San Francisco

Troy's parents plan a big family vacation every year, and this year we traveled to San Francisco!!

It was a bit tiring with all day plane flights and a three-hour time change, but we had a great time! We saw Alcatraz, hiked redwood forest, rode the cable cars, visited Chinatown, met up with our great friend from Mission Year, Joyce, picked organic strawberries, rode a boat under the Golden Gate Bridge, saw lots of beaches, walked up the 'crookedist' street in the U.S., ate lots of yummy food, and had a great time with family!!

Gardening

After lots of work, we got our garden planted a couple of weeks ago! We more than doubled it from last year, which means double the veggies, and double the weeds! But we're super excited and we love to walk out to the garden each day and see how the plants are growing. I can't help but think this is the way we're supposed to get a lot of our food. It's a lot of work, but so rewarding!!

For those of you wondering what the random flags are for, Troy was quite detailed in his placement of the plants. He made a grid and marked the spots to plant with a flag...perfectionist. 

Boy I can't wait til he's old enough to pull weeds instead of throw rocks into the garden!

Pool Time

I'm not very good at this blog thing. I feel like I can't post anything unless something monumental has happened. Well, let's face it, those events rarely happen. When you're a stay at home mom, sometimes poopy diapers or a trip to Target are the most monumental events that happen on a day to day basis. And if that's the case, here's something REALLY monumental...the baby pool!

Troy dragged out a pool he had bought on clearance last year. For those of you who know Troy well, you know he has an uncanny ability to get things really cheap or free. So even though I was rolling my eyes last winter when he bought out the summer clearance items a Walgreens, I was really glad this

week when we remembered we had this luxurious pool/castle.

The studly guy in the background is the pool boy, er, Troy

If you're bored, bring your kids on over and we can splish splash.

Hair Conundrum

Ian has some of the longest eyelashes I've ever seen. Maybe we can transplant some to his head!

Foodie? Me??

My friend Courtney recently referred to me as a foodie. I was surprised at first, but then I thought, yeah, maybe I am!

Recently, Troy and I made the decision to become mostly vegetarians. Actually, it was mainly my decision, but Troy is willingly going along with it (what a great husband!). Since I began feeding Ian solid foods I've read A LOT of books on nutrition. We also watched the movie, Food Inc, which I highly recommend. The wealth of information I've gathered inspired me to make some changes in my life, one of those being drastically cutting down on meat intake of any kind. I was toying with the idea of becoming completely vegetarian, but I realized that 1) my convictions aren't quite that strong and 2) it's not a realistic lifestyle for me at this point.

For me "mostly" vegetarian means that I won't cook with meat at home, but I will partake of meat in limited quantities when invited over to friends houses or when eating out (which we don't do very often). Another thing we've given up is milk, and we're limiting dairy. Again, my reading convinced me that milk isn't as good as I once thought, so we're drinking almond and soy milk. (Almond milk is delicious, by the way).

For those of you wondering how it's possible to cook without meat, it's really not that hard! We eat lots of beans (for which there are hundreds of varieties), whole grains (quinoa, rice, millet, amaranth, steel cut oats, barley), sweet potatoes, lots of veggies, and a limited amount of tofu. It's fun to try new recipes, and it's cheaper not buying meat. We joined the local CSA (community supported agriculture) and we get fresh vegetables weekly from that.

I'm not writing this to tell you all wonderful and "green" I am (or whatever), but just to share this lifestyle change we've made in our house because it's now a big part of who we are. These changes aren't always easy. Of course, I'm not perfect, and eating is one of my favorite things to do in the world. My weakness is ice cream and frapuccinos, so I indulge in those more often than I should. But as a woman who has struggled with my weight and overeating for most of my life, I'm feeling really great. I'm 10 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight, and I just feel better in general.

I don't love cooking all of the time, but I definitely enjoy trying new things with new ingredients. Is that what makes someone a foodie? Here are some of the good one's we've had in the past couple of weeks (let me know if you want any of the recipes):

Barley Casserole
Meatless enchildadas
Tofu manicotti
Sweet potato and lentil stew
Honey baked lentils
Moroccan couscous with squash
Cauliflower soup
Pinto bean stew
Split pea curry

And for anyone interested, here are the books I've been reading:
Disease Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right
In Defense of Food
Food Rules
The Kind Diet

Fun play dates

Ian had a full social calendar this weekend. Friday he got to hang out with two of his girlfriends, Sayla and Brynna. These little cuties are 9-month-old twins.














Saturday he played with Isaac Fair who's almost 4 months old. First he taught Isaac how to use the walker.



















Then he taught Isaac how to suck his finger. Ian's a pro at that one!

Vacation: Part 2

We spent about 2 days of our vacation in Atlanta visiting old friends and neighbors from Mission Year. How me miss them!















We stayed the night with our dear friend Furuzon and her two kids Orzu and Ormon who are Afghani. They became very dear to us. Here we are eating breakfast.




















Ian is enjoying his first nan bread. Yum!















Cute patooties Ormon and Orzu.















This picture makes my heart happy.















We also spent time with our Turkish friends the Mamedovs. Here is Omar, Suriya, and Suriya's daughter who is a couple of weeks older than Ian, but much tinier.















Suriya's daughter has been walking since 8 months, so it was funny to see her pushing hefty little Ian in the stroller. Ormon was 4 months old when we moved to Atlanta, now he's almost 3!















We didn't get a good pic of our Iraqi friends the Ali's, but here is Ian petting their pet bunny. Yes, it just hangs out in the house.




















We spent time downtown with our great friends the Odles. Here are Ainsley and "Inan" (that's what Ainsley calls him)




























We also visited the Jeff Delp (our Mission Year city director) and his wife Katie. Here is little Maya who's a couple of months older than Ian. She's enjoying a novel while Ian steals her snacks.


Last but not least, we visited my sister and bro-in-law in Nashville where my parents were also visiting for Easter.



















Ian and aunt Heidi testing out uncle Josh's scooter















Right before our trip home we went on a hike. Ian was wiped out. I'm pretty sure grandpa enjoyed the hike.