeff Dewelle, who was Amy's posing coach. He kicked our asses to say the least. We did so many lunges I could not believe it. We did them going up and down hill. That totally sucked. Then we had to do sprints and that made my legs feel like jello after all the lunges. What really cracked me up is Amy complains just as much as any other normal person working out. It's not like she really LOVES doing the hard work...but she wants the results. So she puts the time in. She really complained a lot, it was funny.

Then we had posing practice. This was great. I was one of 3 figure girls. All the other 7 were bikini competitors. If anyone is going to my show you will die when you see this group on stage. I swear it is hard not to laugh at them. They walk and act like strippers in their presentation. Hot bodies for sure. I could never act like that though. I did my posing and presented myself and got some amazing feedback. Jeff is hard core but totally awesome to work with. While I was posing there was another body builder watching. Amy heard him say "look at those calves...they are amazing... I want to TRAIN those calves!!!!" Amy smiled and was like "that's my girl!"...

Then i met Jeff's wife Liz. She makes jewelry for competitors. She said that my suit matches the set of jewelry that Nicole Wilkin's wore to the Olympia and that I can have that set if she gets it back in time! WOW!

Then it was off to the mall. Amy and I went shoe shopping and looked at jewelry....we got like 3 refills on our half diet coke half coke zeros from Chick-fil-A, and we also must have peed like 7 times. We also got hungry at one point and both plopped down on a bench in the mall to eat our rice cakes and peanut butter. I felt 100% normal doing this. Weird.

Then we went to MAC and had our makeup done. Amy put all my purchase on her MAC card so she could get me 30% off. That was great!

Then we rushed home to dump off all our stuff (Amy loves to shop and she totally is a bad influence on spending money)...I realized at this point that we were non-stop talking all day long. It felt like I have always been friends with Amy. She told me at one point that she doesn't have many friends. I guess it is hard to find other people that just want to hang out and eat healthy with you. After all, Amy goes to bed pretty early and spends all her time at the gym. I know the feeling. At least she is married to a body builder who is on the same schedule.

We had dinner at Pei Wei. I didn't know I could even eat there. Amy ordered for me and apparently you can get the bowls steamed. Poor, poor Pei Wei. There were 5 of us....3 of us are within weeks of a show. Me, Steve, and his friend Greg (Steve and Greg will be at my show!)...and then Amy who is in competition shape and then this girl Tanya who is a bikini competitor. Our orders were all "hold the sauce", "add extra veggies", "steam", and "add extra meat"....disaster ordering. Not to mention everyone was looking at Steve's 265 pound size...he is kinda a celebrity in Plano. He has only been in Flex magazine like 10 times. You need to go buy the latest issue of Flex to see him...he just came out in a new feature! (btw this guy is absolutely the nicest guy you will ever meet and he has the cutest little baby face...I love him!!!!)

We got so freaking excited about the damn coke machine at Pei Wei. I can't explain it but i hope Houston gets some soon. it was way too cool. I think Greg got like 7 refills. He wanted to try all the flavors of Fanta Zero. I felt so bloated when we left there. I had a diet coke overload by that point.

We were pooped after dinner. We went back to the house and pretty much straight to bed.

Next morning Amy was dragging so I went to snap fitness by myself. Came back and she was still in her pj's. But she didn't have a 4.5 hour drive looming over her.

We then worked on my "what to bring" for show and "what to eat" peak week. Both will need to be future posts because they are very interesting topics.

We tried on my suit which also was very horrible... another post as well as my saga on this continues.

Anyway, at the end of the day....I love Amy. I felt like I had a close friendship with her for only having met her for that first time. It was amazing. I felt so welcome and that we shared so much in common. Maybe it was just that I enjoyed not thinking about what I couldn't do and instead just felt like everything I was doing was so normal. Maybe that's all it was. But i think in a way it was more than that because Amy and I talked about everything, not just competing. We share a TON in common. And I just love her overall personality. she is really funny and sweet and has a little mean streak at the same time. And she can go from friend to nutritionist to coach in a minute. She would be pissed at anything not going right for me...and I realized...this girl wants me to succeed just as much as I do....and I was in total shock to have someone be so close to me over Figure Competing....it goes to show that she LOVES this sport with all of her heart. Even if she quit competing for her own reasons (which I feel is not appropriate to share as that is getting into her personal life and this is a blog about me after all). She will always be connected to the sport. And therefore she is connected to me as she sees that I want it so bad.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. It was amazing. Now, just less than 3 weeks to go. I can not believe it!