SeaWorld!

It just seems a little wrong to live so close to Orlando and not take advantage of all the great activities there!

This year, SeaWorld offered free annual passes to all kids 5 and under, so I figured that if we were ever going to do SeaWorld, this would be the year!  We finally took our first trip down on Saturday and we had a blast!

We left on Saturday morning around 6:30 and first headed to the Orlando Temple.  Garrett and I each took turns doing some temple work inside, then around 11 we headed to SeaWorld.  The kids have heard a lot about SeaWorld from their friends, and I'm pretty sure it lived up to all their expectations!  It is so fun to experience things like this with my kids.  Seeing their faces during the dolphin show, or on the rides, or even just walking around the park was just priceless.  It was just non-stop fun all day long - a perfect day.  It was even more fun, too, because we went with some of our good friends here in FL.

Also, I sadly didn't get a picture of this but Abby went on her first roller coaster!  It was just a kid one, but I was still very impressed that she went through with it.  It looked pretty scary to me, and I truly thought she would back out at the last minute.  She loved it, though, and said she wants to do it again next time.  She rode with Garrett, who also was kind enough to get a video of her during the ride.. it's great.  I remember going on a very scary roller coaster with my dad when I was 7 or 8, and it's a great memory. (And, it was legitimately scary - at the time, it was the fastest roller coaster in the world at 80 mph, and had one of the steepest drops in the world).

Anyway... I have to say that one thing I learned on this trip is that I am embarrassingly uneducated when it comes to sea animals.  I referred to Shamu as a giant dolphin at one point, for example.  I won't go into more details but let's just say that Garrett was pretty shocked and embarrassed at a lot of things I said that day.  Whoops. Good thing we'll be going back more this year.

Abby in front of the Orlando Temple:

In the aquarium part of the park.  You can really tell but Ellie was enthralled when we walked into this tunnel.  She thought that she could reach out and catch the fish, so she kept waving her arms and trying to touch them, thinking they were going to swim to her.  It was hilarious.

Riding the carousel:

All of us:

This was the dolphin nursery, where all the babies are kept.  They were SO cute.

We sat and watched the baby dolphins for quite a bit... they were pretty fun to watch!

Me & Rindee at Friendly's afterwards.  Yummm.... takes me back to the good old days in NH.

A good sign of a great and exhausting day!  We can't wait to go back soon!

Book I Read: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

A few days ago, I finished "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver.  Here's another book that I recommend! (You should probably know this now: if I don't like a book, I won't read it all the way through.  So if I'm sharing a book here on the blog, it's because I think it was good!)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle follows a year of Kingsolver's life - the first year that she and her family decide to live only off local food.  Kingslover sums it up nicely on page 20:

"...Our family set out to find ourselves a real American culture of food, or at least the piece of it that worked for us, and to describe it for anyone who might be looking for something similar.  This book tells the story of what we learned, or didn't; what we ate, or couldn't; and how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the same place where we worked, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.  It's not at all necessary to live on a food-producing farm to participate in this culture.  But it is necessary to know such farms exist, understand something about what they do, and consider oneself basically in their court.  This book is about those things."

Kingsolver makes an interesting case for eating local foods (being a "locavore")-- and she demonstrates well how difficult that can seem at times. You also have to remember that you can only eat things when they are in season, unless you are eating food you preserved (she canned lots of her garden tomatoes and picked a lot of produce as well, all to get through the winter).  Living in Florida, I would actually have it a lot easier than many people would, but I think there are still things I love that I would have to give up.

I like the way that the book was set up.  It followed her year - each chapter covered one or two months.  She wrote about what they were planting, what was being harvested, preserved, etc during each time period.  I especially appreciated that they included some seasonal recipes at the end of each chapter that highlighted the produce that they were currently harvesting.  Many of the recipes seemed very simple but highlighted the food of the season.

All in all, this was a really interesting read.  It made me think a lot about how I eat, and what I feed my family.  I've formed a lot of new ideas and opinions lately - hopefully I'll find the time to share them here on the blog sometime.  If anyone else has read this book, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!  Kingsolver also has a website that is dedicated to her book, you can see that here.

Happy Birthday to You

Today, I am 28.  And giving is always better than receiving, so to celebrate my birthday, I am going to fulfill goal #31 on my "101 in 1001" list: give away a quilt here on the blog!

As you probably know, I love to quilt.  I love beautiful fabric, I love thinking up a design, and I love seeing it all come together.  If I could, I would keep all that quilts I make - it's hard to even list them in my Etsy shop, and even harder to put them in the mail and send them off to someone.

I think every home should have at least one beautiful quilt in it.  And, I think we should all use these beautiful quilts, instead of letting them sit in closets because they are "too nice".  So, I'm going to give away a quilt this week - a quilt from my Etsy shop.  All you have to do to enter this "giveaway" is to leave a comment here on this post.  It doesn't matter if you've never commented before, or if I haven't seen or talked to you in years, or if I don't even know you!  I read plenty of blogs of people I barely know, or used to know, or haven't even met but I know who they are.  It's okay, I won't think you are weird. :)




 

You can say whatever you want in your comment, but please do include which quilt you think you will choose if you win (I will use Random.org to choose a winner, but I am curious to know which quilts are favorites... each quilt has a title in my shop).  Please keep in mind that these are baby quilts, so they are smaller.  Some are larger than others, though, and could be categorized as "lap quilts".  Sorry if you don't want/need baby quilts... but they sure make great gifts!

One comment per person, please. And sorry, there are no opportunities to "earn" extra entries by telling people about the giveaway... I am not interested in increasing my readership.  In fact, the less people that know about it, the better chance you have to win, right? :)  Giveaway will be open for one week - I will announce the winner on Friday, April 27.

Good luck, and Happy Birthday to you, whenever it is.

(*Note: all quilts are currently for sale in my Etsy shop.  I cannot guarantee that your first choice quilt will be available when the giveaway closes)

What I'm Reading, Take 2

I just finished reading "The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love" by Kristin Kimball. 

Written like a novel, Kimball tells about her transformation from a city girl to farmer.  But don't confuse her with The Pioneer Woman.... Kimball is doing all the dirty work right along with her husband (no ranch hands to be found).

Probably my favorite concept that I got from this book is that Kimball and her husband now run a year-long CSA (community supported agriculture).  Most CSA's around the country run for about 9 months out of the year, and they only provide fruits and vegetables.  However, Kimball's CSA is a full diet CSA.  They provide grass-fed beef, pork, chicken, eggs, 50 different kinds of vegetables, milk, grains and flour, fruit, herbs, maple syrup, cheese, eggs, milk and soap.  Members come once a week and take whatever they need for the week, in any combination and quantity that they choose.  Members are also encouraged to take extra during the growing season so that they can freeze or can their food for the winter.  Basically, they are offering people the opportunity to live off the bounty of a farm, without having to do all the farm work!

When I finished the last book I read (Folks, This Ain't Normal), I told Garrett that someday I want to get to the point where we are growing at least 75% of our own foods.  However, after reading this book, I really just want to join a CSA like this!

I loved this book.  It was an easy and entertaining read, and I still learned a lot at the same time.  I highly recommend it if you are interested in farming, gardening, self sufficiency, food storage, or just food in general!

What we're up to

Springtime is in full force here... although it's already starting to feel like summer!  Here are some shots of what we've been up to lately:

Sharing a swing:

Neighborhood bike rides:

Easter Egg hunts (we did 4 egg hunts in all... I am pretty egged out):

We went to Savannah for General Conference weekend... Garrett spent Saturday morning fishing in this handsome get-up.  The mosquito's were pretty terrible, so this kept him pretty protected.  Thankfully he stayed in the woods and wasn't seen in public:

Decorating mini cupcakes:

Making Resurrection cookies with Grandma:

Writing letters to the Easter Bunny:

Watching (lame) Youtube videos late into the night:

Funny how these always draw a crowd:

Piggy-back rides:

Dyeing Easter eggs:

Our early Easter dinner (we celebrated Easter during Conference weekend in SAV):

Uncle Jared stealing all the good candy:

The week after we got home from Savannah was Spring Break, so many of my friends at Church took a day trip to the beach.  It was a great time:

I took the girls strawberry picking one morning - we picked 20 lbs!

Half of it is now freezer jam:

The Methodist Church down the street had their annual Easter Egg Hunt/Family Day.  It was a lot of fun - there were multiple bounce houses, bunnies to play with, a hay ride, free food, Easter egg hunt, arts & crafts, face painting... we had a great time.

Easter Sunday.  Sadly, Garrett had to work a 12-hour shift so he didn't get to see the girls in their dresses, so I made sure to take some pictures:

Here is our garden this year.  We started out very small, but will hopefully expand next year!  The girls love watering the garden with Garrett each evening.  (Ellie wears a bathing suit pretty much every day, all day.  It's her latest "dress up" attire)

And finally, I took this picture a few days ago when I was driving Abby to preschool.  There have been really big prairie fires nearby so it's been very smokey outside.  This was on a "better" day.  Some days we can't even go outside because it makes our eyes burn just to be out there!  Hopefully it doesn't last too much longer.

And, that's what we've been up to lately.  We are keeping busy.  I booked our trip to Pennsylvania in July, so we are excited for that!  We're also gearing up for daily trips to the pool (which will probably start pretty soon, if the smoke clears up).  I also just got a new calling at Church.  I've escaped the Primary and now I'm the first counselor in the RS!  I'm going to be in charge of the extra meetings (enrichment), so that will keep me pretty busy.  And finally, I've been reading a LOT of books lately, so you'll be hearing about those as I go along!

What I'm Reading

I've been on a food kick lately, but I'm not really talking about eating.  I've been reading a lot about food and trying to educate myself about lots of different topics involving food.  I recently finished reading "Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World" by Joel Salatin.  Salatin is a farmer in Virginia and has been farming for decades.

One thing that has been interesting to me lately is food production, and this book talks a lot about that.  Think about it: up until about 100 years ago, food production was pretty much the same throughout the history of the world, thousands of years.  People either grew their own food, or they bought their food from local vendors and/or farmers that they knew.  Within the last 100 years, there has been a complete change in the way we get our food. We eat produce from Central America, California, South America.... all over.  Think of all the energy that that requires, getting food to us from so far away.  It's interesting, and it's not normal ("normal" being, how things were done for thousands and thousands of years, until just recently).  It's also kind of scary... even though something is being sold at the grocery store, does that really mean it is safe to eat?  Sure, it won't kill me now, but long term?

I enjoy shopping at farmer's markets because I really like supporting our local community and local economy.  Some produce at these markets seems overpriced (depending on where you live), but one thing to consider is the real cost of food.  Did you know that the government (read: you) subsidizes corn?  As a result, high fructose corn syrup is insanely cheap, which is why junk food is so cheap.  So basically, the government (well, your money) is subsidizing junk food (and FYI, high fructose corn syrup even worse than sugar).  And then we complain that fresh produce is expensive (because compared to junk food, I guess it is).  Local farmers selling their veggies do not get these government subsidies.  Besides all of that, the author really makes a great case for eating local food and getting to know your farmer.  Everyone should know where their food comes from!

Anyway, there were a lot of really intriguing ideas in this book and I highly recommend it.  I don't agree with everything Salatin says, but I also know that he has a lot of great points.  I think that we should think more about what we eat and pay attention to what we put into our bodies.  100 years ago (and beyond), many peoples' lives were focused on food: growing it, harvesting it, preparing it, preserving it, planning for it, etc.  Nowadays, it seems that most people just throw something in the microwave.  They don't know who made it, where it came from, who touched it, how fresh it is, etc.  An interesting concept.  People just trust that since it's for sale in the grocery store, it must have been deemed as "safe" from the USDA.  News flash: the government doesn't really care how unhealthily you eat.  Nor should they.  YOU should care.

I'm certainly not perfect in my eating habits, and I'd like to get better about it.  I'd like to start supporting local farmers more and knowing where my food came from.  I intend to read several more books about this subject and I'll share them as I go along, in case you are interested as well!