Cookies

Yet again, my husband is my most favorite person in the world.  Tomorrow Andrew and I are going on vacation with my family.  A tradition I started a couple of years ago was to bring my famous ice cream scoop chocolate chip cookies on vacation for everyone.  Well, since this year I am gluten-free, I made myself a half batch of cookies without gluten and made my family a batch and a half of gluten filled cookies.  Unfortunately, my mom's kitchen-aid stand mixer was once my grandmas and therefore an antique.  It tends to be a little finicky, so we decided not to risk it and just use the hand mixer.  Andrew faithfully steps in to be the muscle on my hand mixer, about halfway though mixing up the batch and a half batter the hand mixer decides it is done and begins smoking.  At this point, Andrew again amazes me again by stepping in with a spoon to finish the job!  We had so much batter in the bowl that we were barely able to keep it all in.  Andrew managed to get it all mixed up quite nicely and the cookies turned out as good as ever.  I think probably a little better due to all the love that was put in them.

Mid-Weeker

Have I mentioned in my blog yet that I have an amazing husband?  Well I absolutely do!!  Our continual delays have made me somewhat stir-crazy.  Having nothing to do except go in for the occasional blood work or doctor visit, I have felt a bit out of sorts.  My amazing husband planned a mid-week get away Tuesday/Wednesday.  While we are going away on vacation next week with my family, it was still a great time to get away and just be the two of us together.  We packed in as much as we could on our two day get away to Atlanta.  First we went to Atlantic Station.  A little shopping center/village.  We ate at an amazing little Asian food place (don't worry I brought my soy sauce substitute: gluten-free). Then went to see Bodies...The Exhibition.  Thankfully we waited a little bit in between eating and going to see this exhibition.  While it was quite interesting, it was also quite disgusting. :)

After learning all about our bodies, we checked into our hotel and headed off to Centennial Park.  Andrew took many photographs while we were here which I am sure will turn out amazing and we'll all want to check out on LightlyFocused when he posts them.  After walking the park, we headed to the Coca-Cola Museum for some refreshment.

Waiting in line for Coca-Cola's 4D movie

Andrew was a little bit afraid of the bright light we were standing in.

After a long day of site-seeing and visiting museums, we headed out to dinner at Imperial Fez, a neat little Moroccan restaurant complete with reclined seating and a belly-dancer.

Day two in Atlanta brought us to Salvador Dali's Exhibition at the High Museum of Art.  He was a great artist, but I am afraid I believe he probably had some problems and needed to see a therapist.  

After visiting Salvador Dali's collection and looking around the rest of the High Museum, we headed off for our favorite restaurant, PF Chang's.  I ordered off the gluten-free menu, while Andrew enjoyed all the gluten in his meal :)

  

PF Chang's never disappoints and we left happy and satisfied.  For dessert, we went to Sally's Bakery where I got some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven and some blueberry muffins to enjoy at home over the next few days.

We had an amazing trip to Atlanta and I am so thankful to my incredible husband who is so thoughtful and loving.

Tea

Well, I am trying to think of something interesting to blog about.  I always look forward to reading my friend, Sandra's blog.  She always has the cutest things on there and her life always sounds like such fun.  I can't wait till I have a home of my own that I can be creative with.  I keep seeing ideas all over the place that I would like to do, but have no home to decorate them with.  Hopefully soon!

In the meantime, I will spend the day enjoying some Green Tea Goji Berry with Agave nectar sweetener and reading a mystery novel on my Nook.  Hope you enjoy your day too!

Blood Work

Well, I got my blood work back finally.  My liver enzymes have come down, but they are not back to normal yet.  The doctor believes that it is a result of Celiacs.  This is actually good, because we don't have to look for anything else.  While I am definitely getting better, we still do not know when we will get to leave.

Busy Days

This week has been quite a busy one.  Wednesday morning, bright and early, I went to have my blood work done at the hospital.  That afternoon I went to lunch with my favorite friend, Sandra, at the Swanson. The food was delicious, but the fellowship was even better.  Thursday, yesterday, Andrew and I went to Jeff Davis Co., GA for him to take some pictures of their new Middle School that my Dad designed.  They have been in school for just a week now and are loving their facility.  The principal walked around the school with us the entire time Andrew was taking pictures and it was written all over his face how much he loved the new building.  Andrew of course took some amazing pictures which I am sure they will love.

The best part about this trip was lunch!  We went to a famous local steakhouse in south Georgia around that area called Benton Lee's.  It was way back down some country roads and right on the river.  Their menu consisted of a plethora of steak options as well as gator nuggets and frog legs.  According to my Dad, when you order your steak, they go in the back to the freezer, take out the meat and cut off your steak and cook it.  But since my Dad has been, the place burned down and they have rebuilt it so he does not know if that is still the way they do things or not.  But regardless, their steak was amazing!  They had by far the biggest steaks I have ever seen:

I got the "kid's meal"

Andrew got the Medium T-Bone

Their plates were not even really plates, but rather metal trays!  It was ridiculous, but delicious!  We enjoyed the leftovers from this meal today for lunch.  Tonight is my nephew, Zeke's, 2nd Birthday party.  My sister, Carrie, came over early this morning and has been here all day setting things up for the swim/BBQ party tonight.  I am so excited, Andrew and I got Zeke a little red tricycle! I'm sure he will have no clue how to use it, but I always loved our tricycle growing up.

In the meantime today I have been anxiously awaiting a call from the Doctor's office about the results from my blood work.  I went in first thing Wednesday morning and figured that for sure by Friday they would have gotten the results and contacted me.  Every time the phone rings my heart skips a beat, and then when I see it's not them it drops.  I kinda feel like that stalker girl that a guy went on a date with...he didn't have that good of a time but she keeps calling him and waiting for him to call.  I mean, I've only called three times, about to be four.  The least they can do is call me back before the weekend, even if it is to tell me that they don't know anything yet.  Ahh!!  I want to know :)

One Week

One week from yesterday I go back in to the "blood bank" as I am now calling it, to have some more blood work tested.  I call it the blood bank because I think they have taken as much of my blood as the blood donations take.  The second time I went in, they took eleven vials of blood!  I believe this will be my fourth time going in to "donate" blood.  Thankfully I did not have to give eleven vials each time!  Wednesday I will only have to give one, maybe two.  They will be checking my liver enzymes.  The first time they tested my liver enzymes, my levels were elevated.  The next time they checked my liver, the levels were elevated even more.  Doctors say that in about 40% of Celiacs, the liver is affected.  Hopefully I am one of those 40% and now that I have been very strictly adhering to my gluten-free diet, my liver levels will be coming back down.  We are praying that my liver levels will be down, and then hopefully we can resume our plans to travel overseas.

In the meantime, Andrew and I have been having lots of fun trying to think of things to do each day.  We have watched the first season of White Collar, which my Mom got quite into.  We also make almost daily runs to Barnes&Noble and/or Starbucks.  Today we visited a Scuba store in town and also Yvonne's Natural Market which had lots of gluten-free products.  There is a language program we downloaded to help us start learning some language while we are in this waiting process.  Unfortunately practicing language makes me sad that we are not there yet.  I never knew you could be home-sick for someplace that you've never even been before.  I am hoping and praying that at the end of next week we will get this next blood work back and my liver will be looking normal and then we will be able to quickly pick back up where we left off and move oversees soon.  Until then:  B&N, Starbucks and Sense and Sensibility.

Changes

I know, I keep on changing the background and layout of my blog.  I like all the old ones, but they are just not feeling right.  I think I really like this new look.  Not quite perfect for me yet, but hopefully there will be no major changes again in the future. :)

As far as what we've been up to lately....not much.  We have to wait three weeks, then I have to go back for more blood work.  We have just kinda been hanging around.  This past weekend we went white water rafting with our small group.  It was so much fun!  We all fell out of the raft and had to fight for our lives at one point, but other than that we did amazing :)

Hope all is going well with my readers.  I'll try to keep you up to date with what is going on with us, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) not a whole lot is going on these days.