Journey to Spray, Oregon (and food allergies).

I’m thankful that God knows what we need without us even asking. If you would have asked me, going to Spray for the weekend—especially that weekend—was the last thing I wanted to do. Truth be told, I had had quite the week, make that month, with my health. For a myriad of reasons, we decided to finally get me tested by a naturopath for food allergies. The past couple of years I’ve realized that wheat really bothers my stomach, which eventually turned into me avoiding it and most gluten. However, even with that, and prescription antacid medicine, I have horrible heartburn and multiple other allergy symptoms. Anyways, we decided to get me officially tested, which meant that I had to eat wheat, something I hadn’t even had a bite of for 6+ months. The first bite was scary and scrumptious: it was a Starbucks cake pop. Exactly 24 hours later, the symptoms started. I was anticipating the extra heart burn. I did not predict my throat swelling, itchy eyes, extreme fatigue, out-of-control emotions, a weird taste in my mouth, and a temperature. Safe to say, even without the test, I’m allergic to wheat.

Then the question with the official test became: what else am I allergic to? Apparently I hit the lottery: not only wheat, but dairy, eggs, sugar, yeast, pineapple and pumpkin. Jackpot! It’s easy to understand why traveling to someone elses house two days after this diagnosis might cause a wee bit of anxiety. (I’m sure I’ll get around to writing a post on my thoughts on food allergies, but seeming that I’ve been trying to write this post since Monday—and it’s Thursday—I’ll just skip most the details for now).

So with all that said, a weekend away was just what I needed! Lacy was awesome about my new food needs; in fact, she’s quite the healthy cook! There was constantly fresh produce to eat, and each meal we had was wheat, dairy, and egg free. She cooks for her family with no refined sugar and no refined meat. She make everything from scratch (including her own vanilla extract, sandwich bread, soap…I know I’m forgetting a lot of things, but you get the idea). Lacy showed me it was doable. And it was doable with her five kids, ages six and under…and my twins…under foot.

Ben and I went to college with Michael and Lacy Fisher, who now manage a 12,000 acre ranch in central Oregon. It was a wonderful little country retreat for our family where we got to experience lots of fun non-city things. And our kids got to play with their wonderful children. Here’s our trip in pictures: Titus teaching the boys how to drive their own kids’ tractor. Even though it was really safe, I found it best that I didn’t watch!

  Jaelle helping the boys hold the cat Somehow I ended up with all the kids (minus baby Esther) in a chain on the walk; it was pretty precious. Joel, Hannah, Titus, Jaelle, Sam, Seth It was pretty awesome: all six kids happily playing as Lacy and I made dinner and Ben and Michael were on a 4-wheel trip

I told Lacy I would try to take pictures of all her kids. Here are my favorites:

Jaelle

Titus  Hannah

Joel

Esther

Before we left on Sunday, we had a picnic lunch down at the John Day River. The boys got to “swim” and look at Crawdad’s. The Fisher kids LOVED Ben! Seth Sammy Ben made himself a human boat and let the kids float down the river on him. Our scenery for the weekend: just beautiful! Always a sign of a good weekend: conked out kids in the car! (Sam)

Thank you Michael and Lacy for your wonderful hospitality and friendship! Our kids are STILL talking about your kids and cannot wait to be “six like Jaelle.” We’re thinking that this will definitely have to be a yearly summer tradition for us!