Lousy blogging but great at dinner.

I learned a few things at our annual girls weekend at the Lake of the Ozark. 1) We always break something expensive (plumbing, air conditioning, boat) and are lucky we are allowed to come back. 2) My friend J keeps a MUCH BETTER blog than I do, and if I knew anything about what I am doing I would link you to it. 3) I don't update my blog, according to my dear friend C, that tells it like it is.

I guess I need to take a class or something.

I have had a couple of Paleo success stories this last couple of weeks. One family member that brought down all her "bad" numbers at the Dr office (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc...) and is able to be off medicine. A college friend has been migraine free, feeling good and down 15 lbs in about 3 weeks, following Paleo.

Same ole, same ole around here. Thought I would share an example of a typical dinner. Took some pictures, duh. I will never be the Pioneer Woman, but I probably could put a little more effort into this.

Dinner:
Grilled steaks - Easy. (Marinated in Olive Oil and Greek Seasoning)
Foil packet veggies - Diced zuchinni, onions, sweet potatoes - cooked on the grill. I do cut up the sweet potatoes first and boil them in some water for 5-6 minutes, while I cut up the rest of the veggies. I tossed with coconut oil and dill.
Blackberry and Peach "Cobbler" - fresh berries with the topping made from almond meal/flour, cinnamon, coconut oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Dallas Aquarium

This was a great destination. One of the things that STL does not have is an aquarium, so this was on our must do list! Manatees, sea horses and so many other creatures we don't normally see.

The Poule at the Joule...

We spent one night in Downtown Dallas at the Joule, a very swanky hotel. Really just looking for a reason to use the word swanky, and this is as swanky as we get! Due to the holiday, it was very slow downtown and the hotel was very quiet. It was good for us, because I am guessing the usual clientele would not find our kids as adorable as we do. The rooftop pool, the "Poule", was amazing and by far our favorite spot. Blue and orange is a great color scheme, so I took a bunch of silly pictures. The pool also extended over the edge of the building by 8 feet in plexiglass. So if you swam to the end, you could look over and see the street, 10 stories below. I am way too afraid of heights to do that, but Matt and the kids loved it! The most exciting part of the morning swim: H swam the entire length of the pool and back with no lifejacket/floaties,etc...She is now a swimmer. A quiet Tuesday morning with coffee on a beautiful rooftop pool, and my little girl had her first independent swim. A perfect morning worth every penny of that expensive hotel!

Road Trip 2011 Texas

Our first stop in Texas was the Father-In-Law's. The kids had an amazing time at the pool at the Country Club. They practiced swimming, went down the slide, and fearless little E jumped off the diving board. On July 4th, there was a DJ that mixed George Strait and Blake Shelton with Katy Perry and P!nk. Momma was in heaven! I forget how great Texas is, they play George all the time! As it should be. :)
Another wonderful Katy, my mother-in-law, fed the kids snacks, did art projects and sent them home with chalk pastels. The kids had an amazing time at Papa Mark and Katy's.

Road Trip 2011 - Oklahoma

We drove from Lebanon to Oklahoma City for the first part of our road trip. We made a stop at the National Cowboy Museum in OKC. It was a beautiful museum, with a special part for kids to run around and be kids. We also spent the night with friends from college, that had kids our kids' age. They had a blast together eating, playing with turtles, snails and snakes and swimming till 9. It was a blessing to catch up. We very much appreciated their hospitality!

City Museum

We have been so busy packing, moving small things, cleaning, painting, cleaning and feeding E (no exaggeration). I don't even want to blog about it. So tired. But, we had friends from Lebanon come up this week for a trip to the zoo and the City Museum. Lots of fun! Here are a couple of pictures of H and E. They love to get their faces painted at the City Museum, the lady is a sweetheart. H chose a purple kitty cat and E was a tiger. He made it about 3 minutes before he smudged it (go figure). I love his picture, even smudged.

Busy Bees

When I am really tired, I drool in my sleep. It is pretty gross. We have been THAT TIRED all week. Having so much fun, but it is so busy. H started Magic House Camp this week and she did amazing. She tends to be nervous and hesitant, shy about being left and I wanted her to have a new experience before kindergarten. She was very used to her preschool and had the same teacher for 2 years, and we have Kindergarten starting in August. But, she did AMAZING! Really excited about going, no tears or nervousness, and she wasn't even jealous that E was going to get to do some fun things with me. And camp has been wonderful, she has done so many fun activities and they have been very organized. E and I have been spending an hour or two at the MH each day playing and we have also had Red Mango frozen yogurt, played at the Craft Caboose and had coffee with a friend at Kaldi's.

The kids also had a great midweek sleepover with Grandma while Matt and I went to dinner for our anniversary. Prime 1000, yummy steaks, great people watching downtown and great service. We had complimentary champagne and a dessert, so we really didn't spend much and had an awesome dinner. Our waiter asked how many months/years we were celebrating, and we told him "6 years." He acted like that was a real accomplishment. I am not for sure what that says about the clientele? :) Either way, it was lovely. Grass-fed steaks and they had a flourless chocolate torte, so I was in allergy free heaven!

In other big news, we get the keys to our Kirkwood house today. Plan on moving next month, which means I have a lot of work to do around here. Looking forward to posting pics of the new place, soon.