Anniversary

This month was our 5th Anniversary (how time flies!) and we had a fun night out. Adam surprised me with dinner at a Greek restaurant called Opa!. I'd wanted to go there ever since we first drove by it the month we moved to Halifax. Why? Not because I love Greek food (I'm not familiar with it at all), but because the word Opa! brings me back to my belly dancing days. It's what you shout out to encourage a few extra shimmies...


Back to the restaurant... Can I say fantastic? Holy smokes it was divine. Adam had a halibut stuffed with spinach, tomatoes, and some creamy sauce. I had a good sampling of a few different Greek dishes and loved them all. The evening could have been nicer with some fine dancing entertainment, but we can't complain. :)


After dinner we went to the mall to go ring shopping. I lost my wedding ring a year after we got married and we thought Year 5 might be a good time to finally get another one. We only had 10 minutes before the mall closed, but I actually saw one I liked and we might get it. Last we got a Blizzard at DQ to prolong our time out together while our good friends watched Ryan (Thanks!).

Help! Vote now!

One of my good friends, Julia Shumway, is competing to get a weekly blog column about dating in the Mormon Times. She'd do an awesome job and she's made it through several rounds already. Since I'm not into the whole social networking / facebook stuff this is my only small way to help her get votes. Voting for this round ends tonight at midnight MST, so please go vote now!!

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/blogbrawl/?id=14730

The link connects you to the faceoff between her and one other competitor. Find the Vote Here button in the middle of the page, then choose Julia. Vote once on every browser on your computer--Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, whatever! She's got to win!!

Utah Trip

Since I've been home for almost a month, it's about time I wrote about my trip to Utah with Ryan. :)

Sadly, "Spring Break" in Utah looked like this... Even though it was April it snowed about 1/2 the days we were there! It would warm up and melt quickly every time, but it wasn't warm enough to want to be outside. (It WAS beautiful, though.) Ryan was miserably sick for a week so we wouldn't have done much anyway. I think we took the snow there with us, because when we talked to Adam on Skype he told us it was like summer at home and that he'd gone golfing. In April in NS? Hello?

First we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Thompson. We had lots of fun with them, and, as always, felt very loved. Grandma had any kind of toy imaginable for Ryan to play with and he liked getting her attention. He'd run to the stairs to greet Grandpa when he came home so they could play. It was just like how he greets Adam when he comes home from school. So sweet.

On Easter we got together with my extended family for a dinner. Grandpa (my dad) got to show Ryan my uncle's horses. He LOVED them (though he called them dogs the whole time).

Ryan liked getting lots of attention on the trip. He wanted to help Grandma exercise in the morning, play with his cousins, and get lots of tickles and kisses from Aunt Becky.

I cut all three of my nephews' hair. Here is Chris mid-cut. :)

My parents recently completed a 5-week colon cleansing process. I gave it a go while I was there. I had 3 cleansing appointments with the hydrotherapist. In the mean time, I had to stick to a strict diet of juice and spring water only. This facilitates flushing everything out. I did it for 4 1/2 days and I don't know HOW my parents did it for 5 weeks. The following shows my mound of veggies required for my juice. It is for 2 servings since I drank a lot more than my parents did. (Though I drank less and less each day...) For anyone interested, here is the list of ingredients (all organic) for the drink:

3 carrots

1 stalk celery

1 broccoli spear

1/2 leaf chard

1/2 leaf kale

2 dandelion leaves

1/4 cucumber

1/4 beet

1/2 lemon

1 inch ginger

1 slice black raddish

handful cilantro

1/2 apple

Actually, I didn't use any dandelion leaves because the store that carries all these organic ingredients didn't have it at the time. The shipment they'd received was bad. Also, my parents didn't get to have the apple in theirs, but I was allowed the change because of my speedy, mini-cleanse. My mom swears the apple made my drink completely different than theirs.

The truth is, the drink isn't that bad. It's just when you have to drink ONLY it all day for days on end. After one day I'd definitely had enough, and this is my triumphant face for my final drink at the end of my 4 1/2 days!!!

As a side note, though I wasn't doing the detox as an attempt at weight loss, I did lose a few pounds and reached my pre-pregnancy weight. That was pretty exciting. :) I'm sure returning to a normal diet now might have changed that, but I wouldn't know since I don't have a working scale.

While I did my ceansing appointments my mom played with Ryan. He loved this park she took him to and couldn't get enough of the sand.

Projects

Lately I've been on quite a sewing kick. I never thought I'd feel this urge, but I'm actually quite liking it.

First I made a set of curtains for Ryan's room.


Then it was time for some curtains in our room. Adam's wanted some ever since we moved in, and finally for Valentine's Day I made them.

Thanks to the lovely Tanya I started making sock monkeys. I made an orange one for Ryan and the blue and brown ones for my nephews. Now, truth be told, they were a total pain in the butt to make and I told Adam I wouldn't make any more ever again. Unfortunately, when I was at the dollar store this week I found more of the perfect socks stocked, so what did I do? I guess I'll be making more monkeys...

Canadian Olympics

So I loved some of the commercials that have been on this Olympics, but this one takes the cake. I especially love the maple leaf faced dude w/curly hair cheering just as the music surges. Be sure you watch the 2nd commercial to see what played AFTER Sunday's hockey game. I love that they had it ready and waiting.

February Fun

Here's an update of the Thompson happenings of the last month:

Grandma and Grandpa Thompson came from Utah to spend a day with us. We always love having them come and feel loved that they make such a long trip to see us!



Since they were here on Valentine's Day they got a special Valentine--Ryan! He loved having them here and got pretty good at saying "Grandpa!"





We made my family's traditional Valentine's Day cookies. We made them every year when I was little, but it's been AGES since I've had them. They're very labor intensive, so I never have the energy... They're super soft sugar cookies with a marachino cherry filling, lemon butter frosting, and coconut on top. Yummy!

A few days later more than a foot of snow dumped on us overnight. School was closed for the first time this year. We tried to take Ryan out to play, but since the snow was up to the top of his legs he didn't have too great of a time. We lasted about 5 minutes. (*Note new car--hooray! Any suggestions for a name?)

Three days after the snow storm Adam had Spring Break. After that picture tell me what's so "Springy" about Spring Break? Oh well. We still loved having a week to veg. It was a break for both of us, as we got to spend time together and took turns taking naps. :) Ryan loved all the extra time with Daddy. We went swimming twice, went on a few walks, watched lots of Olympics, made big yummy late breakfasts, ran lots of errands, and spent two late nights working on a puzzle of Florence (Dollarama special!).

At Christmas G & G Thompson gave us money for Ryan and told us to choose something for him. We decided we'd use it for a trip to the Discovery Centre during Spring Break. Our much-awaited break finally came and the Discovery Centre was our favorite Spring Break activity. Ryan was all sorts of excited by the Lego exhibit because it was full of cars (his new favorite word). He was totally in love with this race car and we could hardly get him out of it! The second he got in he grabbed right onto the steering wheel and started driving. Smarty Pants.

Sauce it Up

A few nights ago we successfully got Ryan to eat vegetables. Adam covered them in butter and garlic salt. He ate more peas in one bite than he's eaten in the last 7 months. (I tried one of the carrots and can say I don't blame him. They were DANG good!) I don't understand how a kid can be SO disinterested in eating, but we have to do all sorts of tricks and distractions to tease something into his mouth. He even suddenly stopped eating scrambled eggs--his standby for the last month. Today I put ketchup on them to tempt him. He ate 3 bites. Adam let him have Honeycomb cereal a few days ago and now no matter where I hide it he seems to be able to find it and wine for it all day. I care about giving him healthy foods, but this week gave in to giving him extra crap. Any advice from some parents of picky toddlers?