A camping we will go!

This weekend we went camping at the oh-so-kid-friendly Warm River Campground. Aunt Aimee came along with us--it's been so nice having her in Rexburg while she's been going to Evan's Beauty College. We were a little worried about battling with the rain, but the storm's timing was actually perfect. It didn't rain until after we'd set up the tent and shade cover and then it stopped right after dinner so we could go for a walk and enjoy a campfire in the evening. Lisa is at such a fun age for this kind of stuff. She eats it up! When we told her we did not bring marshmallows and that we would be pretending to roast marshmallows, she got so excited and helped me find just the right sticks and went at it for quite awhile. She has not been quite as interested in fishing, but will still humor us for a few minutes. Ryan would catch a fish and then have her reel it in. She seemed to enjoy that. She had even more fun just pretending with the net.She got a little nervous when the fish flopped on the ground a little, but she was still willing to touch it. My favorite part of camping with Lisa so far has probably been her campfire singing performances. Give her just a little encouragement and she's off to silly land. She learned "The Farmer in the Dell" from listening to a nursery rhyme CD every night going to bed. I didn't even realize she knew the song, but she certainly adds her own touches to it. For example, her new verses include "The wife takes the mop and the mop takes the cheese." I'm not sure where she got the "mop" idea. She certainly doesn't see her mom doing a lot of that. She ends her songs with quite a flair too. She's picked up on the concept of embellished finales. I love it. Lisa got herself dressed for bed and apparently slept in wet socks all night without us realizing it. Her little toes were so cold in the morning! We spent a good amount of time just relaxing by the fire before we cleaned up camp.

Summer of smoothies

Lately we have been trying harder to eat our fruits and veggies and one of our favorite ways to do this has been experimenting with smoothies. So far we have made Strawberry-orange-banana, Watermelon Strawberry and orange julius. (ok...so the orange julius is not really healthy, but it sure tastes good!) To get some of our veggies for the day, we usually blend in a few handfuls of fresh spinach leaves. At first the color (unappetizing, pinkish brown) made the drink unappealing to Ryan, but he tried it and now he loves a smoothie every day. I tried to include the basic recipe below, but it is really fun to just experiment and see what you like. You really just need some kind of fruit, some juice, yogurt, and spinach. Two other spinach recipes we've enjoyed recently is spinach lasagna and spinach quiche. Lisa looked at the green quiche really funny and didn't think she should eat it, but liked it once she gave it a try. It was a very "Green Eggs and Ham" moment for us. Here are those smoothie recipes.