Down Syndrome Swim Night

I have some sad news to report. Thank the Lord it has nothing to do with drowning or hospital visits or other horrible tragedy, but it is, none the less devastating to me. : ( I dunked my camera without thinking and it is no longer working. AND it happened at the beginning of the night, so I have very few pictures to post. : ( On the way, all cute with my new hat.

Vernon drinking some iced tea.
Arriving at the Zorinski Water Park. All of our first time being there! It was really nice.

Bubba is so ready to get in.

The bucket of water dumping on Jen and Brady.

Soaked.

Vollen getting ready to go down the water slide.

He loved it!

I was holding Ronan in one arm and had my camera in my other "free" hand. Trying to document the night. As soon as Vollen got to the end he went backwards and under the water. I was right there to scoop him up and instinctively did. Only problem, I had my camera in my hand and dunked it under to scoop Vollen up. It happened in the blink of an eye. : ( So, so sad. I was in shock. I thought, maybe I can just get it to work. Nope. Nothing. There is still a glimmer of hope that once it dries out it might work again, but I am not holding out much hope. I can't believe it. I was SO bummed all night that I didn't get to take any pictures of the evening. The kids had a blast going down this little curvy water slide too. Vollen sat on my lap and just thought it was the coolest thing. I wish I could have gotten more pictures. But thank goodness my memory card was ok. It was so nice to see all the families. It really is too bad we don't get to see each other more often. We have such a great time when we get together. Tonight was very, very stressful and not relaxing at all. There was hardly any time to chat because you always had to have a constant eye on the kids. It was A LOT of work. Vernon and I are beat. And we only were there for an hour and a half total. We brought soap to give all the kids a rinse down and soap up and pjs on. We are tired.

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My morning started off just scrumptious with this cute face and a massage. Vernon went into work late today and that gave me time to workout, shower and go get a massage! How wonderful!!!

The kids and I went to lunch with my mom. We went to Taste in Rockbrook. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their house salad. I crave it!

We came home, had a dance party and took naps.

Trying to get a decent picture.....impossible.

We got a sitter for the evening. Made a Tea Smith stop. Had some delicious greens.

Went to McFosters Natural Kind Cafe. This was the Happy Hummus. The chef made a funny face out of it.

The Groovy Guacamole Dip.

Roasted Tomato soup.

Red beans & rice. Our least favorite.

Vegetarian Enchilada. Excellent. Stuffed with roasted fresh vegetables and a Chile sauce.

Portabella Mushroom. Our favorite dish of the night. Very flavorful.

We went and walked around downtown. It was full of all kinds of things to see. This particular contraption was unique. Apparently you can ride it around, someone steers the front. I don't know?

We split a piece of strawberry wedding cake at wheatfields. Yummm!

At New Realities I got this bracelet using Tagua Seeds for the beads. Here is what the Tagua Seed is all about. It was so cool. I LOVE it!

During dinner this band came in and started playing their bongos and guitar. It was actually kinda fun and different. I liked their music.

Just Today

My little cutie patootie!
Love this face!

Happy girl

Bubba doing excellent eating soup. The kids LOVE Amy's Organic Low Sodium Tomato Bisque. Me too. It's my favorite, favorite, favorite soup. I always keep like 6 cans in the house. LOVE it! It's my favorite go-to lunch.

Sophie wanted to get her nails done with me when I went. She got crackle. Fun!

Juice

Meet our new kitchen addition.

We decided we would try a new, healthy adventure. We had watched a Netflix video and were inspired. It is called 'Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead'. In a nutshell it's this guy who was tired of not feeling well. He did a juice fast for 30 days and increased it to 60 days and did nothing but drink juiced fruits and vegetables. He didn't eat anything. From the benefits of what he experienced we thought it wouldn't be a bad thing to try it. We, of course, are not going to the extreme. We just wanted to add the juiced fruits and vegetables to our diet and maybe replace one meal or so.
So, we went to Whole Foods and loaded 2 carts overflowing with organic fruits and vegetables. Since we were new to the whole thing, we didn't really know how much to get. Most recipes called for example: 4 apples, 6 carrots, 5 stalks of celery. That's a lot of fruit and vegetables for 2 cups of juice. Anyway, we figured we would need a lot.

Since you are eating (drinking) so many fruits and vegetables & greens that could be a LOT of pesticides and harmful gunk you would be ingesting if you did not use organic. It's expensive, but well worth it.

After one day we actually went back to WF and got 30 more apples and 30 more oranges and more celery since those 3 are in a LOT of juice recipes.

My first attempt. It was really good! This one was the (apple, carrot & celery one).

Vernon and I have been struggling with the amount of pulp that is leftover after you extract all the juice. To me it was a lot of waste and all good stuff (fiber, roughage, etc...) that I felt we needed to be consuming. So, the back and forth debate has been to juice or to blend. That is the question. Online there is support for both. We decided to just mix it up! Ha!!! A little of both and when we do juice we are going to save the pulp to add it to soups, homemade crackers & sauces and the carrots, apples, spinach and zucchini pulps to use for healthy muffins & bars! Yummm! Some people give the pulp to their dogs, some use it for composting their gardens. I want to eat it!

This is a longevity smoothie we tried tonight. Blueberries, Almond Milk, MACA powder and dried gogi berries. It was good. We might do a little less gogi berries next time.

Muffins I made tonight with pulp. I need to make a few adjustments, but they are pretty good.

The kids like the juice and smoothies too! But again we are not doing ONLY juice, just an added healthy drink to fill us up with good stuff and not so much bad stuff!