Where's the gold?

We had an interesting day on Nattie's 3rd birthday today.  My mom's side of the family was celebrating May birthday's in Hastings.

After the storm (with hail) blew through we took some pictures, one of Natalie which I submitted to Kare 11 tonight and made the kare11.com photo website.  Click here to see it.

Here are a couple of other pictures from the day.  Take a close look at the picture of the rainbow.  After the storm moved past us, a rainbow came out (which actually started in the pond right behind my parents house). 

On a different note, we were able to disprove the idea that there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.

Rumblings and Grumblings

For those of you who enjoy reading interesting tidbits about what is currently going on in baseball, check out Jayson Stark's Rumblings and Grumblings on Thursdays (if you do not already read it).  I look forward to my commute home that night because I read it then.

Having fun with gluten

On Tuesday, I started eating gluten free.  I want to try it for 30 days to see if it helps my stomach issues or not.  Even though my bloodwork results came back negative, I have yet to do an endoscopy to confirm if I have Celiac or not.  The bloodwork is only so accurate.  If I feel better (which so far I have), I am just going to make the assumption I am.  There no need to have an expensive procedure done on my stomach to prove it.  The main reason we did it with Natalie was so we could show her if she questions why she needs to eat gluten free when she gets older.

I can tell you this though, finding enough variety in gluten free foods is much easier for a two year old then a 30 year old.  My change will force Gina and I to start exploring our recipes more which is probably a good thing.  There is plenty out there, we just need to get more adventurous with it.

However, this is not the main reason I am writing.

Has anyone happened to look at food labels closer since everything happened with Natalie?  If not, I wanted to show you how things are changing.  It's still a difficult process to know what is and isn't OK to eat, but things are slowly getting easier.  Here's an article from the Mayo Clinic last year about how labels are changing in 2008.  The top eight allergens are/will soon be spelled out on almost all foods regulated by the FDA. 

The food allergens

While food labels don't include every possible allergen, they do list the top eight, which account for 90 percent of all documented food allergies:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Peanuts
• Tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, walnuts)
• Fish (such as bass, cod, flounder)
• Shellfish (such as crab, lobster, shrimp)
• Soy
• Wheat

Wheat is in the top eight, which helps us out some as it eliminates anything with wheat right away.  Gluten, which would easily be in the top eight, is not because it is an intolerance and not an allegen.  If wheat is not on the label it does not necessarily mean that the food is gluten free.

If you read the article you will see that the FDA is still trying to do things to help us read labels for gluten as well.  You wouldn't believe all the products with natural flavor, artificial flavor and modified food starch alone that we need to question (by calling, e-mailing, visiting websites, etc.). 

Here is a sample of the new labeling scheme.  See the "contains" section at the bottom of the label.  It's very nice.

As I was saying above, if you also look closely at the ingredients in Baked Cheetos you will see that natural flavor and artificial flavor are listed meaning that we would still need to question this product if we did not already know it was OK.

Gina and I (with help from Molly) will be maintaining a list ourselves of all the items we have looking into and the answers we get for those products.  Here is the link.  We haven't done much work with it yet.  To this point we have mainly referred to lists others have built already since Nattie's diet is not that diverse right now.  We will definitely be looking into things more in the near future though.

Nattie's tranformation continues to amaze us.  We are grateful to have found out when we did without her having to suffer any longer.  The fact that she accepts when she can't eat something without too much questioning has been a blessing as well.

I just wanted to give an update on how things are going.

House's Celiac Episode

My buddy Matt from work informed me this morning that he had just watched a House M.D. episode about celiac disease.

The episode does not appear to be uplifting by any means (especially because an infant is involved) but it is also a much more extreme case then the average celiac situation at the same time.

It's interesting that the condition was worthy of making the show. 

Joe's birthday fun

Some of us attended the Twins game yesterday.  There were a few reasons for going, but the main one was for Joe's birthday (which is coming up on the 16th).

It was a very enjoyable game and it was nice to get out with the guys. 

After spotting the Tigers six runs in the first the Twins came back and ended up winning 7-6.  Here's the boxscore from the game if you want to check it out. 

We also were asked to have a picture taken by one of the Twin's photographers.  I wanted to share the picture (which is the main reason for this post).

I swear, it's as big as a small car

After much debate, Gina and I decided to get a laptop today.  Using Rory's old laptop upstairs as much as we have (even though it has seen much better days) the last few months was enough to show us that, based on use, we could justify the purchase. 

Even though I don't like what the government is doing with it, I do have to thank the economic stimulus payment for making this possible.

The two brands that we most strongly considered were Dell and Mac.  In the end, we just didn't think the Mac fit our needs enough to warrant the change (and platform headaches) and getting one that would also Windows XP was not in the budget.

My main stipulation was being able to get most of the features I wanted and keep it under $1,000 (which I was able to do).  We decided on a 17" Dell.  It's huge.  I preferred the 15.4" but the only screen option for it was the glossy.  No thanks. 

If we were planning to be mobile with it I'd honestly say it is too big.  The only weird part to me about the size which will take some getting use to is that the keyboard is not centered so it can also fit the ten key on it (which Gina and Molly both loved).

I upgraded everything but the video card (I hope I don't regret that).  I wanted to but for another $100 I just couldn't pull the trigger considering it won't be used much for gaming, DVDs, etc.  I even added the built in webcam (Shane, you can't say we don't love you anymore).

Now, we wait. 

The estimated ship date is 5/15.

Much more work then I bargained for

For the record, this post is long overdue.  Molly moved in January 12th and I had intended to post this shortly there after.

I will remember spending much of my free time in 2007 working on the basement.  My dad and I spent many hours trying to put the bedroom and bathroom in down there.  A project I had orginally thought would take six to eight weeks took just under nine months.  However, we are very pleased with how it turned out and are also enjoying living with our roomie so it all worked out in the end. 

The basement before:

Framing the rooms in:

 

 

Sheetrocking and priming:

 

The finished bedroom:

The finished bathroom:

 

 

Farmington, USA

I was just informed of a news article about Farmington in the Star Tribune last week.  It's nothing big but I thought it was worthy to share none the less.  The weird thing to me though is that it was in the Trib, not the Pioneer Press.

What's the point of the frog suit again?

Couch rearrangement

When Matt and Morgan were home for Christmas, Matt decided that our living room needed a make over.  At first I was very reluctant to let him move things around but as he talked about different ideas it began to interest me more.  I have to say, the change has grown on me.  It's not easy to see the girls when they are in the living room if you are in the kitchen but other than that it's a definite upgrade.

Nattie update

Whatever "normal" has become for us, I feel like our lives are moving towards it these days...which is a good thing.  A big part of that is Natalie's progression over the last couple of months.  Since we went gluten free, on January 21, she has done so much better.  It's definitely still hard to be 100% gluten free but we are doing well and Nattie is back to her old self.  She's also began to grow again and her budda belly (from all the bloating) has begun to shrink, both of which are fantastic to see.

On a different note, I'm still blown away by how smart two (almost three) year olds are.  She generally does something to amaze me every night.  One of her recent revelations was figuring out that she could turn on the light in her room (she can't reach yet) by grabbing a book and using it to flip the switch.  She doesn't have a trick yet to turn it off though (Sscratch that, I just saw her do it this morning for the first time.  See what I mean...).

Also, on 3/6 Natalie had her first hair cut (by Molly).  All we did was trim up the ends but it added a lot of bounce and curl back into her hair.  We even got the first couple cuts on film.

Macie update

All and all, things are going pretty well with Macie too. 

That doesn't mean she's a joy to be around though.  The girl has far more attitude then Nattie ever displayed at her age.  In fact, I have even joked over the last couple of months that if we end up having just two kids it's going to be because Macie is such a handful.  In reality, I'd never blame her for that but some days I probably could.

I have to cut her some slack though because her eczema has flared up on and off, she's seems to be cutting teeth constantly and she's in the frustrating stage of being able to pull herself up onto things but is still unable to walk yet. 

She has only three moods: extremely happy, extremely upset and blah.  Most of what we are dealing with should eventually pass.  Her temper though...I don't think that's going away anytime soon.  She's a hot head and she will likely remain one.  Many a battle with her lie ahead for Gina and I.

In the last week or so we have began to see a lighter side of her however.  She has been much happier and we've had a lot of fun playing with her.  Cross your fingers, we'd like this Macie to stick around a while.  When she is being sweet she absolutely melts your heart.

She finally began crawling.  If she needs to get somewhere quickly she still scoots though.  Frequently she does both when making a single trip somewhere.  It's worth the price of admission just to watch her manuver around the house.

That darn laugh

Matt / Morgan

Matt and Morgan move home in July.  I know they are going to miss Chicago but I am really starting to get excited for them to be nearby after being away now for six years.

Minivan

We did it, we gave in and got a minivan.  It's just too dang convenient considering our current family situation.  Gina's still struggling with the idea that she drives a minivan but I am definitely a fan of it.  If it only got better gas mileage...

We bought a silver 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan.  My parents purchased our Ion from us.

I'll leave any more discussion on this topic for Gina.  She probably has more to say about it then I do.

Home value

Fun fact: Our house has lost so much value since we bought it in April '06 that when I recently inquired about refinancing I was told I couldn't because our loan amount was greater then the house is currently worth. 

How much has it dropped?  $60k.  Good golly!  It's not a huge deal since everyone else is in the same boat and we are planning to be here a long time but it's still worth noting none the less.

Super Mario Brothers 3

Over the past couple of weeks, some of Molly and I's free time has been devoted to defeating Super Mario 3.  Last Sunday, we finally accomplished our goal.  Koopa's Castle was not easy to beat but I happened to catch him on an off day or something and I was able to get the job done.  Molly and I teamed together well.  With the exception of board 8.1, which we both stunk at, we complemented each other pretty well.

My favorite part of playing was when we would use a frog suit when it seemed least likely to help us.  Molly and I would laugh during the whole turn.  Really, what's the point of that thing?  It's even a hassle to use in the water.

I had beaten it once before (with Rory long ago) but this was Mo's first victorious experience.  Yeah Mo!  It was a lot of fun and we have now moved onto Super Mario World, which I have not played much of at all before now.  It's a good game and I look forward to defeating it someday as well.

2008 NCAA Bracketology

I'll be honest, I've never felt so uncertain filling out an NCAA bracket before.  It's still fun to do though and I have decided to add it out here so that I can easily refer to it during the tournament.

If you want to win the pool you're in, here's the blueprint to do it.  OK, maybe not.