Branching Out

Hey everyone. I am trying some guest blogging. Check it out at Screamin John's - Big Night Out!

A little family reading (part 2)

If anyone has any tips for potty training Andy in the next month, let me know! We are desperate! We had some success today. Yay!


Part 1

Hagood Mill

A friend of ours has been telling us about Hagood Mill for awhile now. Every third Saturday of the month they have a little festival. Inasmuch as today was the third Saturday, the weather was great, and we didn't have anything else to do, we decided to go. I took my camera and honestly said, "mommy needs a blog post!"

Here is the actually mill:


Today they had the following fresh grains for sale: white grits, yellow grits, white cornmeal, yellow cornmeal, whole wheat flour. I bought a bag of whole wheat flour. I would have bought grits, but I still have a bag from timm's mill in my freezer.


James liked to dance to the milling:


They had lots of arts and crafts vendors, including HONEY with honeysticks!


Also demonstrations such as WEAPONS:


Andy just liked playing with the rocks:


The boys climbed over the old mill rocks:


We bought hot dogs there. Not exactly a "real food". We will bring a picnic lunch next time. Man, I wish I had a cool picnic basket!


They had some animals including horses. James and Andy met all three they had there:


The green and red smudges are from my kids:


James did a native american "candy dance".


Finished up with a little 3/4 mile hike around a little trail there. Not all that well marked, but fine.


We had a great time. Can't wait to go back!

My new thing

I have told many of my friends (and also readers of this blog) about my new thing...which is real foods. Real foods mean foods in their natural state. The inspiration for this was surprisingly Mark. He told me about a blog that some Clemson alumni had started and thought I would like it. This is a family that decided to eat only real foods for 100 days and blog about it. Here is the link to their blog:

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

This blog is based on the book "In Defense of Food" by Michael Polland. They completed their 100 day goal and have to admit that eating all these "real foods" is expensive. Now they are trying "100 days of real food on a budget" and giving themselves $125 week to spend.

This really hit home with me. I used to be really good about not eating process foods before kids. Lately we have gotten out of the habit, I let the kids eat sugary cereals and I LOVE me some white cheddar cheeze-its! Mark did suggest trying the 100 days, which seems extreme. The rules that they followed are very strict: no white flour, no white sugar, only organic dairy and produce, only local meats. They do have a 10 day challenge which I have seriously considered. I have the following concerns:

1. It is pretty close to the holidays...maybe I should wait until January.
2. I really like my coffee, and can't imagine using honey or maple syrup instead of my beloved hazelnut creamer.
3. If the boys stay in bed until their light is green (their alarm clock) they get chocolate milk. They won't like giving that up.
4. I wouldn't be able to have my kids eat snack or meals outside of the home because the food won't be real (sorry mom!)
5. It will be really hard to eat out. This is really Mark's concern. He cannot fathom not going out to lunch for 10 days.

I have tried to implement the following changes:
1. Taking the whole wheat or at least the wheat option where possible.
2. Using honey and maple syrup in place of white sugar where possible. Reducing the amount of sugar we eat.
3. Stopped buying and providing processed snacks. We have been eating more tricuits, cheese, smoothies, fruit, homemade baked goods, granola, and popcorn.
4. Feeling guilty when cooking processed convenience foods, but they have been from Trader Joe's...that is ok, right?
5. Feeling smug and superior when I provide a real foods meal. Again, for dinners, I do this a lot, but it makes me happy.

I wouldn't want to do this long term. I have the following issues with this diet:
1. Really? No white flour or sugar?
2. Organic dairy. I love organic milk, but we go through 2 gallons a week.
3. Organic produce. I understand the issue here, and I love my CSA and my farmers markets, but in the winter it is just tough. I am not really sure I buy the organic produce movement.
4. Local meats. Again, I do get it. We live in a small town, and there are local meats available, they really are not convenient, and I really don't have a problem with store bought meats.
5. The idea behind this way of eating is that we should go back to how people where eating before processed foods. It is great in theory, but in this time of growth of our population (I am totally sounding like my dad here) many of these changes have been made in order to feed more people in different areas. There are many bad things that have come out of current food era, but many good as well. It is hard to pick and choose which are ok and which are not.

This purpose of this post was really just to share the link with everyone I have told about that blog. This ended up being way more than I intended, but I haven't posted in awhile.

Fall Tour - Stop 2

This will probably be our final stop on this year's tour. We were to busy and missed the peak. Oh well, we had a great time on this stop. For this trip we went to Cashiers, NC. We have family in Highlands and have never been to Cashiers. From our house it took right around an hour. We actually stopped on the way in for a little hike to Silver Run Falls. The hike was about 1/4 mile. Perfect for our age group.



There was a little bridge on the way.



The waterfall itself was super cool. It would be a great swimming hole in the summer.



The kids were way impressed:



Next, we made it all the way to Cashiers and went to the Village Green where they had a great little park.



It was good that the kids had some free play time:









Around the park they had some art to enjoy. I love art!





Perhaps the inspiration to this trip was not the waterfall, or the leaves, or the park, but the Carolina Smokehouse BBQ that Mark just happened to come across.





We had a great time. Looking forward to the spring tour!

A long time coming

I like to do my Halloween post on Halloween.

If you have not met James, this guy LOVES to dress up. I mean, LOVES IT. We started talking about Halloween back in August when we got our first "costume magazine" of the season. James went through a couple of costume choices, but settled on his choice of Darth Vadar early on. I was a little concerned about Andy. He is old enough to have his own opinions, but not really old enough to care. Lucky for us, Andy seemed perfectly willing and happy to dress up in James's monkey costume from two year ago. However, like I mentioned, James LOVES to dress up, so we have several backup choices.

Our first Halloween festivity was at our church. James was beside himself too finally be Darth Vadar. Andy was excited also. It was time to get ready...here are our cute kids. First Darth James:


And our cute little monkey.....Oh, Andy! What a buzzkill!


Andy went through the whole evening completely oblivious that he was the only kid not in costume. Here he is in the costume parade:


James was busy battling the light side of the force:


We made James earn his light saber light any good padawan with a sticker chart.

Well, that was a bust, although Andy love the other aspect of Halloween ie the trunk of treating with CANDY. Lucky for us, we have many other chances to wear costumes. I asked Andy if he would like to be an elephant. He loves elephants, loves the "elephant song" from The Jungle Book, got him a little grey sweatsuit, some ears on a headband, a nose, a tail, off we go to the downtown trick or treat.

Ooo, buzz kill again.


Now we come to the 31st. The Day. Mark and I debated if he should be allowed to trick or treat if he won't wear a costume. Dinner is over, the choice is made, there is a little whining when we put the sweatsuit on, grab the ears, the tail, and nose, and...


success!



I believe it was the idea of CANDY that opened his mind more than anything else. Trick or treating was a huge success. We met up with neighbors, and James, Henry, and John just ran from house to house.



After all this planning, you would think that James would have been upset that Christopher was also Darth Vadar, but it turns out it was Christopher who was bothered by it:



Andy, although he had to explain what he was at every house, didn't miss anything.



James was a little taken aback when I mentioned that Halloween was OVER. Luckily, the toy magazines have arrived and he is moving onto the next thing.

Star Wars Light Show 1997

I had James watch this a few weeks ago, and he has just watched it again over and over. I decided to share.



I am at the top left, 4 from the end.

The light show was one of our traditions. They tried to do it every other year, if possible. Requirements include: had to be a night game (duh), not on tv, no visiting band, past the time change.

The light in the light show are glow sticks that were stuck in the "shako" hats where the plume would go. The flags, twirlers, and drum majors all had light sticks as well. The feature twirlers twirled fire.

The flashes at the end were from an old-timey flash cube with 4 flashes that was taped to our instruments somewhere. We would wear a paper clip on a string around our neck. At the end of the show...instruments down...find paper clip...feel cube...push thru one slot...and second slot...third...forth...giving the flashes. They would take a slow exposured picture of this and it was always a cool picture.

I think this particular show is actually our tradition Western Show, just done to Star Wars music. However, the ending Double T really should have been our traditional T-E-C-H drill.

Light Shows are not done any more. I think they have a hard time finding the flash cubes, most games are on tv with a visiting band, the time change is later, and I think it is a major safety hazard to turn off all the lights these days. Too bad, it was super cool!