Halfway There

Today is a glorious day.  I am officially halfway done with school.

half of me is so excited...

and then half of me wants to just throw up, curl up in a ball, and then runaway just thinking about having 15 1/2 months of school still left.

I hate that my school practically "owns" me.  They control my life.  I hate it.  I think they love it, honestly.

I hate them. 

They even control me when I sleep.
I dream about probing, scaling, furcations, periodontal disease...

 For now I'll try to celebrate being halfway done by going out on a date with the hubbers.

Labor Day Camping and Swiss Days 2011

 I can't believe Swiss Days has come and gone...again.  I love Swiss Days.  It is definitely something I look forward to the whole summer. 

 I get to spend lots of quality time with my mom. 

 She does such a great job with her booth.  It's always so cute. And she whipped up the apron I'm wearing the night before.  She is crazy. 

 My cute cousin Emily attracting customers...

 

Ashley came up on saturday and hung out for a bit.  So fun to have her back in Utah. Friday night my mom and I stayed at Todd & Sharolyns.  It was nice to be up in Midway and not have to make the drive both days.  Spending time with the Westra kids is always fun too!

 After Swiss Days my family went camping up at the Harris' property.  Shawn and I were not very excited to go camping, but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun.  I think the fact that we were there only one night made it a lot easier on us.  And we had our own tent with our own aerobed.  (too bad we don't have  picture of us trying to stuff the bed in the tent...classic)

 

It was good to have some family time before Curtis left for BYU hawaii. 

Oh hi

Oh hello blogging buddies,

I'm at the gym...peddling my little paddle legs away.

 I guess you could say I'm repenting for the last few weeks of summer...

I HATE the bike. Waste of my life.

 You should all go visit my aunts new amazingly creative blog. therusticalley.blogspot.com She is going to be having some ridiculous giveaways.

 Good day...
Oh ya. I need patients!!! Please please please let me know if you or someone you know needs their teeth cleaned!

 I have to find 2 patients a week right now and it's kind of stressing me out!

I promise it wont hurt...I won't hurt you!

 If you know of someone please leave me a comment or something!

 Mmk now GOOD DAY

Easy energy bars & 1 year anniversary of craziness

 Remember my post a year ago about changing my life?  Ya know, THIS one?  Well it's been a whole year since we have made the change from the typical american diet to a healthier more plant based one.  We have definitely not perfected it...but we can definitely feel a huge difference in the way we feel.  I can honestly say that we do not have any dairy or animal protein in our house...except for the ice cream in the freezer (see the fine print below)  It's so easy to be healthy at home. It's only hard when we are away!

Everyone asks where we get our protein.  It bugs.  Really?  It just proves to you that we Americans have been brainwashed to think that you can only get protein from meat. There are soooo many other sources to get protein people!

Benefits...Shawn says he can run faster and jump higher and kick the soccer ball harder. The best part is he is being serious. haha.  I love Shawn.  He is so freaking funny.   Now some of that is true and then the other part is all in his head. 

Some real life benefits...less headaches.  I used to get a headache every single day.  Now its more like once a week or when I'm really hungry.  One of the best benefits is we have less aches/pains.  I used to wake up in the middle of the night and have to take 4 ibuprofens in order to be able to fall back asleep from joint pains.  This never ever happens anymore.  I swear.  It's ridiculously awesome.  

In memory of our one year anniversary of a healthy lifestyle change I thought I would go grocery shopping and try to make our own energy  bars.  We have not been eating the healthiest lately and I needed to try something new to make me excited about the whole idea all over again.  They were so easy and taste so yummy!  I looked at a couple of recipes and then just kind of did my own thing. 

What you will need slash what I used.

•  wheat flour
• raw peanuts/cashews or pecans or any other raw nut you would like.
• flax seed
• oats
• pitted dates
• dried bananas and papayas or other dried fruit (next time I will try apples or peaches).
• orange flavored cranberries -optional
• agave nector (natural sweetener)-optional
• honey-optional
• peanut butter-optional
• cinnamon-optional
• vanilla-optional
• water

Pretty much you blend all of the nuts and then add the wheat flour & flax seed.  oh ya...serving sizes...I just did like a handful of everything (: You put that blended mixture into a bowl and then you blend the fruit and the sweeteners. It will blend into a sticky goopy mess, add it to the dry nut mixture and mix it all together. 

 After it is all mixed together work a small sized portion into a rectangle bar shape.  Wrap in plastic wrap and now you have a nice protein packed energy bar!

You really can put in whatever you want.  I just had fun experimenting.  One of the recipes that I saw only used dates, cinnamon, dried fruit and pecans.


One day I will bore you all with a huge long list of all the other amazing benefits of a plant based diet.  For now you will just have to trust me. I never. ever. ever. ever. thought I would stop eating meat...the same goes for Shawn. And when I say stopped eating meat I mean we are on our way to getting there.  I eat one serving of meat about once a month (except for this last Labor Day weekend while we were camping...my poor tummy hurts now).

The disclaimer/fine print:  I still eat ice cream.  Dairy-free ice cream does not do it for me.  Maybe one day (:  Oh and we still eat fish.

Routson Family Pictures

For mothers day this year we decided to get my mom some professional pictures taken of the fam.  The boys were gone the whole summer so we had to wait for them to get back, and then we had to squeeze them into the short window that Curtis is here before he leaves for BYU Hawaii.

PS.  It's kind of weird having my side of the family all busy and grown up/adultish.  With Shawn's family everyone is grown up and busy so we are used to having to plan accordingly.  Scheduling pictures was a pain in the butt.  In the past we just had to schedule around work.  Now we have to plan around if someone is going to be in the state, working, school, golf, soccer etc.  I do not like it.  I hope its a little while before my brothers get married and start getting even busier.

 My cute parents.

Love my mom so much!

 The stool was my mom's idea.  I think it turned out cute (:

 There was a lot of laughing.

and more laughing.  In this picture Shawn is laughing hysterically at something Curtis did. 

Shawn: Where is Curtis?  He needs to make me laugh or I can't smile. 

.pause for 2 seconds. 

in the background a shoe goes flying into the corner and hits a door. 

Shawn laughs so hard.

Spencer:  So you just laugh at anything Curtis says or does?

yah. Pretty much he does.

 

Everyone always picks on me!!!

Chingin'

Last night Paul and Suzy introduced us to an amazing thing called "Chingin".  You go to the airport and find abandoned luggage carts (like the ones shown below) and then you return them to their homes.  When you return them you get a quarter back.  Cha-Ching!  Pretty much it's awesome. 

Our earnings

Paul and Suzy said it was a slow night...we are looking forward to going back during the busy holiday season. The good thing is we had Paul's parents drive us, so we didn't have to pay for parking! haha.  We had a fun night, we always do with Paul & Suz.

Chicago

After Nauvoo we headed to Chicago. It was only a 4-5 hr drive. 

We had a lot of time to argue and play games.

When we got to the hotel Shawn had surprised me with my favorite candy and a big welcome banner.  He is so cute.

The first night Shawn took us to a yummy pizza place called Illuminates. 

The first day Shawn had to work...so the rest of us went exploring.  We were all pretty toured out and didn't really have anything planned.  So we started out at the Navy Pier and then pretty much just walked...and explored...and walked...a lot!

It was freezing!

It rained pretty much the whole day.

Kevin really wanted to see the Millennium Bean...we walked forever trying to find it!

After being in the city all day we went back to Schaumberg where we were all staying at a hotel.  Schaumberg has one of the biggest malls in the country.  So we spent the evening shopping it up.  H&M was where we all spent the most $.  

My family only stayed 2 nights...and really only 1 day in Chicago.  They were pretty tired and needed to get home.  

Shawn and I spent all of Saturday and Sunday in Chicago.  We had so much fun. 

We went to the Willis tower.  We were lucky it was a nicer day.

After the tower we spent the rest of the day walking around and eating yummy food.  

We ended up at the art museum. 

The art museum was amazing.  We just didn't have enough time to see everything.  It was huge.  I think that if we spent a whole week in the museum we wouldn't have seen it all.  

We walked so much on Saturday...the next day I was so sore.  I had no idea you could be sore from walking...and I'm kind of a runner! We had so much fun though.  I think Shawn and I could enjoy living in a big city like Chicago.  Actually...I think we would love it. 

Loved the train stations.  I was amazed by all of the beautiful architecture.  Everything seemed so old and charming.

Sunday we spent the day shopping...and more exploring...and then that night we went with a couple of Shawn's Canon friends to the Second City Comedy Show.  It was awesome!

I was so sad that I had to go home Monday.  I had to be back for school.  I hope we can go back some day.