Saturday, August 25, 2012

Last official day of summer

Wagon Bridge - Canadian, TX

Get that thumb out of your mouth!

Sometimes on the road of life you have to stop and admire the beauty.....

Or in his case, wave at the train!
Beautiful old wagon bridge....

 I have to consider Friday the last official day of summer - assuming the weekend doesn't count......  With the weather being in such a pleasant phase right now, I figured one last summer fling was order.  So I took the boys up to Canadian to have some fun.  We hit Dollar General on the way in for allergy meds for Mommy.......  Then we headed to the old wagon bridge that has been beautifully converted to a walkway.  Matt loves to ride his bike down the long straight path, and I prefer it to the street for numerous reasons - one of which is no wildflowers to stop and pick every 3 ft. :) (Though I do love wildflowers from my son.....)  Ben takes the more laid back route - strapped in of course because I just can't stop the visions of him leaning out over the side and falling......  Usually there is a nice little run of the Canadian River about 3/4 of the way down the bridge.....apparently by August its reduced to something like small tide pools here and there.....  So to the tide pools we looked - saw tiny fish and water striders - and headed back to the car.
  We hit the little park by the rodeo grounds.  Matt looked for bugs and Ben was a kiddie slidin' fool!  Then we tallied the fast food options in Canadian......and came up with DQ. (Okay - it might be the only true fast food option in town - hey! its more than we've got here!!!)  I have to say I was SUPER impressed with DQ today.  They made a special sandwich for Ben (grilled cheese all the way baby!), had great customer service, and they gave me a Mom size drink even though I ordered a kid's meal.  Plus, you just can't beat a dipped cone for dessert!  So, thanks DQ!  I'll check you in Canadian again!
  Before little bit toddled off to dream land, we made a quick stop at the super cool kids section of the Hemphill Co. Library.  The boys were more interested in toys than in books..... what can ya do?
  We hit the open road mid afternoon and Ben snoozed while Matt and I took in some Dave Ramsey.....  I'm sure he was thrilled!
  Did I say my boys are super totally stupendously awesome??  My boys are super totally stupendously supercalifragilistically magnificently awesome!  Thanks God!  You rock!!!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Look to the right (you can't miss it!)

I'm going to use this new feature to the right as the reason I have not finished blogging my 10 day challenge.  I finally got all my pictures digitized and put in a scrapbook from my trip to Tanzania, Africa in 2001.  Yes, I know its a long time coming.  However, I must say I LOVE Mixbook for doing this kind of thing, and I'm pretty sure it didn't exist in 2001....So I was just waiting for the someone to invent it.....REALLY!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Day 3 - 10 Days of Real Food

Back already!  I know! 

Day 3 Menu: Breakfast - Oatmeal with honey and raisins; Lunch - PB&J with grapes and apples; Dinner - Slow Cooker Chicken with mashed potatoes and salad.
     Thoughts:  Another successful day.  Ben and I enjoyed the oatmeal this morning along with some granola.  Then we headed to a friend's house to play with lunch in tow.  Worked out great.  One of her kiddos even liked the granola I had packed for a snack.  The "big" boys did fine with breakfast and lunch. Dinner was very good.  The slow cooker chicken was easy to make and turned out great.  Spices could have been ramped up a bit.  I looked forward the the mashed potatoes ALL DAY and they were worth it.  Quite good if I say so myself.  (In fact, I'm thinking about sneaking the leftovers right now!)  I'll say what I'm missing most is the sweets.  I need to get some whole foods dessert recipes!

1 week to go!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

10 days of real food - days 1 and 2

So my wonderful friend Sally wrote to me that her family was going to take on a challenge called "10 Days of Real Food."  Curious, I looked into it (100 Days of Real Food) and thought "We could NEVER do that!"  Several days later, David told me he was curious about eating fewer processed foods and getting healthier.  "Hmmmm......I just saw this thing online about exactly that!"  And the journey began..... 




We had this whole discussion pre-Christmas, so we COULDN"T start then.....  But just after New Year's we renewed the discussion, planned a menu, and I struck out to shop at the healthy food store last weekend.  New territory for me - and it kinda smelled funny in there........anyway, groceries bought and stocked, we started the 10 day challenge Monday.



Day 1: Breakfast - Homemade granola cereal; Lunch - Organic PB and all fruit jelly on organic whole wheat bread, banana, raisins; Snack - Apple and popcorn; Dinner - Steamed wild caught salmon, steamed green beans, sweet potatoes
      Thoughts:  I'm impressed that the whole family ate the "real" food for 1 whole day!  Wow!  Ben loved the granola cereal and PB&J.  He wasn't so big on the fish, but I covered it up with sweet potato, and down it went.  Matt did ok on granola cereal.  This is his first time to take a lunch to school instead of purchasing school lunch, but he was excited to carry a lunchbox! Ha!  Everything went swimmingly until snack time when there was some sort of misunderstanding.....the story I got from him was that they (meaning whomever is in charge of snacks) told him what he had for snack was "inappropriate" (his words).  Their alternative......PUDDING!  Yep!  Pudding!!!  That cracked me up!  Organic apple slices and organic popcorn weren't appropriate, but PUDDING was ok!  (Still LOL about that.  And, if I weren't the principal's wife, I might have said something.....)  We adults did just fine on day 1.  If nothing else, I felt great that EVERYTHING I ate on Monday was real food - not filled with preservatives, fillers, and sugar.  And, I remembered to drink more water just because I was focused on things I could ingest without guilt.  1 day down.


Day 2: Breakfast - Whole wheat banana pancakes with 100% pure maple syrup; Lunch - Fruit Smoothie and Triscuits; Snack: Yogurt with honey, frozen blueberries, and granola; Dinner - Chicken fajitas on homemade whole wheat tortillas with cheese, sour cream, and homemade salsa
     Thoughts:  Everything went over great again today.  The smoothie was a little tricky for Matt's lunch, but he loved it.  The website has more suggestions for kids lunches, but I just bought what was on meal plan 1 for the challenge.  Ben indulged in another PB&J for lunch because he enjoyed it so much yesterday.  Dinner was FABULOUS!!!  Even if you aren't into the real food diet, you must look up their recipe for fajitas and homemade tortillas.  Yep - my first time ever making tortillas and they were fab! (And I got stunning compliments from the fam!)  And the veggies were SOOO good too.  Love the suggested seasoning!  Made David's favorite salsa to go with the fajitas.  This is kinda fun......Day 2 check.
 (Now we'll see if I get days 3-10 journaled within the next year.....wish me luck!)