Hello Washington!

Well we made it to Washington last night. I'm cold. And pretty sure I'm getting sick. It's become normal for me to get a cold once I get here.

After 4 years of visiting and staying for long periods of time the girls are finally being nice to the neighbor dogs. We're able to leave the baby gates down and let them enjoy their freedom (my parents yard isn't fenced). They still don't like two dogs that live up the hill, but one of my parents/brothers dog doesn't like them either.

This morning it was a party at my parents house ha

Goodbye San Diego!

On the road to Washington we go! Our packers were there at 9 and done just after 1. I felt helpless and that I should be doing something. They were nice and told me to just watch. I did remember donuts for them, but forgot water!! That I will remember when our HHGs (household goods) are delivered in Japan.

To all our friends we've made in the 3 years we've been here.. We will miss you! We are beyond blessed to have met you and thanks to awesome technology we can still talk often :)

Lots of memories have been made, but I am more than ready to see what kind of exciting things Japan has planned for us.

Before we left we of course had to make one last stop at better buzz. Better buzz you need to take over for Starbucks and dominate! Ha best drinks EVER!

iPhone//instagram dump

Full juicing recap

Since I'm sitting in the children's waiting area at the hobby shop while frank changes the oil and rotates the tires, I figured I could update you all on our juice cleanse.

So the cleanse was suppose to be 1 week. The first few days were easy which was a nice surprise since I had heard they are the worst. I even found that I loved just juicing!
Frank being a man complained none stop about wanting to eat his food. He didn't mind the cleanse, and actually enjoyed how good he felt. He just missed chewing.

By day 4 I couldn't take listening to him complain about that anymore. It was either throw the towel in or find a compromise. We're awesome about compromising so we decided to juice during the day and eat our dinner.

Something that did make juicing hard was the heat! Anytime we were out in the sun for more than a few minutes we'd start feeling sick. It was worse for me it seemed. We'd have to get into an air conditioned building or turn the A/C in the car on high to cool us down right away. Lesson learned, do not do a juice cleanse during the hottest time of the year!

Saturday we woke up at 8:00 sweating even with two fans going in our room. Not common for San Diego. East county yes, but not where we live. Since we were heading up to Anaheim to visit Ricky and Yumi for the day I figured I should check the weather since I knew it would be much hotter in their area. Yup it was suppose to reach 100. I looked at Frank and said there is no way we can juice today! I wanted to enjoy my day with family, not be sick.

So from then till now we juice every morning and during the day if possible. We loved how good we felt and I plan to do another juice cleanse if Frank is gone in the spring time. We will NEVER do another juice cleanse in the summer ; ] something to keep in mind!

6 days

Ellie is ready to be packed up for Japan! 6 days until they come and pack us out. 6 days until we hit the road for Washington. 6 days until Franks birthday :) You can also enjoy the many faces of Frank ha.

I love it when others share their favorite apps. Especially photography apps! I've downloaded a few and am loving them! Hopefully later this week I can get around to sharing them. And our juice recap.

iPhone//instagram dump

Juice cleanse update

Well I had told a few people that I would do an update at the end of our first day juicing. Day 3 and I am finally getting around to it.

On Tuesday Frank and I started on a week long juice cleanse. I'm hoping to continue with it up until we leave. But we'll see how much we end up spending in the first week!

We have been juicing in the mornings.. And really whenever we want a juice (or nights I don't want to cook so I just juice what we have instead) for 6 months now. So we are pretty comfortable with making up super nutritious juices. I won't say tasty because we have many fails ha. After watching 'fat, sick & nearly dead' a few months back Frank was all for doing a juice cleanse. I've been researching them for quite a while, but was really surprised to hear him say he wanted to do one. Being able to afford for us both to do it is what took the longest on figuring out. It is not cheap people!

Since I'm on my phone I can't decide where the picture goes. Just pretend it's above this paragraph.

Juice 1. Breakfast: head of lettuce, kale, cucumber, green apple (pretty much the only kind we use for juicing), kiwi, ginger, lemon, broccoli, carrot, spinach, celery, pear.

Juice 2. Snack: orange, kiwi, strawberry

Juice 3. Lunch: head of lettuce, rainbow swiss chard, cucumber, jicama, lime, ginger, beer (I'm keeping this typo because it's too funny! I obviously meant beet), apple, celery, carrot

Juice 4. Snack: carrot

Juice 5. Dinner: head of lettuce, lemon, spinach, kale, rainbow swiss chard, broccoli, celery, cucumber, pineapple, apple.

(I would like to add that I am drinking a "lemonade" Keri told me about. Half a cucumber peeled, lemon, 2 green apples. So good!!!)

Our first day went great. In fact the whole thing has gone great. The first night I did end up throwing up. That was a surprise to me since I was expecting it to effect me in another way. Keri and I were talking all night trying to figure out if I did something wrong or what. One thing we think went into it was the heat. It was pretty hot in our apartment. Also, when you do any cleanse your body needs to expel the waste. Well my body needed to do it faster than it would process ha. That was the only issue we had (frank had felt a little sick as well). We don't ever feel really hungry, or get headaches. The only thing that has hit us hard is being tired!! Holy cow. I think we've taken a nap every day and still gone to bed at a normal time since starting this. I hear day 4 is when you get your energy back. I sure hope so cause we have a busy 3 days coming up.

So 3 days in and feeling great!! Frank does miss chewing his food, and not going pee every 5 minutes ha.

IPhone//Instagram photos

I really wish my phone would upload photos from it in order!!

Since its summer I figured I should put up a PSA on sun screen and the sun. USE IT PEOPLE :] don't forget to reapply every two hours.

Frank the model!

Like every day during the summer, we came down to the pool with the dogs. I asked frank to take the girls potty before we got all comfy and wet from being in the pool. The dog area is right next to the pool. Anyways, there is a guy going around taking pictures of the complex for the website, updating them. Well they had moved from the pool area out to the pet area while frank was there with the dogs.

They lady in charge asked if he would be in the pictures. He was hesitant at first and kept saying I don't know since he was in just his swim trunks. The lady of course told him he looked great (which he does ;]), and I told him he had nothing to worry about since we're leaving the country soon.

Something fun, the lady in charge of the shoot lived in marysville for 12 years!

I they use any of these pictures on the website I will of course let you all know!! Now that I am sweating and my sunscreen has set in, to the pool I go :)

Date night

A couple weeks ago Frank and I went on a rare date night. To me date nights are extra special so we can't go to the same old Mexican restaurant. We get somewhat dressed up (well Frank does, I have no nice clothes so I look the same) and go somewhere nice... and preferably new to us. This time we went to The Fish Market in downtown. It's mostly a touristy place and I have wanted to take family there in the past but never got around to it. So we figured we'd try it for a date night instead before we left.

The reviews said that the wait can be horrible so we went prepared to wait for a long time. Frank dropped me off at the front while he went searching for cheap parking. I went in put our names on the list and less than 10 minutes later our table was ready! We even got lucky and got a window seat.

I ended up waiting at least 15 minutes for Frank to park the car. He had heard about parking at this little navy base that they have in downtown that holds logistics. Finding the gate and how to get back to the restaurant walking took a little while. Free parking=SCORE!

Baked crab and artichoke dip. So good! This is a time when I will have a little dairy.. so worth it.

Pretty sunset during dinner :] And a good end to a great date night!

8.7 miles

I got to check off one of the things I wanted to do before leaving San Diego. The girls and I walked up to Mt. Soledad! The walk itself was easy, I made the dogs pace themselves since I knew if we went at Ellie's pace we would have been tired by the second mile and it is 4 to the top. From where we started. If you don't know the area, this is not a hike.. no trail. It's a main road, residential area. So we were walking on the sidewalk.

It took us 2 hours to get to the top with an average pace of 2.2 miles. We stopped around 1 1/2-2 miles so the dogs could get water and rest for a bit.

Once we got to the top we hung out for a half hour enjoying the view and people watching. Even better it was tourist watching! ha

Pacific Ocean behind us, San Diego in front (for those who don't know). Its fun to look out and see where I live... you can't actually see cause it's on the other side of the hill, but it's in that direction :]

This was our elevation change...

Apparently the graph didn't go as high as we did ha.