i just swollowed a chunk of typhoid fever

yes, i sure did. our vaccination shots are all done now, and the last thing we have to do is take typhoid pills. supposedly they are "live", which means there is actually typhoid fever inside those little plastic pills. so strange.

i just read about typhoid fever here, and now i'm feeling kinda woozy.

crazy!

This is impressive! (Click it)

sore arms

there are some really exciting things happening with our big upcoming trip and some really not exciting things as well. first, the exciting: our plane tickets are now purchased for the first 2 legs of the trip- leaving for Australia on November 7th and then leaving from Australia to New Zealand on December 3rd! Then... I have no idea. SE Asia for 4 months... that's about all I know.
so the not so fun stuff so far has been getting our vaccinations! because we are going to so many different countries with so many different diseases, we have to get shots galore... and the shots are costing us $3,000! i've always kinda hated shots. it's more the thought and the sight of needles than the actual shot itself. as long as i can keep my mind on something else and never see the needle, then i'm totally fine. but for some crazy reason i get lighted headed and black out when people just talk about medical stuff, it's weird. it happened today... i had already had my shots and the nurse was talking to bethany about hers (i was even reading something not looking at them) and all the sudden i knew i was about to faint and so i rushed to a chair, sat down, and then blacked out for like 5 seconds. the nurse ran and got me some juice and then i felt better.
so anyway, short story made long... i've had 10 different shots on 3 different days in the past 2 weeks and my arms are dead! once my arm starts to recover and not feel totally dead, there they go pricking me again. bethany too!
so today i whipped out digimon right before bethany's 1st (of 5) shots in the arm. i think the progression of her facial expressions is classic. click to make it big!
only one more appointment to go in 2 weeks, then were home free! if you care, here are a some of the shots we've been getting:
-Hepatitis A (2 dose series)
-Hepatitis B (3 dose series)
-Japanese Encephalitis (3 dose series)
-Measles/Mumps/Rubella
-Menomune / Menactra (meningitis)
-Polio
-Pneumovax (Pneumonia)
-Rabies (3 dose series)
-Tetanus / Diptheria (Td)
-Twinrix (3 dose series)
-Typhum (Typhoid injection)
-Yellow Fever

worlds best smoothie

i'm not a great cook, i tend to just throw stuff together and hope it turns out. usually it looks horrible but tastes pretty good. anyway one thing i take pride in is my killer smoothies! oh boy. sometimes i wake up early in the morning and cannot go back to sleep because i'm thinking about what i'm going to put in my smoothie that day. its pretty bad.

the key is fresh ingredients. the photo below is a smoothie from a couple days ago, and i can only think of one other that came close to being this good. here is what i put in it (i don't keep track of how much of each thing):

ice
frozen bananas
frozen organic blueberries (picked by us last week)
fresh Yellow Bartlett pears (unfrozen)

"Old Orchard" Apple Strawberry Banana Juice (100% Juice, no sugar added)
little spoonful of home canned blueberry-peach jam

YUM!!!