I Went to Hawaii

So, I went to Hawaii. Thanks to the graciousness of Tiffany and Jared Feller, I was able to go to Hawaii. Simply put, it was amazing. Despite getting sick on my first day due to the broken air conditioning on the airplane and having to breathe everyone else's air, it was a great trip.  Here are some pics. But before you all go getting jealous because I went to Hawaii and you didn't, remember that I was sick and alone most of the time. My advice if you ever go to Hawaii: don't get sick and go with something to enjoy it with you.  Ok, enough words, here are the pics:

Honolulu from Diamond Head. I had no idea Honolulu was a big city.

A wild chickens. They were all over the place.

Me swinging on a swing on Secret Island

The sunset at Sunset beach. Seriously.

Spam Musabi. mmmmm

Jared and Tiff eating Spam Musabi. mmmmmm

The view from a lookout on Oahu. I forget exactly where, but it doesn't really matter. It's pretty.

Me eating Mochi Ice cream-one of my favorite Hawaiian treats.
(sorry I was too lazy to rotate the picture)

A beach on the north shore. 

I went hiking a bit while I was there. This is the view from one of my hikes. It was amazing.

And that is a brief recap of my trip in pictures. I highly recommend going if you ever have the opportunity.

General Conference

One of my favorite things in the world is coming up in a couple of weeks--General Conference. I have so many happy memories associated with General Conference. One of them is when I got to sing with the MTC choir at conference when I was a missionary. SUCH an amazing experience. This morning I came across this video. I was excited to see that the choir singing was the one I was in! If you look carefully at approximately the 1:00 mark you can see me in the top left corner. Exciting!

But for a Small Moment

I read this talk today and thought I would share. It's long, but worth the read.

Carpe Diem

A month or so ago I was talking to a patient who had previously been in severe car accident that almost took her life. It was a miracle she had survived. As I was asking her how her appetite was, we somehow got on the subject of how precious life is and how it should be enjoyed. She told me of her younger years when she would spontaneously take road trips with her girlfriends and go out dancing and other fun things like that. She encouraged me to take advantage of my youth--if I happened to find myself with a little extra money, "don't save it, go spend it on something fun!" she said, "like some new underwear!" :) 

I was inspired by the conversation, although not so much in the "I'm going to buy myself a new pair of underwear" type of way. I left feeling like I wanted to go do something spontaneous or fun or just let go of some of my many stresses or worries. Like I said, this was a bit ago, and I can't remember exactly what I did that day, but it has stuck with me. 

So, in the spirit of this conversation, I have decided to do something a little spontaneous, perhaps even a little irresponsible, and certainly out of my character. Are you ready for it? I decided to take a trip to Hawaii. Yep, I did. And I feel so good about it. Through a series of fortunate events I found myself able to take an extended vacation to visit some of my favorite people, Tiffany and Jared Feller. I booked the flight today and come November 7th I'll be on my way! I feel like one lucky little duck. :)

Product Review: Uncle Sam

As a Registered Dietitian (RD) I feel it is my responsibility to provide accurate, practical nutrition information to those I care for. So, in an effort to do that, I thought I would occasionally include on my blog accurate, practical nutrition information. To start, I am providing a review of a product I recently purchased.

The product I wish to review today is:

What originally attracted me to this cereal were these things: 10g of Fiber, Less than 1g for sugar, 7g of protein, Omega-3 Fatty Acids-from flaxseed (good as a laxative and for reducing total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol). 

WOW! What a combination: high fiber, low sugar, high protein AND omega-3 fatty acids all in ONE cereal.  Not only that but it is guaranteed to help you with...well you can just read the newspaper add.  You go Uncle Sam.

Sadly Uncle Sam did not meet my expectations. The very reasons I was attracted to it ended up being the very reasons I hated it. High fiber, low sugar--ick. I ended up putting large amounts of brown sugar in it just to get it down. The flaxseeds were completely useless as they sank to the bottom of the bowl. And, you know what? Whole flaxseed aren't really digested by your body so you don't even get any benefit from them.

The breakdown (on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best):

Nutritional value: 10

Palatability: -2 (5 with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar)

Appearance: 3

Fulfills promise to "help" me: 5

Would I recommend Uncle Sam? Not unless you really need it