Vegan

So a little bit ago I was reading a note that I wrote a couple of years ago when we transitioned to eating organic food and grass fed meats and i realized I hadn't yet blogged about now being VEGAN!! Yes, that's right, you read that correctly, we are now vegan and I love it! I made my transition late April 2012. Sam's last non vegan meal was July 20, 2012. He made that decision on his own! I'm so proud. :). This has been far easier than I thought it would be. It was all really about finding substitutions. At first the sub for cheese I did not like but after trying it a few times it grew on me. So now we use Daiya cheese on our home made pizzas. I've found several vegan ice creams that I love. Pizza and ice cream I thought were gonna be the hardest thing ever but nope! Everything else was easy likely because I don't like all the other animal products. Companies are very sneaky though so things like whey and eggs are in everything. About three months in, i bought chips with a hint of like and there was milk in them! WTH?! Good thing for us is that we try and stay away from packaged items and really try only to buy fresh real food. It's all about reading labels. :).

Later we discovered this vegan company called Veggytopia. They are a vegan food deliver company that makes all your food with organic local ingredients and delivers to your doorstep. It is so convenient! I love it because it gives us so much more time after work to relax rather than spending it all in the kitchen prepping meals and cleaning after.

So it's been 8 months for me and I haven't looked back....other than to ask myself "what was I thinking eating all that crap before?!". I never made the connection of a dead animal being on my plate. Now I think about it and think "how or why would anyone want to eat a dead animal?!". It now makes absolutely no sense to me. It sounds barbaric!

Beach June 2012

This is Jake and Mia's first time to the beach (June 2012)!  They both had so much fun and loved it!  Jake learned quickly not to drink the water but Mia...not so much.  Mia has this 'tick' that when she gets excited, she licks everything in sight and drink water galore.  Well she did that with the sea water and it made her sick...several times...but she kept on drinking. lol  She is too cute.  Jake got so sunburned I felt horrible. :(

Jake's burned ears :'(

Paparazzi

LOVE all his cute little faces!

He cracks me up how he sits back there with his "I am king of the world" attitude

My First House-Sam's third :)

It's official, our house is on the market (08/24/12) :'(. It is bitter/sweet. This was my very first house and I qualified on my own to get it. I have grown so attached to it and the neighborhood. Our neighbors are amazing and I don't think I'll find these kind of neighbors anywhere else. Much like when I left region 7 and knew I would never find co-corners like them in region 8. I was right. Hopefully the neighbor situation will be better. I am excited about building but still can't be extra excited as I feel I am being greedy. :/. Here is a link to our MLS.

http://saborw.connectmls.com/listings.jsp?dcid=C7CD38B03997C599E040020A330142DC

Guardian Angel

Someone told me today that I was their guardian angel and it made my day and nearly made me cry. Ms. W called panicked from the doctors office because they would not see her daughter due to her not having a document that states she is legally this child's mother. She said she made many appointments on her day off right before school started and needed to get this done. I asked to speak with the doctors secretary and I fixed the problem with one email. Ms. W calls me back and is so sweet. She thanked me repeatedly and said ****I have been there for her through out the entire case and have always made things happen when everyone else dropped the ball. The case is now over yet here I am still helping her and dropping what I am doing to help her fix the problem. She wishes there were more people in this world like me because if there were, children would be better taken care of. When she becomes financially stable he is going to mail me a a dozen roses because she truly appreciates me.****

Wow! She said to me once during the beginning of the case that she thought I would be like all the other workers; judgmental with many broken promises. Then she said I have a way of doing my work that doesn't make her feel like she is doing something wrong all the time and that I have proved her wrong by actually getting things done with her case. How intoxicating to hear all those great things about yourself! THANK YOU Ms. W!!

Building my second home Sam's fourth

We decided on all the details and choosing the brick color and floor tile was the hardest. Here is a photo of our lot lol. They were supposed to start this past Wednesday 8/22/12 but we haven't seen any changes to the lot yet. :)

Herbs

This past weekend Sam trans-planted some grass and I plated some herbs, two types of tomatoes, and green bell peppers (in a pot). As much as we would live to have a garden, the fur babies would likely run all over it. The garden will have to wait until we have more space to section it off. Either way, it is so much fun to have herbs and veggies that you can watch grow! I also love the convenience of opening the door and picking only what you need :) We planted cilantro, parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, roma tomatoes, regular tomatoes, and green bell peppers. I'm so proud when I see them liven up its as if they're talking to me telling me they are happy. :)

Protected and Connected

April is child abuse awareness month and we had our annual Protected and Connected Festival. It was fun and hot. :).
 

Rebeca and Me

Jake and Mia = Happiness and Love

Jake and Mia are seriously two of the best things that have ever happened to us. I just wanted to post some pictures that make me smile. We ADORE them!!

Mia LOVES doing this.  After she is done eating, she will run inside, dive on her bed, and roll.  She also does this when she gets excited.

So Jake tends to freeze when we put his harness on no matter where he is standing.  We think it's funny but he probably doesn't :)

Ahh, it melts my heart when I find him sleeping like this.  He is just too sweet!!

The three loves of my life

Oh Mia and those eyes....isn't she beautiful?!

What he loves doing best...cuddling!

What she loves doing....chasing after her toy :)

Mama's big baby!

Ahh, heart...melt...

She also loves sticking her head out the window.  In this picture we had just arrived to the Valley to visit the family

"I'm booooorrreedd"

Jake and one of his million faces

"nana boo boo, look what i've got"

Mia loving on her daddy

Oh Jake, always so keen.  In this particular picture, we were watching a documentary about dogs.  It made me cry and Jake woke up from a dead sleep and came and crawled up on my lap.  He instantly made me feel better. :)

Best Friends!

This is what we need to do with Jake when it is wet and rainy out to ease some of his energy.

Mia was spayed :(

Aw our poor little Mia! We decided it would be in her (and Jake's) best interest if we got her spayed so we took the plunge on March 15, 2012. One of the reasons we had not done it sooner was because every where we called they told us she must have the rabies shot before getting spayed and we definitely did not want to do that. We finally found Dr. Williams who did not require it. She had a heart worm test and all get blood levels checked prior to surgery to make sure everything was peachy. She did great but Dr. Williams did tell us that she stops breathing while under anesthesia so that scared her and they had to breathe for her. Not good. They also told us a story if how she woke up out if anesthesia during lunch and stumbled into the room where they were eating like a drunk person. Lol poor Mia! Mia recovered incredibly well! When we brought her home, she was miserable. She stumbling around and she was in so much pain she couldn't even sit down. She started falling asleep standing up so Sam had to lay her down otherwise she would have tipped over. :(. She didn't want to eat or dink anything. This is the first and hopefully the last time Mia ever turns down her raw bloody meat. Finally at about 9pm, I tried again to hand feed her and she took it! We were so happy. :) The next morning Mia was back to her normal self wiggling her butt and wagging her little nub. :). (Yesterday was also the first day in her existence that she didn't wag her tail or give us any kisses) :( We were able to stop giving her the pain meds on day 2 and were able to stick to only homeopathic pain relief till day 5. After day 5 she didn't need that anymore. We started detox with Corydalis on about day 10. She is a trooper and did wonderful. She wanted to go on walks and wrestle with Jake on day 2!! 

Here is Mia the day we brought her home.  She was in so much pain! :(

Here she is on day 2!  So much better!  She is looking at Sam and Jake as they embark on their daily walk.  Poor Mia, she wanted to go but has to stay behind for her own good.  Normally, not walking her would make me very sad but on this day I was so happy she was feeling better!

Here she is again on the day we brought her home.  You can see the discomfort in her face!

Absent

Geez! I have been absent from this for quite a while (not unusual) but lots has happened since the last time I posted! One major thing, we got married!! And, believe it or not, actually had a wedding! It was very small and we planned it in 3 weeks!! You know people always say "it was one of the happiest days of my life" and I always thought it was so cliché but man it was on of the happiest days of my life!! I'll have to blog about the actual night on a different post because I'd like to add pictures. I'm actually blogging from my iPhone. Yes, I finally got the iPhone! Whoop! I love it :). I waited 4 years for this phone. Jaja.