Church in a small LDS Branch, more beach, boiled peanuts, daddy-daughter dates, Christmas cards, new traditions, lost clothes.
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I have a smoothie obsession. I love them. Green smoothies usually, but most of the time they end up puke brown and I still guzzle them. So do my kids. When the time came to pack the van for the trip out to Virginia (pre-Airstream) the Blendtec didn’t make the cut. There just wasn’t room for it, and I was okay with that. Our house swapping partner said she had a good blender and it was only for 6 months. I’d live. Right? Wrong.
I missed my Blendtec. There’s just something about the raw power that it harnesses to create such an amazing smooth blend of frozen fruit and veggies. All the other blenders I’ve tried don’t come close. After we bought the Airstream I knew I needed something to make my smoothies. I couldn’t very well take the blender from the house we were staying in, so we bought a Magic Bullet to try it out. Smaller, uses less wattage than the Blendtec, and there was a chance an inverter could run it when we weren’t plugged into shore power in the Airstream. The consensus? Weak sauce. The only pro was that the smaller blending cups were nice – I felt like I could make a single serving quite easily. After making 5 single servings, however, I was afraid I’d burnt out the motor. Smoothie just for me? It did okay. Smoothies for the whole family? Not a chance.
I became desperate. My parents were flying to Virginia from Utah to come visit for a week and I begged, pleaded, and bribed them to take a trip to my house, collect the blender (and a few other things we needed) and fly it all out to us. They love me so much they did. Nestled in a suitcase among a soft bed of socks, the Blendtec made the cross country trip.
And now it sits in the cupboard above my sink ready for use. I make a smoothie for breakfast or a snack at least 4 times a week. I realize there a lot of other things the Blendtec is good for, but I have simple needs. Occasionally I’ll use my frozen strawberries to make syrup for breakfast and the kids (okay, me too) love it.
The Blendtec won’t run off the battery (so we have to be camped or parked somewhere we can plug the Airstream in for electrical power), but we don’t have a generator or solar panels yet so chances are we’ll need power anyway. Good excuse, right? We need to power to run the laptop. There are definitely other blenders you can try. One of our other Airstream friends loves her low wattage Cuisinart. I just can’t do it though, so until we outfit the Airstream to live without hookups, I’ll just enjoy my smoothies.
My Favorite Recipe
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of oats
1 cup of spinach (usually frozen)
1 scoop of Vanilla Protein Powder
1 – 1.5 bananas (frozen or fresh)
6-9 frozen strawberries
A peeled clementine or 2 if I have them
Add in order and press the Smoothie button. Enjoy!
*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in anyway with Blendtec. I wasn’t paid to write this post, but they did mention to me on Instagram they’d love to see a photo of the Blendtec through the Airstream window. Their request inspired me. I wouldn’t turn down a complimentary Twister Jar though. What do you think Blendtec? 🙂
Before I became a photographer I didn’t care much for sending out Christmas cards. There were a few years we made our own, but most years we didn’t even send one out. In the photography world, however, most photographers send out cards to all their clients as a way to say “thank you”, “keep in touch” and even as a reminder to come back in the next year for updated portraits. It’s a marketing expense. Justifiably so.
I got hooked. I seriously LOVE them now. I think they are so fun. I love how the Christmas card world has evolved, and now you have boutique cards, cut out cards, tri-fold cards and all other sorts of creative shapes and sizes. It’s fabulous. So many choices!! BUT, as a regular ol’ person (no access to a fancy shmancy photo lab) where do you get the cool cards? Never fear. I am here to help.
I figure there’s 2 types of people looking for Cards – those with some Photoshop skills, and those without. If you have a copy of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and know your way around layers and layer masks, it opens up a whole new world of Christmas card making. If not, no worries. I’ve got you covered too.
Here are 5 places I recommend shopping for Christmas cards, or Christmas card templates:
1. Etsy. No joke. Its a mecca of Christmas card templates in all shapes and sizes. I just did a search for Christmas card templates and came back with 6, 504 items. Most templates are between $4-$12 if you are buying just one. There are also vendors for maybe $15 that you can send photos to, they’ll insert into one of their templates and send you back the file. Not a bad deal. Here’s two of my favorite vendors: one, two.
2. Pro Digital Photos: No templates, just cards. Super cute ones though. They are a nifty little boutique photo lab located in Pleasant Grove Utah. I use them for a lot of my press-printed marketing material and also my Christmas cards last year. They have a lot of the fun die-cut cards and boast over 350 different options.
3. Bird Design Shop: Templates. I love hers. I couldn’t find one that fit our photos for this year, but I desperately tried. I love that she sells collections (if you are a photographer wanting to offer different designs for your clients to choose from), but also sells them singly as well. She also has some really cute Facebook Timeline templates as well.
4. Tiny Prints: They have a gazillion designs, but their search options make their selection less intimidating. You can pre-ship your envelopes (get a jump on labeling them) or even have Tiny Prints mail them out for you! Phew. A lot less work that way.
5. Costco: The professional photographer in me had to swallow a bitter pill to put this on the list, but they have really stepped up their game. In addition to their usual, weird-sized, photo cards (which I do NOT love), they are now offering 5×7 premium double-sided Premium Stationary Greeting Cards. They actually look really nice. I’m impressed.
Spend a few minutes looking through your options, and send a great looking Christmas Card this year. Don’t forget to send me one too! 🙂
This week: Airstream Ranch in Tampa, Family bike ride (and Sam & I took turns riding a 7 mile lap as fast as we could possibly go), The Tampa Aquarium, swimming at Manatee Springs State Park, put up Christmas lights and had a movie night, parked at St. George Island State Park and played at the beach until after sunset. Its been a good week.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. Growing up, for me, it was a holiday to get together with all of my extended family, play games all day, eat around 3pm, play more games and then eat dessert when we finally thought we could fit it in before heading home late that night. Sam, on the other hand, grew up doing work/service projects in the morning, and eating during the late afternoon after everyone showered. The last 10 years have been a mix of both – sometimes with my family, sometimes with his, always trying to find a holiday routine that fulfilled the needs of our young family.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a parent, its that your family needs will change. Constantly. Young kids don’t have the attention span to play games all day (Mom! I’m bored!), nor do they have the skills to engage in an all day work project. Modeling our holiday solely after either family’s traditions has usually ended in frustration. This year, however, I felt we finally found a good balance for us.
We spent the morning in our pajamas, lazily playing Plants vs. Zombies on the tablet. No kidding. It was fantastic. We showered, got dressed, had a normal lunch and then headed over to our friend’s house in the early afternoon armed with art supplies so the kids could work on their crafts while I helped Cassie with the food. It was great! I helped the kids paint, we made Indian headbands and vests (found via Pinterest, of course), we listened to music, chopped vegetables and talked and laughed in the kitchen.
A lot of our success with the kids came down to being prepared. With no cousins to run around and play with, my kids really want to play with us. I’m totally okay with that, it just means that I usually have to bring something to do, and it also means that holidays don’t generally feel like a day off. In fact, they are probably more work. And that’s okay because I want our holidays to be memorable.
Maybe one day we’ll cook our own Thanksgiving feast in our Airstream, but this year we were completely content to be on vegetable chopping, table setting, and dish washing duty. Thanks again to our amazing friends who helped us create a memorable first Thanksgiving on the road!
