So You Wanna Eat Super Healthy & Super Cheap

If you want to eat cheap and healthy while still enjoying wonderful flavor and variety, you just have to do one thing: Marry Christian. 

Over the past month and a half Christian and I have given up sugar and gluten, and we are also trying to stay away from any processed food. And yet, we are still completely enjoying the food that we eat because Christian is a talented cook.  [I am kinda jealous of him. I used to be the cook, but he has far out-shined me as the superior chef.]

I will post specific recipes as we proceed, but I just wanted to introduce you all to one of the many benefits of living with Christian.

Six Years Ago...

 ...the U.S. was having a bad day with Daniel Powter, rooting for Ricky Bobby at Talladega Nights, falling in love with a charming new serial killer known as Dexter, launching New Horizons spacecraft to Pulto, and mourning the loss of everyone's favorite Aussi and crocodile hunter. But most importantly Christian and I were falling in love. And we decided to celebrate that on May 20 [I know, I am writing this a bit late, oh well].

I already wrote about the trail we hiked that morning [here], which was absolutely beautiful.

Then, we walked around downtown just kind of exploring for a few hours. It happened to be a gloriously warm and gorgeous day.

We decided to treat each other to a couple of things each of us had wanted for a while.

This is the cast iron skillet Christian wanted. He was really excited to have a smaller version of his existing cast iron. He has already made tasty use of it, so I think it was a worthwhile investment.

And the herbs I wanted.

And more herbs. Christian will eventually be able to use these to make even tastier dishes. [He is a completely awesome cook, by the way, but more on that another time.]

And finally we went out to enjoy some sushi, which was utterly wonderful. There is just nothing that satisfies like plumb saki, salmon and cream cheese. Mmmm.

We had a really awesome "togetherness" anniversary. I think it still somewhat confuses Christian that I want to celebrate both our wedding anniversary and this anniversary, but he enjoys it.

<3

Kirk Hill Hike

 The morning of our six year anniversary, Christian and I decided to go on a hike up Kirk Hill. It was a short, albeit steep, 1.5 mile hike, but totally worth it when we made it to the top!

We will probably hike this often because the trail head is only about a five minute drive from our apartment, there are a few different routes to the top and it only took us about 40 minutes to complete the hike.

The view from the top was completely rewarding for the way up and was indescribably beautiful!

This hike was a really wonderful way to begin the celebration of our togetherness! 

I am really thankful that we found such a fun hike that is so close to home!

Summer Reading

One of my summer goals is to read all of the books that I have bought over the years, but haven't actually read [or read half of and never finished]. And there are some books that I just want to re-read. 

The kitties would not leave me alone when I was trying to take a picture of the books, so this is what I ended up with.

Anyhow, if you can't see the books, they are:

The History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russel

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

Gandhi an Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Sister of My Heart - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith - John Krakauer

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

The Mighty - Rodman Philbrick

The Rapture of Canaan - Sheri Reynolds

Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela

I may write in depth about a book if I feel so compelled. I am excited to have the time to go on a reading blitz, I think it will be fun!

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful spring!

Sourdough Hike

 Our second hike was through the Sourdough Valley.

It was a beautiful, easy, long hike. And we did some interval running on the way back, which was a ton of fun!

We both got some sun, which is nice because turns out that moving to MT was not great for my previously golden skin [point for CA]. I think this is the whitest I have ever been, and it's not a good color on me. I actually got some tan lines from being in the sun.

If Christian looks annoyed, it's because he is. I "made" him go further than he wanted to and his feet started to hurt [then I got a really fun story about how when he was little his feet always hurt and no one cared and it is because he has baby-like flat feet... I know, exciting.] In the depths of his heart he loved the last 5 miles :)

 We really did have fun though, and we met many puppies.

Hiking 'The M'

Yesterday Christian and I decided to get out and do something fun. Most of the two weeks we have been in Bozeman has been spent working, moving and running errands to get settled, so we needed an adventure.

One of the most popular [and easiest] hikes in Bozeman, is hiking to the M. Which is literally hiking to a giant 'M' on a nearby hill. The M stands for MSU and was erected sometime in the early 1900's [I am too lazy to google the exact date].


We had a leisurely hike going up the "easy" way [there are 3 routes to the top]. There was a nice view of the city and surrounding open land from the top. We discussed the possibility of having our future farm on the land nearby. We witnessed a para-glider glide down from the M [and saw his friend wipe out a couple of times attempting the same fete].


However, we met with great adversity on the way down because we somehow ended up on the Everest-steep route. I crab-crawled [okay, I scooted like a toddler on my ass- I have an extreme fear of heights] down the rocky cliff as children and mothers with children on their backs carefully hiked down passing me [though I did see one chick skid down, unintentionally]. This thoroughly embarrassed Christian, but we made it down without incident.

That city that you see in the distance is our new home.

We had a great first hike in Bozeman. Hopefully we will be hiking a bunch this summer :)

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Soaked

Sometimes it is deeply refreshing to run in the pouring rain.

Excuse the excessive darkness under my eyes, I swear it is mostly mascara.