Winter 2011 Video is up

Sometimes I get tired of filming every outing and trip we go on. By the time it's all edited down to the next season's video I'm so glad that we do. I already look back on the previous videos and am thankful that we'll have these to cherish for years to come. We were fortunate enough to spend time with family and good friends this winter, both on the islands and back in Missouri. We're always so tempted to be looking ahead at what will come next; these videos help us to stay present in these moments, here and now.

Enjoy

Where we've been

It's been a long while since my last post, I want this blog to be about things of significance to our lives. It's not that we've been lacking in substance lately, I guess I just haven't known what to say or how to say it. I apologize in advance for the lack of interesting photos and island adventure stories this time..

John and I have experienced a lot of change in the last few months: some of our closest friends left the island unexpectedly, we got to spend New Years with family and dear friends on the farm in Salem, and just tonight we've made the decision to drastically change our diet.

I haven't really mentioned it on the blog, mostly because I didn't want this to become an outlet for my complaints. The truth is- since August my health has been progressively declining. I've seen a myriad of doctors for my symptoms and after a lot of blood tests and vitamins I'm only continuing to feel worse. Last week I saw a new doctor- A natropath who offered some insight. He took what I hope will be the last blood test for a very long time. The blood was sent to a lab in Florida that will be examined against 115 different foods. The results of the test will show what my body specifically finds to be toxic. Through the course of a several month elimination diet of those 'toxic' foods, I'll begin a new diet- specific to foods that my body doesn't react negatively to. This means we will be cooking all of our meals from home and many of them from fresh ingredients. Although it will be very time consuming, we are looking forward to taking control of our health- to be more intentional about what we eat and where it comes from. The results from the test will take about a month to process, so in the meantime we have decided to start eating a paleo diet (not exclusively for John.) The paleo diet, sometimes referred to as the caveman diet is basically meat, fruits, and vegetables. We'll be cutting dairy, gluten, soy, and unnatural sugars. For the most part I'm excited for learning new recipes and finding some relief from the pain and exhaustion (hopefully) but I'm also pretty bummed that I won't be having sushi for quite a while.

I don't want to get too text heavy with this post, so I'll leave it at that for now. I hope to be posting more soon, but I don't want to set all of these guidelines that I feel obligated to fulfill. I'll post when we've got things worth sharing. We look forward to whatever 2012 may bring.

-Rach

Turkey Time

If you weren't following the blog this time last year you missed the sad post about my Thanksgiving feast failure. Don't worry, you can read all about it here. 

Good news is- this year Thanksgiving went off without a hitch, and without tears! Tami and Eric joined us for an orphan thanksgiving. We spent the day baking and cooking, playing cards and wii. It was the perfect mix of relaxing and keeping busy- so we didn't dwell on missing Thanksgiving with our families. We successfully roasted a turkey and made the stuffing from scratch. It felt really good to be able to pull off a legit dinner together, made us feel like real adults.

We even snuck Pax in so he could enjoy the day with all of us.

 (Our building is strictly against pets)

The recipes for the things John and I made are all from my festivities Pinterest board.

I definitely recommend the stuffing recipe. It knocked the socks off of Stove-Top.

381 Days

Oops! We kind of let a little thing like our 1-year Island Anniversary slip by without mentioning it. Halloween marked our official 1-year on Oahu. It's really amazing how fast the time has gone. I accredit that to the lack of seasons. The months seem to pass without notice because new months don't bring a lot of change around here. We sort of have a winter but even then the only difference is that we get more rain. 

(which we love!)

So much has happened for John and I these last 12 months-

• John had his first exposure to the Pacific- he wasn't too excited about the ocean when we first found out we were moving here. When we arrived he fell in love, almost drowned, learned to respect and fear the ocean, and even caught a wave or twenty on the body board.

• We've experienced many beautiful sunsets this year and one amazing sunrise from the top of the mountain range.

• We learned that no matter where we are, as long as we're together things will be alright.

• Moving 1/4 way around the world sounds really appealing and adventurous (and believe me it is) but it can also be lonely at times.

• We learned to rely solely on each other. Sharing a car and not knowing more than a handful of other people here has made us more considerate and patient with each other.

• I learned to knit. Obviously very appropriate for life in a tropical climate :)

 We feel really blessed to have this opportunity, to both be pursuing careers that we love in a place that not everyone gets to visit in their life, much less live.

 

Way-finding

[Via]

 This image inspires me to continually search for creative approaches to even the mundane parts of design, like way-finding.