This past weekend, we went to my mom and dad's house to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Marc had a meeting in the cities on Thursday morning, so we had to take a detour before driving to CR. He dropped the kids and I at the Mall of America and went to his meeting. We had a great time - we rode the bumper cars and the swings at the Nickelodeon Park, then went into the Lego store to play. We attracted a few other kids and had a good space battle. I was the bad guy at first, but by the end of the game, everyone had defected.
On Friday, Dagny and I got our toenails painted for school, which was nice, then we all went out for a very nice dinner with my parents and Freddy and Elsa Hester (friends from my parents first job) at 350 First, the new restaurant at the top of the Hilton Doubletree hotel downtown. It was a great time and the kids did very well! The highlight was probably the windows in the bathroom. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but there were spiders all over the outside of the windows. It was crazy creepy at sixteen stories off the ground and Marc took pictures.
Saturday was a quiet day. Dagny wasn't feeling well and said she had a sore throat, AND she had a fever, so we managed to get the clinic to call antibiotics into the CVS nearby since Sintu had just had strep. I started getting a cold, too, which wasn't very pleasant, but that's how it goes. In the afternoon, we did go visit thew NewBo market which I always love, and we bought some ice cream, tasty barbecue sauce, and a loaf of ciabatta, which we will have to wait a day or so more to eat.
But Sunday, Sunday was the big day. I have been planning for months to sing Panis Angelicus at church for my parents and this was the day it had been arranged for. It was great - went off without a hitch. Marc filmed my parents reaction and my mom cried the whole time. So glad I wasn't looking at anyone!! the link to the video is below - hope it works.
Panis Angelicus
In the afternoon on Sunday, we hung out at the mall a little and found some cute back to school outfits for the kids. It was fun. We had pizza for dinner and went to the hotel early to get a good nights sleep. Monday we drove home and I actually finished an entire book in one day!! Shocking!! Great book, though!!
At their neighborhood picnic on Monday, the rest of the neighbors got them a cake. I am so glad that they are blessed with the most awesome neighbors in the world. It helps ease the pain of not being right next to them to help with everything they need, which is just not feasible at this moment. They think they may be moving within the year to a condo, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's good that they would be in a smaller, more manageable environment, but they would be leaving behind people who love them very much.
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As of the moment, I am doing a juice cleanse. I have had no solid food (except for cucumbers) since Monday night and, remarkably, I feel pretty good. I thought it would be a lot more painful and a lot harder to just drink juice for a three days, but it's not. I must say, though, that the pumpkin bars in my fridge at work that were given to me by a patron do look really good.
I have not cheated. Normally when I do these kinds of things, I cheat at least once, but my fear of disappointing the woman who put me on this path (a friend from Kilimanjaro) has kept me fro doing anything naughty and I have stuck to the plan like white on rice. For the first two days, I drank a juice mix that was made from celery, spinach, kale, cucumber, parsley, green apple, and lime. It's pretty tasty. Today, on the third day, i added in a new juice made from sweet potato, carrots, red pepper, and oranges. Marc tried celery, pineapple, grapefruit, and parsley today as his second juice. Yes, the hubby has joined me. He added in protein shakes as well since he wanted to continue working out hard, but since I've been sick, I'm skipping the exercise and will start again on the program on Monday.
When we finish this cleanse, we'll go back to eating properly - whole grains, lean proteins, fruits and veggies. When possible, we will avoid preservatives, buy organic, and stay away from refined sugar. I am going to start making more things from scratch, since I enjoy that, and using flours that are whole grain flours, like oat, spelt, millet, and brown rice. I've found some great recipes (check out this blog: http://dessertswithbenefits.com/ for awesome suggestions on healthy desserts) that I intend to try as fall comes along. Fall is one of my favorite times to cook!
The kids started school on Wednesday, which was very exciting for both of them. Dagny is in a pilot program at school which is a special grant received by the district. She will begin learning a foreign language, do much of her homework on an IPad provided by the school, and will have movement integrated into the classroom. Yesterday, they spent time doing Dance Revolution on the Wii in class. They're also talking about Yoga and Tai Chi. She is thrilled to be in the program and I think it will be very good for her!
Sintu has a male teacher this year and we met with him before school started. He seemed very nice and I think he will be really good for our little man. Because Sintu had such an awesome first day, I shaved his head into an "S" shape for Super Sintu!
The garden had a rough few weeks. The tomatoes rotted - the plants, not the fruits, which I took to my mother. I pulled the plants out and now we are tomatoless. Bummer. I also pulled out the broccoli, which never gave me anything, and the cauliflower, since it was done (man, that cauliflower was good!!)
Next week it will cool off a bit and we're looking forward to starting our backyard campfires again. I'll have to make some marshmallows so we can have s'mores. I did them last year, but they don't melt as good as the store bought ones. Might have to eat some refined sugar in that case - how do you give up s'mores!
That might be enough for today - things are settling down into a rhythm at home and flag football starts tonight. I'm sure I'll post more about that later!
