Green smoothie

Due to multiple requests, here is an explanation of the green smoothie.

Last Xmas, aunt Debbie and uncle Steve introduced us to the green smoothie. Essentially, you can use any combination of fruits, vegetables, and greens. We have our own special concoction, which we will include below. It takes about 20 minutes to make - start to finish. Our boys love it, especially through a plastic straw.

A few notes.

Note #1: don't use juice. The beauty of the green smoothie is its naturalness (word? sp?). Adding orange, apple, or any other kind of juice would fill the thing with extra unnecessary sugar. So don't do it.

Note #2: don't use yogurt. Yogurt will double the calorie content of the drink. If you want yogurt for breakfast, eat some yogurt. But don't put it in your green smoothie.

Note #3: you will need 200 or so calories at about 10am (this would be the time to eat the yogurt). Your body can devour the green smoothie, because the raw fruits and vegetables have easily accessible energy. So, drinking the smoothie ups your metabolism (or at least I think so) and makes you hungry. The recipe included below makes two tall glasses of smoothie. Each glass has ~180 calories. That is not enough to keep you going all morning. Kristin supplements the smoothie with a small bowl of cereal; Dave uses grapes and carrots. Either way, you will need some more fuel mid-morning.

Now, the recipe.

5 ice cubes
1 cup of water
1 golden delicious apple (we find it easiest to cut the apple into wedges and then cut the wedges in half)
1 orange (cut off the peel)
2 handfuls of frozen strawberries (Costco or Sams)
2 handfuls of frozen blueberries (Costco or Sams)
1 banana
1/3 of a $1.99 bag of Dole Spinach (or until the drink turns a shade of green)

That's it. Post any questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer. Enjoy.

Lately

Life after the bar is wonderful. A few highlights.

Kimball turned one. He loved his cake.


And his presents.

Patten has taken to surfing (please notice Mike's pasty white legs...).


We love walks.
The "special drink (aka green smoothie)" is a daily tradition. Even the boys love it.
And finally, we made tin foil dinners. Patten helped put it all together, Kristin added the spices, and Dave attempted to remember the tricks from his scout days.

Photogenic

Look at these boys. Courtesy of Missy Johnson Wallace photography (and Mike's hard earned money that bought the camera)....

It is about time that we post something. A lot has happened since we last posted. Dave's grandmothers house sold and we moved out on July 6th. We only moved five blocks away and we are still in the same stake. Even though we have been living in our new house for a month it still feels like we just moved in. I am sure things will feel more "normal" as time goes on.

Dave has been really busy for the month of July which is one of the reasons why there have not been any posts recently. Dave took the bar on the last tuesday and wednesday of July so he was busy studying all day long the whole month before. We are hoping all the work payed off and that he will pass. We won't find out until 8 to 10 weeks after the test was taken.

Kimball turned one on the 31st of July. We had a fun little family party last night and Kimball was very spoiled ( as well as Patten because after all they share their toys). Kimball has grown up lots. he walks he is displaying more and more preferences and he is basically a toddler. My baby is no longer a baby.

I promise I will post a few pictures once I figure out where our stuff is to load the pictures on to the computer. I am hoping that it wasn't lost in the move.

Missy and Mike came home from Tonga on Sunday and we have already had lots of fun spending time with them. The boys were both so excited to see them.