A whole lot of Olympics watching going on ... (quick updates)

I want to take a few minutes to let you all know we're still here just in case my plan for some blogging during the Olympics doesn't quite work out since multi-tasking during swimming and gymnastics this past week certainly hasn't worked. :-)

Where has this month gone!?! (OK, it's not over yet)

• August 2nd: Tami's Birthday :-) Yes, the month started out delightfully as I was treated to a very lazy Saturday from sleeping in to making things in the kitchen with my new blender and cookbooks. There are pictures of me yet to uploaded smiling with my new "cook" books (or uncook books as Shawn calls them since most of them are raw food books). That is exactly what I wanted to get my year off to a great start now that I'm 37. Much of my spare time (?!) this month has been spent reading those cookbooks as well as experimenting with raw recipes beyond Green Smoothies. Most of the time I've felt great in comparison to much of the last few years (chronic fatigue/allergies/Celiac symptoms/low thyroid function fibromylagia symptoms/cadida-related symptoms), but there have also been some days of detox symptoms as my body heals. The detox days encourage me even more than the days I feel great because it means my body really is healing. This post isn't all about that so I'll stop here -- but if you want a less biased opinion just ask Shawn about how he fells about having "his Tami" back.

• August 7th -- Our Anniversary! :-) There are photos of my wonderful flowers -- those gorgeous red, yellow and orange roses like we had at our Wedding. Shawn got extra bonus points for not only sending the flowers to work, but then stopping buy and picking them up for me when I ended up not going into the office that day because Megan was sick so I worked from home after returning from the clinic (no strep this time). We went out on the weekend for a combination birthday/anniversary dinner and a movie so we spent the day just appreciating the every-day wonderfulness of our marriage and our family. It has been 4 wonderful year, and my only hope and prayer is that it is only the beginning.

• Vacation Bible School: Megan went to VBS at Prince of Peace in La Crescent Monday thru Wednesday (because she was sick Thursday and Friday) the week of August 4th. She had lots of fun and also enjoyed seeing friends from La Crescent. Then starting Sunday evening August 8 we had VBS at our church. It was Nessa's first experience at VBS or "macation Bible School" as she called it even though she says "vacation" perfectly well by itself. I stayed to help in the preschool room and to help be sure Nessa didn't accidentally get any gluten. Shawn stayed nearby at church most nights as well, and it made for a busy week for the family.
  

• Olympics -- starting on about the 9th Shawn and I started watching Olympics most nights. Who else out there knows how late those gymnastics events went? Well CST, it was way past our bedtime, but we watched anyway. It was particularly fun to watch with Megan the last half of the week as she is old enough to appreciate the athletes and ask good questions. In addition the gymnastics, you may have guessed we really enjoyed watching the swimming. :-) I'm sure we'll find some new favorites this next week too.

• Houston County Fair -- I'll do a post with photos and/or video on this, but as a quick bullet point -- Megan showed two of her goats on Thursday August 14th and then Megan, her friend, and I went back on Saturday to spend some time with the goats as well as go on rides and do other fun fair things. Megan did get a Reserve Champion while showing one of her goats and received blue ribbons for her goats in their respective classes. She also learned a lot about what to do to improve her standings for next year! It was the first goat show I've watched, and I look forward to watching more.

• Sand on the Riverfront (http://www.riverfrontinc.org/sand/) The event was Friday August 15th and Shawn was on the Business Objects team. It took nearly all day Friday to build the sand sculpture, but for Shawn's team it was worth it -- they won Best on the Riverfront and Best Interpretation of the Theme! Unfortunately my picture isn't very good, but hopefully you can get an idea of their "Farmer in the Dell" themed sculpture. There were also many fun kid's games and inflatables so Nessa had fun playing without getting frustrated at not being able to play in the sand on Friday afternoon.
  

• International Green Smoothie Day!!! Yes, Friday the 15th was also International Green Smoothie day, and I was ready to have an excuse to celebrate! I'm always ready to toast to the drink that has helped me along my path to wellness -- AND gets Nessa to eat greens as a bonus! For more info go here: http://therawdivas.com/blog/?p=287 / http://www.greensmoothiequeen.com/and if you need and more ideas or recipes, just let me know. I've developed many favorites over the summer from juicy nectarines to fresh berries! And I've explored all kinds of greens as well with many thanks to our CSA Farm for providing me with a wide variety of chard, kale, carrot greens, beet greens, lettuce and more. Pictures and possibly video coming soon. I know I've forwarded my original green smoothie post, so if anyone out there has been inspired to try green smoothies due to my sharing please leave a comment or email me. I want to know and so do the Raw Divas ... so let me know you're favorites or even your flops (even I still have those sometimes). Shawn is becoming a sometime green smoothie enthusiast too, but my urge for a post-workout smoothie of banana, celery and frozen blackberries didn't go over as well with him, but I didn't mind too much because that meant there was more for me (yum! ... oh there was one chard leave in there too just for good measure). And by the way the rest of you are not allowed to say "eww" until you've at least tried it ... it wouldn't hurt to read about the health benefits of blended greens as well. Who else has managed to have more than 10 fruits and veggies by noon and two bunches of greens each day this week? Smoothies are the best way to keep up with my increasingly busy schedule ... but wait this is just a quick update post so more on that later ...
  

Coming up before the official end of summer:

• This Wednesday I'll be taking Megan and a friend to the WI Dells to a water park for a fun day that she requested instead of a birthday party or big present. So far the weather looks ideal for such a day.
• Then Thursday Megan leaves to go stay with Aunt Ellen for a long weekend. Megan will be going shopping with Ellen as only Aunt Ellen is really good at shopping according to Megan. :-) We'll go up to Northfield to get her on Sunday. (And I hope to sneak a few smooches and baby snuggles with Cully as well.)
• Then it will be time to start getting ready for our Labor Day weekend trip which will include visiting both sets of grandparents. We'll stay in Cumberland for a few days and then move on up to Walker for a bit.
  

We did manage school supply shopping today, so we're officially prepared for school in that regard. The weather has been great this week (not too hot or humid!), and we hope to spend a bit of time outside with water toys yet this afternoon, fit a few more evening trips to Erickson pool in yet this month, and I personally hope to get many more bike rides in not only this month but also throughout the fall.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the last days of Summer!