Merry Christmas!

We took some pictures behind our apartment the other day, to potentially use with our Christmas Cards.  It was cold, so we only took a few, but we haven't had any pictures of us since Travis & Jaqui took some fantastic pictures of us last year.  These do not compare but it's about what you can expect when setting the camera on a tripod and running to get in the picture.

I hope you all have a great Christmas, we have lots of people staying with us and I can't wait to be surrounded by some my favorite people.

Our first Christmas Tree

We have been married almost four years, and have never decorated for Christmas.  We've never been home for Christmas so we didn't have a reason to.  But this Christmas will be spent in our apartment, my brother and sister are coming from Utah so it will be all us siblings together.  I'm pretty excited about it.

In the past I havent always felt the Christmas spirit, but getting our own tree, stockings, and decorating has put me in the mood, and it's a nice change.  We went and picked out our Christmas tree a couple days after Christmas and it's the cutest tree.  A bit short at 5 feet, and nice and fat.  I love it.  Merry Christmas!!!

Here is the tree after we decoriate it, listening to She & Him Christmas, with cheese, apples, and sparkling cider.

Photo Round up

It's time for a round up of some of the things we've been up to lately.

Horse Races

Have you ever been to a horse race?  Until a month ago, I would have said no.  But we're not too far from Lexington, Kentucky where they like to do them horse races.  I wasn't even aware that this was still around.  It was no My Fair Lady event, but it was close, people dressed up, had cigars (yes, cigars) and glasses of wine.  They got fancy.

I'm also assuming people get really into betting, based on the amount of hype during a race.  I bet on a couple horses and won my first bet (go #2!!!).  I won 5 bucks!  It was cool seeing the horses but honestly I enjoyed the people watching more, I've never seen more sports jackets and colored pants in my life.

Virginia

My cousin got married in Virginia a few weeks ago, and my Aunt Glo flew all the way out from Russia to see it, so adrea and all of us hopped in a car and made the 12 hour trip.  We stayed with my Aunt Tammy (who's not really my aunt, but she's aunt glo's best friend and we saw them every year growing up, so she's very much like an aunt) and it was really fun.  Seeing everyone again and being together was really nice.  I wish Aunt Glo would come home from Russia so we could be closer.

Taken on one of the exits on our way there (I think it was West Virginia)

Really good restaurant we ate it in a really cool area of Virginia (can't remember the name...)

We didn't do a lot of sightseeing, but we did go to Maymont Park where they had some cool birds (bald eagles and vultures and hawks) and some foxes and bears.  I have to say I absolutely hate seeing foxes caged up, they look utterly miserable.  I don't like to see any animal caged up but especially foxes.  However, I found out later they were injured and they keep them there to recuperate them or something or other, which eased my mind.

On our way back we stopped at Monticello, I've been before but it's been many years, so it was great to go again.  We also went on the slavery tour which was really really interesting and seriously made me questions Thomas Jefferson (I mean, really guy?  Two kids?).  Anywho, this strange picture of Adrea holding Cosi is the only picture I took:

Thanksgiving

Man, we have been killing it with holidays since being in Indiana.  Halloween was awesome, no I didn't get a chance to dress up (boo).  But we had some unexpected visitors, Preston and Corine!  We went to dinner and then to a Haunted House, which was an awesome way to spend Halloween.  Poor Corine got too scared and so they didn't go through, I felt so bad...and I wanted to go with them because I was also terrified.  But it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, the scariest part was at the very end, when we went out the building.  There was a grass field between us and the parking lot, and we had been separated from our group so it was just me and Seth, I said aloud, hmm, this is kind of creepy.  And right then, this crazy dude starts chasing us with a chainsaw.  Seth completely freaks out and is screaming, and won't let go of my hand, so he's basically dragging me across this field, and I'm trying to get him to stop running.  If we stop running and screaming the guy would probably stop!  Finally I let go of Seth's hand and the guy just takes off after Seth.  Oh my gosh, most hilarious thing I've ever seen.  A couple days later I was getting acupuncture  and I was kind of bored just laying there and I started thinking about Seth being chased by the chainsaw guy and had to stop, because the laughing kind of made the needles in my head hurt.  Every time I think about it I laugh, even now.

So anyway, Halloween was awesome (thanks to P&C) and Thanksgiving was ALSO awesome.  We had it at our friend Kaila's house.  My cousins came up from St. Louis and it was really nice having them here, I just really love having lots of family around, in case you didn't know.  It was a bit of a bummer being my first gluten free Thanksgiving, but I worked really hard to make some good dishes, and I spent a lot of time making a gluten free pie (the crust was made out of pecans, coconut, and brown sugar).  It was good, but a bit rich, and I wish I could have tried the other pies.  The stuffing I made didn't taste very good...but really it wasn't too big of a deal.  Anything I made that called for flour I just substituted with my gf flour (no way am I having Thanksgiving without sweet potato souffle).  We ate, played a ton of games, saw the Muppets (which was great).  A lot of laughs, good times.

I didn't take very many pictures so here's what I have.

And please watch this short video of Ari jumping on the tramp before Thanksgiving dinner.  It is so amazing.

The App that changed my life

Okay, maybe the iPhone that changed my life (but not really).  Sprint finally decided to get an iPhone and since having it a month now, it never leaves my side.  I had a Droid before and felt like I could do without it.  But the iPhone is my little comapndre.  My sister Adrea started using an app called My Fitness Pal, and I decided to use it too.  I've been using it 5 weeks and have lost 5 pounds which is right on target.  I started counting my calories, and when I exercise I add that to it, which gives me more calories to eat during a day, so I started working out too.  I now have a good schedule down, I start my day off with a healthy smoothie, work out, do my work, and all the while keeping track of how much I eat and staying within my limit.

Having a schedule has made all the difference.  I decided that when I turned 25 in September, it would be a good year.  24 was not a good year, and it was filled with debilitating head aches, the worst I've ever had.  Moving to Indiana has been great, the first month wasn't perfect, but ever since I've gotten my schedule down and have been keeping myself busy everyday, I feel 100% better.  And the headaches?  Well, those have been taking care of too, miraculously. Recently I've been hearing about a lot of people going off gluten, a few for headaches.  I went to see my doctor, and he suggested I go off of gluten and sugar.  I haven't been great about the sugar part, but I started going of gluten right away.  I went off completely, tried to avoid it just as if I had celiac's.  It worked, I haven't had a single headache until this weekend.  I went to Sushi on Friday night and found out later that sushi actually does have gluten, as does the tea I drank.  I also had a little bit of soy sauce which I know is a no-no, but I thought a little wouldn't hurt.  The next day we had Indian food for lunch, went to the children's museum and there I started to get a headache, I could tell it would be bad.  The headaches build up very slowly, and there's really nothing to do to stop them.  So when I got home, I just sat on the couch for hours until it was time to go to bed, with a wet rag over my forehead.  I slept about 13 hours that night, and I'm feeling almost all the way better today (but not enough to start my new Zelda game which I've been waiting weeks for).

I've learned my lesson, no gluten, none at all.  I'm going to have to be more proactive about asking waiters if there's any gluten in my meals.  It's been hard going off of gluten, anyone can understand that, but it's worth it as long as you substitue.  I'm going to try baking some things, like gluten free cupcakes and such.  Also, I've found Udi's bread the best brand of bread, can't even tell the difference.   And, I'll be spending thanksgiving with another family who has someone off of gluten, which makes me feel much better about it.  My mother in law sent me a box full of gluten free baking mixes and it was the nicest thing, it meant a lot to me because it has been a difficult thing to do, feeling like you can eat anything, but really you can still eat anything you like, you just have to put a little more work into it.

I'll be trying this recipe for cupcakes, and this recipe for donuts (that I miss so much).

I have apps that help me stay gluten free and apps that help with everything else.  So, in short, the iPhone is bomb.