Happy Birthday!!

:)

New Year's getaway

Brad had a couple days off last week, so we took a brief but very relaxing trip to the family beach house in Oceanside. A few highlights:

Cozy fire

Old, bad TV

Stormy at the top

Sunny by the time we got down to the beach

The bats came to visit

Weekend adventures

We had a couple fun adventures this weekend!

Saturday, we met up with Christine for some Mexican food (hope she liked Davidson's!) and shopping. Armed with expiring coupons, she picked out two wool coats at Macy's and new pink running shoes at Dick's. We both found some great clearance deals at JCPenney, and Brad had fun following us around the mall and carrying our shopping bags :)
Sunday, the McKees joined Ma, Pa, Kari, Vicki, Kayla and Jessie for our first geocaching excursion. I've learned that it's all very secret, so I won't tell you where we went. But we found six caches, and each family planted a travel bug. SpongeBug SquarePants is racing the other family members' TBs to get near EuroDisney in Paris, France. :)

New foods

I've always liked Cream of Wheat so I thought I'd give gluten-free Cream of Rice a try. Honestly, I couldn't really tell much difference. I guess the texture was a little creamier, but it was good. A keeper!

We went out to dinner at Flying Pie Pizzeria in Lake Oswego because I'd heard about a gluten-free pizza crust. Basically, you choose whatever pizza you want off and add $3.25 for the GF crust (12-inch only). I got the vegetarian. The crust was super thin and strangely chewy and crunchy at the same time. But the flavor was right on -- nothing strange about that. I would get this again for sure!

:)

Take the challenge!

Brad, Mom and I did a very rainy (and dark by the time we finished!) hike at Tryon Creek State Park to kick off the New Year. We're excited to renew our fitness challenge for 2009 and wanted to invite you all to join us in our effort to become healthier and stronger!

So here are the quick details:

• Everyone will set his/her own goal for weekly exercise (example: minimum three 30-minute cardio sessions)
• Keep track of your progress on the group Google calendar (if you want to "sign up" with us, I'll get you the login info)
• If you meet your weekly goal for the entire month, you get to join in on a reward of some kind -- group reward or you can set your own reward system that works for you
• We encourage each other make our goals and help with accountability

Reward ideas/options include: dinner or snacks, game night, movie night, hiking, snow playing, etc, etc.

Let me know if you're interested in joining our little game. We'll start the official challenge calendar after this weekend (1/5).

-Liz :)

PS - Even if you don't join the McKee Fitness Challenge, get out there and do something on your own - YAY!!

The great experiment

My tummy doesn't like me... and I don't know why. I finally decided to ask medical professionals for help figuring it out, but after seeing several doctors and having a bunch of *really fun* tests, I still don't know why it dislikes me so much.

The latest doctor suggested that I try a gluten-free diet for a month... a large percentage of IBS sufferers (which is apparently what they call people with unhappy tummies even if the doctors don't know what's wrong) get relief from cutting gluten (wheat, rye and barley) from their diets. So today began the great one-month experiment. My morning started with this:
Tasted like Captain Crunch. Lunch was Toby's Tofu Pate on rice/nut crackers. Dinner was a fish taco on a corn tortilla. I don't like corn tortillas at all. I'm hoping I can learn to love them. We'll see.

I'll be trying lots of new products and recipes over the next month. At least it's an adventure :)
-Liz

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Can you believe that it's already 2009?! Let's make it a good one!
"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13