A Visit With My Favorite Chiropractor

My shoulders and neck were really tight for several days. Andy would come home from work to find me in pain. In an attempt to alleviate my pain he would give me a massage and we would do acupressure but the relief was only temporary. Knowing we would be heading to Washington in a few days, I decided to tough out the pain and schedule an appointment with my favorite chiropractor whom we call Brother Britt.

Brother Britt has been like a grandfather to me over the years and I have deep love, respect and appreciation for him. Jake and I used to spend many evenings at his home getting adjustments after throwing hips, ribs, and ankles out running and we really got to know him well. Brother Britt is an amazing painter, collector of dinosaur fossils, a WWII veteran, and a temple worker. Did I mention that he also was the one to seal (marry) me and Andy in the temple?

Brother Britt seemed excited to see us when we arrived at his house and we had a good time catching up with each other. This particular visit was the first time I had seen him in 4 1/2 years. It's crazy how time has just flown by.

Brother Britt attacked me with is a heavy duty massager and then proceeded to adjust my back and neck. Getting my neck adjusted in never a fun experience but it is cosmical. Typically a neck adjust me goes something like this:

Brother Britt: ___ is out.
Me: Okay.
Brother Britt: Relax.
(I don't relax).
Brother Britt: Relax. This is going to hurt if you don't relax.
(He then proceeds to smack me lightly with his hand--this usually does the trick).
Me: Uhhh.

Somehow this above mentioned process works and I always feel better.

On this particular visit I learned that my knees were dislocated  (that's a first) and Brother Britt just popped them back in. 

Andy was so fascinated that Brother Britt was able to just put my knees back in place. He asked Brother Britt how he put them back in. Brother Britt told Andy to lay down on the table and proceeded to put Andy's knees back in place too.

Andy was stunned by how different his legs immediately felt. Apparently Andy's knees had been out most of his life and he didn't know it. This also explains why running hurt him so much.

I'm so grateful that we were able to catch up with Brother Britt and that he was able to help us feel better. I can't believe he is still practicing chiropractics at 89 years old!

*Note* Getting your knees put back in hurts worse than getting your neck adjusted.

Eugene Emeralds Baseball

On July 2nd we went with Andy's work to watch the Eugene Emeralds play the Spokane Indians. We all know who I was rooting for, hehe (Spokane). Andy's work provided everyone with tickets, parking passes, hats, and dinner.

We enjoyed visiting with his co-workers, watching the game, and laughing at the mascots. Eugene has two mascots and big green bear and a Sasquatch. During half time the Sasquatch kept interfering with the Indian players who were warming up, it was quite comical. We managed to get a picture of the shenanigans. 

Sadly my team lost, but we had a great evening anyways!

Climbing Mt. Pisgah

On Sunday June 29th we decided to go on a walk after church, we really needed a break from all of the unpacking and cleaning. One of Andy's co-workers had stopped by the day before and suggested we go up to Mt. Pisgah. Andy pulled out our hiking book and said that the mountain only changed 100 feet in elevation, we thought that would make for a great Sunday walk! We grabbed our hydration packs and hopped in the car.

We found the trail head and started our "walk." We quickly learned the book must be wrong because we definitely climbed more than 100 feet in elevation. The trail was a steeper one and there wasn't a lot of shade. We dearly missed our trekking poles on this "walk."

Andy's first time seeing shepherd's beard-- he had a little too much fun with it.

Some nature shots...

 

Water break.

The trail.

We stopped to take a break.

We made it to the top of the mountain and couldn't help but look at the beauty all around us. We could see almost 360 degrees. The view was amazing! We could see some snow covered volcanoes in the distance, my guess is that they were the Three Sisters.

Volcanoes in the background-- they are kind of hard to see.

We did it poses...

When we got back home and pulled out our hiking book we learned that the elevation change was 1000+ feet. Andy read the wrong part of the book. Oops! So much for keeping the Sabbath Day holy, we tried.

Learning To Belly Dance

After a Zumba class one night my friend Sadie said I should try belly dancing sometime-- a seed was planted.

Once we moved to Eugene, I quickly learned that belly dance is kind of a big deal out here. There are lots of belly dancing studios and several different forms of belly dance. Who would have known?

I thought about taking a belly dance class for several weeks and one day decided that I'm in Eugene, I might as well be adventurous and try something new. So, I signed myself up for an 8 week belly dancing course. (Don't judge).

I wasn't really sure what to expect with my first class but thought to myself, "I'm in good shape, this should be fun and easy." Boy was I wrong. Belly dancing is not easy at all! It is actually quite hard. People think that you use your hips when you belly dance--wrong! It's all in the abs and you have to learn to move and control your abdominal muscles in ways that you never have before.

The class had 6-8 students in it and their were only two of us that were new to belly dancing. I was really impressed with our teacher (Molly). She would break things down and work with us one on one to try and perfect the different movements.

Molly said that for being new to belly dance, I was quite good. She asked if I wanted to perform in October at some sort of festival. I was flattered by the compliment and thought about performing but I don't have the time to put in to be ready to perform by then, I have been so busy it's kind of ridiculous. 

I will say that belly dancing is awesome and I have a new found appreciation for people who can belly dance.

Here is a clip of Molly demonstrating part of the dance we learned. The video low quality and she isn't dancing with the giant scarf things (they look like big sails when we perform--they are hanging on the rod in the background of the video.

Picking Strawberries

There is nothing like eating a strawberry fresh off the plant. As a child I recall going to the strawberry patch down the road and picking berries with my family. I can't recall if I particularly enjoyed picking the berries but I sure enjoyed eating them.

One of the great things about being back in the Pacific Northwest is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables-- things grow like crazy here!

I think Andy's face says it all in regards to how awesome fresh berries are.

We decided to go to a you-pick strawberry farm on June 21st. Our timing couldn't have been better it was the last day they were open for the season. They had these cute red bucket and is was $5.00 to fill the bucket. Each bucket weighed just over 7 pounds.

Since it was the last day they were open the berries were a little picked over and we really had to look to find the bigger berries.

I found one!

The variety of berries we picked were shuksan strawberries, they tend to be smaller berries but they are full of flavor.

We managed to fill 3 buckets full of berries. When we got home we weighed them and they weighed about 24 pounds. What do two people do with 24 pounds of fresh strawberries? We made fruit leather and we dehydrated some strawberries, and we froze the rest.

Somehow Andy has managed to eat ALL of the strawberries-- at least he ate healthy snacks. He really liked the frozen berries, I think they were his favorite. I guess next year we need to pick a lot more than 24 pounds of berries.

Dinner With The Chadwicks

Andy's old roomate from college Aaron and his wife Mindy and their two daughters live in the neighboring town. They were kind enough to invite us over for dinner one evening. Mindy made some awesome spaghetti and homemade salad dressing. For me, it was a nice to be out of kitchen.

After dinner we decided to play a game. The boys wanted to play Settler's of Catan and us girls wanted to play Ticket to Ride (this is one of my favorite games). The boys were kind enough to let Mindy and I play our game.

I really enjoyed myself and had a good time getting to know the Chadwicks. I hope we can do something with them again sometime soon.

A Visit From My Family

My family (Mom, Jake, Sadie, and Megan) came to visit on June 14th and 15th. On Saturday we went to the local farmer's market known as Saturday Market. If I were to sum up Saturday Market in one word that word would be interesting.

As we were walking up to the market we came across this car.

 

I think it paints a good picture of what was to come at the market.

There were several food trucks and they all had metal silverware, this really confused me. I later learned that they collect the silverware in tubs and they wash them and reuse them (going green?). They also had recycling bins for the paper plates, napkins, etc.

We each grabbed ourselves some lunch and sat down to eat on some steps. As we were eating our lunch Andy accidentally dropped a piece of chicken on the ground. Almost instantaneously an old, very skinny, bearded man, wearing marching band pants and dress shoes picked Andy's chicken up off the ground and said he would eat it if he weren't vegan and then he threw Andy's chicken in the trash. The man then proceeded to eat some sort of fermented or pickled carrots out of a jar (they looked scary).

A few minutes later and band started playing and the same skinny bearded man started dancing all by himself in front of everyone, it was quite comical.  We all had to hold in our laughs.

As we walked around the market we saw all kinds of art. Some of the art was cool and some it was just strange.

I was kind of disappointed because their wasn't a lot of produce. The produce that was for sale was very expensive. I 'm starting to miss my Provo Farmer's Market.

We saw all kinds of different people at the market and smelled a variety of different things including weed. If you want to be culture shocked, go to the Saturday Market.

Next we hit up some of the local thrift stores. Eugene has a ton of thrift stores. I think by the time we were done thrifting we had each found a treasure of some sort.

We stopped to eat some Mexican food before heading home to work on unpacking.

Jake is ready to enjoy some Mexican.

Our house was such a mess you could hardly walk in the door. I'm so glad everyone was able to help us get things situated a little bit more. I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to position everything in the living room while making it feel open-- I think we managed to achieve the goal.

Somehow we (girls) managed to put enough stuff away (the boys were playing Magic) to make enough space on the floor for everyone to sleep. It was a little crowded, but it was good to be with everyone.

Before everyone left the next day, we managed to take a few pictures together. I think the last time we took pictures together was back in 2008, so it's been awhile. I'm glad we were able to spend time together and make some memories.

Being creatures.

Left to Right: Jake, Sadie, Me, Mom, & Megan.

Jake & Andy.

Me & Andy-- I love this photo!

Left to Right: Jake, Sadie, Me, & Megan.

Yay for sisters!

Love these two!

So grateful for my brothers and sisters, we really are each others' best friends.