Old Colorado City Farmer's Market

As you know, one of my goals this month was to go to a farmer's market, so that's what we did yesterday morning! 

My mom and I had a long talk the other day about eating healthy. I think what stuck out the most to me was that she read somewhere that my generation won't even live as long as my parent's generation because of the way that we eat. :O

Our generation eats so much fast food and preservatives instead of REAL food. Zach and I really don't eat that bad (except for my Kraft Mac and Cheese..which I've given up). We don't eat fast food and our dinners are usually a form of meat and vegetables. But we decided to really be conscious about what we buy. We used to buy the butter in the plastic tub, until looking at the ingredients! Now we buy the regular sticks of butter. We also used to buy the deli meats and cheeses already in the package, but instead we buy it all fresh at the deli. Little things like that you may not notice can be bad for you. Here's a couple tips on shopping that my mom gave me:

1. Shop the perimeter of the store. This is where all of your fresh meats, eggs, fruits/veggies are, etc. 

2. Once you start getting into the middle aisles, start checking your labels. If there's more than 3-5 ingredients, or contains things you can't pronounce, it's most likely highly preserved. 

3. Most things that are canned are still okay to buy! Canned fruits/veggies, canned tomato sauce, beans, etc. (I can't live without my pasta and sauce..). Frozen veggies are also good!

4. Aim for whole grain bread, pasta, and cereal. 

4. Plan your meals before you go to the store (main dish, sides, etc.) We already do this. We don't plan for a certain day, but we make a list of 5-7 meals and sides that we want over 2 weeks and then shop the ingredients. This way we can choose which meal we want that day and already have everything.

So this week we went grocery shopping and aimed to buy healthier foods and check our labels. It's especially hard for us on the cookie/cracker aisle. But I found that certain potato chips only contain potatoes, olive oil, and sea salt. So I can live with that! Instead of buying our fruits/veggies at the store we went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and they had such a variety of foods! They even had pasta, bread, and meats. We will definitely be going back there weekly, it also saved us quite a bit of money!

Our goodies:

Summer Cleaning List

We moved into our new house in April, so we were able to skip out on spring cleaning. However, knowing that it's going to get cold quickly (the first snow is in October...) I wanted to make a Summer cleaning list to go through before the Fall comes. If you know me at all you know that I'm a little OCD about my house being clean! I clean, dust, sweep, mop, vacuum, etc at least once a week. Usually if I'm off for the day I find myself cleaning even if I just cleaned the other day, just because I feel like if I have the time I should keep things looking nice! I also like to clean up a bit every day before Zach gets home so he can come home to a clean, cozy place. Needless to say.. I like to clean. Anywho, there's a lot of cleaning that should be done that doesn't necessarily get done very often. So here's my list that I'm hoping to get through this summer!

July Goals

I'm a little late on my goals, but I must say this month is already flying by!

I'm already in my second week of school! This summer is going so fast, which makes me sad. Unlike Virginia, Fall actually begins in September! I must say though, July has been a great month so far. Zach and I are in a new season in our marriage. A couple weeks ago we realized something very important; We've been married for 8 months, but we haven't really been working on our marriage. We've kind of just been going with the flow. But then a couple weeks ago when we hit a bump in the road, we realized some things needed to change! We don't get in arguments very often, and when we do we know how to solve them, we really just learned more about how important the little things are in order to make us grow closer together. We had a relationship with God separately, but not together. We didn't pray together very often or read the bible together. Sometimes we would get home from school/work and just watch TV or do our own thing separately. And to save money we haven't gone on many date nights. After a big change of heart and a convicting talk with Zach's dad, we've made some changes.

• Every night before we go to sleep we read our new devotional and pray together. We got the "Devotions for Couples" by Patrick Morley. This devotional is great because each day it goes through a different subject that is important to talk about and deal with in marriage. So far it's already instructed us both make a list for each other's prayer needs so that we pray for each other everyday. We also made a list of things that we can do to make each other happy and feel wanted. This devotional has definitely brought us closer and helped us talk about subjects we may not have thought about before. Praying together also brings you closer to someone than ever before!
• We've also been spending better quality time together. This means playing board games, taking a walk with the dogs, having date nights, or watching a movie cuddled up together with no electronics! This has also been great for helping us both feel loved.
• We've been more intentional about doing things that the other likes, being loving and positive towards each other, and making each other feel important.

Again, some things that we've already been doing, but we are being more intentional and serious about them. His mom gave us some great advice. She said, "No marriage is the best it can be without both people continually growing together toward God. As you grow towards God, you naturally grow together. It's like a triangle- you both are the sides and as you move up you are getting closer to the top of the point of the triangle, which is both towards God, and as a bonus you grow closer together."

So we have found ourselves in a brand new season, and we are both loving the changes and how much closer we are getting. 

Now to the July goals! June was a great month, but I definitely didn't get everything done that I wanted, time is just going too fast! In June I wanted to:

Start Lord, Teach Me to Pray: I started this study and am still working my way through it, I love it!

Finish my first quarter with a 4.0: I did this too! My friends and I had the top grades in all of our classes

Have an amazing camping trip in Yellowstone: This happened! It was SO fun. Here's my post!

Do the incline: This didn't happen, unfortunately. We didn't have a free weekend :/

Go to a farmer's market: This didn't happen, either. Last month I started my new job and worked a lot of Saturdays since I was out of school. Luckily, now I will only be working 1 Saturday a month, so this is going on the July goals!

Start and stick to a running schedule: HA. HAHAHA. Yeah.... didn't happen. However, I'm doing The Color Run in August, so I better whoop my butt into shape soon!

July Goals

1. Continue praying for Zach's specific needs everyday.

2. Continue having our quiet time together every night.

3. Go to a farmer's market.

4. Have an awesome weekend at the AVMA Veterinary Convention.

5. Plan a zip-lining event for my birthday.

6. Make a home cleaning list to go through before the fall.

7. Do something creative!

What are some goals you have for this month? OR, what are some ways that you strengthen your marriage/relationship?

July 4th

Happy July!

I hope everyone had an awesome Fourth of July!

We weren't planning on doing anything, but last minute we had a ton of people asking us if we were going to have people over. So we decided to have another big "potluck" BBQ. All I made were the cupcakes above, and everyone brought everything else; Burgers, buns, drinks, chips, s'mores, etc. A lot of Zach's friends live in the barracks, so they don't have a good place to hang out, and they look forward to coming over to our house.. how could we say no? Zach grilled the food, we had the fire pit going, and our neighbors shot off an entire fireworks show! We also got some sparklers and other small fireworks to set off. My friend, Allison, was supposed to bring her camera to try out sparkler writing- but her battery was dead. So we turned to the iPhone! They didn't turn out great, but it was still fun trying! I love hosting parties and love that so many people find our house to be a nice refuge! There are many more BBQ's to come this summer!

Our country-boy, fellow Virginia friend, Cantwell, also taught me how to two-step! Looking forward to going to a country music club with Zach to practice these moves!

What did you do for the 4th?