Marriage and Wine

It has been over a year since we came home from California.  July 4, 2012 is when we came home.  I remember the day so clearly. I remember driving down our street for the first time and feeling like we were in familiar territory again.  I remember showing up at our family's houses unexpectedly.  I remember the expression on their faces when they saw us.  It was awesome!

Fast forward a year later and we are settled, yet making changes in our life too.  This past year really stretched and grew our marriage in wonderful ways.  We found ourselves in conflict over Dan's job as he struggled to give up the travelling job and take a full time job.  We were at odds about that decision.  We had different views on what God was doing with his job situation.  We had a different timeline for our financial goals.  I was okay with extending the timeline...he wanted things done as quickly as possible.  We went round and round for a very long time.  We had discussion after discussion.  It seemed like a long time for us to not agree on something so big in our lives. I just wished for him to see what I saw. And I wished for contentment in his life.  I wanted him to see how much God was doing in our lives because of the job change.  I wanted him to feel peaceful like I did.  But I learned that you can't force that peace on anyone.  It has to come from the Spirit.

These past few weeks we have come upon an opportunity to make some tough decisions for our family.  This has been the best experience for us.  We are very like minded with the decisions we are making.  We are experiencing what it feels like to have the same agenda.  We feel a new closeness because we are thinking the same.  Our hearts are united again and it is good.  It reminds me why He put us together almost 9 years ago.  We are coming up on our anniversary in a week and I am so proud of our marriage.  We have proven to be resilient through the trials and have learned to love each other through those times.  Love and our covenant with God have bonded us for life.  I am beginning to understand how marriage can be compared to the aging of wine.  They both just get better over time.

New Smoothie

I have been experimenting with smoothies these last few weeks as we prepare to start teaching a new class called "Healing with Green Smoothies."  This will be a class designed to teach more in depth about green smoothies and how to incorporate oils in them.  I am super excited about this class.  Can you tell that green smoothies are a passion of mine?  They changed our lives, they cost very little to make and they are so easy to teach.

My latest breakfast smoothie is so simple to make and very yummy.  I started by taking 3 cups of old fashioned oats and 1 cup chia seeds.  I put those in the blender to grind them up.  Then I put that mixture in a mason jar to keep in the cupboard.  When I want to make an oatmeal smoothie I use 1/4 cup of that mixture.  Here is the recipe for a basic oatmeal smoothie.  The oatmeal does not need to be cooked...use it raw.

1/4 cup oatmeal/chia seed mixture
1 cup almond milk
1 banana
6 frozen strawberries
handful of blueberries (just because it is blueberry season and easy to come by)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Blend and enjoy!!

Fulfilled

Ever have those moments in life when you look at what is going on around you and you just feel fulfilled?  Life has its ups and downs and I know that it isn't realistic to feel fulfilled long term, but tonight was one of those great moments for me.  Dan came home from work, we ate dinner and had good conversation and then we took the kids on a bike ride.  My mom gave me her bike so I can finally ride with everyone.  Dan lead the pack and I rode at the end of the train of kids.  It was a great spot to be because I was able to observe all that was going on in front of me.  Dan had Chloe on the back of his bike and I really enjoyed watching her facial expressions during the ride.  At one point we rode past a marching band practicing and I saw Chloe trying to conduct the band as we rode by. I watched Mya and Sara ride, each with their own personalities.  Mya was risky and rode fast with great determination.  She had a sense of humor and neat spirit about her.  Sara tried so hard to keep up with the others, but she has her training wheels on her bike so it just can't go as fast.  She spent most of her time riding back with me and I enjoyed just watching her giggle and get excited as we made tricky turns and went super fast.  She is one that enjoys the little things in life.  I watched as Dan interacted with the kids and was all smiles.  They had so much fun with him.  It just felt like a complete picture as I observed from behind.  I loved it!  As the kids grow older and more independent, we are finding that these fun family moments are becoming more prevalent.  It is a bittersweet time as we leave the baby stuff behind (but not officially until the little one is potty trained) and find our family growing and bonding as the kids age.  A moment like tonight made me feel so thankful for our life.

Southern Hospitality

Dan and I took the kids on a road trip over the weekend.  We left Friday night and arrived in Tennessee around 1 am.  We stayed with my step-mom's parents at their beautiful home.  All I have to say is that southern hospitality is my thing!  I sort of threw my healthy eating habits out the window (in the name of "vacation") and enjoyed all the wonderful food that was prepared for us.  Apparently in the South you are not allowed to be hungry.  And we were all okay with that.  Sunday afternoon was a family birthday party and I enjoyed beans, fresh cole slaw, barbecued pork sandwiches and a variety of cakes.  How could I say no when everyone else was eating it?  Tomorrow we are all getting back in our normal eating habits, but we surely enjoyed our Tennessee food.

Have you ever seen a two year old tube behind a speed boat? Our two year old has no fear. Saturday was spent at the lake swimming and tubing.  That made the trip unforgettable for the kids.

Star Struck

Yesterday I met someone who is a hero to our family.  It was an amazing experience.  There were some embarrassing moments, but I will share those later.  I wanted to first share the journey that our family has been on with food.  This is about two years in the making and is still a work in progress.  When you work on changing your diet, it certainly doesn't happen all at once, especially when you have children.

Two years ago I was in a Starbucks ordering my favorite drink....hot chocolate.  In the winter I have a lot of these and have finally broke that addiction.  Anyway, I was waiting on my drink and saw a flyer on a bulletin board about a free cooking class.  I wrote the email address down and went home to sign up for the class. I attended the class and learned about cooking healthy foods.  This was the start of the journey for us.  The girl that had the class was going to a nutrition school to become a health coach.  I struck up a relationship with her while we were in California and started learning some new things about food.  I attended another class that she held about making green smoothies.  At that time I had never heard about that.  So I ordered a green smoothie book (The Green Smoothie Diet by Robyn Openshaw), read up on it and went to the class to learn how to make it.  I took Mya with me and they taught the kids how to read labels on food at the grocery store and what ingredients to avoid.  I went home and started talking about smoothies to Dan.  Since he doesn't like to eat raw vegetables at all, I figured it would be a way to get some nutrition in his body too.  I read up on juicing and compared that with smoothies and decided to go the smoothie route.  At the same time I began eliminating things in our diet like juice, cow's milk, high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.  Right away we felt a difference in our bodies. I had to learn how to cook different to accommodate not having these ingredients anymore.  I started making homemade snacks for the family, decreased meat consumption and increased fruits and vegetables. We were given a blender (thanks Nana and Papa!) and I made my first green smoothie.  Did you know that a quart of green smoothie has 10-15 servings of fruits and vegetables and it is only 200 calories?  The average American eats 1 serving of fruits and veggies a day.  I felt so empowered to be feeding my kids handfuls of greens each day.  And they loved it!  Fast forward two years later and we are still drinking green smoothies.  Now I am experimenting with different recipes.

My goal for myself is to eat around 70% raw foods.  The rest of the family is not eating that much, but I have been doing some experimenting with myself to see how my body responds to this.  The results are wonderful.  I have more energy, feel lighter and need less sleep.  And the oils just compliment this lifestyle.  Last week I was at a homeschooling training for three days so I did not have access to the raw foods that I do at home.  It has taken me days for my body to recover from that.  My digestive system was not the same as I needed those good foods in my body.  I was so interested in how my body responded. The girls eat more plant based food during the day too, just not as much as me.  I am still learning and we are all still on this journey towards health.  Do we cheat and eat sugary, yummy treats...yep! But not nearly as often as we did a few years ago. I have read the research and can comprehend how eating whole foods keeps diseases away and even cancer.  So I decided that I don't want to wait until I have a condition to then make the changes, I want to do it now so I can keep them away.  I have the knowledge, but applying it in America is not easy.  The temptations are amazing with American food.  So I continue to read, learn and apply what works for our family.  And let me reiterate again....we do eat sweets and treats.  I like ice cream and have it every once in a while.  We just don't buy those things to have at home to reduce the temptation.

And now...for my story about yesterday.  Me and eleven other women had lunch with Robyn.  I was pretty nervous because some of the women, and especially Robyn, eat 100% whole foods.  I felt like they were watching everything I ate, even though they weren't.  It was a different experience.  But meeting Robyn was so fun.  She is a sweet woman and is beautiful.  Each of us had to introduce ourselves to the whole group and Robyn and tell our story in 90 seconds.  That was a challenge.  I was shaking in my shoes, but was so excited to have her hear about my family.  When I did talk to her one on one I was so star struck and said some silly things, I am sure. After lunch we were all getting in our cars and I decided to whip out my very large camera to get my picture taken with her.  My thinking was that I would get it done at that time before we got to the event because she would be so busy with other people.  When I approached her in the van and asked her for a picture she had her mouth full of food.  She was eating her lunch.  I was so embarrassed!  The good news is that after the event was over and the evening was drawing to a close, she remember that I wanted a picture and took one with me. So here it is and if you want to check her out go to www.greensmoothiegirl.com.

Michigan Bound

I am on my way to Michigan today!  This is the day I get to meet Robyn Openshaw...the pioneer of green smoothies.  To some she is just a name, to me she is an inspiration to our family.  Green smoothies have changed our life because they encouraged us to look at other foods that we were eating.  They encourage eating more raw foods and they make our bodies feel so much better.  I am going to be the one who takes the very large camera, pulls it out and asks to have my picture taken with her.  It will be embarassing I suppose, but so worth it.  Tomorrow I will post "the picture."  Robyn has a workshop tonight and I get to be the check in lady for that.  It will be neat to meet some new people as I do that job.

Over the weekend we took the kids camping.  Boy is it a lot of work to camp for one night.  But we were so thankful to have the van to fit everything in the trunk.  I felt complete relief because I didn't have to limit what I wanted to bring.  We went to Malabar Farm for the afternoon and took the kids on the wagon tour.  The temperature was perfect and the weather beautiful.  The kids had a great time.  Then we drove around Mohican State Park trying to find a campsite that wasn't full.  We finally found one that had one spot left.  We took it, but didn't pay attention to how wet the ground was.  It was muddy.  Since Chloe hadn't had a nap for the day, which was a BIG mistake, she was crazier than normal.  She kept slipping in the mud and running all over the place and tried many times to help me with the fire. Since I am the master fire builder from all my years at Camp Nuhop, I was in charge of building the fire.  It took me over two hours and half a box of matches to get it lit.  Dan bought wood for us at the campsite, but it was damp.  And he and the girls continually found sticks for me for over an hour to help me keep the fire lit.  It was pretty frustrating because we had dinner to cook over the non existent fire.  Everyone was hungry.  Finally, a few hours later we were able to cook our food.  We did our best to make it fun for them.  Neither one of us slept much that night as Chloe made her way to Dan's arms for the night and the other two snored.  But we all woke up bright and early at 6 am to chirping birds and blue skies.  We packed up, drove home and went to Perkins for breakfast.  The kids ate their food like they had never eaten before.  I guess they were hungry.  Then we went home, did an at home church service with the kids, did laundry, fed everyone and we all took naps for most of the afternoon.  It actually was a very nice day.  We went to a cookout for the evening and had a nice time.

Over the past three days all three girls have been battling colds.  I hate to say it, but I tend to get excited about minor illnesses in the home because it means I get to experiment with my oils.  I have been treating runny noses, congestion, coughs and ear infections very successfully with them.  We have this oil blend called Breathe that stops coughing dead in its tracks.  It is amazing.  Last night Sara had an ear infection and was up crying.  I put oil on a cotton ball in her ear and she woke up this morning without any pain.  I took the cotton ball out of her ear and I could see that the oil had pulled out a bunch of gunk out of her ear.  Pretty cool stuff!  It makes sense that a product taken directly from God's plants can heal our bodies.

Why Homeschool?

This journey of schooling the kids has been so interesting to see what God has done with my heart.  Three or four months ago if you would have asked me the question, "Why are you homeschooling?" I would have paused to think and given you a mousy answer.  If you challenged me I might have teared up.  I had nothing behind me to defend what I wanted to do.  And then God did a work in my heart and I knew that I wanted to do this for our family.  I felt a complete peace that has remained consistent over a period of time.  So now if you ask me why I am doing it I can give you some pretty solid answers.  And they are answers that are so specific to our family and our kids.  I don't for one minute look down upon kids who attend public school or even private school.  This is a journey for just our family.  And the reality is that each year might look different than the one before.

I am in the process of attending a three day training for a home school program called Classical Conversations.  It is this amazing program that my kids will attend once a week and I will "tutor" one of their classes.  For the younger kids it is memorization of all subjects.  They also do science experiments and fine art activities.  I even get to learn how to play the tin whistle.  I should post a you tube video on that one.  Maybe the girls and I can put on a concert sometime for our extended family. I am sure that would be entertaining.  The first day of training (today) was inspiring and encouraging.  The speaker was realistic when he discussed what home schooling can be like.  He first showed a picture of a beautiful orchard of flowering trees.  He said this is how we feel when we start schooling in the fall.  We are excited to use new curriculum and start a new year fresh.  And then he showed a picture of trees in a hurricane.  He said that is how we feel by October.  We all had a good laugh out of that, but he got serious and reminded us that the trees can survive the storms when they have strong roots.  And that is what we are trying to give our kids.  If we build the strong roots then we will make it through the year and appreciate all that we experience...the good and the bad.

That illustration was kind of an aha moment for me today.  I was at the training to learn about CC, but instead I walked away with thoughts about my life and especially about our marriage.  I haven't written much about our time when we got home from California last summer, but we went through some difficult experiences with Dan's job.  He quit travelling before he wanted to and took a full time job.  We had our ups and downs.  BUT...the coolest part is that we have roots.  We have a history and a story and a life that we have built together.  No matter the difficulties, we have weathered some storms and we are okay.  I give all the glory to God for giving us the courage and strength and stamina to constantly work with each other through the tough times.  We are that much stronger because of adversity.  We are that much closer. For that I am grateful.