You know it's springtime when...

Cannot believe it is half way thru May already!  We're finally getting some nice, sunny warm weather here in the Cities after about a week straight of 40's/50's and rain..non-stop rain.  Looking off our deck now, everything is really greening up!  You know it's spring when you have a robin's nest full of babies in the tree just off your deck...they're chirping happily now! :)  Spring is fiiiinally here!  I'm taking some ME time today while Dave is off taking his Part 4 National Boards.  Yup, that's right folks, Dave's taking his LAST PART today!!  So exciting!  He's been studying like crazy the past few weeks and if all goes as planned, this will be the last exam he has to take for the rest of his life!  Wahoo!  Four years of hard work is coming to a close and we cannot wait.  [We also got Dave's Part 3 scores back a couple weeks ago and he passed all of those tests with flying colors.]

While Dave's been off studying at Perkins, Caribou and the beach, I've had some extra time on my  hands.  So I've finally [finally] starting working on my scrapbooking again, primarily starting our wedding scrapbook that I've been putting off for going on 2 years.  Dave insisted on taking this somewhat unflattering photo...showing off one of my page creations among the crafting mess.

Also just a couple days ago I decided to go ahead and start an herb garden this year.  I was going back and forth on the idea just because we'll be moving around so much come July/August..but I have been in need of more hobbies lately so I decided to go for it and have my seeds sprouting outside right now!

You know it's spring when your friends are popping out babies -- it seems there's a huge surge of births in the spring.  Anyone else agree??  There is another baby arrival to announce:  Eleanna Joy Hokenson, second daughter to Alanna and Tony!  So this is Teija's sister!! :)  We can't wait to meet this little angel later on this summer!!  Alanna made this headband in the picture, so talented!

Eleanna Joy
Arrived Sunday, April 25, 2010
8 lbs - 20 inches

At work, we dedicated the month of April to our health and lifestyle makeover series called Rev It Up.  Dave presented on the last night on a highly efficient form of exercise called Burst Training.  I took some video, but have to find the Flip to get it on our computer..will post those later.  Everyone LOVED Dave (as always) and we had a huge burst training club session the following weekend which spilled over from Rev It Up.  We get so excited to help people get healthy!  Here are a couple pictures of Revolution's "office cutie," as we've labeled her.  Her name is Sophia and she is a sweetheart!  If you can see her chocolate mustache, it's from the Raw Chocolate Pudding I made to share for the Recipe Night at Rev It Up.  She loved it!  [This is Sophia's excited face.]

You also know it's springtime when the wedding and graduation invitations begin to arrive.  Phew, this spring/summer is going to be a packed one for weddings!!  We recently attended Nick and Megan's wedding in St. Cloud.  Upcoming ones include Katie & Tom, Suzy & Rob, Cassie & John and Mike & Lori.  More might be coming, you never know!  As of now, none of their dates overlap, so we should be able to make it to all!  :)!!  Here are a couple pictures from Nick & Megan's Day!  [I didn't get any of the ceremony, we were sitting in an awkward spot for shots with our simple camera.]

 

 The Maximized Living boys:  Nick is in the middle, Dave in the pink next to Nick.

 

 The Maximized Living Crew

I think that's all our major news for now.  Will keep you posted on how Dave's last round of exams goes when we get the grades.  The good news is Spring Is Here!!  Get outside and take advantage of this gorgeous weather -- each day is a gift from God!

Spring Time Changes and Growth!

Philippians 3:10-12 (NIV)
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

I absolutely love spring time, the changing seasons, the flowers and grass, the return of birds to the sky and trees.  I also love to read thru the Easter scripture and reflect on it, what it means to me, to us.  Philippians 3:10-12 is the part that really jumped out at me today.  It is everything Dave and I have been trying to say and to do for so long, and will continue to do.  I think it applies to a lot of you who read our blog and you will find hope and encouragement thru rereading that verse.  Happy April 1st!  Celebrate Spring!  Celebrate all that He has done for us!

Dave said his Part 3 Boards tests went, to quote him, "Alright."  Sooo, we'll have to wait and see when that little white envelope comes to our door with his scores..  I know he did fine, but he and his buddies were a little nervous about at least one of the sections as it was a bit harder than they anticipated.  Thanks everyone for your prayers and encouragement again!  Every little bit of support helps!

Last weekend, actually it was longer than just the weekend, he was gone for 6 days -- Wednesday thru Monday -- to a Maximized Living Training Camp in Florida.  He and 5 of his guy friends from ML drove down for Florida in an old van which I think they borrowed from another friend.  Why did they drive down you might ask?  Because it happened to be Spring Break weekend and ticket prices TRIPLED the norm, reaching over $800 a person, normally around $150-$250.  Cost to ride down with 5 other people in a van?  $65 each round trip.  Yup, that's why.

This was Dave's second time going to a Camp since he came to chiro school and both experiences have been so amazing for both of us.  He comes back a changed man (for the better) each time.  At the camp, the coaches help you to break down, leaving your weaknesses and inseurities behind.  And their slogan is "What happens at camp, stays at camp" (much different than the similar Vegas tagline..), meaning not even I am allowed to know what went on a camp or what the issues were.  All I need to know is Dave comes home a stronger, more powerful husband and doctor each time and that helps me to likewise be stronger and more powerful to save MORE lives in my community.

Now Dave transitions into Finals WeekS (big "s" because finals are this week AND next week, hence we have to stay around here yet again for Easter so the guys can study together).  On top of more studying, yesterday he co-hosted an event for their Maximized Living club called "Dinner With the Docs".  He and Vernon organized the event for students.  They brought in three super successful doctors from the Cities to speak, to tell their chiropractic stories (mistakes they made, where their passion comes from, why we do what we do thru Maximized Living) to encourage students who are not already ML members to join, come to the next seminar, that sort of thing.  Unfortunately I couldn't be there (I'll explain why next), but I think Dave said they had a huge turnout of 30+ non-member students (give or take a few because I can't remember the exact number).  So that was really great!  Dave was very happy when he got home with how everything went.  The students were impressed by the doctors' stories and many had signed up by the end of the night.  A great night for the ML club!

Here's what's been happening in my life lately...It’s been kinda nuts.  Dr. Suzy was in a car accident last week (she’s okay, but was injured pretty badly and still cannot adjust patients for 2 more weeks minimum), so I’ve had to kind of carry on more responsibilities of the practice.  Christina is almost ready to have her baby (due on April 10th) so she will be leaving shortly as office manager -- have to learn so much yet before she is gone!  We have also recently undergone a complete software switchover to a much better, more efficient system, and while it’s better for us on the office managment side, it’s very new and confusing for patients.  We are also in the midst of hosting our bi-yearly health & lifestyle makeover series called Rev It Up!, so I have been doing a ton of marketing and prep work for that.  Basically my life has been Revolution Wellness Center 24/7 for the past few weeks...many extra hours put in to make sure everything is going great and the patients hardly notice all the drama.  :)  Oh the life of a Chiropractic Assistant!  haha  So that is why I ended up missing Dave's dinner event.  Haven't been getting home until 9/9:30pm most nights lately.

I'm taking some ME time this morning before heading out to babysit for some adorable kids at 12noon.  It's already 60 degrees out, so I'm confident it will be shorts weather by the time I need to hit the road.  I think we'll be doing some walking, biking and other out door fun this afternoon!  :)

Catch you all later!  Going to post some more recipes from this past week to Healing Cuisine.  I rolled out a facebook page for my recipes blog this past weekend and it's been a great hit!  I'm excited to see where Healing Cuisine goes in the coming months!

Hope you all have a blessed Easter weekend!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It's about time for an update!  We sent our Christmas cards out this week and anticipate a few new visitors (if that's you, comment on here so we know you're following us!  We'll write back, promise!), so it's time to do a little life summary in time for Christmas.  Dave and I have both been meaning to do a real update for about 2 months now...I beat Dave to it today even though he is all done with school for this trimester!!  He just finished up Wednesday afternoon with his last practical!!  Hurray!  He's now officially a T8 (trimester 8 student, out of 10 trimesters).  One year to go, so we're in go time for planning our office, business plan, adjusting technique, all of that stuff... YAY!  SO exciting!  :)

I have been pretty busy as well beyond working the normal job.  I've been taking a nutrition and detox certification course on Saturdays and Sundays.  It's a four part certification and we meet once a month for 4 months.  Last weekend was the third session, so just one left in January (phew!).  I passed my first 2 tests with flying colors!!  100% on the first one!!  I am a bit surprised as I am the youngest person in the room and just about everyone else is doctors!  Nutrition and detox is becoming a real passion of mine.  Our office isn't just going to be chiropractic.  We are going to create a healing place, a whole wellness center, where patients come to get off the medical treadmill and start letting their body heal from the inside out and live to their full God-given potential.  I'm already getting a ton of training and experience at Revolution every day on helping people get off medications, start exercising, doing a cleanse and start the healing.  It's absolutely a blessing to be in my position at work and to have the opportunity in the Twin Cities to network and get in to these seminars for extra training while Dave and I have the time to do it.  Our path is being laid for us and becoming clearer every day!

Subject change....  Lots of you have been asking us about the mice.  Well, a few weeks ago we caught 4 more within a couple days of each other.  We've been using just one trap and resetting it over and over.  Wait, let me rephrase that... Dave is the one doing the resetting and clean up.  :)  Brave brave Dave!!  He hates mice, but he does it all for me.  What sacrifice!  xo!  For about 3 weeks now I think it's been pretty quiet in the "mouse corner" of our bedroom.  Hopefully that was the last of them.  I think the count is up to 17 or maybe closer to 20 now?  We've kind of lost count.  Dave has talked to our apartment managers a couple times lately about getting out of our lease due to the consistant mice issue, but they said the only thing they could do is move us to a different apartment.  We don't want to do that though because it would be on the 3rd floor, and we're in a first floor apartment now.  The reason we'd like to get out of our lease is so we can move into a slightly cheaper apartment closer to Maple Grove where I work.  In January, Dave will start interning at an office in Plymouth (just a minute from Maple Grove).  So it'd save us a lot of drive time and gas money if we could move...but for now, we're staying put in Bloomington (about a 25 minute drive from Maple Grove).

This year we actually went home for Thanksgiving, the first time in I think 2 or 3 years! And it was our first time home to the U.P. since last Christmas. We were shocked to find we BOTH had the Friday after Thanksgiving off from both school and work, so we decided why not head home for the 4-day weekend. We spent Thursday and Saturday with family, and sandwiched Friday in between with a little shopping and visiting as many people as we could, some of which we haven't seen since our wedding over a year ago!!!   We still have to make rounds to a few more friends this coming week on our Christmas visit.  We'll be in town Christmas Eve evening thru Sunday. Can't wait!!

Over the Thanksgiving trip, we went over to Ashley and Craig's for a few hours. Alanna and Tony joined us and Alanna made a DElicious lasagna meal and brought a couple of pies from her bakery -- the raspberry pie was to die for! Here are a few pictures of the babies -- can't believe how big they are getting!!!!!! Dallas is just over a year old and is as big as Teija!! And yes, that is THE Teija, our littlest flower girl at our wedding. She is almost 2 years old now come January. Wow time flies. Also enjoy the video below of her dancing to the music of a toy. Adorable!

 

On December 7th, Dr. Suzy treated Dave and I to our very first real concert, Chris Tomlin's Glory in the Highest tour!  http://www.christomlin.com/home.php  We were SO EXCITED to go!!  We had been eying up his concert since we heard a commercial for it in October, but we just couldn't scrape together the funds to go.  Thank you so much Suzy, we had a BLAST with you guys!!  We appreciated it so so much!  It was such a great night.  His music filled up our wells!!  All of us were beaming on the way out.  Who knew worshiping on a Monday night after a long day's work could be so uplifting! :)  Christina and Paul also joined us, as well as Rob, Suzy's fiance.  We all went out for some dinner afterward, a pretty late night, but so worth it.

You can sort of make out Chris's face on the screen.  He's down there holding his guitar.  We were sitting in the front row balcony.  The concert was actually at the church we attend, Grace, very close to our home!!  http://www.atgrace.com/

 

After the concert. 

Paul and Christina on left, Rob and Suzy in middle, Dave and Elise on right

Just flipping through other pictures from this month...  Here is our Christmas tree, although it didn't quite turn out.  We wanted to put this up to show Calvin, our loving Godchild, what we did with the cute little Santa ornament he gave us last year.  It is dressed in a camouflage suit!  The Santa is sort of shaped like a star, so we put him at the top of our tree.  :)  Maybe you can just tell him about it, Angela?

 

We've been starting a food blog as well, with healing diet recipes, foods and other ideas.  This is one of our experiments -- Chipotle burgers.  100% organic from the bun up!  Grassfed beef (we bought a 1/4 of a cow a few months ago and are slowly enjoying), lettuce, avacado, caramelized red onions, raw swiss cheese, organic whole grain bun with no sugar, and a homemade chipotle sauce!!  These burgers were ABSOLUTELY TO DIE FOR!!  Possibly the best burgers we've had in a verrrry long time.

 

  

Here is the Christmas picture we sent out with our Christmas cards this year at Revolution.  You can see our real tree in the background -- the aroma every day when I come in to work to open up is heavenly!  The nutcracker was brought in by Christina's (far right) father-in-law.  The kids in our office love it! haha

 

This is a photo of Dave doing one of his workshops.  He does talks for our office (and others on occassion).  This one he did just last weekend on Burst Training, the type of exercise Dave and I do and what we will teach our patients to do as well.  You work out for just 6 minutes per day and burn fat for 36 hours after.

And that's about all I have to talk about today.  :)  I know, we covered a lot in this post.  Hopefully you hung in there!

We're looking forward to seeing many of you in just a week for Christmas!  Eek!  It's just a week away, I have just a little more wrapping to do..  For those we don't get to see this year, Dave and I wish you a blessed Christmas and New Year's and hope you create lasting memories this year!  May God shine his light in your heart and for your family this Season.  Luke 1:14  "And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth."  Have a wonderful time relaxing and celebrating!  Blessing for good health and happiness for 2010!  And again, if you're new, shoot us a quick message on here and we'll look forward to getting back in touch with you soon!

Love, Dave and Elise