The Robisons: Healthy April

April 1st, Sloan's sister Lindsay and her 4 kids were driving through on their move to Mesa intending to stay with us for 2 nights. We spent a day at Springs Preserve and let the kids see Sloan's clinic, made spring rolls, and released a butterfly we got as a caterpillar...

Annie, Josie & Graham are 7 yr old triplets, Ruthie, 9 yr old Mable and Reggie

brand new butterfly

waiting for him to take off... and he did! fluttered all over the place, then got control and flew away. Fun for the kids, but even more fun for Lindsay & me :)

making spring rolls

Ruthie got Grandma Bertha's "love to watch people work" gene

Sloan's clinic

And then, they were happily on their way when their transmission died in Boulder City. They were stranded here for another 5 days! This was a hard reality for all of us, because in our 3 bedroom house, 7 kids under 9 is a lot of kids. Plus, hosting Lindsay is stressful because she doesn't eat like the rest of the world: she lives a higher law. She grinds her own wheat, pre-soaks it in natural yeast to make bread & pasta, makes her own condiments with whey (as in 'curds and whey'), avoids refined sugars, ferments her lemonade, eats grass-fed beef and drinks raw milk. The truth is, I love her food and have been slowly converting to her methods, and this week of companionship was baptism by immersion.

It was good timing actually because I'd just decided to go off refined sugar for the month of April, so when my withdrawals started around day 3, I couldn't backslide. Lindsay is a vast source of knowledge when it comes to clean eating, so I was a humble pupil (for the most part... sometimes it comes at unwanted times, or too fast, and I buckle). But I learned so much that week, for one:

making pasta from whole wheat soaked in natural yeast

And the list would go on & on... hindu lemonade, whey, breads, pre-soaked granola, using pure maple syrup, stevia, pink Himalayan salt, Kefir, Kombucha, Tillimook cheese (because not pasteurized), not buying ultra-pasteurized cream, buying organic/grass fed, ETC. I learned a ton and have incorporated most of it, never to go back to my old ways. To prove it, I've cleared our cupboards of sugar cereals and most processed junk! Yeah!

Sloan's indoor soccer game Friday night

Ruthie-brewster

Ruth's game Saturday morning

Ruth has a powerful kick, she's a strong defender, and she's fast. Her only drawback is that she's spacy. But I think it's cute.

Saturday & Sunday conference - Bingo!

And the Tunnels trail

it was windy, but gorgeous as usual

Back to just us...
these boys are buds

Reggie 'helping' me add some plants to the garden

grow, baby, grow!

not quite the garden of eden...

but almost!

Sloan was invited to talk about his mission at a youth fireside one Sunday night. He had a month to prepare, so it gave him a chance to go through his journals & pictures and reminisce. Look at him so squeaky clean.

The youth love him -- he keeps it real, invites the spirit, and makes them laugh. Plus he's a great storyteller. I shuffled between listening to him outside the door to keeping an eye on the librarians...

ahhh!

Reggie, Reggie, Reggie

the one & only!

still my little heart-throb

but then there's this guy too

getting his crawl on

looks like it's time to drop the 10pm feed

bike ride to Vons park

giggling and snuggling all the way home

sometimes your food tastes so good you gotta take a picture of it, right?

At the end of each school day, Ruth's teacher gives each kid a "Smartie Pants" to collect and turn in for a prize once they get enough (10 blue or 15 green). They get green if they were good, blue if they were really good, yellow and red not so good. Well, the teacher ran out of Blues, so she wrote "blue" on Ruthie's green one.

Which Ruthie thought was a great way to suddenly get lots of blues!
(or Bloows)

the crashman

the temple

ctr!!

first day riding her new bike to school

which happened to be superhero day

socca!

Reg got the buzz. Sloan did it while I was out shopping one afternoon. Caught me as I pulled into the garage to warn me that no one was hurt, that it was going to be ok, and not to panic. And then he released the Reg.

I panicked. And almost started to cry. So short! His head so white and huge!! No more curls when he gets sweaty :( He suddenly went from toddler to kid.
Ohhhh well, just hair. I'm over it.

(But thank goodness it's growing back)

After soccer, we loaded up for Dana Point. Sloan had a 2 week break, so we started out getting some shadowing experience in Temecula and OC.

Barstow

While he shadowed, my mom & I took the kids to The Wild Animal Park in SD.

Safari!

They had a mother rhino in an enclosure and said she had just kicked out her 2 yr old son because she was ready to mate again. I laughed out loud because as much as I adore Reggie it was not hard for me to imagine! This mother's baby was still young enough for her to tolerate :)

Reg was havin the best day.

part of the park was under construction, even better

camel crossing - love the feet!

bird show

Ruthie milkin grandma

she knows I wouldn't have done that for her!

makes a smooshed penny that much cooler

waiting to see the cheetah run

Luke was oblivious, except he sure liked being strapped to Luvy's chest

last up, the elephants (my favorite)

There was a frisky adolescent male wrestling and rolling like a puppy

perfect ending to the day!

Luvy giving pedicures while we wait for Sloan to pick us up

ride home (for Aja)

Our last night, Ken took us to an Angels game!

Baseball games are magical, patriotic, larger-than-life. I'm not good at watching for more than 2 minutes at a time, but I love to sit in the stands, shell peanuts, people-watch and dodge foul balls. We only made it 5 innings, but we got what we came for - the experience!