10-Day Vacay {Part 1: the drive & poolside}

We are coming off of our much anticipated vacation to Dallas/Fort Worth and Nebraska to see our friends and families in each area. Boy was it a wonderful vacation! 

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I like to post things chronologically, so before we move on to the fun vacation pictures, I have to share my lively trip to the emergency room (ugh) the day we were set to head south. 

It was the Friday before last and long story short, I had pain/difficulty swallowing after using an adhesive pain patch on the back my neck, higher than I usually wear it. After seeing this could be an indicator of an allergic reaction, I assured myself I was fine since I removed the patch, and that I should get better with time. The next morning at work, I felt the same difficulty and just wanted to be assured it was ok, so went to a quick-clinic where I was told that with my symptoms, I needed to go straight to the emergency room. Before I even got to my car, panic mode began as I (with tears already in my eyes, and a pounding heart) called Nick to fill him in on this quick turn of events. He was on his way in a few minutes and met me in my ER room before the doc came in. 

The doc checked my vitals and was pretty quick to determine I didn't have other signs of a classic allergic reaction and he didn't think it was a reaction to the pain patch. He wasn't sure what it was (I hadn't eaten shell fish or other common causes), but told me to take Benedryl (the over the counter kind) every 6 hours and to watch it to be sure it doesn't get worse. That was it. Ugh. Frustrating in the end that the other doc got me all worked up, but I suppose that's what they're trained to do with those symptoms. I was on adrenaline the rest of the afternoon as I returned to work and that night after work, we were on the road for our even more awaited vacation!

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Back to our DE-stressing vacation...

 I took many photos to try to relive our vacation again through these posts:), I'll break up the trip into multiple posts. 

We were up with the sun Saturday morning to drive from Ankeny, Iowa to Arlington, Texas. 

 My weatherman dad;) had prepped me that we could be expecting scattered storms during our drive that day. He was right! 

 This super dark cloud was weird - I could see the beginning of it, the end of it, and the sides of it and it was much darker than the rest of the sky. It was weird, it didn't have any rain under it either. So I took pictures of it.

 A little while after that crazy cloud passed, we encountered the real rain clouds. 

 It rained off and on for a while..

 I love when you can see in the distance where the rain starts/stops.

 The rain clouds broke after a while to give us the pretty scenery we're so used to seeing on this drive. 

This is one of my favorite photos of the trip so far!  It's amazing the things you can see from the passenger seat. You see, I have to take these photos of things Nick couldn't enjoy as much since he was driving!

 Have I ever mentioned how much I love the sky and clouds? I could be entertained taking photos of the sky every day for the rest.of.my.life. 

 OooOoo...

 Ahhhhhh...

 12ish hours after our drive began, we could finally spot downtown Fort Worth! I was excited, I miss that downtown.

 I've also missed this POOL! And my parents and friends of course, but the pool is next up chronologically, so we'll start there. 

My dad takes great care of this beauty.

 This was my view for a few days while I was floating on the pool.... can't complain. A panicky trip to the ER was totally worth these relaxing days at the pool that followed. 

 Boo loves his life. Although he didn't always love his house guests (I'm his sister for cryin'outloud!), he does love my parents and keeps them protected from bad guys like Nick and I ;)

 The pool ranged from 80-82 degrees while we were there on the near-100 degree days. Perfect.

Nick was so kind to help my mom stain her new fence on one of the 100 degree days. Such a trooper - my mom so appreciated his help staining two coats of this pretty red color. It really makes all of the other colors in the backyard pop.

 I enjoyed their hard work from my cool spot in the pool. I did offer my help, but my mom and Nick thought about the potential pain/soreness it would cause in my body and encouraged me to rest (are they the best or what?!).

 Seriously enjoying the relaxation and vitamin d

 Mom and dad (and Nick now) have worked so hard on the backyard and it looks so great.

 We all went out to dinner to celebrate the fence being done along with the "Double A Day"! This name represents both Nick and I's anniversary and my adoption day we celebrated earlier in August.

 We all enjoyed sea food and conversation. Dinner was followed by ice cream (for the other 3:)) at Braums, a south-central ice cream chain. 

More to come from our vacation including the Texas Rangers game!

Today's Pinspiration: 

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 ...So I wasn't at the beach, but I used this mentality at the pool.

In 1) celebration of Iowa State's first win of the season (did you see this video? I love our Cyclones!) and 2) preparation of the big Iowa/Iowa State game this weekend:

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Randomness and Fresh Produce

Last weekend, we got to have dinner with a few of my cousins!  Thankfully we could snatch them away from the Mall of America for a little bit :) It's great getting to see these girls while they're in town! 

We're in the same lineup in this photo, taken on their last trip here in February:

Love my cousins!

 Here's Nick and I after dinner at The Galleria. I cut off his head all the time in photos (if he were just my height, we'd be fine haha)

That's better. 

 We've been buying lots of fresh fruits and veggies lately. It's the easy way out when excluding dairy and gluten :) we're just enjoying the freshness of everything! Grapes, peaches and mangoes have been so good!

We also bought two bundles of organic romaine lettuce and got SO much lettuce out of the two bundles. They were just $1.99/lb and stayed fresh in the fridge all week. The boxed mixes we got before usually had some slimy pieces in it and it went bad fairly quickly. This stuff is the ticket!  

 Yum! Fresh crisp salads all week. 

It's been cooler the past few days - fall like really. It's supposed to heat up again tomorrow which is good, I'm not ready to say goodbye to summer yet! 

In other news, I got my hair cut this weekend. I'm so excited about the salon I went to, I just have to share for anyone else in the Twin Cities. This salon Kasia Organic Salon, in Minneapolis. Just check out the website, http://www.kasiaorganicsalon.com, it's great! I'll actually look forward to going back to that salon to get my hair cut now. 

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Here's today's Pinspiration:

Fibromyalgia Updates

The past few weeks have been busy implementing some new things to help my symptoms. I'll try to write them out to share any ideas that may help others and maybe it'll help track progress too. 

 Of course, I like to share the photos I capture along the way too! It's my favorite. 

New Specialists
I started seeing new fibro specialists and feel like I've finally found a place where they get what I have going on. It seemed like most other doctors I've seen were overwhelmed with my list symptoms, so they chose the one main symptom to work on. I have so many symptoms every day that working on them one at a time just isn't effective and I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. These specialists see so many patients with fibromyalgia that they understand there are lots of symptoms that need to be addressed. On day 1 with them, we went through the list of symptoms and started a plan to work on all of them. I'll touch on a few things I'm trying...

TMJ Physical Therapy

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One of the big things they wanted to do was have me see a TMJ physical therapist they know that is the best in the area for helping with the teeth grinding issues I have. They believe the teeth grinding may be keeping my headaches around so consistently and could be causing other issues. I had my first visit at the TMJ PT this week and am very hopeful! 

A few things she had me do have already helped *knock on wood* and my headache actually lifted more yesterday than it has in a loooonng time (huge praise!). Since I grind my teeth so hard while I sleep, my jaw, cheeks, the sides of my head up through my temples hurt all the time. Eating breakfast is often not comfortable since my chewing muscles "ran a marathon" (her terms:)) overnight. She also has me eating a soft food diet until I get it under control. She pointed out that my muscles are busy busy all night then I talk on the phone all day at work, eat hard foods and basically, my jaw and those muscles really never get a break. I'll be visiting her often to get it under control and have made some good adjustments already.

Heat Pads


I use my heat pad every morning on my neck/shoulders since that's an area I have constant problems with. In addition to that, the fibro specialists have me wearing my heat pad (a microwaveable one) on my way to work, and on my way home. They like to have me do consistent things like this to prevent flare ups. Rather than taking care of it when the problems arise, they like to prevent them from happening, so like me to do it every day to keep my muscles relaxed. Here's the kind I use (Earth Therapeutics), I got it at Kohl's, they also have them at Bed, Bath and Beyond and I'm sure other places. I love them and have a few:)

Pain Relief
At my most recent fibro appointment, they gave me some samples of pain reducing gels that can help with pain. So far so good with the trials. I've only tried the "cool" Sore No More one and I like it! I've used it on my knee, ankle, hip, neck, shoulders, temples, jaw... I think that's it. I think she said it can be bought at health food type stores.

I've also been using pain patches. The ones I've been using are prescription, but I'm surprised I hadn't heard about these before! They apply pain medicine/anesthesia to the area and actually stop the nerves in the area from sending pain signals. I've used them on my shoulders and neck and really noticed improvements wearing them. You wear them for 12 hours and they take it off for 12 hours. They worked really well for me. I also just noticed there are over the counter patches as well- it's in the article cited under the photo below. 

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Gluten Free
I've known for quite a while I may try eating gluten free to see if helps my fibro or IBS. I've read about so many people with fibro that got their pain in control by changing their diet (here is Carly's story that inspired me), specifically excluding gluten. I started eating gluten free (while still not eating dairy... and only soft foods now... haha, this is going to get interesting!) earlier this week. So far so good! I must say my pain levels were down this week and I seriously think eating no gluten is what did it. I'm not getting ahead of myself yet, but am hopeful this will help. 

Sue Ingebretson (author of Fibrowhyalgia) posted on Facebook something that really struck me that she asked a trusted doctor friend of hers, "In the thousands of patients you've seen with fibromyalgia, what percentage of them have a problem w

ith wheat/gluten?" His answer? 100%!!! It doesn't necessarily mean we have celiac disease.

It means it's a problem. Big or little, it's still a problem!"

Here was someone else's response to Sue's post that day, "

 All of my tender trigger points disappeared after going gluten free". I decided I'd be silly to not at least try it. The fibro specialists were also ok with the idea as they have lots of patients find different diets that work for them. So far so good!

Stretches
I also have stretches I should be doing every day to help with my muscles. I did this through the physical therapy programs I've done before, but they recommend doing a little each day to keep from flaring up. In addition to this ear-to-shoulder stretch, I do the ear-to-armpit stretch and a few others. 

Here's her headache remedy. At the acupressure part, I use 2 tennis balls inside of a sock and lay on the floor with them behind my neck at the base of the skull. It feels so good. I've only tried it once so far, but need to keep trying it.


Best Husband Ever
Nick has been having to help me wrap heat pads around my face, wake me up in the mornings to start on my heat pad routine before work, brings me whatever I need when I'm not feeling well, gives me neck/back/shoulder massages each morning to "break up" the stiffness in those areas, and so much more. I couldn't ask for anyone better at helping me through all of these crazy things I have to do each day to tackle this pain. He truly lives this with me and is in this battle with me every day. He helps me  through this physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He's amazing. Thank you babe:) for being the best husband ever.

Here we are a few nights ago after our dinner date for our 3rd anniversary! 

The world was very photogenic yesterday! 

Here's today's Pinspiration:  

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Success! We don't have to wait until our goal is accomplished to have the feeling of success. We can enjoy it on the way there. 

Nordic Fest and Celebrations

Goodness, it's been a busy few weeks! As you may have already noticed, we did a lot of traveling in July. Everyone weekend except for one, was spent on the road traveling to see friends and family for different events going on. I'm enjoying a weekend at home and am trying to catch up on things.

Last weekend, we went to Decorah, IA for Nick's family reunion and fortunately it's the same weekend as Nordic Fest! We had a great time catching up with everyone and enjoying the festivities of the weekend.

The lutefisk eating contest

The contest drew quite the crowd!

Afterwards, they handed out samples for everyone to try...

He likes it! Well he doesn't mind it at least :) I like how you can see me in his left lens and his cousin, Erin and her fiancé Juan in the right lens.

It's not the easiest to see here, but the announcer lady says her family calls it "fish jello". I didn't think it was bad, I just wouldn't be able to eat more than a few bites of it :)

Now, rommegrot is a different story! It's awesome.

I took a small sip of Nick's (I couldn't resist), but the milk, sour cream and butter don't fit into my dairy free (and now gluten free...) diet.

We watched this guy who sang some pretty funny songs and was very entertaining.

The Nordic Dancers were great as usual too!

That night ended with a great fireworks show. If you've never been to Nordic Fest, it's an experience!

Next up: Family Reunion! This is Nick's dad's side of the family.

Nick's extended family is very large by the way. There are many more people not in the photo. We played a water balloon toss game which was a lot of fun!

These photos are thanks to Nick's Aunt Heather

Nick and I successfully made it through many rounds to the final match. We weren't the winners...

I got soaked. It was pretty funny and I'm impressed Heather caught it on camera! It was so much fun.

 Back home to see the pretty clouds welcome us. 

Today's Pinspiration:

In lieu of Nick and I's third anniversary yesterday...

I love you babe! 

And for my adoption day (also yesterday!):

 I'm so thankful for the date that finalized my adoption with my mom and dad and also grew our family even bigger when Nick joined the crew:) Love you, Mom and Dad!