Went to Mom's Dairy Free.

That sounds weird doesn't it?

I'll explain.

I went to my mom and dad's this weekend by myself. Which meant that I got to eat all meals uninterrupted, sleep uninterrupted and pee uninterrupted. It was really nice, I feel very refreshed.  I went out there to go bride's matron dress shopping (as all three of us are married now) for my mom and dad's vow renewal ceremony coming up at the end of April. It was also mom, dad, and Grammy's birthdays and my mom turned 50 (well technically I think she turns 50 some time this week.  What is the date today any way?) so we had a nice dinner and dessert party (yes, I said dessert party they were the main attraction, why do you ask?)  Since mom is turning 50 I made her a purse using a pattern from Alicia Paulson that I tweaked quite a bit and then we filled it with 50 things. Nice things, funny your-old type of things, and cards from her siblings and nieces and nephews. I think it went well and the purse turned out really cute I am VERY happy with it. The pictures aren't great because I took them at night and that is not the best time for pics.

Happy Bday mom! Your still younger then all of my friends parents!

So the dairy free part is that I've been having all these tests and problems and the day before I left for moms, the specialist called me to tell me to stop eating dairy and high-fructose corn syrup immediately. I was seriously licking vanilla cream pudding off a spatula when they called. This is exciting and depressing all at the same time.

It's depressing because I have to change so much. I got groceries yesterday and it took me forever because I had to read the labels on every thing. It's very limiting one of those two things seems to be in every packaged food and loaf of bread and box of cereal and package of oreos... It's hard to travel and eat out because I don't know what's in any thing so basically it's going to be a lot of research and take some time to get used to it.

It's exciting because it is a huge relief to know what's going on in my body and not have it be super serious (I could have had a gluten intolerance, that would have been so much worse). It's a huge relief to be able to do something to make it better. But it's also exciting because I've been wanting to make some changes in my diet but have not had the will power to do so, now I don't really have a choice.  Mom's renewal thing is in two months and I know cutting all that food out (even just packaged stuff) will help me loose at least a little weight and I'm sure I'll just feel so much better before then. It feels good to think I may have a pre-baby body some day (or a lot better then now any way) and this is the kind of no-choice-motivation I needed.

So we'll see. I have to be super strict for four weeks (even avoiding butter in baked goods etc.) and then slowly add dairy back in to see what I can tolerate. This is week one of being really strict (I was good out east but not perfect we did have all those deserts to eat after all) I'll keep you all updated on how it goes and how I feel; so far I've been eating a lot of Nature Valley granola bars and oatmeal until I can figure out what exactly I can eat.

Here are some pics of the family.

This is my dad's dog Rolly.
She has the worst breath of any other
living creature.

This is my brother-in-law Patrick and my nephew Eli.
Eli is sooooo cute. Being an aunt is really amazing
isn't it?

This is Heather and Eli. Her and Patrick don't think
they'll have kids of their own but we all know how that goes....

This is Athena, my niece, and her step-dad Patrick. She thinks she is their kid.