We Made It!!! Well, Almost..

We didn't quite make it a week, but I think 6 days straight of just juicing is pretty darn good! I got home today extremely drained and feeling overwhelmed. Kev wanted a happy wife, so he took me out to a delicious Thai dinner date!

 Great first meal to break our fast! Sad to say the food totally changed my mood, but hey, I guess it's just part of being human.

So final weight loss tally: 4 pounds! Woohoo! My goal wasn't to lose weight, but it is nice to know I'm a few pounds lighter (which will probably all be gained back by Monday haha).

This experience was a tough one, but I'm glad I tried it out. Kev is going to continue juicing at least once a day, but I'm good for a while. I know it's super healthy for me, but I think it will take at least a month before I can get myself to drink veggie juice again! I will never take chewing for granted again!

A Sweet (literally!) Surprise!

Day 3 of juicing was uneventful. I felt slightly more tired, but my hunger was beginning to lessen between juices. When I got home, I was not looking forward to making another grass-tasting juice for dinner. Then, Kev surprised me by saying he was taking me to Jamba Juice for a special treat! It was still a vegetable/fruit juice, but it was a nice change considering they use way more fruit than vegetables. It was a nice midway treat and my taste buds thoroughly enjoyed the sweet/tart flavor of the berries!

Today (Day 4) found me feeling pretty well! I didn't have any hunger pains at all today! I guess I made it through the worst. Only 3 days left!!! Already planning my first solid meal!

Day #2 of Juice Fast!

So today found me surprisingly energetic and feeling good! I didn't get the caffeine headache like I thought I would. I felt way less irritable than usual (the things that usually annoy me were easily shrugged off and my road rage was kept in check). The juice even started tasting better, but that's probably because I felt so hungry.

The saddest part about today was that as I poured my dog and cat their dinner, their food actually smelled good to me! I think the fact that it's solid is what tempted me! It made me laugh and I moved on to finish my juice dinner.

So far so good with the juicing! Only 5 days left!

Here are some pics from my meals today if you are interested in the concoctions:

This was my breakfast and snack..

And this was my lunch!

The kale and the ginger are my least favorite flavors, but I'm getting used to it.

Juice fast? Are you crazy?!?!

You may call us crazy and judge all you want, but this is what we decided is best for our bodies and minds.

So I am embarking on this new journey called juice fasting. It is what it sounds like, fasting from all solids and drinking only vegetable/fruit juice and water. For the next 7 days, Kevin and I will be doing this together! He has been juicing on and off for the past month to try and alleviate some of the pain in his knees. He has lost quite a few pounds and feels healthier. He discovered that each pound he loses takes four pounds of pressure off of his knees.

I decided yesterday to fast with him in order to support him and also to help myself. The juice helps your body overall. First, you detox (which I will go into more detail about later), then you feel more energetic and lose some weight. Your skin becomes more clear and radiant, and you just feel better. Inside, the juice is healing all your little cells and helping to fight diseases. Another goal for us through the juice fasting is to take the opportunity to grow closer to God. I know I will be praying A LOT this week as I fight the urge to eat solid food and discover my emotional attachment to food. I never thought I had an attachment to food, but oh how I was wrong! Just the thought of biting into a piece of soft, warm bread is making me salivate right now and I'm not even hungry!

I watched a documentary last night with Kevin called "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead." If you are interested in watching it, it's on Netflix and was a great movie! It's about a man who decided he had enough of being unhealthy and ingesting foods that were slowly killing him. He went to the extreme and fasted for 60 days, but he had a lot of weight he needed to lose and a disease he wanted to cure. Kevin and I are not going to that extreme. 7 days is enough for me!

So day 1: I am feeling tired, weak, a bit fuzzy, my brain is foggy, and I have moments where I get sweaty and nauseous. I mostly feel like punching something. This is the detox phase. My body is adjusting to this change in diet and the lack of unhealthy foods I was eating. The juice is healing me from the inside out.

Tomorrow I am sure I will start feeling my caffeine withdrawals. For those of you who know me well, you know that I am a coffee lover!!! But I've quit coffee once before not too long ago, so I know I can make it through again this time! The worst side effect are the headaches, but that should only last one day for me.

I will continue to update whoever reads this throughout the week to share how I am feeling and if it gets any easier, which it should.

Bon Apetit!!!

Dedication to Our Unborn

I was debating whether or not to post something tomorrow since it would have been the due date of our little one. My reserved nature kept telling me not to, so I decided I would. :) I don't want people to think we are private about what happened to us. We do talk about it openly to those who ask and we really just strive to be vulnerable. Since tomorrow will be a really busy day for me, I want to post today. Many of you may not know, but I used to write a lot of poetry. I have poems upon poems hidden in notebooks and journals. It is a great way for me to relieve stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, happiness, joy, and whatever else I may feel at the time. This poem reflects several feelings.. grief, confusion, disappointment, discontentedness, sadness. But it also reflects joy, thankfulness, hope, understanding. It is part of my healing process and I want to share it with anyone who wants to read it. Thank you for all of your support!

I cannot help but think
Of all the things that would have been-

How my stomach would be so round now,
How I would feel you move and kick,
How today I might have finally held you close to me.

I would have breathed in your sweet baby scent,
I would have showed you proudly to all around,
I would have been in awe of your little fingers and toes.

But these things were never meant to be-
God’s plan is sovereignly so.
Yet I will always carry a small ache
Within this mother’s heart.

To wish that you were still here
Is not something I regret,
For I don’t know what else to feel
As I ponder on what could have been.

I am thankful for the short time
You were in our life.
It’s amazing how much God used you
To change me from the inside.

So on this special day,
I give thanks to the Lord.
Only He knows the answers to my questions
And that gives me endless comfort.

Our First "Just the Two of Us" Camp Trip!!!

At the last minute, Kev and I decided to embark on a camping trip! I had this whole week off of work because summer camp was closed and (as many of you know) Kev is already off of work due to his knees. We thought we'd make the best of our unpaid "vacations" and go on an adventure! Kev decided to take us to Boulder Basin Campground in Idyllwild. We had no idea what to expect since neither of us have ever been there, but it turned out to be amazing!!! When we first got there on Tuesday afternoon, the camp was a ghost town. We had first choice to any spot! Here is the campsite we chose:

Our first few hours there, we set up our camp, walked around a bit, and then cooked up some burgers and beans for dinner! By about 6 o'clock the temperature began dropping and it became cold quick! Kev made a great fire and we just enjoyed each others' company and talked. Our first night was a little scary because the camp was so empty and it was pretty breezy (making the tent flap around quite a bit), but we slept okay.

Wednesday morning woke us up to a warm, gorgeous day with bright blue skies! I cooked pancakes, eggs, and bacon while Kev made the much-needed coffee. Everything tasted delicious and fueled us  for the great day! After reading our books for a little while, Kev and I went exploring near our camp. We found a great overlook where we could see all of the valley below as well as three of the four saints (San Tiago Peak, Mt. San Antonio, and Mt. San Gorgonio). I am quickly learning my mountains thanks to Kevin's patient reminders! Here are some pics from the overlook:

After returning to camp, we waited for our good friends the Baney's to arrive! We were so excited that they were able to visit us for a few hours at our lonely campsite! We talked, ate lunch, and watched their three adventurous boys explore. After Sam, Faith, the boys, and their dog Buttercup drove off back down the mountain, Kev and I decided to visit a nearby lake and head into town.  Lake Fulmer was beautiful and the town was your typical small mountain town with confusing narrow streets and five parking spots in front of the general store. Here is a shot of Lake Fulmer:

Back at camp, we played a few games of Ticket to Ride then made dinner. Dinner consisted of burgers with grilled cucumber, carrots, and mushroom. This was our favorite dinner of the two nights. So good! After dinner, we played some card games (where I kicked Kev's butt at Speed several times!) and then we talked at the campfire again until bedtime. Funny story.. while sitting at the campfire and following a long pause in our conversation, Kev says, "Aw we've run out of things to talk about. What do we talk about now? I feel like we have talked about everything already." I just laughed and said we are already an old married couple. I don't know why the silence bothered him so much, but it was cute. That night we slept much better! We had neighbors on both sides at that point, so my city girl complex was a little more satisfied.

Thursday morning we woke up earlier so that we had time for breakfast and packing up before noon. For breakfast I made pancakes and eggs, but no bacon. I didn't want to deal with the splattering oil all over my clothes again. Then we packed up and left our quaint little campsite behind. I think Chai was the only happy one to be leaving. She doesn't handle the cold nights very well at all! She spent Wednesday night curled up by my stomach half the night and the other half curled up over my head! She was so tired by the time we left that she spent the car ride home sleeping instead of sticking her head out the window like she normally loves to do. On the way home, we stopped at a park where we could see Tahquitz:

We arrived home covered in layers of grime and dirt, but with great memories!

Here are some more pictures from our trip:

 These rocks were right by our camp! So breathtaking!

Our last picture on the road home! Mt. San Gorgonio behind us! Can't wait for our next trip!

The Last 3 Months...

This post is designated fully to what we have been going through for the past three months (from January 3rd to now). I wanted to post something for those who may not know what has been going on or for those who only have a vague idea and are curious.

My go-to verse for this stage in our life is Matthew 6:34 - "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." And boy did I have to repeat and repeat this verse to myself!!!

So on January 3rd, I went in to the doctor for my 12 week OB/GYN checkup. Kevin was away in Julian, San Diego with a friend camping, so I was going to this one alone. I had no clue or inclination what was coming, so it was a total shock to me (as I'm sure it is to so many other women) when the doctor told me he couldn't find the heartbeat and that our baby had not made it. Before the doctor had looked for the heartbeat, he did a normal physical exam and confirmed a lump I had been feeling in my breast. You should also know that I carry a breast cancer gene called BRCA1 that runs in my mom's side of the family. This gene gives me an 80% chance of breast cancer and a 44% chance of ovarian cancer. Therefore, I (nor the doctors) took this small lump lightly. So along with losing our baby, I faced some uncertainties with my health as well. For those of you who know me well, you know I am a "go with the flow" type of person and that I try to take things one thing at a time. This was not one of those days! I felt completely overwhelmed and so confused about why this was all happening. You never expect for something this tragic to happen to you.

Over the next few weeks, Kevin and I learned so much about each other and about God. We were able to trust in Him like we never had before, we were able to grow in our relationships with Him in ways we would never have been able to without this happening. Ultimately, we don't know God's plans, as much as we would like to. It was all in His plan for His glory, and I am so thankful for this experience, as hard as it was and still is. It's crazy to watch how much our miscarriage changed us and our perspectives on life. We both have always loved and adored kids, but I feel like we have found a new level of that. Our desire to be parents has grown tremendously and I know we will appreciate the next pregnancy so much more.

After I had fully healed physically from the miscarriage (which I have come to find out is not easy by any means!), my breast doctor began to schedule me for ultrasounds, biopsies, an MRI (which is a whole other story! Such a traumatic experience for me!), and finally the lumpectomy surgery, which was last Wednesday. All the waiting and guessing was not easy for me. I struggled to remain content knowing that we could be trying to get pregnant again, but weren't because we had to wait for all of the lump stuff to clear. Having the lumpectomy done was definitely a breath of relief for us! The Friday of the same week, my doctor called me to inform me that the lump was cancer-free! Just a mass of tissue that for some reason had developed at the worst possible time! So now we are home-free! This month is an exciting time for us as we can finally move on and continue trying to start our family!

This baby that was only with us for 12 weeks radically changed our lives, and he/she will always be in our hearts and memories. This baby will always be our first child. From talking and hearing stories from other women who have gone through similar experiences, I found out that it is a common part of the healing process to choose a special symbol that represents the baby. A few weeks after the miscarriage, I was out on my first run post-preggo thinking about everything, when I passed a field by our house that caught my eye. As I slowed to a stop, I saw a single, wild sunflower growing tall in this otherwise normal field. That's when it clicked. Sunflowers have always been one of my favorites and it was just perfect how this one sunflower was growing in this field that I pass every day. Thus, our baby's symbol!

Thank you to all of our family and friends that stood beside us during this tough time and who cared and loved us so deeply. I don't know how people get through things like this without God or a circle of loved ones. We cannot express how much your emails, texts, calls, and conversations meant to us!

Santa Rosa Plateau

Friday night while Kevin was at work I received a text from him saying that he wanted us to go to Santa Rosa Plateau the next morning when he got off work. Since we never really get the chance do anything spontaneous and fun, I quickly agreed.

 He has always talked about this particular wildlife preserve, but I had actually never gone with him yet. Santa Rosa Plateau is what it sounds like, it's a semi-flat preserve with rolling hills, prairie type grass, and spots of large oak trees here and there. We picked a great time of year to go because spring is fast approaching and there were tons of wildflowers blooming and wildlife thriving. One neat feature of Santa Rosa is the vernal pools. These pools are very shallow waterbeds that span several hundred yards across the bunch-grass. When they are full of water, there are small boardwalks that are open for hikers to walk across. Unfortunately, the vernal pools were dried up during our trip thanks to the heat wave we had this past week. However, there were so many other new and wonderful things to enjoy, that we didn't miss the pools much. We even walked to this old farm where an adobe still stands from 1855. It was open thanks to a ranger patrolling the area, so we were allowed to go inside and peek around. Another very interesting aspect of this hike that I had never known about woodpeckers before is seen in this picture:

So the woodpeckers make tons of tiny holes in the oak trees, find dozens of acorns, stick the acorns into the holes, and come back later to find the acorn. The most interesting part to this survival tactic is that they not only get the acorn, but also the beetle who had begun to eat the acorn from inside the tree. Wow! God's creations never cease to amaze me!

Here is one type of wildflower we saw:

Here is a good picture of the old oak trees:

These are a few larger shots of the specific area we were hiking in:

By the way, all of these pictures were taken by Kevin. He has turned out to be quite the photographer, which I don't think a lot of people know. He has a unique perspective on most of the shots he takes; he sees what other people may not see. Plus, our camera is nothing spectacular. It's a simple 12 megapixel flat digital camera. But he does so much with it! So here are a few of his great shots from our trip that I want to show off:

All in all, this turned out to be a beautiful and enjoyable morning outing for me and my outdoors-loving husband. :)