7th Place!!

I scared Sean with my excitement this morning!  

I had my first placement in the I ♥ Faces contest!  Stop by and check out all the other winners at this link.

I ♥ Faces Pet Week

Man It's been a while since I have entered in an I ♥ Faces Competition!
This week is a 'Pets Only' week.

Here is my entry. I took this picture one morning as I was on my way up to the ski hill and saw these horses with frost on them from the cold Montana morning. The sun coming up over the mountain behind this horse was just perfect!




Now head over to I ♥ Faces and check out all the other entries.

Merry Christmas to all!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Good Homemade Bread

I have been venturing out recently trying my hand in baking breads. Store bought bread has become kind of expensive recently considering how little bread we actually eat in the week--half of it would go to waste before the two of us could finish it. So 2 weeks ago, I decided to make my own bread. I can use a little bit at a time and freeze the rest.

I tried my friend Lora's Whole Wheat Bread recipe, but had a little trouble with the yeast rising. Since I was out of honey and didn't want to make a run to the store just for honey to start over the liquid portion of the recipe again, I went ahead and mixed the ingredients together getting one heavy loaf of bread instead of the 2 I should have had. It didn't make good for sandwiches as 2 bites would make you feel like you at a brick; we used it for breakfast toast, broiling it with a little butter and brown sugar. YUMMMM!!!

Today, I found a Whole Wheat Beer Bread recipe online
I was searching for a recipe that didn't require yeast--one less thing for me to screw up. We had a bottle of leftover beer from the guys who poured out patio slab a few months ago. I combined all the dry ingredients, stirred in one bottle of beer, and now my home smells of yummy bread cooking in the oven. It smells DELISH! And Sean approved of the little snip of dough he stole before I could get it into the oven.
Yeah for bread!!!

Barefoot is better!

After posting a picture on my facebook account of my new Vibram Five Finger Shoes, I thought I'd give a little more explanation to the "what are those things on your feet?" statements I've been getting.

Over a month ago, Sean was working a city Triathlon as part of his Guard Drill weekend when he noticed a guy wearing these toe shoes while completing the running section of the triathlon. He came home and tried to explain what he saw to me--we immediately got online looking for information. We had no luck--just weren't Googling the correct terms. The next day our friend Nate sent me a link to the Vibram shoes and thus began our journey towards barefoot sports.

Remember when you were a little kid, running all over the place during the summer with no shoes on? I was one of those kids. And the more information I found about the Five Finger shoes, the more I knew these were the right shoe for me.

God made us perfect and in his own image; Man has screwed up the body with the shoes we have created. Now don't get me wrong--I LOVE shoes--but the reality is, out of the 15 or so pairs I own, I only wear 2-3 on a regular basis. Through Sean's and my investigation into barefoot sports, we have run into TONS of evidence that shows the shoes we put on our feet every day actually cause us quite a bit of harm. Our foot was engineered to hold out body in a certain posture, muscles were used for balance, and your gait falls perfectly because of the foot construction. Shoes put your foot in an unnatural position, causing all sorts of aliments--many times leg, knee, hip, and pack pain can all be traced back to your feet.

This barefoot shoe is a revolutionary, back-to-basics design based on the simple principle that being barefoot is the healthiest way for you and your feet to be! It gives you protection without harming God's perfect creation.

(Image copied from Vibram Five Finger web site)

I must say, I've noticed a BIG difference in my feet; once working past the few days of my feet being sore during and after wearing Five Finger Shoes, I have noticed less back pain, straighter posture and less leg pain during and after major physical activities. If you want more information on these shoes check out Vibram's website at www.vibramfivefingers.com

Summer Fun and Garden Goodies!

It's been a busy and quick summer! Can you believe it's August and school starts in 3 weeks?!? Sean and I have been SUPER busy. Between working in the garden, a trip to Idaho, hiking, biking and camping, finally pouring the patio, MANG, and our jobs, we've had little time to just sit around and do nothing. And it doesn't look like our Fall will slow down either--Sean will be taking an EMT class at the C.O.T. and refereeing high school football. I have had a small promotion at work to Assistant Project Manager which means I'm really have my hands in everything but the actual construction of the homes we are building. I am also toying with taking some online management classes. BUSY!
So here is a picture update of all we've done this summer! Enjoy!

Pictures of our trips. Finally!