Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Our first day: the early start, our arrival and the first of many surprises.

We left out of the Richmond International Airport at o-dark thirty in the morning and arrived with a lot of time to spare. The first surprise (after our arrival) was the fact that you had to pay for your luggage. This was a big surpruse to me since I hadn't flown in such a long time. It seemed like such a waste of money and yet another way for the airlines to take money from their consumers. I'm not sure how long this practice has been going on but I would think that they make enough money off airline fares that they don't need to charge for luggage, but I guess that I am wrong.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, our early arrival and the rather uneventful airport wait.

We grabbed a quick breakfast from the Starbucks counter. Mommy had her daily first caffeine fix of the day and the kids got some yummy sweet treats. We dutifully waited in the "pre-security" area  before going through the sexurity check line.

Now let's step aside for a second and talk about airport security. My husband has never flown and I haven't flown in quite a while (pre- 9/11) so we had no idea what was involved with airport security. We approached the security gates with my daughter still in her stroller. My husband went through first and after taking every piece of metal that he had on his body off of himself and our son and they walked through the security gates with relative ease. Then it was my turn and the first thing the TSA lady said was "she needs to come out of that stroller," so I take my daughter out of the stroller, fold it up and put it on the scanner. I think took my little ones shoes off and let her run through the metal detector. I got held up because in my ernest to pack everything as compactly as possible, I had to unpack everything from my bag: the digital camera, the video camera, my laptop, all of my son's medications and our carry on bag. Urgh! How annoying. My husband, not realizing that I wasn't through security yet, let my daughter run back to me. But instead of running to me, she ran out of security and the security guards just watched her go. Now, I realize that it is not there job to chase children around the airport, but they could've at least stopped her from exiting the security area. So my husband had to run and get her, thus starting the whole process of security all over again for both of them. What a pain! The best part about the entire flight was that both our kids slept the entire way to Orlando! The entire time and it was great!

When we arrived in Orlando, we met a nice little man that was there to greet us. I wasn't able to get a picture of him but he had a nice little cart with a sign that had Joseph's name on it.
















Monday, September 14, 2009

The Make a Wish Send off party


Joseph's Make-a-Wish preparty was held at our house and it was Dinosaur themed. Joseph had a great time w/ pizza, drinks and presents. The Packs (Joseph's wish team) also brought him a special treat, a Pizza Hut Mac-n-Cheese pasta bowl. He loves Mac-n-Cheese and this was a wonderful addition to his party and very thoughtful. He loved his cake as well. After pizza and cake, Joseph got to open his "gift". He got a Make-a-Wish Teddy bear, an autograph book, a shirt, a Birnbaum info book all about Disney and a disposable camera (that we sent back to them and

got them sent back to us about six weeks after our trip.

It was a great party and everyone had a good time!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

More Big Give


Now these are some cool little things! There are crayon rolls, once unrolled you have an entire rainbow of colors in front of you. Once your done coloring, you put the crayons back, roll them up and tie them. Nice and neat! My kids loved them,  and the coloring books that came with them.
This is another outfit that Abbigail got for the Big Give. You'll see this later! But she loved it and she looked so totally adorable in it.

The Big Give


How to describe the Big Give.......
The Big Give is a group of women (and one man, so I'm told) who send gifts to Make-a-Wish families prior to their trip. They are all over the country and the gifts can be anything--from handmade clothing to swim towels. This group of women (and the one man) are an extraordinary group of people who selflessly give their time and own money to send gifts to Wish Families all over the world. I can not begin to tell you just how greatful I am to these group of people. They will forever be in integral part of our trip and our wonderful memories.
Thank you ALL!
Here are some examples of the Big Give items that Joseph and his sister Abbigail received prior to leaving for our Magical vacation

Here are some lovely items that we used on our trip. An autograph bok, some beach balls (which my kids love), autograph books and towels for both of the kids. Princess Caitlin (the sender of the package) got Lightening McQueen items for Joseph and princess themed items for Abbigail (completely appropriate since Abbi loves Princesses!)

They also each got there own beach towels. Unfortunately, because of the Hurricane that was looming in Florida, we never got to go swimming. The pool was closed the entire time that we were there. But since we have a pool at home, we were able to use them when we got home. So they did get used!

Abbigail also got some hair accessories that were princess themed that she enjoyed. And both of the kids got bubbles! How fun are bubbles? My kids love them and we enjoyed playing with them when we stuck in the Villa during the rain.

This is an outfit that was homemade for Joseph. You will see a picture of the back later. It was made by a wonderful woman! It was a little big, but that was my fault because I"m not a seamstress and when I was measuring, I think that I measured a little big (ok, a whole lot big!)
Abbi also got her own outfit that was Snow White themed. The reason that the outfits are Snow White themed is because that is Joseph's favorite Disney Princess and he calls her the "pretty one".
Joseph got a Spiderman outfit because we planned on having breakfast with Spiderman at Universal Studios. As a big Spiderman fan, he was ecstatic to receive this wonderful shirt and hat all decked out in Spiderman! Mommy thought that it was pretty cool too!!
Abbi got a Pooh poof skirt with a matching shirt and hair accessory. We're holding her hand because at that time she didn't want to have anything in her hair. She loved this little outfit and still wears it! She loves the little poof skirt the best.
This is Abbi's little princess dress. Someone with a really fancy sewing machine embroidered a Cinderlla onto a shirt and then sewed a skirt onto it! She loved it, because once again it was something that she could twirl around in.
Someone else made them two t-shirts, one with Abbi's named screen printed on it and the other with Joseph's name screen printed on it. The Abbi one had cats all over it since Abbi loves cats (especially white cats) and Joseph's had dogs screen printed on his, along with his name!
There are more Big Give items that I didn't get pics of until the kids were actually down in Orlando, you'll see those later.

Our Make a Wish Trip to Disney World

So why did we got on a wish trip anyway?
Well here's the answer:

My husband (Chris) and I are high school sweethearts. We got married two weeks after I graduated from college and we're pregnant within six months of getting married. While this was not the plan, that's the way it happened. We were happy to be having a litte boy, who we decided to name Joseph Franklin (after his great grandfather and grandfather). I went into labor on the one year anniversary of Sept. 11, but didn't deliver until the next day. I had a traumatic delivery experience that culminated with an emergency csection. It was not a good experience. But we had a beautiful baby boy that looked exactly like his daddy. I was excited to be a new mom and couldn't wait to start doing all those mom things. When our son was 4 months old I went back to work and everything was going really well. We had close family members that watched our DS while we were working and being a nurse, I only worked a few days a week anyway. Then one day while at work my husband called to tell me that I needed to get to the hospital, that our 5 month old son was unconscious and seizing and on the way to the hospital. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped at this point and I'm not sure how I drove myself to the hospital. It wasn't until late in the evening (the day was February 19th) that we found out our precious little baby had a tumor in his brain. After being transferred to the Medical College of Virginia, we found out DS had a rare, benign tumor of the brain that cause seizures, developmental delays, and many other yet to be found out problems. It was incurable and DS would never be a normal child. The diagnosis was a Hypothalamic Hammartoma. Now I'm a nurse and a medic on the rescue squad and handle things relatively well, but I don't handle bad news about my baby well.

So fast forward two years. DS has been having seizures for the past 18 months and they are getting worse and worse. No matter what we do, they keep on getting more frequent until eventually we can't tell when he's seizing and when he's not. The brain surgeon decides that surgery is the answer. They go in, take a small portion of the tumor out and declare him cured! A month later, he starts seizing again. We got back to the doctor. More medications, more tests, more therapy. We get Prenatal testing on the back I'm carrying and find out that she's (yes, my little princess that i always wanted) is fine. Our little Abbigail is welcomed into the world in late July. Three days into my hospital stay, we found out our little princess has a congenital heart defect. I am mad, very mad. I shouldn't have two children that have problems! I wonder what I did to deserve this, who did I make mad! It's hard for me to understand...but that's a different story completely.

So a year goes by, and DD has an interventional cath to correct the defect in her heart. We're all maintaining. Joseph is in Kindergarten and doing well. He's playing soccer and t-ball. But he's still having seizures and isn't progressing in Speech therapy like he should be. The surgeon recommends to go in and get the rest of the tumor out. We schedule the surgery for July 10th. I take two weeks off from work figuring it will be like his last surgery, where we went in on a Thursday and came home on Monday.

We got to the hospital (The VCU Medical Center in Richmond, VA) and Joseph is taken to surgery. We wait, and wait and wait. We hit the six hours mark (the amount of time the last surgery took) and I start to get concerned. The OR calls and says there still operating and it's taking longer than expected (Duh!). We wait and wait and wait some more. Finally, 10 1/2 hours after our son went back, he's transported up to the PICU. There were some complications during his surgery the doctor says. He lost a lot of blood. He has a titanium clip in his brain now, forever. He's very sick. He has a long complicated stay in the hospital that contains one set back after another. He's had a stroke because of the long clamp time. He has frontal lobe ischemia. He has a thyroid disorder, problems with his bladder and a thirst disorder. He gets MRSA and has a PICC line placed. He's in the hospital for months. He celebrates his sixth birthday in the hospital. He misses his sister's second birthday. I'm out of work for months at a time. It's a hectic and stressful time in our life. Then I get a phone call from a nice lady at Make a Wish. She says the Child life worker at MCV recommended my son for a wish and they need information on him. I'm amazed. The next thing I know, my son is home (for those keeping track, it's now October 08). The "Wish Team" comes and talks to my son. He says he wants to kiss the "pretty lady" (Snow White) and see Dolphins.

So we have confirmed our trip dates.
May 22-28th and we'll be staying at GKTW. We're all so excited (except the hubby, but he'll get there eventually).




Saturday, September 12, 2009

Joseph's Pirate Ship Party

In May we made a trip to DisneyWorld for my son's wish from the Make a Wish Foundation of Virginia. Upon our arrival at the most magical resort on Earth (not Disney!!), called Give Kids the World we found out that there was going to be a Pirate Ship Party that evening. Well, unfortunately we missed it, (we were all taking naps because of the early departure). Well, ever since then my son has been talking about having a "Pirate Ship Party". When I got the sneak peak of the Stampin' Up catalog in August I saw that there was a package you could buy that was all about pirates. It included invites, treat boxes, flags, banner and eye patches. So I bought the kit, along with a personalized stamp that read "Captain Joseph". This is what the kit looked like in the catalog: (Photo credit: Stampinup.com)



They came on individual sheets that had to be popped out and assembled. Because I forgot to bring my adhesive home, I had to use Elmer's glue. I wasn't all that worried about it being acid free (I don't know if Elmer's is or not) so I just glued the edges together as stated.
Here are my completed boxes:








These boxes held quite a bit of "loot." Here is a picture of them, with all their loot.








Here is a picture of my nephew modeling the eye patch. These were made with chipboard. You punched the chipboard out, attached the eye patch part (which was sticky on the other side) and laced the elastic through it. The kids loved it and it was an easy little craft to make at the party.

I did make the banner, my digital camera batteries ran out of juice before I could take the picture, but I'll take it tomorrow and upload it.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Tinkyada Pasta

Today I tried the Tinkyada Penne Rice Pasta. Mixed with some homemade Tomato sauce w/ meat mixed in and some freshly shredded Romano, Parmesan and Asiago. It was delicious! My son ate wuite a bit too and really enjoyed it. My daughter tried it and liked it. My husband even tried it and liked it. It didn't taste any different than the regular Penne pasta. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a pasta substitution.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Ukrops and Kroger

Ukrops, a family owned and ran grocery store in the Richmond, VA and surrounding area has an awesome .pdf file on their website, that tells you every item in the store that is Gluten Free. How cool is that? You just have to download it and make your shopping list. Totally awesome!
To access the .pdf, click here.

I also spent some time on the Kroger website, which I"m sure is pretty much nationwide, and they also have an awesome .pdf that can be downloaded and used to make a shopping list from.
Naturally Gluten Free Products

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Panera Bread--Email from Corporate

I received this email from Panera Bread the other day letting me know about there Gluten Free options.

Here it is. straight from my email box:

Dear Amberleigh,
Thank you for contacting Panera Bread. I have included below a list of our menu items that do not contain gluten-containing ingredients. However, because we bake fresh bread daily in our bakery-cafes and bread is core to our menu, we simply cannot ensure that there has been no contact between these items, or any other menu items, and gluten.

Not all of the items listed are currently on our menu and some new menu items have not yet been evaluated for the purposes of inclusion on this list. However, you can find complete ingredients listings for current menu items on our website. (When you choose a menu item in our online Nutrition Calculator, click on the "info" link for ingredients information for that item.)

Please note that nutritional information on our website is updated periodically. New products may be available in our bakery-cafes before a periodic update of this site. In addition, some menu items may be available only on a regional, test or seasonal basis. Nutritional information about these menu items is available at the participating bakery-cafes. Tests of new recipes of existing products may be conducted from time to time in certain markets. These new recipes may contain different/additional ingredients, including allergens, as compared to the original version. Nutritional information about these menu items is available at the participating bakery-cafes. For the most update-to-date information, please call or visit your nearest bakery-cafe to speak with a manager.

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your business and value your comments.

Sincerely,
Paul
Customer Comment Coordinator

GLUTEN FREE LIST - Panera Bread **

**Although we try to meet your special requirements, we cannot ensure that these items have not come into contact with gluten in our bakery-café.

** Gorgonzola and bleu cheeses are commonly made with mold incubated on wheat. Some may choose to avoid these cheeses for this reason and you may substitute another cheese if you prefer. Items containing these ingredients are indicated below with (G) or (BC).

Salads: (including the salad dressing) (source of modified food starch is corn)
Greek Salad
Fandango Salad (G)
Caesar Salad (without croutons)
Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad (without croutons)
Asian Sesame Chicken Salad (without Won Ton noodles)
Classic Cafe Salad
Strawberry Poppyseed Salad
Strawberry Poppyseed Salad with Chicken
Fuji Apple Chicken Salad
(G)
California Mission Chicken Salad
Orchard Harvest Chicken Salad (G)
Chopped Chicken Cobb Salad (G)
BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad

Soups:
Low Fat Vegetarian Black Bean
Cuban Black Bean and Lentil
Vegetarian Roasted Red Pepper & Lentil
Vegetarian Butternut Squash
Creamy Tomato (without croutons)
Low-Fat Vegetarian Southwest Tomato & Roasted Corn
Turkey Chickpea Chili
Summer Corn Chowder
Low-Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup

Salad Dressings:
Balsamic Vinaigrette
Caesar
Greek
Poppyseed
Raspberry Vinaigrette
Asian Sesame Vinaigrette
White Balsamic Vinaigrette
Roasted Garlic & Meyer's Lemon Vinaigrette
BBQ Ranch

Beverages:
Coffee
Juice, both apple and orange
Lemonade
Milk
Soda, fountain and bottled
Tea, regular and Chai Tea
All lattes & Frozen beverages
Strawberry Smoothie
Hot Chocolate
Pumpkin Spice Latte

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

On most Wednesdays you can find me at the rescue squad awaiting the citizens of Hanover County to call 911. This Wednesday was no different. I started my day off with Oatmeal that I purchased from Good Foods. It's manufactured by someone named Bob and comes in a large cellophane bag. The label says that's gluten free, and that it's produced in a Gluten Free facility. I've been unsuccessful in finding it on any of the GF stores online and have been too tired to look for it's URL on the label. I took some sandwich bags and a 1c. measuring cup and scooped out enough oatmeal for three days, putting each one cup serving into a plastic zip-lock baggy. So on this particular Wednesday I got my oatmeal out, added a little Splenda and enjoyed a nice, hot bowl of oatmeal. After serving a few citizens and taking a "field trip" to one of the local hospitals, we got back to our building and had lunch. I had brought with me that morning a 3 Cheese Pizza by Glutino and promptly started looking for the Microwave directions. There were none. How can you sell frozen pizza and claim it's a "convenience food" when I need a conventional oven to make it? That is not convenience. That's a pain in the you know what. So I grabbed a plate, estimated that it would take about two minutes to cook it and popped it in the microwave. Well, two minutes might've been a little long. It probably only needed a minute thirty. The cheese was sizzling on top and a little burnt, but the underside of the crust was a little doughy, and not quite done. I was afraid to put it back into the microwave because I already burnt it, so I just ate it a little extra doughy. About two hours later, my stomach exploded. I don't know if it was because it wasn't all the way cooked or because my body is still recovering from all the gluten poison I've been putting in it for the past thirty years, but it did not go over well. I had some horrible issues that I won't go into.

That next day (because I like torture) I had another of the Glutino Pizzas, this time at work. Again, Glutino needs to learn what the word "convenience" means. It does NOT mean conventional oven, it means I can pop it in the microwaves and have a nice tasty treat in a few minutes. Again, I decided that I'd microwave it, this time for about 1:45 and I don't know what the difference was but after cooking it (this time the Spinach and Feta) the crust was nice and cooked and the top wasn't boiling. This pizza was also quite tasty and didn't give me any nasty side affects. I think that in the future, I won't be getting the Three Cheese variety anymore, I"m just going to stick to some other flavors.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Useful information from celiac.org

Here is some useful info from Celiac.org:
Alba Therapeutics is conducting a study for people with Celiac's disease.

List of Gluten Free companies, also taked from the Celiac.org website.

Quick Start diet guide for Celiac Disease

Gluten Free Eating--Tuesday

Well what a day it has been! With fresh supplies purchased from Good Foods yesterday, I had an entire day filled with options, something I have had since I started this whole new life and way of eating.

Breakfast started differently today than it did the day previously. Today I tried the new cereal that I got the previous day. Manufactured by EnviroKidz and called "Frosted Flakes" I was hoping that it tasted like, well, Frosted Flakes (by Kelloggs). I was in luck! It was pretty good....a little crunchy but good. Also, it lasted quite a while in milk, which was nice because I don't particularly care for soggy cereal. I'd highly recommend this to any GF eater out there who would like some "Frosted Flakes" in there life. Here are the EnviroKidz Amazon Frosted Flakes, they have a cute Honey Bear on the front of them.

After doing some cleaning and playing with my little one we had some lunch. For myself I prepared a sandwich made from Millet and Flax Bread from Sami's Bakery, along with some Carl Buddig Beef Lunch Meat and some Miracle Whip. Let's back up for a minute and talk about Carl Buddig Lunch meat. I'm not sure if this is available Nationwide. I'd never seen it before moving to the South. I don't remember ever seeing it in Suburban Philadelphia where I grew up. However, it's quite tasty, relatively cheap (cheaper than any other lunch meat at the grocery store) and here's the bonus, completely GLUTEN FREE!! Whoot whoot!

With my Carl Buddig lunch meat and miracle whip I tried the bread that I had bought at Good Food, Millet and Flax from Sami's Bakery. My previous experiences with gluten free food had been relatively good, with the exception of the puke-worthy bread. I'd found that this, so far, has been the key to my success. How did I find this bread? Well, since I had a cranky three year old in the cart with me I did what any smart consumer would do and asked the cashier. She recommended this bread to me and said "this is the one that I eat, it's pretty good." So I took her word for it and tried it. She wasn't kidding. It is absolutely without a doubt delicious. Not only can you not tell that it's not made from wheat, but it's moist and easily bendable. Previously, the bread I'd tried had been dry, easily breakable and didn't work well with, well, anything. This bread was good.....I toasted it, put my beef on, put some Miracle Whip on and enjoyed. Once again, delish. I then enjoyed some tasty Miguel's Fully Loaded chips....quite yummy if you ask me.

After fetching children off the bus, and bath time I prepared some Annie's Rice and Cheese Macaroni Dinner. This also was quite delicious. You couldn't tell that it was Rice pasta and it tasted like Kraft Mac and Cheese which was the best part. My six year old smelled it and came running and begged Momma to share some with him. So I did! And he loved it. The noodles were al dente (which is the way I like most pasta), the cheese sauce was cheesy and full of deliciousness. It was good meal, relatively inexpensive and easily prepared. With my mac-n-cheese I had green beans fresh from the garden and a piece of the Millet and Flax bread. A good night all in all....

Gluten Free Registry

Here is a cool website that I found that lets you search for Gluten Free restaurants in your area.
This is how I found out about Chipotle.
It's been quite useful thus far.
I hope that you enjoy it.
The Gluten Free Registry

Panera Bread

Let me start by saying that I LOVE PANERA! Pre GF life, I was a weekly visitor to the Panera at Parham and Staples Mill. They know me by my name there and I loved them dearly. All that is over-----for now.

My goal is to get Panera to do a few things:
1. Develop a GF menu, it doesn't have to be a lot of items, just a few things, but with the amount of people in this world that have to deal with eating gluten free, I think Panera, a company that prides themself on healthy eating, should have menu for the rest of us.

2. List on their website, a list of GF items they already have on there menu, if there are any at all.
Most importantly for me would be there French Onion Soup--delish to say the least....my mouth waters just thinking about it.

So my plan, for now, until I can talk to my favorite IT guy who can help me do something more web savvy is this: email Panera and tell them you want a GF menu, and there website upgraded to include GF items they already have.
Anyone who is much better at this than me, feel free to email me. I'd love some input.

Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen information re: gluten free items on their menu.
To see this go here.

Gluten Free Diet: Grains and Flours Glossary

Some rather useful information regarding grains and flours that can be consumed on the GF diet.
As useful when you need to do some label reading.
Grains and Flours Glossary

Gluten Free Eating--day three.

So Monday started out like any other Monday. I put my oldest on the bus and went back to the house to fix breakfast for the youngest one and myself. Since I wasn't in the mood for cereal, I decided that I'd fix eggs. Eggs that came out of the dairy section of my local supermarket. Wonderfully high in protein eggs. To my eggs I added some gluten free cheese (I'm giving up bread for godsakes, you really want me to give up cheese too? Little steps here.)

The Gluten Free diet is often referred to as the Stone Diet because of how "natural" it is and is similar (so everyone seems to think) to how Cavemen Eat, although there are no ingestion of stones involved, there are also some drastic differences. For example, cavemen ate tons of relatively "raw" meat until the invention of fire, and it was always fresh, because as we all know. refrigeration was relatively unheard of until the early 20th century. They also ate fresh veggies, but ate very little grains or potatoes. This is where the Stone Diet differs from the Celiac diet. There are many grains that celiacs can eat. They can also eat all the potatoes that they want, and most cheese, as long as there isn't an emulsifier that contains wheat added to the product.

So back to my diet for the day. After consuming my yummy breakfast of eggs and cheese with copious amounts of coffee (something I will never give up, or I will absolutely die, as I'm highly addicted to the delicious light brown liquid). I packed up my three year old and headed into town for a day of wheatfree shopping, lunch with the husband and fun in the rain.

On Sunday at work I had done some research relating to Gluten Free diets, etc. and attempted to make a shopping list of everything that I wanted to look for. I also downloaded a sample diet from the Amy's website that can be found here.

I had originally planned on going to Ellwood Thompson's which is a organic supermarket in downtown Richmond that is supposedly a wonderful store with a wide variety of foods for all kinds of people. We ended up not getting there. My little one was having a meltdown about being in the carseat (a recent development in my world) so I decided instead to go to a place called Good Foods Grocery, which I've driven by a ton over the past seven years, since it's down the street from my Pediatrician. After passing it and having to do a u-turn (something else that's not unfamiliar in my world, I get lost constantly) I found it, parked my mommy mobile, unloaded the screaming and at this point, utterly pathetic three year old and walked into the store.

What a great little place! Not only is everything clearly labeled as to what it contains (something that is rather annoying in regular supermarkets, where you have to read every single label), but in the event that you miss the rather obvious marking on every single container (that would be me) there are little labels on every shelf that indicates the "Gluten Free, Wheat Free" products. How awesome is that? Makes it so easy to figure out exactly what you want!!

I was able to find a lot of good stuff, most importantly, convenience foods that I can microwave at work and eat, without all that much work. Being a nurse, having something that I can heat and eat is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

So here's what I got a Good Foods:
Amy's Black Bean Enchilada (it was soooo good the first time, I just had to have another!)
Amy's Garden Vegetable Lasagna
Amy's Rice Macaroni and Cheese
Amy's Lentil Soup
EnviroKidz Organic Frosted Flakes
EnviroKidz Organic Cheetah Berry Crispy Rice Bars
Enjoy Life's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (you should also know that I have a major sweet tooth, and being able to find chocolate chips that taste good has been a struggle in the past when I've tried to go gluten free!)
Tinkyada Rice Penne Pasta
Tinkyada Rice Spiral Pasta

Bioanturae Spaghetti
Caesars Manicotti
Caesars Stuffed Shells
Glutino 3 Cheese Pizza
Glutino Spinach Pizza

Samisbakery Millet and Flax Bread (this I was the most skeptical of, as all the bread I've tried in the past sucked).
Annie's Gluten Free Rice Pasta and Cheddar
I also purchased Corn Tortillas sold by Chichi's. (the cheapest thing I purchased), Brownie Mix, Pancake Mix and rolled oats ('cause it's getting cold here and I like oatmeal in the morning).
After leaving Good Foods spending a little over $100 (by no means is maintaining a GF diet cheap, but worth it) I headed over to my friendly, neighborhood Chipotle to get lunch for the hubby and I.

Chipotle (which I love by the way) is Gluten Free, with the exception of the flour tortilla. Here is the information re: gluten, from the official website. One suggestion I got from a Twitter friend is to ask the preparer to change gloves before preparing your food, as some wheat might transfer from the flour tortilla. I'd also read (from another Twitterer) that Chipotle had corn tortilla. My Chipotle said "yes, we have them, but they tend to fall apart", so instead I had a yummy and delicious bowl. It was truly yummy. It should be noted though that for people who are also allergic to Soy, Chipotle would NOT be a good place for you, as almost all there food has soy in it.

After dropping my groceries and my little one off at home I headed to a class that I am taking. I took two snack with me, a EnviroKidz bar and two of the chocolate chip cookies. I ate them after leaving class on my way home. The EnviroKidz bar was ok. I made the mistake of letting my little one pick the flavor out, and she picked based on the animal on the box and not the flavor. I've never been a big fan of Berries, but overall, it wasn't bad and wasn't overly berry. I also tried two of the cookies, which were actually quite delicious. They were definitely chocolatey and soft. I read the label details because I was interested in what made them so Sweet. There were several different juices added to give it sweetness and firmness, they also had Rosemary in them, which I couldn't taste. Overall, it was pretty good.

That's all I've got for now. After tonight, I'm going to talk about what I had today and how I"m going to handle working the weekend on a GF diet.
Stay Tuned.