Miss Ella Marie

We finally squeezed in a visit to see Scott and Laura and to meet their new Ella! We popped in on them for the evening on Thursday. They are back in their house in St. Paul, fully restored from the fire they had last fall. The restorations look great! It was a fun night of The Office, good food & wine, and holding our new second cousin! :) I'm looking forward to babysitting soon!

Dad brings new meaning to "double fisting"

Mom and Ella at dinner time

Dave and Ella -- she's just waking from her nap here

Me with the gorgeous babe!

Plants That Cleanse Your Air

So I came across this link from another blog we follow. It's on our beloved TED.com (amazing speeches and presentations. check it out sometime if you're bored!)

Dave and I have started our own little collection of indoor plants since getting married. So far we have two aloe plants, a spider plant, a bamboo (given to us by Amber!!) and some spiky one that we don't know what it's called. We've been hoping to add to the bunch, which are clustered around our sliding deck door. After running across this video, I think we will definitely be picking up these three types of plants this spring to help clean up and detoxify our air year round!



http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/490


Hope you find this video as informative and helpful as we did. It might be one of the simplest ways to create health in your life!


- Dave & Elise

Recovering from Weekend Events

This past weekend has been nuts, in great ways! We both got a lot of work hours in Thursday thru Sunday, so that again means more cash to pay bills. It was another one of those weekends where we didn't really see each other because whenever I was babysitting/screening, Dave was schooling/screening and the other way around. But it's all good! We saved a lot of lives this weekend!!

CONGRATS to Dr. Pete and Lisa on the birth of their newest daughter, 8 lb. 8 oz, 20.5 inch long, #6 for the family! She was born on Thursday, April 2 and is unnamed so far. I had the opportunity to help out their family on Friday instead of screening for Dr. Pete with Dave in St. Paul. What a treat for me! I don't think I'd ever held a two day old baby before. She is beautiful! Perfect really! My main responsibility was taking care of their two younger children, Rachel (5) and Gabriel (3). All of their kids are so well behaved, polite and outgoing. It's always a blast to hang with them! In the afternoon, we dropped off their oldest brother at track practice and stopped at the school's park for a little while. I couldn't resist snapping a few pics on such a gorgeous day! Summer's on its way!

Gabriel going down the slide on his stomach, he "had to do it that way" :)

Rachel on her probably 8th time down

Rachel swinging Gabriel

Their FAVorite -- tire swing! SO much fun!

After getting home on Friday night, I unfortunately developed an eye infection. I knew something was up the whole day with my sinuses and eyes, but it really flared around about 8pm.. It's definitely got to be due to not keeping up with my upper cervical traction exercises. I know the curve in my neck is going back to the way it was 5 months ago. I (we actually) were doing great at consistently doing our spinal exercises, but we slipped off around January and I really haven't been very good about doing my neck at all since then. So I'm certain my curve is back to the -2 that it was in October (For a healthy spine and healthy, maximized nervous- and immune systems you need a perfect curve in your neck which is a 42 degree curve. My neck is straight. Is yours?). I haven't had allergies, a cold or headaches, let alone eye infections for MONTHS, over half a year since having started correcting the curve in my upper cervical. Before finding chiropractic, I used to get eye infections at least once a month due to non-functioning tear ducts since age 2. I also had quite severe allergies to both cats and pollen. For a few months, I was able to have a cat in my lap without any symptoms -- this has now come back to wheezing and itchy eyes, which can be linked back to my curve reverting. Anyway, the point of this whole story is 1) I need to start doing my exercises again for the sake of being healthy, 2) EVERYONE needs to get the curves in their spine checked. You'll never know what your symptoms are due to until you get x-rays done and locate your subluxations. You CAN live a symptom free, drug free life!, and 3) my eye infection got worse on Saturday, so I had to miss the screening with Dave on Saturday as well.

We did try something new for my infection though. Since discovering how bad antibiotics are for your body (learn more here: http://www.drlwilson.com/Articles/antibiotics.htm), we've made personal choices not to use them anymore. So, what options did we have to try to cure the infection? Well, we did some searching online, and the link above suggests some good all-natural and safe options as well. We found quite a few recipes using different herbs and minerals. The one we picked was the most simple based on what we had in our kitchen. We boiled 2 cups of water and mixed in 3 tablespoons of honey (organic, of course!). Let that cool to room temp, and then you just put a few drops in each eye just like eye drops (we just used a straw to do this). Honey and bee pollen has naturally occurring anti-bacterial properties, so it's a no-brainer why it WORKED so well! I only wish someone had told me about this as a kid so I could have avoided so many hospital visits and prescription drugs. The diluted honey gave me instant relief when we did it Saturday night -- just amazing! We continued the honey through the weekend and Monday, and I must say my eyes feel great and are almost fully recovered. I recommend anyone at least try the honey recipe (ahem, brother Mattew!!!) the next time you or your child has an eye infection.

The event Dave screened at was a m a z i n g as he told me. Dave put in 5ish hours on Friday and 9 hours on Saturday. It was at the RiverCentre in St. Paul. Dave said it was a constant flow the entire time he was there, which is rare to have a non-stop flow like that while screening. This event was mostly for parents and most of those parents had tons of questions for Dave and the other doctors, especially about body detox and vaccines. It was a great opportunity for Dave and use all of his knowledge on vaccines and chiropractic to tell people the truth to the public. He came home from that event and told me he cannot wait for us to open and be out there, saving lives for our own office. It is indeed going to be a great time, Dave!

This week and next week are finals for Dave. Thank goodness this trimester is almost done! He can't wait to get through each one of those finals. He's already been studying a bit this past weekend, but there're so many more hours of studying to come. I know I won't be seeing much of him these next two weeks. At least we'll have Easter on Sunday to look forward to together!

We're hoping to head out for an Easter brunch buffet after church -- and hopefully with Scott and Laura! *If you guys are reading this, call or email us back!!* We realize they are busy with their new little Ella, but we do want to stop by to meet her and to include them in our Easter celebration. If that doesn't pan out, we'll meet up with a few friends from around here for a nice Easter brunch. Looking forward to it either way! :)

We spun through downtown Minneapolis a few weekends ago on the way home from a screening event and happened to have our camera with us. So here are a few taken by the hubby. He's proud of his photography skills!

This is a cute little church toward the edge of the city, so small compared to all the other buildings near by.

We have no clue what this castle-esque building actually is, so if anyone knows please comment so we can figure it out. It was really cool! We couldn't find a sign on the building as we drove by, but we're thinking maybe city hall?

Some cool sky scrapers

This was the best picture we could get of the construction of the new outdoor Twins stadium that's set to open next year. They've made tons of progress in just the last month alone!

This one's really cool -- very artsy, Dave!

Think that's about it for now. OH YEAH! Happy birthday TODAY, 4/6, to Craig B., Ashley's husband!!

Hope you don't work to hard today, Craig! Give Dally a kiss and hug from both of us!

Sorry for such a long post! We'll be better in the future, promise!


- Elise

April Birthdays!

It's a new month and that means a new string of birthdays!

First off, it is Mr. Eric V's birthday today! (The "V" is to differentiate our brothers, as we both have an Eric!) Happy birthday, Eric V! Hope you had a fun surprise party last weekend (thrown by loving girlfriend Holly). Sorry we couldn't be there, but hope you are still enjoying you birthday present from December time.

We hope all of you with upcoming April birthdays have a GREAT DAY! And a happy Easter to all our readers!

Eric Vertin - April 4th

Eric with Dave and Elise (we were pretending to be his proud parents at his high school graduation in 2007)


Melissa Schwartz - April 7th

(Just like Eric S, we don't have any pictures of you, Melissa!!)

Joel Vertin - April 15th (Tax Day)

Joel and Dave at Joel's 23rd birthday party 2 years ago


Joe Schwartz - April 17th

Joe with his lovely wife Angela and daughter Eva (Looking forward to seeing you all soon!!!)


Becky Wagner - April 19th

Sorry for the side shot -- hope you have a relaxing birthday!!


Kevin Wagner - April 21st

Kevin being himself. <3


Nick P. - April 27th

Sorry for not having a better pic of you, Nick (on the left)!

- Dave and Elise