Eating Lately

So Brent and I were made aware of a Candida cleanse by Brent's sister Andrea. The gist of the cleanse is to only eat veggies and healthy proteins. We've been going strong at it for over two weeks now. It takes A LOT more planning and creativity. Aside from the roaring headaches of sugar cravings and donut daydreams, I have been feeling amazing. I think everyone should try this at least one time in their life. My face is completely clear and healthy! My body feels so clean and light all the time. It has also shown me that I could possibly be slightly gluten intolerant. So for all of you who are fascinated with what we've been eating, here are some killer recipes. Some of them are the best dishes I have ever had.

(we actually used some of my mother's pesto instead of sause and used this amazing spice mix from Costco (Sweet ginger garlic) on the chicken. Amazing)

http://sprouts.com/recipes/zucchini-pasta

This was my Mother's Day breakfast surprise

http://www.thecandidadiet.com/avocado-omelet/

And here is Brent's Favorite:

http://www.thecandidadiet.com/coconut-chicken-with-spinach/

And my favorite, sorry I don't have a picture:

Cabbage Soup

• one head green cabbage, sliced into strips
• one onion, chopped
• 1 lb of hamburger (browned)
• 2 cans diced/stewed tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• About 1 can of water
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• italian spices to taste (pepper, garlic, oregano, sage)

Here are the really complicated directions:

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker on low 

Mostly I loved that one because it was so easy and yummy. With healthy food, you don't usually get both EASY and YUMMY. Just saying. It's usually time consuming and yummy. 

On another note, I just got back from a girls night with my Mom and a friend. Gail Carson Levine  spoke at our library. Her books Ella Enchanted and Fairest were my FAVORITE books ever. Turns our she's under 5 feet. I don't know why I am so stuck on that fact, but it just was really funny to me. 

Hearing her speak and looking back on the books that shaped my childhood, I am just so grateful for amazing authors. Books taught me so much and opened a whole new world for me. To this day I think 'Books' is in my top three of things I will passionately talk about for hours. Especially in my Major of Elementary Education, I have learned so much about the importance of reading for kids. To me, reading for kids is like healthy food for kids. It's a must have/do. 

Anyways, life is good here! Brent and I both work all day so not much else happens. More updates on the garden soon! 

Growing Our Family

Haha. This is not a post stating that I'm pregnant. Thought I'd straighten that out first thing. However, as I've been reading other blogs, I realize what Brent and I are lacking. Adorable, hilarious children to write about. So I've decided our garden is our babies. And I will post many pictures of them and the adorable things that they do (aka...grow...). Lately, it's sprung up like crazy!

Here's the lettuce. We've already snuck a couple tastes, and it's super yummy!

Carrots. I'm just happy that they're visible. Before, you'd have to take out a magnifying glass to see them. 

Our kale!! It surprisingly tastes like broccoli...

Our Peas and Radishes. They're growing like crazy! The radishes are done, so we take a few every day. Brent's super into eating the greens of the radishes. 

PEAS! A headshot. 

This was our garden a week ago. Since then we've added a few tomato plants and a fence for the peas to grow up on. I'll have to go take some pictures of that for you guys. 

This is Brent and I's second week of full-time work. We're both exhausted by the end of the day. It's all going good though, and we're so grateful to have jobs! We also just found out we got our academic scholarships. SO happy about that. Life is pretty slow right now. Work, come home, sleep. I've been trying to do some exciting things. I'm going through books like crazy. We have some more exciting news later on that I'll need to post on. So stay tuned. 

Exploring Zion

So for those of you who have forgotten what being in school is like, let me remind you. From fall to winter it's class, class, work, class again, eat, class, work some more. All day sitting on your butt. Every day. So as soon as this semester was up we went for a long trip of adventure. With no sitting on butt action in there. We decided to head down to Zions National Park. We stayed at the cutest campsite in the world...and i'm a failure because I didn't take any pictures. 

Brent was super excited about doing a big big hike so we planned one for Thursday. It was a whopping 14 miler. It was to Kolob Arch. So we sang "if you could hie to Kolob" song a lot. ("There is no end to this trail... there IS NO END to this trail....")

Here's how the journey went.

Brent's note: Jessica has the tradish of taking a before-the-hike photo. So that's what we have here :)

Here's the stunning view of what we're about to go into(ish)

Our trail was red (after several hours of walking, I concluded it was red because of the blood of poor innocent wives who were dragged along to do this hike) But it really was very secluded and beautiful. 

My Honey looking all sexy in the wilderness!!! (another of Brent's notes. I'm going to have to have him sit by me all the time while writing. Boosts my self-esteem)

We followed this amazing stream all the way along the hike. We found it very fascinating that it was green. It looked really pretty against the red rock though. 

Here's Brent doing what he does best: exploring.

And jumping places. And giving his wife a heart attack. That's a lot further jump than it may appear from this view, the river must've been 15 feet wide at this particular canal. (Brent again, boosting his pride)

See?? I'm loving this red rock.

We had some hikers take this. In the background you'll notice an awesome mountain. We named it Orange Mountain. (note, all mountains we saw were given this name. We are very creative)

Talking about names, we saw a BILLION lizards. They were all different sizes and pretty cute. I started going through the alphabet and naming them (to keep my mind off the pain, haha)

My Honey lookin all sexy again :)

(Orange Mountain the third)

The trail that never ends

And drumroll please....here's the arch!!

I guess it's one of the largest in the world. The forth largest to be exact

The stream was so pretty up there! 

Brent being silly.

This guy below gave us QUITE the heart attack. He was lying right across the trail. He was over three-feet long! EK! I have no idea if he was poisonous, but it was pretty scary all the same. 

We finished the hike in about 9 hours. I had several blisters and was exhausted while Brent seemed barely winded. It was a beautiful hike however, so i'd say it was worth it. 

The next day I was too tired (and burnt) to do any more hikes so we chilled in St. George. That night my family came down and we had a great dinner! The next day we went to hike Angel's Landing. So, looking at the picture below, we climbed to the top of this:

Here's the beginning of the hike pose with Taylor. 

The last part of the hike is all really high up and has sheer drops on either side of you. So you see the chains in the picture to hold onto. 

Here we are (almost at the top)

(would not want to fall off at this point...)

View from the tippi-top!!

It felt SO good to go Froberging around and to celebrate school getting out. We had a great weekend!