Merry Christmas

Hello everyone!

It has been much too long since my last post.  I've been putting all my of free time into Healing Cuisine, and thus have neglected you all.  We are home for Christmas, finally, and it feels great!  At the Schwartz house presently, hanging out while we bake cookies, sip tea, the girls are playing their instruments (flute, piano, singing), and the boys are outside skiing and tinkering with the car.  Very relaxing, so glad to be here. :)

Dave and I have been all over the place for the last 6 months, including living in Canada for 3 months.  Dave has graduated with his Chiropractic degree (CONGRATS DAVE!!!!) and we are now working on opening our chiropractic clinic.  We've been living nomadically since August, going from basement to basement living with various friends all over the place.  On January 1st we will be driving down to Orlando, Florida to relocate for about 6 months.  We'll be training and working with Maximized Living while plans commence on our office in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Greensboro will be our eventual permanent home.  Well, permanent for a little while at least. ;)  2011 is going to be a busy year for us!  Hope to  have our clinic doors open by July if all goes well.

Want to wish you all a very blessed Christmas!  Our next update will be from sunny Florida!!  Visitors welcome!

"Look!  The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'"  Matthew 1:23

Dave Made It

So I meant to get this story posted like 2 weeks ago when it actually happened, but I've had to focus on a few other things until now.  I think Facebook informed the majority of you of the happenings when Dave tried to cross the border to get in to Canada...  I'm going to give the short story because it's late, but I promise it will still be enjoyable!

Dave left Minneapolis on a Saturday afternoon and planned to cross the border Sunday afternoon, a 14 hour trip.  He actually made it there a lot sooner and arrived on Sunday morning.  He Skyped me (remember, we're without cellphones!) from his table at a restaurant somewhere just off the border to tell me the exciting news that he was going to arrive ahead of schedule and get to relax a bit and get settled in before starting work on Monday.  He told me to get back on Skype in 2 hours and by then he'd be in his new home and getting things settled.  Two hours came...and I waited and waited...nothing for a while.  Finally he came on and was in another restaurant.  So I said, "wow, that was quick.  You all moved in?" thinking it was extremely amazing he got across the border, got all of his stuff moved in, then had the energy after that long trip to head out for food.

"Bad news," he said.  My stomach dropped.  I call him Mr. Optimistic you know..he's my rock, my foundation.  Whenever Dave says "bad news," that means it's realllly bad.  And after 2 years of marriage, I know to just ask for the details, "Don't sugar coat it" I said.."Just tell me the details cut and dry."  I immediately started thinking of all the worst possible scenarios.  He wrecked the car, lost his passport, what could possibly have gone wrong when he was so close?!

"The border patrol won't let me thru to Canada."  WHAT!?!  We both started freaking out.  I will spare the details of the string of papers Dave had to fill out and other things they required him to do, but basically the border didn't let him through because he was heading over as a student intern and they didn't want American Dave to take away any potential internship opportunities from Canadians.  Hence all the paperwork and hoopla to prove he was qualified to intern at the office he chose.

So over Skype we set up a game plan.  Contact Dr. B.J. and let him know Dave wouldn't be at work until who knows when.  Call the chiropractic boards and get the paperwork started.  And then we realized Dave was stranded in a small town in Michigan...great.  Thankfully he thought of the Bittners, a Maximized Living doctor and family who live outside of Detroit.  Dr. B.J. tracked down their info and Dave was able to get in touch with them.  They were such a blessing!  The Bittners took Dave in for 3 days, fed him and helped him get all that paperwork stuff finished.  They were so sweet and we are so grateful to be involved in such a gracious network of chiropractors in Maximized Living.

Come Tuesday, Dave had all of his forms and letters in order.  He made his second attempt to cross the border.  Of course his account was flagged from his last attempt, so they pulled him and searched him.  Dave said they even did thorough questioning for hours trying to see if his story checked out.  (As if someone could make up a story about being a chiropractic intern and going to London, Ontario for their last trimester and super excited to learn from one of the leading chiropractors in North America, plus all the other details of his life that he had to go thru.)  Finally, after hours of sitting in a room with the guards, Dave told me he finally started pleading for them to let him through.  The lady that was with him said, "Okay, I believe your story.  But this doesnt check out" (Referring to something he needed but didn't have or something like that.)  "I'll write it off for you." PRAISE THE LORD was all I could think when Dave FINALLY Skyped me late that night.  We were anticipating it to take just a couple hours to drive thru, have everything go smoothly, and be on his way to London.  Well we didn't expect the hours of questions, that's for sure.  Dave was exhausted, but happy to be at his new house in his new room ready to start what he came to Canada for.  Ahhhh.

As of this weekend, Dave has been gone three weeks and everything since crossing the border has been smooth sailing.  He's having an absolute BLAST up there, learning something new and great every day.  And everyone is taking care of him, Dr. B.J. and the office staff are phenomenal.

I'm going to throw up some pictures in random fashion from the last few weeks before Dave left.  These were the events we attended prior to him leaving.

We made ice cream for the Maximized Living Club potluck that we held at our apartment complex just the next week after Dave's surprise graduation party.

Here we are at Mike & Lori's wedding in Sault Ste Marie, Canada 2 weeks prior to Dave leaving for Canada.  We're on the bus here with the rest of the wedding party.

Lori and Mike, on the bus to escape the rain that stopped their outdoor picture session...we were on to the photography studio next.

Us with the beautiful bride!  This is toward the end of the night.

I love my husband.  I love dancing with my husband!  :)

Next was Dave's farewell night out with his coworkers at Bandana Chiropractic.  It was also on our 2 year anniversary.  We celebrated with some organic goat cheese cheesecake with pistachios and fresh berries.  It was delicious.

Here is the gang, we had a blast!  Thank you all for treating us to a fun night out!

The next big event was Suzy and Rob's wedding.  It was also the last day Dave was here, so it was an extra special day for us.  Unfortunately this is the only picture that semi turned out from their wedding...it's THE KISS! :)

Posing by the water awaiting the bride and groom's arrival.

Our besties, Mark and Nicole <3

And that's it from our lovely last month together in the Twin Cities!  And just a reminder to those who are still trying to call us:  we do not have cell phones anymore.  :)  I giggle every time I get an email from someone that says they've tried to call and it doens't go thru.  Try us on Skype!  drdaveschwartz or elisejschwartz

Thanks to everyone for making Dave's last few weeks in Minnesota a blast!  We both had a great time! :)

Moving on

Just a quick message from the couch at my mom's house.  :)  Taking some me time to de-stress and refocus my goals.  I am hanging out here for two days before Mike and Lori's wedding in the Soo on Saturday.  Dave just left with Joel for Mike's bachelor festivities for the next two days.  They are ready for a weekend of fun!  Especially Dave, he's excited to see his buddies again and get some time off before moving himself to Canada and starting full time work again.  He needs this break!  His MIND needs this break!

The past couple days here have been absolutely nutz.  All good things, just the stress that goes along with moving.  We are successfully moved out of Hampshire Hill in Bloomington!  Half of our belongings are now here in Michigan, half still in Minnesota.  We sold all of our furniture on CraigsList.com!  Wahoo!  We only kept our amazing bar stools (a wedding gift from Mike and Lori) and our small kitchen table.  Our bed and frame were the last to sell and we were sad to see them go, but made the last minute decision to sell them after thinking about all the hassle moving them would bring.  We'll be sleeping on an air mattress once we arrive in Florida in 2011.  For now, I'll be living with my FABulous friend Jan in Maple Grove in her spare room (with a bed).  Dave's family in London also has a bed for him.  I am excited to be moved very close to work, saving me 30-40 minutes of drive time twice a day!!  It's going to be a marvelous Monday morning! :)

All in all, we only had to make two trips with our stuff up here.  Not too bad!  We downsized a lot and it felt great to shed all the "junk" we never use.  I highly recommend doing it as you transition or if you're stuck in a rut.  It opens your eyes to what's truly important and gives you the opportunity to refocus your life on what you want to achieve.

Also have been meaning to throw this picture on here:

The day after Dave's surprise party, after all the family had headed back home and friends said their goodbyes, we headed out with Mark & Nicole and their friend Elyse (!!) to the horse races!  We've had this list of "Things I Want To Do Before I Leave This Summer" with all the major Twin Cities events we hadn't done yet.  The Canterbury Park horse races was definitely one of them!  This is their 25th Anniversary I believe, so all year is free admission.   We brought $7 with us and won on our first two or three races...then we got maybe a little to cocky and blew all our winnings.  Oh well.  We went for the experience.  :)  And it was a blast!

That's it for now.  Excuse me while I stretch out and flip thru some channels on the tube.  :)

-Elise

A Suprise Party: Congrats and Farewell Dave!

I can finally talk about it!  For the last four months or so I had been planning a top secret surprise graduation and farewell party for Dave.  We held it on Saturday afternoon, July 31st.  Family and friends came from ALL over to attend and aide in the surprise! :)

Dave's official graduation date will be November 19th, 2010.  But with the chance that we won't even be attending the graduation due to his final externship dates and the risk of poor driving conditions come the fall, I figured it'd be best to throw him a party now rather than wait til who knows when.

And so the planning began.  I'll spare you all the behind the scenes details of decorations and site selection.  The biggest challenge was getting Dave out of the area for the night of the 30th so I could take over the apartment and cook up a storm.  I developed a few plans with various friends...all day golf outing, holding a garage sale, back to back movies at the theater..but none got him out of the apartment overnight.  Then I talked to Chris (Dave's brother Chris) and he thought of taking Dave camping for the Fri-Sat.  Perfect!  And to solidify his story even more, there was a triathlon in Bemidji on Saturday morning.  How perfect was that??  Well, Chris is a trainer and regularly does triathlons!  So he called Dave to make the "plans", signed up, and off they went to Bemidji.  What a trooper Chris was!  Not only did he run the triathlon and got first in his age division (!!!), but they also got rained and poured on Friday night AND had a gallon of water leak all over the floor of the car.  The video below is all of Chris's hard work to keep the secret paying off....it is Dave and Chris arriving straight from their 4 hour drive home.  And thank you to all who helped behind the scenes, most of it I still haven't had a chance to tell Dave about!  I had a ton of help from family and friends all around!  Thank you to everyone who pitched in before and after!  It was definitely a group effort!  And we did it!!  Dave was successfully SURPRISED beyond belief.  Check the video.  Joel's behind the camera.  My favorite part is the high five between Chris and him.

For this party (and any future party of ours) I vowed to make a complete spread of Healing Cuisine foods, meaning ALL of our family and friends could eat (organic, sugar free, grain free, gluten free, dairy free, etc).  Well, with the exception of the cake.  I wasn't about to open my kitchen to making a completely gluten free/sugar free cake for over 100 people AND deal with the stress of keeping the surprise from my hunny..!!  As the party got rolling, all of my creations were a hit!  I love to make people happy and help them realize healthy eating can be absolutely delicious!  If you were looking for a recipe from the party, I've begun posting them every other day for the next two weeks!

Here are a few pictures that our friend Kenny took.  If anyone has any others, please send them or tag us!  I forgot my camera in all the rush!

Walking in to the room full of loved ones.  Shocked..Eyes welling up!

A thank you hug!

Some of the kitchen ladies!  My mom and aunts headed up the food set up and refilling!  FABulous job ladies!!

Hugs for his fans.. :-P

His cakes:  vanilla and carrot!

 

Suzy, Dave, Elise, Paul, baby Sophia and Christina!

 

Us with Kenny  <3  Our party photographer!

To those that weren't able to attend, we missed you!  There were so many faces Dave asked about, and I shared all of your emails, letters and voice messages with him!!  We are SO BLESSED to have a strong support system!!

And aside from the party and pictures, an update on our phone situation.  We've decided to go without phones for at least the next 4 months (thru Jan 2011).  This is mostly because Dave is leaving for Canada the end of the month and, gosh, Canadian service is thru the roof!  We've also been super cutting back on spending for the past two years...this is another way to save each month and put money into savings for opening up in NORTH CAROLINA!  Did I mention that part yet?  In our last post...but in case you didn't hear, it's NC for sure baby! :)  Book your winter vacations in advance.  Our spare room will fill up fast! haha

Love you all!  XO!