Bread Attempt # 4!

Yay! we did it! we finally made bread that looked like bread and it was soft and edible! Is it the healthiest of recipes? No, but we weren't sure if it was our mistake or the bread-maker's mistake so we bought a "pre-made" box of the dry ingredients for sweet bread (just add water) and TA DA! So now Tristin and I have to find a healthy bread recipe that works in our bread machine.

Do you know of any good recipes for bread that are yummy and healthy? Please share. We'd love to know! As for us, it's back to the drawing board. *sigh*

Bread attempt # 3 (as shown in a past post)

Bread attempt # 4! Success! And Tristin STILL refuses to smile properly for pictures. Haha-I love him

Perspective.

I was reminded today of a video I once saw earlier this year. Every time I watch it I am humbled but the extreme amount of abundance I have in my life! If you have 3 minutes to spare you should watch it (if you haven't seen it before). How I don't count my blessing enough some times. Hope you enjoy.

Colorado so far...

Pictures of Colorado on our trip up. Its SO GREEN! I LOVE IT

Wow! I can't believe I've been in Colorado for over a week now. It feels like mere days! They say time flies when you're having fun but I have yet to hear "Time flies when you're constantly in a frenzy trying to unpack boxes".

You'd think that moving from South Africa to a TOTALLY different solar system called Utah would have been easier than moving a state over, but alas each situation has it's ups and downs. So I'll start from the beginning (because I woke up 4 hours too early for church and our church is at 9am)

Last week was CRAZY! I never want to have to move that much furniture AGAIN! and we only live in an apartment! What would moving an entire house of furniture feel like? When we move again, I'm selling all our stuff (except our comfy mattress) and then I'll re-buy everything over when I get to my new place (just kidding, I'm not going to do that, that's absurd). So moving was hard and long and tiring and costly. I was stress, exhausted, sleep deprived and aching all over my body.

Our rental truck. Everything we own is in that.

So moving day comes! Saturday we all left at about 12:30pm. Tristin and I in the moving truck (which was by far the scariest thing I've ever ridden!! I've been on some of the scariest rides at theme parks but this truck, BY FAR, takes the cake. I was sure I was near cardiac arrest a few times). Tregan and Joel Aldrich in Tristin's car and Rick and Kim in my car (thanks you guys for all your help). It took us just under 9 hours to get to Colorado. LONG DAY! We unpacked the truck in less than an hour (go us) and then around 10:30 we all crashed and went to bed. I was happy that I got to sleep on our very own matress again, even though we were surrounded by a million boxes. It was the best sleep I had had in a very long time!

Our lawn with 3 rabbits on it. the 3rd one is a little hard to see. I also managed to get a bird in the picture.

the next day we all went to church. Afterward we looked around Boulder and ate at the International Tea House which Joel called IHOT (international house of tea as opposed to IHOP-I thought it was funny). that place was AMAZINGLY beautiful!

IHOT: International House of Tea, properly know as International Tea House. I prefer the name IHOT though.

Next we headed over to Naropa University to show the family where it was that Tristin would be going to school! To read more about the program he will be going to, click here. The gardens were beautiful, symbolic and the memorial was very unique. The Images were very well thought of. It got us all thinking really hard about what we were seeing and how we were all interpreting it. We then went to Pearl Street, look at all the unique shops and then went back to our apartment to fix up a few things and unpack a few boxes. We had a fun day. then everyone left us early Monday morning for Cayman! I wished I was them that entire day.

Naropa Campus: pic 1: Stones hanging from tree (don't know the point of that). 2: Memorial. 3: Garden with 5 flags representing the 5 elements (I think)

Which leads us to our first full week in Colorado. Unpacking is long and tedious. And to top it off, our apartment wasn't cleaned by the previous tenant so I had to clean and then unpack. Blah. But now I know the place is clean and to MY standard of clean. (Thanks mom for turning me into a germaphobe!)

All in all, I LOVE LOVE LOVE our place. The location is perfect. There is a costco, Walmart, Whole foods, Safeway and a shopping mall (which I probably won't be able to use for a really long time due to expenses) all within 3-5 miles from us. Our apartment is stunning. It's in a gated community with a pool and exercise facility, and we have bunny rabbits outside on our lawn all over the place (I tried feeding them cherries but they don't eat it, who knew?). We got really lucky because we have an end unit on the bottom floor with no apartments across the street from us staring into our place. The area is quiet and spacious. We're 20 mins from Downtown Denver and 15 minutes from Boulder! Like I said, the place is PERFECT! I just love it! And we've been living with my inlaws for the past year and a half so using all my furniture again is like having news stuff! I feel like it's my birthday in June! And I'm baking and making all our food! Who knew I was so domesticated?! ME, Baking bread! WOW...So far the bread hasn't turned out too well but if at first you don't succeed, try try again. Yesterday was our 3rd attempt at the bread thing.....it's still a work in progress :) I'll post a picture of the bread. It's kinda funny really.

Our humble abode. Not the best of pictures.

And now for the cons....
COLORADO IS EXPENSIVE!! Who knew how much money we're all saving in Utah, people? I guess that's the price for living in a desert. And I miss Utah, I really miss my family and being 5 minutes away from them. I miss my friends, my wonderful clients and I miss working. The last 4 hours of our drive to Colorado I put my sunglasses on my face (even though it was raining and thundering) and sobbed for a good straight hour and a half. But if felt good to cry. At least I knew the reality hit me earlier rather than later. But everyday gets better. And once I have a job again I'll feel a lot more productive and useful. So far I've had 2 interviews and one lined up for this week! Cross thumbs for me :)

They had this entire fish with an orange in its mouth at Whole Foods. Tristin obviously thought it was really cool. YUCK!

So that's about it. We'll see in a few weeks exactly where we are and how life is for us. Wish us luck, pray for us and know that we love and miss you all.

Bread attempt #3

Goodbye Class - We will miss you and your hyperactivity on Sundays

(I could NOT get them to all smile at the same time, and look at Tristin-haha)

Who knew leaving a Sunday school class would be so hard? No me, but then again I didn't realize just how much I loved these crazy kids! On Saturday Tristin and I held a goodbye party (it was Zach's -blond kid on the left- idea) for our CTR class. I was only planning on it being an hour long because what crazy kid would really want to hang out at their Sunday school teachers house? Well our little party turned out to be a really long 3-hour party. We are apparently quite the party animals :)

We played ladder golf outside at first then we played Rock Band and Nintendo Wii. We finally finished our party off with a game of soccer. It was a really fun party full of crazy, hyperactive kids that feed off each others energy, lots of jokes, and just flat out fun! I'm seriously going to miss them, especially when Sundays come along!! I'll miss the "did you bring us treats" questions, the moans and groans when I quiz them on their Church history dates and time lines (that's right, I quiz my kids AT CHURCH! How intense am I? Their seminary teachers are going to LOVE them), and them correcting me every time I misspell a word or write a date wrong on the chalkboard. They truly are a bunch of REALLY smart kids! Probably the coolest kids in the whole ward!

I miss them already...

Tristin ended up winning the tug of war with Luke and Nathan against him, but his hands paid the price for it)

A word on choices

Today's topic is choices--one of my absolute most favorite things in the world. Choices are at the root of human existence; without them we would live life as a dream and no one would ever know or care that we existed. Our choices define us. Choices are the source and the fruits of variety, which we all know is the spice of life.

Unfortunately, it is exactly this weight attached to choices that creates such a love-hate relationship between us and the decisions we get to make every day. The wrong choice could prove disastrous and destroy something precious to us. Many times we avoid making decisions because we are afraid of making the wrong choice. If we put off the decision we can avoid the consequences for a while. Someone else might even make the decision for us.


What we often fail to realize, though, is that this kind of fearful attitude is exactly what leads to the bad outcomes we are hoping to avoid. To take it a step further, I believe that worrying about outcomes at all is what leads to bad outcomes. By focusing on what could happen rather than what is currently happening we fail to pay attention to the signs around us that could lead to correct choices.

When making a decision, it is easy to play the "What if..." game and worry about all the possible results of each decision. But the very nature of possibilities is that they are never 100% and therefore always unpredictable. We cannot know them, therefore we cannot control them. We cannot control them, therefore we must not waste time brooding over them.

What, then, should we do when making a decision? I don't have a simple answer to this question. At the least I suggest looking at the clues you have available to yourself. What do your feelings tell you? Does choice 1 make you feel joy? Does choice 2 make you feel guilty?

If you don't like the idea of trusting feelings (especially if you are one that always feels fear regardless ofvthe options), then there is still intuition, the higher self, the Holy Ghost, the divine, etc. Whatever you want to call it, it is there and it is extremely wise. You might argue that it is the same thing as feelings, but anyone familiar with it knows that there is a difference. It is usually a matter of looking for it and then exercising it for people to recognize it.

To be honest, almost all of the choices we get to make everyday do not have a wrong and right option and are not that consequential. The most important thing we can do with these choices is to commit to an option and stand by it. The biggest mistake we can make when choosing is allowing the decision to become more important than it really is.

Make a decision and move on--even if the result is not what you were hoping for. Remember, happiness doesn't come from getting the results you wanted. It comes from being at peace with your choices. Many people that fail at one endeavour after another in life still consider themselves lucky and happy because they enjoyed what they were doing and didn't stress the results.

That being said, don't think I'm telling you that you can do any dumb thing and that is okay as long as you decided it was. There are obvious rights and wrongs that will have obvious consequences (a topic all by itself). But when the answer isn't obvious, you can bet that going with your feelings and intuition will always result in peace and happiness. Doubting and worrying about results will always result in misery. So go out into life and remember that joy is in the journey, not the destination (paraphrased from Greg Anderson, not to be confused with this guy or this guy).

EDIT: I wrote most of this post last night and finished it up today. Then I read a fantastic post written by Jason Mraz, one of my personal heroes. It is a great perspective from a fantastically successful and optimistic person that is nonetheless human on the inside, and I feel like it meshes with what I'm trying to say. Read it here.

Natural Medicine Talk

Hey all!

I'm really enjoying getting emails from you about health related topics. Thank you for sending them. I recently came across a website called Natural Medicine Talk which talks about just that...Natural Medicine (I will also post all this info on my Health blog as well).

Basically, Natural Medicine talk is a website where people who are all interested in alternative health and natural healing remedies can share and receive information regarding to a large array of topics. For example, someone asked about good supplements for ear, nose and throat infections. (Tristin has a problem with this). Instead of taking prescription drugs given to you by your local doctor that most likely has side effects, these people suggested many alternative ideas to treat this problem. (I would personally suggest drinking -or gargling- 3 drops of Tea Tree essential oil in a glass of water)

I love this sight because there are TONS of topics that people are talking about. The information shared is purely given to help inform you and be informed. Topics such as organic foods, help for epilepsy, nutrition supplements, candida, and so on, are being talked about. I obviously haven't read all the topics available on the sight but the ones I have read, I like and agree with. Hopefully this sight will help inform you on any health related questions you may have or answers you may want to share with people on there.

Happy Healing, Everyone!

Bottled Water

I received this slide show in an email and thought that maybe others would appreciate looking at this too. It's SO interesting!