Juicing Recipes - Ultimate Juice Recipe Resouce

Today is quite the special day. Ten years ago, I married my best friend. And it’s safe to say that I am damn lucky! Mal is truly the greatest partner, and there’s no other wonderful (and kind of weird) person I’d rather spend my life with. We recently got to celebrate this milestone when we were in Oregon last week. We took advantage of our very kind family, who watched Quinn overnight, and took a quick trip to Bend, Oregon to enjoy some just-us time away. Mal booked us quite the fancy overnight accommodations at the Oxford Hotel , which was located right in downtown Bend and walking distance to shops, restaurants, the waterfront, and more. It really was an ideal location! Our room was absolutely gorgeous – and huge! There were so many great details that made our stay even more enjoyable – particularly the in-room French press and freshly ground coffee, which we used, of course, to make iced coffee for the next morning! 🙂 The service was also excellent. When checking in, we w...

Hi, guys! After being away for 10 days (Seattle —> Oregon), the start of this week has been a bit hectic with regard to catching up on work, life, and everything else. I’ve basically been glued to my laptop and running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Blahhhh. So, when Mal came home (he was golfing) with Quinn yesterday afternoon and told me to throw on my bathing suit because we were going to the beach, I was instantly in a better mood! Well, sort of. I resisted a little bit because I still had more work to do, but my boys were persistent, and there’s no way I could turn down quality time with them. Plus, they’re cute and it was 90+ degrees outside, and the last place I wanted to be was sweating in my office! To the beach we went! And, my gosh, I’m glad we did. The three of us really had the best time. Duxbury Beach in the evening is so nice – much less crowded and so beautiful. I’m glad we just packed up and went and didn’t waffle on the idea. How adorabl...

( Top from Old Navy!) My brain thinks in terms of pregnancy weeks, but I realized recently that I have crossed the six month mark! I’m 25 weeks this week (so close to 26!) I haven’t done much to prepare for baby’s arrival since my Nesting post. It’s time to get on that I suppose! Luckily we don’t need to do too much to get ready for a newborn. The nursery needs a lot of updates, but there is no rush on those since he’ll be in our room for a while. But I’d still like to have the nursery ready for downstairs diaper changes and storage of toys and things sooner rather than later. Flashing back to 22 weeks Symptoms I keep a running list of things to mention in these check in posts, and when I sit down to write them I often find myself going to Baby KERF to see what I wrote last time. Nearly every time I laugh out loud at how similar my comments are. In my Halfway post I wrote: “I’m turning ‘pregnant on the sides,’ meaning I can feel my uterus on the sides and I’m feeling m...

So, I know I’ve talked a TON about my journey with Ulcerative Colitis and how it is an autoimmune disorder and inflammatory bowel disease, but I thought I would bring it back to the basics for those of you who may be new readers (welcome!) or who would like to know more about what an autoimmune disorder actually is (or who think IBD is the same thing as IBS – it’s not). I’ve done a ton of research on autoimmunity and IBD since receiving my diagnosis, and I thought it would be great to share some of the information I’ve learned with those of you who might be struggling along the same path or who would just like to know more. What’s an autoimmune disease? It’s actually pretty crazy when you look at the numbers – it’s estimated that 50 million people have an autoimmune disorder and that’s just the U.S. alone. Yikes! But autoimmunity wasn’t always the norm, and there has been a significant increase in the past few decades. Why? There is a lot of speculation, but many experts contri...

I think I love coming home from vacation as much as I love going on one. (Except maybe in the winter when you leave balmy breezes to come home to freezing temps. That is hard to come home to.) But seriously, being away from home makes me appreciate it so much! I just love the feeling of getting organized when I return. When we got home from the beach on Saturday evening the weather in Cville felt like the perfect crisp fall day. I actually got a teeny bit excited for autumn to arrive! We had two days of low humidity and ideal temps, and it made me go crazy to get the house in order. (I tend to get excited for fall cleaning/back to school more than spring cleaning!) Saturday night we were craving fresh salads, and I made this version of a chopped salad with romaine, fresh corn, hard-boiled egg, peppers, goat cheese, walnuts, and homemade croutons via toasted focaccia bread. Mazen spent Sunday with Matt, and I unpacked and cleaned the house from top to bottom all morning. I found a...