That's My Dog

Yesterday while walking our dog through the park I couldn't help but notice the colorful flowers and thought I'd stop and take a picture.  Between Wordless Wednesday & Instagram, I'm always needing new and interesting shots.  I told our Wheaten Terrier, Maggie, to sit so I could take a clear photo.  She did as requested, and I snapped a few shots.  But when I went to walk out of the shrubs and back to the path I realized there was no tension on the end of the leash.  I looked down to see the leash still around my wrist, but no dog on the end.  Somehow the leash had unhooked from the harness and she was gone.  I looked toward my tot who was oblivious to the dogs whereabouts.  We have a special call/whistle we use for Maggie, so I called her name and whistled.  Here she came like a bat out of hell.  She darted by and continued on.  The way she was running around the park you'd think it was her first taste of freedom.  (In reality, besides normal walks on the leash, she also gets to run free through the woods quite often.)  In and out of the bushes & flowers, out of sight, across our path, her legs spread using all her might.  Yelling "here" and whistling only caused her to dash by, she was in no mood to stop.  So my tot & I walked on, knowing she'd eventually follow after terrorizing the park.  Sure enough she rejoined us after a 5 minute spree, needless to say I wasn't pleased.  But I have to admit at one point while she was running like a mad woman, I had to laugh... "yep, that's my dog," I thought to myself.  This was not the first time it's happened, nor will it be the last.

I wish I had taken a photo of her while she was running passed but that was the last thing on my mind.  I did force her to sit next to flowers afterward for a shot.  It's not her best look, but that's because her hair is still growing back.  And of course I included the lovely serene picture I was taking before the escape!

Wordless Wednesday #55

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Smoothie, Yum

When I drink a smoothie, I actually feel my health improving with each sip, as silly as it sounds.  And smoothies have endless possiblities, so they never grow boring.  But they do have their downfalls, fresh fruit & veggies can be expensive, it takes effort & clean up, and they don't store well.  So basically you have to buy the fruit as you go and not make portions larger than a glass, unless you have people you can share it with.  The sharing in our house gets complicated... see my husband rarely drinks a smoothie.  And half the ingredients my tot likes in hers, I can't have.  I end up making mutiple single serving smoothies (like I said, lots of effort & clean up).  I've always liked smoothies, but I originally started making smoothies for my tot so that we could freeze the blend and make healthy popsicles (turns out she also likes drinking them).  Since she has no fruit allergies, I toss in everything, this way the popsicles and smoothies are always surprising.  Some blends she prefers more than others, she'll tolerate some seeds & bits, but I know not to push it.  Now for myself, smoothies are tricky.  During my pregnancy years ago, I developed allergies, and this includes a lot of raw fruits.  Most all of the general ingredients for a yummy healthy smoothie I just can't drink.  So I have to get creative.  I have a couple smoothie recipe books and I keep meaning to gather the ingredients but inevitably I just use what's on sale or already in the house.  I can still manage to make a tasty smoothie despite the fact apple, pear, and strawberries are on my "avoid like the plague" list.  Due to ingredients around the house this past week, I came up with a tasty fruit & veggie smoothie I thought I'd share.  

1 mandarin
2 kiwis
2 cherry tomatoes
5 baby carrots

This mix of ingredients means the smoothie turns a strange orangish color, but who really cares what color it is as long as it tastes nice.  The first time I made one I was overwhelmed with the carrot chunks (luckily I like carrots), so the next time I was sure to blend longer.  And these fruits & veggies are high in vitamin A, C, & K.  A is good for your eyes, C is good for the immune system, & K is good for bone health.  Can't complain!

Hope you give the smoothie a chance, and if not, I'm sure I'll come up with another one you can try out!!!

Van De Streek Bier

Beer is pretty common in our house, sure we have our favorites but we are also willing to branch out and try a variety of brands (generally those on sale, ha-ha!)  When one of my husbands employees decided to take a personal hobby to the next level and start brewing beer for the public, we jumped on board and ordered a 12 pack.  It took a while but a week or so ago the beer arrived!  I was pleasantly surprised to find two types of beer in the box, a pale ale and a dark roast.  Since it was Friday we popped the beers in the fridge and patiently waited for them to cool.  Now I'm not sure if the dark roast was supposed to be served cold or warm, but I'm not a fan of warm beer so we drank it cold.  (Probably should have asked the brewer.)  Both types of beer were nice but I took to the dark roast, maybe because it's a coffee stout.  One thing my husband had to warn me about was the alcohol content, apparently these beers are much stronger than the grocery store beer.  That was quite evident after even just one.  As far as I know, the beer is only available here in The Netherlands, and since it's a fairly new company they are now trying to get their product into bars.. who knows maybe one day it'll be on the shelf at the store also.  I wish the Van De Streek brothers a lot of success in their endeavors, proost (cheers)!

Wordless Wednesday #54

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Het Zandkasteel

This weekend we scored a lot of awesome parents points, we took our tot to the theater to watch one of her favorite tv shows live!!!  Our tot loves one of the educational Dutch tv shows called Het Zandkasteel, and when she saw on You Tube you could see them live we went in search of tickets.

For any of you that have been to kids shows you basically know what to expect from the kids.  A lot of excitement days leading up to the show, sheer pleasure the first 30 minutes, then antsiness, & after all is said and done endlessly looking at photos!  Luckily our tot loved the show, she did every silly thing they asked & even met them afterwards.  Now my husband he enjoyed watching our tots excitement at first but then quickly realized he was actually going to be expected to watch  the show for the next hour.  I don't think he would have survived without his iPhone for entertainment.

As for me, I often hear the show in the background and happily sang along.  Plus having front row seats made it twice as nice.  In the future I think just the moms will take the kids to the theater, ha-ha!

Board Games #2

Last summer I mentioned that my husband & I love board games, and now we are trying our best to get our tot interested also.  When buying games for her I try and pick up things from my childhood, like Hungry Hippo & The Fishing Game.  And now that she's older it's time to move on to actual board games.  Again, I thought back to my childhood and the games I played with pleasure and two popped to mind, Chutes & Ladders and Candy Land.  Enthusiastically I hopped online and tried to order them here in The Netherlands.  It was more effort than I realized, I ended up ordering one through the UK and the other from the US!  Waiting for the deliveries it turned out I was way more excited than her, but to be fair she had no idea what was ahead.  The first game to arrive was Chutes & Ladders.  Of course she won first round within minutes, but the next rounds took longer.  I found that the fact we kept constantly landing on the chutes (slides) and getting sent back made the game last longer than her patience.  Plus the new design of the board is so busy that it's hard for a 3yr old to actually understand where the chutes or ladders start.  But with time and repetition she'll figure it out and appreciate it.  I have fond memories of playing this game with my grandma.  When Candy Land arrived she was fascinated with the board design, and loved the candy theme.  And since it's basically just one trail it was easy for her to follow.  Plus she won again quite fast, which obviously keeps her interest.  So far it's been the big hit!  Chutes & Ladders relies on numbers and Candy Land on pictures which is obviously easier for a toddler.  It's also simple enough for us to explain to her Dutch friends, so now they can all play together.  Do you have any recommendations for toddler board games?

Wordless Wednesday #53

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