Early Morning Ride

Emma is lucky enough to have Tatum and Jane both on swim team with her this year. It starts at 6 AM and the girls ride their bikes there about a mile. It has taken some major dedication for her to get up at 5:20 Monday-Thursday. We moved her into her own room and got her an alarm so she could get herself up without waking up Holly. She's been good about getting up and we're working on the good attitude to go with it :) (I do feel for her- it's not easy). But she does love it once she's there. Anyway, I get up and give her hair a ponytail. Plus, I have to admit, I like seeing her off. It's beautiful outside and much more of a tolerable temperature (but still surprisingly warm for 5:30 in the morning).
It took a couple times sitting out there with the camera, but I finally got all 3 of them :)

Someday, a great memory with 2 of her favorite people :)

Snapshots of Summer Solstice Eve (which also happened to be a Monday night)

It's a good thing to capture everyday life on the blog. But it sure does seem like we've had a lot of "everyday life" so far this summer though, as we all await one beautiful 8 letter word- Vacation. (That's as fancy that I could make the font look on here :) And since we have no fancy anything happening, here's some bor...I mean typical happenings last night.

So far this summer Emma either has her face in a pair of goggles or in a book. I had to take a picture of our artichokes!! I'm excited can you tell?
GF/DF pizza's on the left
Fake punch with sound effects provided by Dana.
FHE
Activity
Scriptures
Waiting for his dinner.
Goodie time!
See Sadie peeking out of the zucchini? Here's a vintage FHE picture. Isn't Dana cute?
And I must mention that we did have a little Father's Day celebration Sunday. The kids helped me make breakfast and they made cards and surprised him with them (I'm sure he had no idea what all that racket in the kitchen was :).
What can I say about Dana as a father? Well, without getting a lump in my throat, not much as it turns out. Me and the kids are just super lucky and blessed. He puts us first always.

My gift to him was new running shoes for St. George this year. I'm pretty sure they'll help him qualify for Boston this year. Oh and I also gave him lots of relaxing on Sunday.

In reflection, I guess typical isn't too bad.

Happy longest-day-of-the-year!

Diet Update

Eli and I are plugging along on our GF/DF diet. I think I was expecting it to be SO hard that so far, it hasn't been too bad. I'm learning more as I go and now have all the ingredients I need to make my own bread so I don't have to keep spending $5 for a teeny loaf.

I have felt so much support from all my friends and family and also blessed with a lots of information from them and from the internet thanks to my great friend "Google". I feel like I'm gaining a good understanding of what gluten is and why some people don't tolerate it as well and I have hopes that it could help me out with my RA. I've had a big decrease in inflammation and less morning stiffness. But really time will tell and if it doesn't make a difference in the end, I can rest easy knowing I tried.

Now just to brag about Eli for a tiny second. He has been such a great sport. I do get complaints here and there and he's even said "I want to quit this stupid diet." (the kids have been letting the "s" word fly around a little more liberally lately and I reminded him- 'I think you mean stinkin' diet). Yesterday after church he told me his teacher brought cookies for the class and he told his teacher he couldn't have one. He wasn't complaining, just telling me. I was so impressed. And felt a little bad for him. But I got some GF donuts that I can give him when he can't have other things. And I probably shouldn't say this but I swear I'm seeing subtle differences in him and I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up too high.

But one thing I know for sure- I will never give up on him. I know who he is inside and I'm going to do my best to help him shine :)

As I was at Spouts looking for Xanthan Gum I started thinking about my cooking journey. I was so clueless when we got married. I considered making "Hamburger Helper" a nice meal (poor Dana). Then later I saw this recipe I had called and got from my mom as a newlywed and it made me laugh.

I still have a long way to go on the journey, but it's nice to know I've made some progress!

Lovin' Summer So Far

And don't forget this- Yes, lots of extra kitchen time. But very worth it so far :)