In Health

Quite suddenly, we've become vegan.

No no, no we haven't. Not entirely. But kind of we've gone vegan. 

I know that by the very nature of this lifestyle one doesn't kind of do it, but here we are, inching our way in that direction. 

It all started with mac & cheese. I noticed that I was feeling pretty awful after eating the stuff with the kids. And since we tend to eat our fair share, I was noticing it a lot. So I took stock of what happened after each mouthful of cereal, each slice of bread, and you betcha, I had a gluten sensitivity. 

I've always been lactose intolerant, and the gluten business was pretty similar. Had to cut out the gluten, and after one day there was a difference. Two and I was feeling like a new gal. It's been nearly a week and I can't believe how much better I feel all around, outside even of my stomach. 

Two of my friends are also gluten-free, and on a recent evening walk we chatted about nutrition and making the move when the rest of the family doesn't have gluten issues. One of my friends has recently battled breast cancer, and during her treatment and surgeries she found that many of her physicians are vegan. Always a very healthy eater, she was shocked to hear that the general belief behind non-obviously-genetic-type (that's the technical term, I'm sure) cancer is that it's the food we take in and the energy we output (or don't) that does it, or leads to it, or helps it along.

She delved into the subject of vegan eating and immediately her family went in that direction. The other friend on our walk, and several more in our peer group, took their families to the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle soon after, all with tremendous results. Allergies have disappeared, mystery coughs gone, bowels happy to be bowels again. 

I came home and talked to Trevor about it. We talked about his uncle, battling cancer right now, and about our friend, who was the first in our peer group to get it. We talked about what it might be like in that doctor's office, getting a diagnosis, and hearing that it may have been related to diet. Diet! And how, in that moment, we would be horrified that we had not tried harder to prevent it.

And so, now, we are taking a path we never thought we'd take. From a hunting family, Trevor was at first not interested in the least. After our talk, he was the one to suggest we give it a try. 

We're not going to be hardcore - we can't; we know we'd sink and our resolve would be compromised. We're going to lean on fresh fish and continue the eggs. We're not going to force anything on anyone. We're going to walk down for ice cream now and then.

But the other things are big steps for us. Thinking vegetarian is new, and even though we'll continue to make chicken and fish and eggs for the kids, trying to clean up our diets in major ways is hard. We're fumbling a bit right now, but then again, we just started, and we do have a lot to learn. 

We feel great about the adventure of it, though. When we take our long, nearly nightly family walk, we feel like we're doing the right thing, and while I haven't had a chance to talk to Trevor about his energy because he's been working nonstop, I know that I feel lighter and springier already. 

Tonight for dinner I pulled all of our vegetables out of the refrigerator and set them on the counter. I began chopping, and asked Marta and Berit to put them in the pan. Celery and cauliflower, zucchini and edamame, kale and peppers, they all found their way into the girls' bellies before they had a chance with the pan. Our stir-fry was small, but the girls were giddy and full, entirely from our fresh bounty. For dessert they ate gluten-free bread and tomatoes, and the whole time I wondered if it would work. It did.

Christmas 2010

This year, in a completely unexpected move of randomness, my family decided to spend Christmas away from home. Helpfully, Trevor's family owns a cabin in the Middle Of Nowhere, full of cozy and cheer and good smells, so we went there. It was an adventure in sleeping arrangements for our girls, in challenging the stamina of our denim (sooner rather than later changed into pajama pants) with the mountains of food dipped in chocolate, in getting in the most games, in not getting too tipsy for the sake of the children who are trying to sleep, in watching enough movies to constitute a proper winter holiday, in building fires indoors and out.

We had a great time.

The perfect tree!

What it lacks in size, it makes up for in heart.

Sprinkling reindeer food (oats, cornmeal and glitter). Just after sprinkling, Marta stomped it into the snow, and made Berit cry in horror.

We all had matching PJs!

Reading "'Twas The Night Before Christmas"

You totally can look cool when you match all the other guys in the house. It's not cult-like at all.

Aunt Andrea. *LOVE*

We thought sleeping together in the cubby would be lots of fun for the girls, but they both ended up ditching their digs in the night and I was left to squeeze into Marta's sleeping bag in there, by myself.

Not weird at all.

Nick + BINGO + matching outfits + bad jokes = Christmas

Santa found us at the cabin!

Signed photo of the Eagles + story in which Andrea truly believed Mom knew Joe Walsh from high school yet didn't realize he was in the band

More matching outfits. Classy ones, too.

Do we think the neighbors might be nervous?

Ridiculous amounts of sugar, courtesy of Jodie Faber, who looks gorgeous right now and none of US can fit into our jeans.

Again with the sugar.

In Brief

It's summer, and while I could say that the slow internet at the in-laws' house is why I've not blogged, it's really just that we're having fun away from the computer. But in the interest of journaling our lives for our children, and in the interest of the printed copy of the past year's posts that I'll be working on over the next few weeks, here's a list of what's been happening with our little group of four-and-a-dog:

SUMMER
Berit's enrolled in Highland Dance and Yoga on Tuesdays, both completely wearing her out but also bringing much fun and joy. We've signed up for nature walks with the conservancy on Wednesdays and following those there are concerts in the park for kids, so we pack a lunch and the girls dance and wiggle and we all celebrate living in bright, happy Petoskey during the summer.

Berit starts violin lessons next month, for 15 minutes at a time. They're on Saturdays and while I'm really happy she wants to learn violin, I'm most excited for the enforced family time they'll bring. We only see Trevor for minutes each day lately, and on Saturdays we'll all go to town together, have a lesson and then picnic in the park. Maybe we'll check on the progress of the house, browse the shops and stop for an ice cream. In the past I'd make plans like this and they wouldn't work out for one reason or another, or only part of the time, but these plans don't worry me because it's summer and Petoskey is covered in sprinkles and fairy dust in the summer, so even if the plans aren't perfect our Saturdays will still be fabulous.

WORK
Small jobs for Trevor lately. No new builds in the longest time, but lots of regular work that keeps him busy and keeps me home with the girls. Fingers are crossed for a new build soon! I continue to work with Wayne County's Start Early, Finish Strong newsletter, Traverse Magazine and the occasional Country Lines article, all of which keep me writing. Also have a few projects I like to play with when I have time. In my head I'm working on two little books, one for each of the girls, that will tell the story of their births. Berit, and in copycat fashion (always) Marta, are fascinated by their birth stories. So before I get any further from those days, I'm going to write the stories in kid language, with a bit of fantasy and fun thrown in to dissuade any of those ... technical questions.

HOUSE
Ah, the house. Oh, the house. How we long for the house. The demo is complete and we now have a new walkway from the kitchen to the library. The kitchen, originally a maid's kitchen, was completely separated from the living space of the house, and had only the back stair up to the second floor, the back door to outside and the heavy, swinging door into the dining room for exits. Absolutely no way to see or even hear the kids while cooking or cleaning. So Trevor put a lovely walkway in to make another path through the house, and during the finishing phase he'll use the large space on either side to create built-in cabinetry and shelving. I can't tell you how I'm looking forward to filling those spaces with treasures! Teapots? Cookbooks? The family china that has recently been handed down? When I think about it my body actually feels full of exclamation points.

We are moving more slowly on the house than we (ahem, *we*) had anticipated. Hoping to be in by fall. PRAYING to be in by fall. In the meantime we're still living with Trevor's parents, who are continuously gracious in sharing their home with us. I know they must get frustrated -- of course, we don't do things the same way, and we are loud and constantly there, and there are all of those things that come with living together when you had been so used to living apart -- and I get frustrated, too. But every morning the girls wake up and are thrilled to go downstairs to their grandparents, who in turn make hot breakfasts and give lots of hugs and offer to take them on walks, and Trevor and I know that this is the best possible place for our family. They will always have -- if not exactly remember -- the summer they lived with Mimi and Grandpa, and I truly believe it will be special to them forever.

And by the way, every other day or so I walk into the laundry room because I haven't had time to switch my clothes from the washer to the dryer, and I'll find my laundry clean and folded. And when I can't quite get to the dishes after a meal, I'll come down later and see that they're magically washed (and not even in the dishwasher, because I never put the kids' stuff in there and my mother-in-law knows this and takes the time to hand-wash them for us). And when Trevor works late and it's time for baths, I have extra hands and I never have to ask for help. Ever.

TREVOR
Trevor loves summer more than anyone. He loves to play more than any grown-up I know. He wants to skate, to swim and bike, to hike with his kids. And yet we are blessed, blessed to have work that keeps him busy all day and all evening. He goes from one job to a meeting to a chamber event, down to the playhouse that Erwin, his dad, is building in stunning and adorable ways. Trevor is never idle. And when he has 20 minutes he spends every last one doing puzzles, dancing and reading with the girls.

LISA
I am writing. I'm adventuring. I'm playing and cleaning up. I am living on Walloon Lake with my girls for the summer, in a house filled with fun and love and music. I'm trying not to get in the way, to be a living part of a family house that I'm not really suited for. I think I'm catching on. I'm getting my braces off next month. I've signed up for a half-marathon and am running slowly but consistently, most recently doing a five-miler that turned out to actually be six, and I felt great the whole time. I'm carrying the rear portion of the dog, who threw out his back (again) and is cheerfully dragging himself around. I'm realizing that I'm still mourning the loss of both of my grandparents, who both died very recently, even though I thought I was tougher than this. I'm constantly grieving for my mother's loss of both her parents and at the same time am avoiding talking about it with her, not purposely. I'm happy and one second from tears practically all the time, because the girls are so fun, so exciting, so big and so little.

ADOPTION
Insert big sigh here. We are technically 10 to 12 months away from bringing home a baby. However, two children were very close to meeting our requested status (healthy babies, with exceptions for unknowns like smoking during pregnancy) and we considered adopting them. We read their full files -- something we'd never done before -- and learned things about them like what their rooms looked like, what made them happy and sad, how they were comforted and what their deliveries were like. It was terrible to say no. But we don't have a home yet. We can't yet. We can't expect our biological children and the new baby to adapt to this situation, and to that situation. It's just not right, yet.

PLAYHOUSE
The playhouse excitement continues. Erwin has spent every hour of every dry day for weeks crafting the cutest little cottage you ever did see, and we are all hoping to sell lots of tickets and really start something. We are frustrated because both times we were scheduled to show the house during kids' concerts in the park, it rained and we couldn't. So the house hasn't moved from the polebarn, and we've only sold a handful of tickets with it there. Erwin would love help from Trevor, who would love to help but is so busy with work that he is barely there, and you can imagine how this makes both guys feel. I think they had hoped to bond over this project in their father-son/buddy-buddy way. Anyway, the end result is still fantastic, and this first time out continues to be a learning experience for us all. We're hoping that the parades will really help get the buzz going. We're trying to be realistic that this year will be the one that teaches us how to make the build successful in years to come. But to be truthful, we all want so much to make an impact NOW. Slow and steady, needs to be our mantra. It's really a dream house, and a dream project. Everything about it is just plain great.

Did I leave anything out? I can't think. On to work, to the for-pay stuff, with hopefully enough time afterward to work on some fun stuff. It's summer. Everything is fun stuff.

News.

Not long ago I wrote about wondering if we were pregnant, and being happy with the idea that we might have a surprise baby on the way. And while we were of course thinking about the child, there was something bigger about the possibility that we were pregnant, that we weren't ready to share at that time.

For the past two years, Trevor and I have been on a prayer and research journey. It's one of the most serious things we've ever done as a couple. We felt called to do something in particular, but we weren't sure if we were... sure.

A few months ago this subject became clear -- just like that, God gave us an answer. So we started a process.

Last month, when we wondered about being pregnant, we were also wondering if God was sending us a message. Maybe we had misunderstood His direction, and He wanted something different for us. But no. We are on the right track.

We have never felt so sure in our lives, to be honest. We feel secure in our relationship like we've never felt. Our future feels good and solid. We get what we're supposed to do, what we really, truly long to do.

The journey we are on, the path we have been following, is about to become much more public. So over the past few days we have told our family and some friends, though we won't tell the girls for another year, probably.

We are adopting a baby.

We are working with an agency to adopt a young child from an orphanage in South Korea. We don't know much about the child who will join our family yet; this is a long process and we will have more details about the actual child in about a year. But we are moving along and things are sounding very, very positive.

I'm looking forward to writing about what we experience along the way. We are so thankful for the supportive kindness everyone has already shown, and we are completely humbled by the months in front of us and by the child who will change our lives in so many wonderful ways.

Best Day

I know this post should be about the amazing Christmas we had, and it was -- we're still savoring the fun and the memories, and we think it might have been the very best in a long time -- but I have to write about the fun we girls had today.

We woke to another yucky, wintery morning with no school. I discovered that the Great Lakes Children's Museum, just outside of Traverse City, had a craft week going on with volunteers helping kids do all sorts of fun wintry stuff, and decided to make the 1 1/2-hour trek. Marta whined the whole way down, but let me tell you, this non-car sleeper snoozed the whole way back.

"I made this. I MADE it."

"Yellow jingle bells. RING!"

"No, Mom, I WANT it in front of my face."

Oddly, she was nervous to go through this short tunnel at first, and tried to get Marta to do it.

"In the waterfall!"

Marta = Obsessed with water.

Berit = Obsessed with posing.

OhMyGosh we're on TV.

MAGIC.

Berit, doing the bulk of her physical activity for the week.

She was smiling just before and just after I took this, but I can never catch her in the act.

Absolutely cracking up at the videotaped fish that swim in the entryway.

You can't see them here, but they're swimming around their feet.

So, after the museum we went to the mall where the girls rode the carousel and we all got a pretzel hot dog. Marta crashed on the way home and Berit said, "Mom, turn on the lullabies so Marta can have a nice sleep." She then sang them under her breath for the rest of the ride, gazing out the window.

When we got home, I pulled out the best Christmas gift ever, from my sister who put together a bunch of folder games for the girls -- matching, shapes, concepts, etc. -- and thought, "Wonder if they'll be able to understand any of these." Berit did each one in 2 seconds flat, and Marta did most of them right after.

Sigh. One of those days where I feel so good about being my girls' mommy, from morning to night.