Mimes and a dinner at Hofbräuhaus in Munich, Germany

We stayed at the beautiful park until the sun began to set, then we made our way to dinner at the Hofbräuhaus. 

Many of the buildings we passed had the year they were first built (or when the business first started) inscribed on the side.  As you can see in the picture here, in the bottom right it says “anno 1589”. That’s right, the Hofbräuhaus has been brewing and serving beer for over four centuries now! 

It was an interesting experience to be able to walk down the uneven stone streets and see when the buildings around us had been built. It made me feel almost as though I were walking through time to know that the lay of the area was roughly the same as it had been centuries prior, and that the food served in these buildings was the same food eaten by the people of that time as well!

 Photographer me was snapping pictures and walking at the same time, so I wasn’t really seeing where I was going, and my hubby and I nearly ran into a statue! “Whoa!” exclaimed my hubby as we nearly backed into a fountain statue.

 The statue was oddly placed right in front of the entrance to the Hofbräuhaus.  He glanced up at it and then turned to me, “I almost thought it was real”. He chuckled and then continued on. I put down my camera and turned to take a picture of the fountain statue. It was of a worker man standing on a platform. It's coloring was an aged gold from head to toe, and he held a cup in his hands from which water poured out into the bowl below him. However it couldn’t be a statue as the arm, which held the cup, moved slowly from side to side and the head would occasionally tilt and turn. A machine then? How peculiar. I stared up at its face and my jaw dropped open. “Honey, it is real!” I exclaimed! I watched him move. His movements were not entirely smooth; he jittered as he mimicked how a machine might move. “He’s a mime!” my husband declared. And my DH was quite right. It was indeed a mime, and I thought a most excellent one at that! He sent us a wink as he heard that we had figured him out. I was in awe. One other couple had stopped and was observing him, however aside from them and us, everyone passed him by without a second glance. I gave my camera to my hubby and asked if he would take my picture with the first mime I have ever met. Naturally hubby obliged and I ran to stand next to the mime. The mime made a series of unusual faces at me, and instinctively I held out my hand. He then turned and poured water into my hand. That got people’s attention! Very quickly a crowd gathered and all were observing the mime move. Other people began to take pictures with him and a bald man requested that he pour water on his head! After my hubby took the photos, I dug through my pockets and pulled out the euro coins I had on hand and placed them in a box in front of the mime (a box that nearly blended in with his statue self!). I wish I had had more than a few dollars to give him; we found him to be very impressive! (If anyone is interested, here is his fb page: AlexStatue)

 

After a significantly sized crowd had gathered and began to clog up the street, we departed and entered the Hofbräuhaus. When I asked my hubby what some of the things he most wanted to get out of our vacation were, excellent German food was at the top of his list, just under relaxation. So for my hubby (and myself), this dinner was a highly anticipated event. We were overwhelmed when we first walked in. It was a very large restaurant, though it didn’t look it at first, as it was divided into many sections, but after observing the many paths, which led to further rooms or tucked away cubbies, I began to realize it was a very large restaurant, and it was packed with people. All of the tables and benches were wooden, the high walls and ceilings painted with ornate German designs, the staff dressed in period attire, and a live folk band performed Bavarian music (with large mugs of beer at their feet!).

Unsure if we should seat ourselves or wait for someone to seat us, I asked the nearest man dressed in Lederhosen. “Excuse me,” I began, “Should we seat ourselves or should we wait for someone to seat us?” The man gave me a smile and replied, “I will seat you, but you’ll have to leave your boyfriend behind” giving a nod to my DH, who was still in the entryway with our LO taking in the scene around us. “Ah, thank you.” I replied. He gave a nod as I left to tell my hubby we were to choose whichever table suited us.

We walked past the steinvault – an area with locked cubbies where loyal drinkers could keep their steins safe – and past a very large bar before we found a tucked away corner that met our desires. A kind waiter in Lederhosen took our orders, brought a chair for the baby, and even toys to keep the baby occupied while we awaited our food. 

 

While we waited for our food, we read the backs of our menus (we were given an English translation), which gave us the history of the place. Among other things, it told us that back in the 1500’s, beer was not regarded as a beverage but as a fundamental food. We also discovered that the building we were in had been redesigned and rebuilt several times due to everything from bombs to fire to necessary expansion.

 You can see our drinks in the picture at upper left there. The food we ordered did not disappoint. My husband ordered a roasted knuckle of pork and received that large hunk of meat you see at right.

Most dishes seemed to come with a sticky dumpling and a form of sauerkraut. I had the pork and dumpling as seen below (and yes, I did not conform to my usual diet while on this trip. I did the last time we went to Germany three months ago and this time I was eager to sample their cuisine).

My dish of roasted pork slices with crackling in homemade gravy.

For dessert we shared this apple strudel from the Hofbräuhaus bakery!

We were so full that it took some effort to squeeze this tasty morsel into our stomachs. 

The vanilla sauce it was in was particularly delicious. Seeing that we enjoyed it so much, the waiter brought a whole bowl of the vanilla sauce over. We liberally poured it onto our strudel to increase it's deliciousness factor. 

 

Unlike Italy, Germans do tip, and it is customary to round up to the nearest ten. After polishing off our plates and drinks, we departed for the gift shop were we purchased memento mugs, including a small one we intend to put on the Christmas tree, along with our other souvenirs from our travels.

The dinner proved to be very fulfilling and a grand experience to conclude our first day in Germany. If you ever happen to get the chance to go to Munich, we  certainly recommend this place to you!

Thankfulness Day 8 - Just a really great day :)

I am thankful for so many things today, that I'm really not sure which one to pick. I could be thankful for friends, because a sweet friend of mine offered to watch Adam for the evening (I didn't even ask! She jumped at the suggestion of a date night. What a blessing!) I could be thankful for breaks and date nights, because it's been months since we had one and it was great to get some one on one fun with the hubby. We did the standard dinner and a movie date night. I could also be thankful for the fact that the restaurant we chose had a great selection of vegetable side dishes! I was bracing myself for possibly going hungry as my hubby chowed down delicious Italian pasta and meats next to me, however I had a delicious assortment of roasted vegetables, as well as a small veggie soup. It was encouraging to know I can still go out to eat with my hubby and be able to stay within my diet. I am also thankful for gift certificates! We won gift certificates to the movies for our community service acts, so the movie we attended (Ender's Game) didn't cost us a thing. Hooray for inexpensive dates! Today was just one of those really good days, and I'm so thankful it came along. ^_^

Alternative Cancer Care Part 1: The Cancer Diet

So then, just what are you doing for treatment? This is a question I frequently get now, and it is a valid one to be sure. If we’re not taking the orthodox route, what then is the plan of attack? For the past month my husband and I have been doing research, almost daily on this matter and we have now implemented a plethora of actions that we believe will assist in battling my cancer. In order to keep the blog posts shorter, I’ll cover one part of the attack plan per post. This post is about diet change. Adjusting my eating habits was the first and easiest part to implement as some of the other treatments needed to be shipped to us and would take a few weeks.

I don’t recall where I got the analogy, but I read somewhere that being sick with cancer is like being in a boat with a hole in it.  Treatment is akin to the small bucket you have for bailing as you also attempt to row your way to shore. Whether or not you make it to shore (cure) depends on the size of the hole in comparison to your ability to bail water. So the question is, how big do you want the hole in your boat to be? The smaller the hole the better! Obviously if you are smoking and drinking often, you are hindering your health and your immune system is going to be preoccupied and less focused on healing the cancer, so bigger hole with more water flowing into your boat, causing you more stress as you bail faster and it will take you much longer to reach shore if you can get there at all! The idea with the diet is to make the hole in the boat as small as possible. (or perhaps give yourself a bigger bucket? It depends on how you look at the example, but you get the idea) Eat well and flood your system with nutrients, and the boost in your immune system gives it more ammo to attack the large problem, the cancer in my body.

We (my DH and I) read a couple books and browsed through many sites concerning diets to assist in optimal health, and I found the trend to be to eliminate meats and dairy, as well as sweets and all things refined. Some suggested going further than that, others didn’t seem to think it was necessary. However one site specifically suggested that for those with advanced stages of cancer, it would be best to go on an ALL vegetable diet. I never saw myself becoming a vegetarian, or worse, a vegan! I am a meat lover and ate some form of it daily before my current situation. But now I’m on a diet far stricter than a vegetarian or Vegan. I'm on the advanced stage cancer diet. eep! The jist of my diet is listed below:

After reading the list of do and don’t foods I held my head in my hands and began to think I might die of starvation before the cancer gets me. As you can see by the column in green, I can only eat vegetables. And not all of them at that! They took out the good ones, like potatoes and tomatoes, flavor adders like all forms of onions. Gah! 

Not all the foods prohibited in the cancer diet I’m on are necessarily bad for you. People who don’t have compromised immune systems should have no problem eating cheeses and yogurts made with mold or eating rare cuts of meat. I however, want the smallest hole possible in my boat, and so if I want my immune system to be able to give full focus on attacking my cancer, I would be best to eliminate any foods that might distract it and use up some of it’s valuable resources, and instead flood it with maximum nutrients. This means maximum vegetables.

Here's a sample of what I eat every day:

 

Breakfast!  Two fried (with coconut oil) eggs on spinach with a glass of juiced carrots (more on juicing in the next post:). I put the eggs over all manner of veggies, particularly sprouts, which are supposed to be a superfood. These eggs are my saving grace every morning. They taste amazing! (Especially the liquid gold oozing from the center, oh man, I will never look at eggs the same way again!) Normally eggs wouldn't be allowed, however they are permitted for breastfeeding mothers because the yolks have essential nutrients for baby brain development. Hooray for breastfeeding!!!

 

Lunch: I am supposed to have (organic only) fresh salads, vegetables, and juiced vegetables and grasses/sprouts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As such, my lunches normally consist of some form of salad. I do things like lettuce with olives (and no dressing), or sliced cucumber with lemon juice and dill weed, but my example here is an avocado and sprouts salad. This is actually really good together! Sometimes I’ll sprinkle lemon juice or real salt on it to add some zing.

            My hubby has started growing our own sprouts, as that is the healthiest way to have them readily available. He ordered a variety of seeds online, and we grow them in these mason jars and use a cut screen for the lid.  One only has to rinse the sprouts twice daily to encourage growth, and the screen acts like a sieve. We simply screw off the top and scoop out what we need and then put it back. It's low maintenance and super healthy!

Snack Time: For the first two weeks of my diet, plain, whole Almonds were my go-to snack. Almonds grew old, very fast. Then one day I went over to a friend’s house and as I walked in, I found her in the kitchen. She declared she was making me hummus. I stopped for a moment and ran through the ingredients. Can I eat hummus? That sounds too good to be true! I can’t have garlic or olive oil, but if you leave out the garlic and substitute coconut oil, everything else is okay! I was so happy! Hummus is amazing and it didn’t dawn on me that it could be in my diet until she made it. I have made it every day since then and it is a fantastic way to eat veggies. I have had to reign myself in a little though :S My love for Hummus grew very intense and once I was consuming two cans of garbanzo beans a day, hubby staged an intervention and allotted the hummus into 6 oz containers per day (which is a good amount for any sane person). This is because, sadly, I’m only supposed to eat beans “in moderation”, but like the eggs, this dip has been a lifesaver on this small diet.

I found I can eat just about any veggie raw if I put a glob of hummus on it. And the majority of my food is supposed to be raw. Cooked food is not bad, and it would provide me with more calories than if I ate the veggie raw, but eating raw veggies daily is encouraged because fewer nutrients are destroyed or changed than those that have been cooked.

 

Dinnertime:

For dinner I usually either stir-fry some veggies in coconut oil or I make a soup (see below). Soups can be rather lacking since potatoes, garlic, onion, and tomato can’t be in them, and neither can black pepper, but I’ve made good use of other vegetables. The soup below has asparagus, brussel sprouts, turnips, Swiss chard, radishes, peas, carrots, shredded cabbage, zucchini, squash, bell peppers, and kidney beans. My organic veggies then simmer in some organic vegetable broth with some seasonings and then I greedily eat it. The soups have been turning out quite well, and I mix up the veggies and spices to add variety. I normally try and make one large pot so I can eat the leftovers for a few subsequent meals. (Though since I’m not supposed to use a microwave I must reheat it on the stove each day)

 

And that’s it. No desserts or sweets of any kind. :( I tried to make a zuchinni bread at one point using almond flour and coconut oil as substitutions and of course no added sugar. I thought it tasted terrible; rather like flavorless, soggy, cardboard. My husband didn’t mind it too much though and helped me eat it.

I am proud to say that I have successfully been on this diet three weeks now. And it has gradually been getting better and easier! I had a rough adjustment time the first week, a lot of weakness, some dizziness, and intense cravings, but all of those have significantly decreased and I believe my taste buds have adapted to the new regime.

So, will this cure my cancer?

Some people say that a drastic change in diet like this can cure cancer on it’s own. If it were an early stage, I would agree. At this late stage I’m in, I think it can do a lot of good, but I don’t want to leave that as the ONLY treatment we do. As such, we have implemented many more things, which I will detail further in future posts. The main goal behind the diet change is to help super charge the immune system so it can assist in fighting the cancer, and also to help buy time for the cancer patient, so that other treatments have more time/chance to do their thing. This was a simple thing to implement while we continued our research and tested out other alternative treatment methods.

Diet Mishaps:

Early on in my diet, during the first few days, I was in the store watching the Vitamix woman give a demonstration on how to make delicious soups quickly in the Vitamix. We had a Vitamix and I excitedly sped home and googled some recipes. One soup recipe seemed to have an intense amount of veggies and the blogger raved about it. So I threw the ingredients into our Vitamix and minutes later a steaming frothy soup emerged. I poured it into a bowl and realized it was more like the consistency of a thick smoothie than a soup, but regardless I eagerly dipped my spoon in.

It. Was. Nasty. I refuse to tell you the ingredients or link you to the page because this recipe should be demolished and wiped from history. My husband didn’t believe me and attempted to encourage me to eat it. He told me how healthy this nearly raw soup was and all the good it would do. I told him it was too gross and there was no way I could choke it down. I then mourned the loss of food. As I was bemoaning how I would starve and die, he poured two glasses full of the thick soup. He sat down and told me that if I could beat him to the bottom of my glass, he would give me a $100 shopping spree. (wow! He must have been quite confident in his ability to beat me!) This was a good move on his part. He knows my buttons, give me competition and better yet, a reward involving a cash prize and I will unearth formerly non-existent motivation.

I tried to mentally prepare, then we clinked glasses, declared go, and chugged for all it was worth. Oh it was so gross. The sickly green soupie/smoothie was reluctant to go down and the foam on top was hindering my speed. About halfway through I vomited. No joke, emptied the contents of my stomach. The soup was that horrid. My hubby didn’t make it either. That’s right, the one who said it was just veggies and it was super healthy and stood $100 to lose, where was he? He had flown from his seat at the table and was gagging over the sink. He didn’t vomit like I did, but he gagged up what he had tried to get down and dumped the rest.

“Don’t EVER bring a recipe like that into our house again.” He said in a dead serious tone, as he poured a glass of water to swish out his mouth. “I’m sorry!” I apologized while using my napkin to futilely attempt to scrape every last remnant off my tongue. That was a bad night, for everyone but our bank account. But for every fail there are good finds too. (like the Hummus!!!)

So if you, my dear reader out there, happen to have any ideas or know of any amazing recipes that are within my diet, by all means, please share them below!

 

Is this worth it? Is it working?

There are some times when the diet change has been rather depressing, and what with fall in full swing and pumpkin and sweets and hot chocolate on the menus it can be depressing that there is little to nothing I can have. I wondered to myself if all the change I have implemented was futile? However God sent me an encouraging pick-me-up in the form of a cold, and I am now quite confident that I have seen a vast improvement in my health! At first the boost in my health wasn’t too noticeable, and as it was a slow change there wasn’t much more than feeling a slight increase in energy. However, when a sickness went around base this past week, many of my friends and family, as well as myself, got the cold. It was then that I was able to see just how much my body has improved. I usually use my husband as my meter, (not very scientific for the picky people, but it’s good enough for me). Normally when our family gets a cold or flu, I will be sick an average of 3 times as long as my hubby is, and have it far worse, with more symptoms than affected him.

However, this time we woke up sick on the same morning, and the opposite was true. He had far more symptoms than I did at a much higher level and they lasted longer than mine. My friends on base averaged 4-6 days with the cold. Hubby had it four days and Adam had it five days. I conquered it in a successful three! This has not happened to me in many many years, (as even before my cancer I had an autoimmune disease that contributed to my catching seemingly every illness that blew through the room). It was very encouraging to see that my immune system has definitely increased in efficiency since doing a diet overhaul only three weeks past. A three-day sickness is unheard of for me, and while my hubby was sleeping it off in bed, my symptoms were so minimal that I was running errands and taking care of chores. It felt great!

This experience definitely encouraged me and let me know that my efforts have not been in vain, and gave me a new zeal for vegetable consumption.

I also wanted to say a Thank You to everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging to me throughout this! Your continued prayers and messages mean a lot to me and your overwhelming support gives me motivation <3 thank you!

A Lazy Saturday

Since we arrived in Aviano, the weather has been generally overcast and rainy. However, as April arrived the weather took a turn for spring. It has considerably warmed up, and as such we are spending much more time out of doors. Here's an account of our lovely lazy Saturday in pictures.

Here my hubby is preparing the dirt for his plants. After asking the neighbor girl her name, she wouldn't stop chatting! Even though she knew we didn't speak Italian... haha.

Providing moral support to daddy can be exhausting

Adam, napping in the warm grass. Love our yard! (And to the panicking relatives, no he did not get sunburned! It was about a 20 min nap and he spent most of it in the shadow I cast sitting next to him. lol)

My artistic photo? A small feather caught on a blade and blowing like a flag in the breeze.

The whole group, minus me (the photographer, daisy chain maker, baby minder, and gardening moral support giver ;) )

After lunch, we decided to go for a short hike in the woods across from our house. Here's the trail. Everything was green and budding with the heat spurt!

Sitting in the soft moss by the creek

Our trail turned into this awesome wooden pathway with moss covered railing. Troy and I both agreed it was fit for an Ewok village and made us feel like we were somewhere off earth.

So many vines!

Did I mention this trail is RIGHT ACROSS FROM OUR HOUSE!?! We are thoroughly enjoying the place we live in!

A snake we encountered, warming himself on the sunny path.

We came home and I made this dinner! yum! BBQ Spare Pork Ribs, vegetable salad, baked beans (I added bacon and sauteed onion), Green Beans (with soy sauce and sesame seeds), and totts. And it was all done and warm at the same time! ^_^ rather pleased with myself. There are three place setting because we invited a friend from my hubby's work over to help us eat this delicious dinner and play games afterward. It was a perfect lazy Saturday. :)

Tax Return and All-Clad Cookware

We filed our taxes, received the tax return, and already spent a good part of it. Today, the last of our spendings arrived! Troy and I knew we were needing a good pots and pans set, and after some research and consultation, we settled on All-Clad and Troy selected the pieces he thought would be of most use to us.  

Oooo, shiny! 

My DH and I both have a passion for cooking and are eager to make use of our new cookware. We have divided up the week so that I have been assigned the Monday/Tuesday meals, and he is in charge of the Thursday/Friday meals. (Wednesdays we attend a Bible Study that serves us dinner, and Sat/Sun are the designated days for eating leftovers or going out to eat) This set up has worked nicely for us as we get to pursue our passions but not have the pressure and drudgery of being in charge of every single meal every day of the week. As we only have two days a week each, we can plan an elaborate (or modest) meal and give it our all, knowing we get to lay back and let someone else do the work on the other nights.

We do our weekly shopping after church on Sunday, and last week during our shopping trip we discovered that we had coincidentally both planned a form of chicken for the first night and crock-pot ribs for our second night. Haha. Great minds think alike, no? And if one has to have similar meals twice in one week, at least we have excellent taste, yes?

Adam enjoys hanging with us and doesn’t like to be left in a room without someone in it, and dinnertime is no exception. He eyes our food and demands to be fed at the same time so he can feel a part of the meal as well. Here he is after last Tuesday's meal:

Passed out after a delicious dinner. "Mmmm, mommy makes yummy ribs." ;) haha