Our New Adventure

Alright, this past year has been a bumpy one. A very bumpy one. I do not share the nitty gritty detail of the negatives of our lives because everyone is dealing with something. But in short, life has been crazy since graduating college in May 2014. We have gone from graduation to different jobs and a baby and more jobs. We have gone from living with our parents to living on our own then back with parents. All of this done in order to pay off student loans. Let me tell you, private universities are not cheap. They are worth it, but not cheap. Zack and I do not deal with debt as some people do, some people are great with making their minimum payments and are content with that. Zack and I are a bit of extremists. If we can accomplish something huge in a short amount of time, we will. That being said. These past six months have been spent living with parents and making a huge dent in our student loans. We are both still driving around our cars from high-school and we never have credit card debt. Being smart with our money has put an emotional strain on us...as we were living with our parents. We are grateful and beyond appreciative, but couch surfing with a baby...not so fun, but an adventure in its own way. 

A few months back, Zack got a great opportunity to further his medical device sales experience, he has been working as an Orthopedic Trauma Sales Rep. for the past six months. He has been in the operating room and growing his business in Orange County, CA. Both of our families live in San Clemente, CA so that is where we have been living, but don't know if we want to set up the rest of our lives here. We both grew up here, only went to school an hour from home in San Diego and we haven't seen too much else. 

Well, last week Zack kind of hit the pinnacle of his goals. He was presented with an offer from a company that he had his eyes on for a year now. It is one of those offers where you think, this is too good to be true. We are both so excited that over a year of craziness has lead to stability and something SUPER exciting.

So the deal with this job is...traveling for  6 months to 1 year. Zack's territory for his new Medical Sales position with this company is the South East...Texas to Florida and the Carolinas. So far the company wants him in Dallas, TX. He could be covering this territory for 6 months or 2 months and then they could want him in Florida for a week and then South Carolina for a month. Yes, CRAZINESS. Even crazier if I didn't get to see him for this amount of time...but the best part is, the company takes care of their employees very well...so I will be joining him! So for the next 6 months to a year we will be living in HOTELS! WOO! Room Service? We will be seeing the south, traveling, exploring and I am kinda hoping Elba will develop some accent...kidding, kinda. I really do want her to whip out a "y'all" here and there though. 

This will be it though... 6 months to 1 year and then we will be settling down and finding a place to call home. I will decorate the heck out of it and have candles going all of the time. Until then, I am going to enjoy some serious turn down service, bathtubs and room service. 

Elba and I will explore each city we are in during the day while Daddy slaves away ;) our superhero. 

So if you are following me on here, pinterest, instagram, and snapchat, get ready for some serious changes! First birthday party planning and then we are off to traveling! I will be documenting it all. I cannot freaking wait.

xo Sydney

32 Weeks Pregnant Picture

32 Weeks Pregnant Update

How far along: 32 weeks and 1 day pregnant in the pictures

Symptoms: Peeing; Trouble sleeping; Back pain; Boobs leaking; Some round ligament pain; Boobs sore some days; Dizziness every so often; Absent minded/forgetful; Very tired this week; Runny nose, but that may be because it is so dry outside right now; Thirsty all the time!

Cravings: None really

Aversions: Whatever may potentially give me heartburn

Wedding rings: On

Sleep: Been trying to sleep at night, but not working out so well and I don't think I have taken any naps in the past few weeks, but I feel like I am slowly approaching the time of exhaustion during pregnancy where I am going to be needing one every now and then...

Excited for: The baby shower coming up. I have been working on the decorations every day for the past week and I am covered in glitter and paint by the end of the day and it is definitely getting me excited.

Missing: Sleeping and some cold weather! Come on weather! Get colder!!!

Movement: She moves all of the time as always. I love it though. I love being reminded that she is hanging out with me all day and I have a feeling I am going to miss it once she is here. When she pokes me randomly or has her little hiccups it is so crazy to think she will be here with us in person.

Dr. update: I will be in there on Monday for an Ultrasound.

Exercise: Walking + eliptical 

Stretch marks: Same as last week (none)

Swelling: At the end of the day if I have been on my feet all day, which is every day. I haven't been doing much relaxing this week. I have been kinda going and going working on the baby shower stuff all day up until dinner and bed time. I definitely feel like a huge balloon though. Crazy how much your body changes during pregnancy. 

Maternity clothes: Still haven't bought or worn any maternity clothes, just making due with the clothes I have right now.

Labor signs: Nope!

What I am loving: Getting ready for the baby shower. It keeps my mind off things that are stressing me out and makes each day go by so quickly. After the half way mark at 20 weeks pregnant, things almost felt like they slowed down a little bit...now things are moving along so quickly I feel like I wake up and I am another week along and another week closer to meeting her. 

Best moment of this week: Still best moment this week is the same as last week...making the baby shower decorations and planning for it. The invitations went out yesterday so now it is just a count down until the big baby shower day! YAY!

XOXO Sydney 

Chatbooks Review

I ordered my Chatbooks a little over a week ago, when they were going through a crazy time with a massive influx of orders...but they still came in the mail very quickly! 

I ordered mine from the app on my phone and it was super easy to use, very straight forward and simple.

You can choose the cover photos you want for each "Volume" I ordered 4 volumes, each with 60 pages of pictures back and front!

Here are a few shots from the inside of the Chatbooks!

& 

Unlike instagram they actually put the day, month and year the photo was posted on Instagram instead of saying "125 weeks ago" as if you remember that specific date...

You can edit your captions or keep them as their originals. I chose to just keep the original captions instead of going through and changing all of them because I figured it was part of the memory anyways!

Here is a picture of the side binding of each book. You get to create the title you want on each volume. I put "Zack & Sydney" as a way to connect it to my blog and because I use my instagram more than Zack does, the photos are both of our memories!

You can also do a custom book without using your instagram photos and you can visit their website on how to do that (I will link their website below). I know I will be doing one of my bump progression pictures, or just pictures of the belly throughout the whole pregnancy.

I cannot wait to add these little books onto my coffee table at our new place which we will be starting to move within a month or so. I cannot wait to set these books out on display. So much more personal than a random coffee table book. There is something I love about having photos tangible instead of on the computer or on the phone. I absolutely love these books.

Each volume contains 60 pages back and front of your photos and each volume costs 6 dollars. Not bad & definitely worth every penny!

You NEED to go visit their WEBSITE

Check out their INSTAGRAM

I am so happy I did this! I plan to do a lot more in the future!

xoxo Sydney

What We Have Been Up To

I have been neglecting the blog a bit this week but that is because we are in the process of moving. I think I mentioned that in the last post, but I just wanted to clarify once more. Right now we have been moving up all of our stuff to our parents house as we are in the process of looking for a place. We got out of our lease down here in San Diego a month early and our final day is tomorrow. So we drove down here early this morning from San Clemente and Zack went to work to train the new lab researcher for a few hours while I am at our studio cleaning up the place! I am avoiding anything with heavy chemicals so I have had a magic eraser in hand for the past two hours and let me tell you...these baseboards look amazing haha. We are just going to clean up everything today and get it spotless and then do the final walk through with our landlord tomorrow and then we are done and up in San Clemente! I have been absent from the blog for a while due to moving and birthdays and just a crazy hectic week!

This is my day today just cleaning up, renting a carpet cleaner, and scrubbing away! I will be posting a 14 week pregnancy update hopefully tomorrow, but it will likely be on the day that I actually turn 15 weeks... :(

I can't wait for things to go back to normal! Moving is a pain and it sucks up all of your time!

XOXO

Sydney 

Our Week In IPhone Pictures

Happy Super Bowl Sunday Readers!

So we haven't been up to too much lately other than daily life. Zack has packed up his bag today because he is heading out to Utah tomorrow to teach the lab out there. He is gonna stay with his sister and family out there and head back Tuesday afternoon. I drop him off at the airport at 5:15 AM tomorrow, yuck! I always hate when he leaves, but at least he shortened his trip to just overnight! 

Now, I realize this said week in pictures, but I am just gonna start from the end of the week, so Thursday I took Oak for a walk around campus and came home and did my favorite HIIT workout and used my polar watch! I absolutely love this thing, I used to have one when I was running cross country and it is a great way to monitor your heart rate and see how much work you are putting into your workouts, I love working out hard when I work out...so I always get my heart rate up and end up dripping in sweat after them. 

Friday night I my friend wanted to go out for drinks so Zack and I packed up and headed home to San Clemente to stay the night with our families! My friend Britney and I went to a little wine bar in San Clemente called The Cellar. The old bar tender that I used to work with at a restaurant up there was our bar tender and he spoiled us, we were able to try quite a few wines. A great night! We settled on a Paso Robles Red Wine. A wine I am familiar with because Zack sells Paso wines. We had so much fun talking and listening to the live music and enjoying some good wine:). 

 That night we stayed with Zack's parents and in the morning we went to visit my Dad at his house at North Beach in San Clemente. We walked over to a little cafe called Ellie's Table and Zack picked out his lunch and we walked back over to my Dad's and watched the surfer's and enjoyed some lunch!

That day, we spent most of the day shopping for a new suit for Zack and we found the perfect one. He looks sharp in it I might add;)

This Sunday morning, we got up at 6:00 AM and got ready to go on a walk down to the harbor by our house by 6:30 AM. I am so happy it is cold out, but I wish it didn't take our Southern California winter so long to show up! I have already made up my mind that I am ready for summer. Stop teasing us weather! We walked to the harbor and hung out there for a bit and on our way home we stopped at Starbucks and Zack got a Latte and I got a Tazo Green Tea.

I love our weekend mornings together. We love to get our little family out and just be active together and enjoy the day. These are what our dates look like and I wouldn't want it any other way. 

For the most part, today has been chore day, we worked out, did some cleaning around the house, got Zack all packed up for Utah, did some face masks (you know your man does face masks too, don't lie), and now we are gonna head out to sneak in a little shopping. Once we get back I am gonna get some homework done and then we are gonna watch a movie and call it an early night. 

We were invited to Super Bowl Festivities, but this year I think we are gonna hang tight down here.

What is everyone else up to for Super Bowl Sunday?

Be safe!

-Sydney- 

Cozy and Yummy Gluten-Free Dinner

Blogmas Dinner Day 5

Tonight Zack and I were in the mood for some comfort food, we had a long week and we have been stressed and it is chilly outside so why not! We went grocery shopping, but we wanted to use some of the stuff we had in our fridge that we had not used yet. 
This makes a great dinner if you are looking to use your fresh veggies that you don't want going to waste! 

We made a 
Creamy Ham Chowder Soup 

Here are the ingredients I used to make it: 

Carrots

Green Onions

Ham

Gluten Free Bisquick

Milk

Butter

Rice

Salt & Pepper

Onion Powder

Garlic Powder

*Broccoli would also be delicious in it, zucchini, any veggie you love really :)* 

As we ate our dinner we started the movie ELF. Amping up the Christmas spirit this week with some movies and yummy soups.

If anyone is interested in how I made this leave a comment below! 

What have you made for dinner this month?

- Sydney- 

Christmas Coziness- Our Home Decorated!

So last week I decorated for Christmas, yes I know it is early, and last week it was even earlier. I couldn't wait, I just had to! I was kindly reminded on my instagram that I had beat Nordstroms to decorating;) a proud moment...

So while I should have been studying I opted for decorating instead! 
 I included a few pictures of how we decorated our little place so far:)

I really hope to keep adding a few more things!

It has been a while since I have posted anything on here and that is because it has been hectic lately, we have been getting ready to go on vacation to Kauai this coming Thursday! We will be posting tons of pictures I am also gonna post a few of our meals we have been eating lately (that are gluten-free of course) so look out for those!

Meanwhile, take a peak at some Christmas craziness!!!

Merry Almost Thanksgiving ;)

Sydney 

Epicuren Discovery Hydrating Mineral Mask Review

Okay, so let's talk about Epicuren Discovery Hydrating Mineral Mask. To start off, this stuff is amazing. I use a retin-A at night a few times a week and it makes me somewhat oily during the day so when I see things like "hydrating"...I bolt the other direction! BUT there has to be a balance, even oily skin needs some hydrating! 

Sooo...I have had an incredibly long week with very minimal sleep, 4-5 hours at most every night since Monday. This is pretty typical for most weeks, and even though I do not turn into a MONSTER from lack of sleep I definitely feel like it shows on my skin...I feel like I look dehydrated and exhausted and my skin lacks that healthy plump look.

Last night I thought I would give this stuff a go, I was looking at my dark circles and my exhausted skin and thought it would be a perfect night to see how the product really performs, especially since the weather has been so dry lately my skin has been dry as well...so I went for it!

After the recommended 10-20 minutes on the skin (I waited about 18 min. or so) I gently wiped it off with a warm damp wash cloth, and OH MY GOSH my skin felt amazing. It did not have that greasy feel you get from just throwing on lotion...I can't even explain it....it felt like new skin. I made Zack keep touching my face and I could not stop talking about how good my skin felt.

The product says: For Normal, Dry, and Dehydrated skin types. A creamy mineral complex designed to restore the skin's freshness and moisture levels.

I have the 2.5 fl oz tube.

When you first apply it, it goes on feeling like a watery, thick lotion, but lotions sink into skin and this just kind of sat on top and did not dry like a clay mask. It dried a little but you could still see the white color of the product, it didn't seep into skin all the way, which I imagine is normal. 

I would definitely recommend this product to people even with oily skin like me, my make up went on smoother this morning and my skin just looked rested even though I only got about 5 hours of sleep at most. When you take it off your face your skin feels "cool" not tingly like a purifying mask would make skin feel, but just moisturized, not irritated at all like some masks can be, instead it felt refreshed. I have sensitive skin too. I do not know what happened to my skin, but about 2 years ago my skin started being picky about the products I use on it...this product as well as the other epicuren products I have just gotten have not irritated my skin at all.

Let me know if you want to see more reviews on the other products I have just gotten from epicuren or whatever products you would like to see and anything else you may be interested in seeing in the comments below! 

Feel free to ask questions too!

Also, check out my instagram for daily pictures:) 

@SydneySedillo 

Life This Past Week In Pictures

Here are a few pictures from my phone from this past week....

These are not in any particular order!

Amino acid chromatography lab 

In the midst of highlighting as I was reading for class I thought Oak needed a little attention...he doesn't seem too happy about it.

Some wine after a long day;)

New epicuren products! WOO!!! Thinking about doing a review on the products I got, let me know if you would like to see a review:)

Gluten Free Zucchini Onion Quiche for dinner one night. I am also going to be doing a recipe for this if anyone is interested in seeing a post about it let me know in the comments below! 

Amazing lemonade I picked up from the store for a little sweet treat to help me get motivated to study! So good!!!

Of course, Zack being the amazing husband that he is obviously knows I hate to paint my toe nails....haha 

I hope everyone is having an amazing Wednesday morning! 

Let me know what you guys want to see next in the comments and of course I always love to hear from you guys!

 If you want to see more pictures from my phone follow me on Instagram (@SydneySedillo) I would love to follow you guys back!

Meals From This Past Week and What We Did Saturday!

This week was another long week! Did it feel long to you guys too? I don't know, maybe it's just me and having nights as late as 1:30 and waking up at 5:30 the next morning throughout the week. For some reason it just felt long.

Well this week included a lot of cooking, but I will just include a few of the meals I made this week.

Below are just a few of the recipes I made this week and a picture of my day yesterday and what I spent my Saturday doing!

Homemade Gluten Free Chicken Fried Rice

I cooked the cut up chicken breast in a small amount of coconut oil, salt, and peppered the chicken.

Add the boiled rice to the pan that had the chicken in it and pour desired amount of gluten free soy sauce on top of the rice.

Mix it all together!

I added two eggs to one edge of the pan....

Whisk the eggs and let them cook on the edge of the pan.

Mix in the cooked eggs with the combined rice and chicken.

Add the steamed veggies to the pan!

There you have it! Quick and easy meal, throw it all together, add as much soy sauce as you like and serve! 

Moving on to the next meal we had this week, it was more of a dessert that I made during the week because I saved our bananas that were too ripe to eat!

Gluten Free Banana Bread, 1 Plain Loaf and 1 Chocolate Chip Loaf!

As you can see I had already cut into the chocolate chip loaf one and ate it with Zack before I had taken this picture.

This is what the plain loaf turned out like.

Overall, with preparation the recipe took under and hour, the cook time in the oven was obviously the longest part! That and waiting for it to cool of course ;)!

A Quick Dinner We Threw Together: Rice, Balsamic Sautéed Chicken, and Parmesan Asparagus 

So that is how our quick dinner turned out, it was super yummy and it was full of asparagus, that was definitely the largest food group on our plates, VEGGIES!

If anyone is curious about the actual recipes and their cook times and the exact ingredients I used just let me know in the comments and I can type the up really quickly, no problem:)!

Everything I made here did not take much time at all, because I had such a busy week at school and did not have time to really prepare many big meals. So I thought I would just let you take a peak at a few meals we came up with on the spot this week!

Yesterday

Yesterday Zack and I drove home to San Clemente to watch my little brother play in his soccer game. He scored two goals and his team won! I felt bad for those little guys out there though, it was so warm, it was in the high 80's and you could just see they were exhausted and thirsty the whole time!

Here is a picture I posted on my instagram (SydneySedillo) yesterday of Oak and I watching my brother play! Luckily I found some shade or else the poor pup would've been miserable in the heat!

So cute! Look at how he is watching the team play!

What did you guys do this weekend? 

Happy Sunday Evening!

Let's get ready for this week!!!