My Heart is Full

So many wonderful things have happened over the last two months. The best being my incredible husband came home last Friday!!!!!! Once he was home, it felt like he never left.
A quick run down of our lives the last 2 months

• End of May to the 17th of June, I did my Ag animal rotation. It was AMAZING!!! I learned so much! My first patient was a day old baby camel! She stayed for a week, I bottle fed her, put a halter on her, ultrasounded her, completed physical exam twice a day, gave injections, did a ton of paper work, and a bunch of research 
• Other cool things I got to do 
• Delivering piglets (I actually got to pull 2 piglets out into the world)
• learned how to amputate toes from cows
• confidently nerve block a cow for dehorning/debudding and complete the dehorning
• gain confidence doing physical exams on multiple species
• spending hours talking with clinicians about anything and everything
• collected and ran fecals (looking for parasites in poop) 
• gave injections to sheep and drew blood
• Placed the 'holding' (the layer of tissue that has to stay together to prevent the incision site from reopening) sutures on cow that we did an exploratory surgery on 
• My good friend, Brooklin, and I started meeting at 5 am almost every morning for a workout! Right now we are doing Insanity and once we finish we are going to do P90x. I love it! 
• I lost over 15 pounds while Randy was away! I was really proud of myself for this one. I have never been able to consistently stick with a healthy lifestyle. I actually like eating veggies every day. I have more energy and just feel good. 
• I went fly fishing for the first time! Mitch got to come. I caught 6 fish- way more then I thought I would. I went with Lorriane, my boss at WADDL. We drove 3 hours to the most beautiful river I have ever seen - the Selway. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I have strengthened my relationship with my Savior and Heavenly Father. My faith in Their love and concern for me grew. I was never left alone while Randy was gone. I have come to know them better. 
• One of my best friends since 5th grade, Christina Erekson, was married in the St. George temple
• The Monday after Randy got home, he left go to to Spokane to help his parents. I have the best husband. He is always willing to help others. Within a few hours of being home, he mowed the lawn, helped do the dishes, and straighten the house. 
  
• I went up to Spokane Tuesday night for the Stratton (Randy's mother's side) reunion. There were about 40ish people there. We came home last night (Saturday)
• Randy and I went out to dinner with some friends- Natalie and Brandon Piper. While we were visiting, Natalie mentioned she was going to start preparing to go to the temple!!!! And she asked me to be her escort!!!!!!!!!! Can you say happiness!!!! They are planning to be sealed soon afterwards. I screamed in the middle of the Applebee's parking lot. 
• Shannon and I sang at the memorial for Grandpa Merle Stratton. At the end we sang was "How Great Thou Art".  About half way through the first verse, everyone joined in with us without any prompting. It was an incredible experience.
• I rode my horse three times! 
• I banded and vaccinated one of the goat kids
• Vaccinated Mitch
• Gave horse rides to kids
• Made lots of 'salads' (an assortment of concoctions based on Cool whip)
• Played in the creek- it was soo hot
• Mitch had so much fun with all the people and running around outside. We wore him out and hasn't moved much since we got home. 
• As for now, I am working as much as possible with the bighorn sheep (including feeding lambs) and at WADDL and Randy is looking for the next job or HOPEFULLY master's program 

Delicious Bran Muffins

I am sitting her anxiously awaiting the arrival of Randy and Stephanie! I figured I better do something with my time so I don't go crazy! So I decided to bake :D

I promise I will not become a a cooking blog (there are so many good ones Desperate Chefwife and Our Best Bites are some of my favorites), but I wanted to share these super easy, but super delicious and healthy bran muffins with you. I'm pretty sure these are going to become a staple in our house... as a fast breakfast or a snack.

Randy's grandfather found this recipe years and years ago on a bran box, made some modifications and sent it to Randy's mother who has gladly shared them with me. So its only fair that I pass on the goodness. 

I wanted to try adding blueberries this time. Wish me luck!

1 cup wheat bran

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 raisins (optional) 

1 tsp. baking powder 

1 tsp soda 

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup honey

2 tbs oil

1 egg beaten

1/2 cup applesauce (add more if you want moister muffins)

Preheat oven to 450

Bake 12-15 minutes 

Makes 12 muffins 

Grandpa likes to add about 3/4 cup applesauce and a banana. I have yet to try this combination, but I bet it would be yummy.

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and put all of the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Combine all together in the large bowl.

Spray the muffin tins with non-stick spray. You can use the muffin paper things, but I usually just spray.

Since I am using frozen blueberries- add them at the very last minute to prevent streaking in the muffins.

Cook for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and WALA- Yummy Yummy Muffins!

Week 1 Report :)

Week 1 will officially ended today! I was able to make my goal of getting all of my points and was even able to loose a few pounds!!!  So far the most difficult thing for me (well actually there are two things) is first - eating 3 serving of veggies. Don't get me wrong- I like veggies! but as it is winter time there is a shortage of cheap quality veggies and I am not a fan of salad every day. However I am learning to like it, and have found that variety is the key. Anyone have any really yummy healthy veggie recipes out there?
The other challenge I have faced is dinner time. At this house the parents like to have the big meal of the day at lunch time. This is healthier but different from what I am used to. I am used to a light lunch and a heavier dinner and now I am having to swap my mentality. Randy and I both have to eat a dinner of some sort. I am trying to keep dinners light and simple. My favorite dinner was wheat crackers with ham and cheese, carrots, cucumbers, and blueberries! YUM!

A Beautiful Life

We have truly been blessed this past week! Since we have been married, I have felt like I am in a state of limbo- never really knowing where our life would take us. After Randy's last job ended at the closing of September, he has been searching for a job. He has had many promising interviews, but so far nothing had come of them. About two weeks ago he started volunteering with the Washington Division of Wildlife and helping them with deer trapping (he has promised me today that he will blog about it and share pictures!!!). The basic purpose of the trapping is to gain basic information on the health of the deer population. He has really enjoyed that and I am happy that he is learning new skills, meeting new people, having something to do that is out of the house, and not always working on applying for jobs.

After the meeting with Dr. Shipley last Monday, neither of us was very hopeful that she would be able to help us. However on Friday she emailed Randy with a JOB OFFER!!!!!!! She currently can only promise him a month of employment, but if more funding comes in the job will be extended. He will be helping a graduate student finish her project on Sage Grouse and Sharp Tail Grouse using radio collar telemetry. On his last job in Colorado, he spent a lot of time studying Sage Grouse and he learned how to follow the signals of that the collars put off. The job site is about 2 hours southwest where we are (which is wonderful- because most of the jobs he was applying to would require us to relocate to a different state). He will be gone during the week, but will be able to come home on weekends. (I have been spoiled having him here with me everyday) :D He is a little disappointed that he can't help with the deer trapping as much, but is hoping to be able to help out with it every now and again. I am so proud of him! I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for His guidance. He has been preparing us for this time and will continue to prepare us for the future.

Tomorrow we are starting our 8 week challenge! I read that we were supposed to weigh ourselves the Sunday before, but I forgot...and I like to do that first thing in the morning (before I can add weight with food :) ) we will be doing that first thing tomorrow morning. I still haven't figured out a reward if I reach my goals (6 weeks with perfect score and/or lose 8 pounds). I would like to do something like a spa treatment, but those can be pricey. I don't really want to do anything with food. There is a rock climbing gym that offers classes that Randy mentioned he would like to do- maybe that will be the winner. Any suggestions?

I realize that this is a rather long post but I wanted to share a few more things... well pictures...

This is a picture of an amazing sunset at our house. The silo and barn you can see are not on the property (the property is behind the camera). I wish the camera could have captured the full magnificence of the evening.

This is my interview apparel. It took me forever to find something that I liked and felt comfortable wearing (all the other suits I tried on I felt like I was playing dress up in my dad's old suits). 

This is a super cute little alpaca! While on our tour of the Large Animal Hospital with Gabi, he decided to come check us out.

Resolutions :)

As always I have made my self a list of resolutions for the new year (along with the rest of the world :) ), but my real goal is to see them through this time.

#1. Improve my spirituality and my relationship with my Heavenly Father - To do this I have made a goal to study my scriptures for 30 minutes everyday. I so far I have not been perfect at this, but the days that I have followed through has lead to new insights and it helps me to remember my Savior more often throughout the day.

#2. Keep my stuff picked up - So I know this seems kind of lame, but I am very good at making a mess ( as Randy teasingly reminds me, particularly when I am cooking) so I have decided to be very very good at cleaning them up. So far the improvement that I have made is to clean up my stuff before I go to bed.

#3 Healthy Lifestyle Change- Lose weight, eat healthy: you know everyone else's new years resolution. I really want to make a permanent change, a true live style change. I have a couple of bad habits I am wanting to kick (like eating too much bread.... those of you who know me know just how much I loooove my bread, too much ice cream, and excess snacking). But not eating unhealthy foods is only part of the battle. I don't want to be starving all the time, so I have started to find healthier snacks instead. A few weeks ago on facebook I asked some friends what their favorite healthy snacks are. Some of the most popular were frozen grapes (I haven't tried those yet, but they sound yummy), peanut butter and celery (because its hard for me to eat more then one piece of celery by itself), and almonds (love these!).

To give me more motivation to achieve my goals I found an 8 Week Challenge from Six Sisters' Stuff. In this challenge you earn points everyday for exercising, eating so many fruits and veggies each day, drinking 64 oz of water, losing weight, and other healthy habits. At the end of the week you tally up your points and you tally again at the end of the 8 weeks. I have a goal to lose 8 pounds and to earn the full number of points 6 weeks out of the 8 total weeks. Tomorrow I will take my starting weight and then begin the challenge officially on Monday.  I am still trying to decide on a reward for myself if I reach my weight lose goal and/or the number of points.