Month 11- A Day of Eating

I get asked an awful lot what I eat during the course of the day.  It has been just over 10 months since I had my gastric sleeve surgery and I am down 109lbs, so it is definitely working!

My goals for the day are to consume 120g of protein, under 100g of carbohydrates and keep my calorie count to 1200 or less.  All of this done with meal sizes at a maximum of 3/4's of a cup.  It is quite the balancing act!

So here was my day yesterday:

I start the morning off with a protein drink.  Just mixed with water.  About half an hour later I have a cup of tea.

Breakfast is around 10am for me.  Yesterday it was greek yogurt.

Lunch was sliced steak, grated cheddar cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers and onion with some catalina dressing.

Afternoon snack was 1/3c of homemade trail mix.

Later afternoon snack was half of this apple.

Supper was a ginger garlic ground burger, couscous, and broccoli slaw mix.  Delicious!

Evening treat #1- a friend dropped off a tray of sushi rolls for me and I had to have one!

Evening treat #2- we were making thank-you cookies for friends and I ate one.

Later in the evening when checking my protein count I was a bit low, so I ate a little can of tuna.

My calorie count for yesterday was 1198, protein was 100g and carbohydrates were 93.  So I was a bit under my goal for protein.  It is so hard to hit that 120 mark!

The picture on the right was taken in August of last summer.  What a difference in a year!

Crafting Season Begins!

The leaves are turning yellow and customers are getting ready for winter!  Orders have steadily been coming in and I am gearing up for a busy sewing season.

With two active boys and the short Yukon summer, there was no way I was going to spend my days inside crafting.  What a waste that would be!  My summer has been spent enjoying every possible minute outside.  And thankfully all of my customers understood when I told them I wouldn't be making anything until September.

Once I get through my custom order list (four pairs of mittens, two pairs of baby booties and three fleece ponchos) then I need to kick it into high gear to get ready for craft sale time!  Normally I do the Spruce Bog Craft Show in Whitehorse, but I will be on holidays for it this year and will miss it.  Sad, since I do very well there.  Instead, I am aiming to do the 12 Days of Christmas Craft Show in Whitehorse at the Old Fire Hall.  Fingers crossed I get in!  But since it actually lasts 12 days, I am going to need quite the supply of items to be ready for it.

Here is the first custom order complete!  Dyed black moose hide mittens lined with fleece and trimmed with fox.  So fluffy and warm!

Broken Foot Update

Matt and I just got home from another trip to Whitehorse for his broken foot.

His foot was x-rayed again this morning and he spoke with the surgeon about what happens next.  Matt will be left in just the air cast since the surgeon wants him to move his foot a bit.  In a while he can start putting a small amount of weight on his heel (enough to stand do and dishes said the surgeon!  ahhahah), but for the most part he will be non-weight bearing for the next six weeks.

In one month he will have to go in again for x-rays to see how the healing is progressing.

And in about eight months they will look again to see if surgery is needed to fuse things together in there.  The reason for the delay is the surgeon said foot surgery's rarely go well, so they are going to leave it and hope that it heals better just on its own.

Matt will probably head back to work next week since he is bored out of his mind just sitting around the house all day. 

We are so thankful to our friends who have really stepped in to help us out.  People have taken our kids twice overnight so we could go to Whitehorse without them.  Matt's friend has hauled a few loads of dirt to finish off a backyard project that needed to be complete before winter.  And a family from Poland who are here on missionary work are going to help us haul all of our wood for winter.  Special thanks to Erica, the Lynch Family, the Grantham Family, the Wilcox Family, and the Pilch Family for helping us so much!  And thank you to all of the wonderful people who have called to check on Matt and make sure I am still maintaining my sanity with having him underfoot all day.

Still very bruised and swollen an entire week later.  The weird pattern is from his sock.

Ouch!

The Anti-Whine Device

Are you the exhausted parent of a horribly whiny three year old? 

Are you being driven mad by a child that cannot speak in a normal voice?

Have you locked yourself in the bathroom to hide from that annoying whine that just grates on your nerves until you think your head is going to explode?

Would you rather feed your child to the wolves rather than listen to that whine for another day?

Parents!  I have discovered the cure to the whine!  And no, the cure is not just a bottle of wine for the exhausted parent.

Behold!  The amazing, easy to use, and fast acting Anti-Whine Device!

Child whines?  Spray them in the face.  Repeat.

Day one in our household: Horribly annoying three year old child was sprayed in the face about seven separate times.  He was told in a firm tone that whining is not allowed in our house and that he must use full sentences in his normal voice.  Then parent walks away.

Day two in our household:  Slightly annoying three year old child was sprayed in the face twice and told the rules.  Other times, bottle only had to be shown and shaken to achieve desired results.

Day three in our household:  Semi-pleasant little boy isn't sprayed once.  Bottle has to be shown and shaken only a few times to get the whine shut down.

Day four in our household:  Pleasant little boy only had to be reminded a couple of times about the anti-whine device.

Hopefully we have cured our child of his extreme and irritating whiny tendencies.  We were seriously at our wits end with Cavan and his whining and this turned him around completely.  Plus, it really gave us satisfaction to squirt our kid in the face with water when he was being irritating! 

Hunting Date = Hospital Trip

Monday was supposed to be a day out in the bush for Matt and I without children.  A date day.  A day out doing what we love: hunting and quadding.

Two and a half hours into our date day, things went downhill.... Matt and the quad specifically. 

We were quadding up behind Eleanor Lake; the turn off is less than 20km from town.  We parked the truck and trailer in a pullout along the highway and headed in.  The trail is really good and then gets boggy in parts, but we spend a lot of time quadding and have quadded through much worse.

Just over 10 miles in, Matt was trying to go up a small hill, but the ruts combined with the crappy tires on his quad meant he had to back down and go around.  At the top of the hill he went to drive back onto the trail, but it was a bad angle and the front right tire dropped down and Matt had to jump off.  Normally you would jump off on the uphill side of your quad, but it lurched so hard he had to come off that side.  He was trying to jump away from the quad, but ended up falling downhill from it right as the quad started rolling towards him.

The quad did almost an entire roll before it landed on him.  We are very, very lucky in how it all happened.  He got his left foot up in front of his chest right where the skid plate (the hard underside) of our quad was about to come down and crush him.  Instead, he got his foot on the skid plate and pushed the quad to keep the momentum going and get it off of him.  The weight of the quad (about 800lbs), pushed his foot backwards way too far, but it saved him from much worse damage.  The quad continued to do two more rolls and almost hit my quad.  It landed wheels up, still running and only a bit of damage.

I was at the bottom of the hill and watched it all play out.  When the quad landed on Matt's foot he let out a horrific scream/yell and then he was quiet.  I was jumping off my quad, running around his rolling quad and trying to see if he was even still alive.  Thank God it was just his foot.  I was nearly in tears and he was almost instantly back to his usual smart-ass self.  On the way out he stops me to say that if I see a moose on the way out that I should still shoot it! 

I got his quad fixed up by tearing off the broken windscreen, getting the gun strapped back on, and the whole thing turned around on the trail.  The rest of the quad looks to be in a pretty good shape considering.  Not sure about the gun yet.  Matt hobbled over to his quad, got on, and we headed back out.

Now, on the way in we had to winch through some holes.  This meant winching back through on the way out.  Matt got to sit nicely on his quad while I did the hard work.  Good thing I know how to operate everything and am comfortable with quadding through mud holes!

The accident happened at 9:30am and we were in the Faro Health Centre at 11am.  There he had xrays that were inconclusive, so by 12:30pm we were on our way to the Whitehorse hospital. 

We left the boys with good friends who also went out to load up our quads and trailer that we just left on the side of the road.  Thank goodness for the amazing friends we have that took care of our kids and pets while we dealt with Matt's accident!

In Whitehorse he had more xrays and was then told we needed to come back in the morning for a CT scan since they still couldn't see any breaks.  At this point they thought he had a Lisfranc dislocation which would have resulted in us flying to Vancouver for surgery.  The next morning he had his CT scan (I ditched him at the hospital to fend for himself while I went shopping for some new clothes and got a snazzy new hair cut- gotta make good use of a trip to the big city!) they discovered there were at least four fractured bones in his foot.  But since his foot was still extremely swollen they sent us home.  We will head back to Whitehorse in a week for more xrays, a check with the surgeon to see if any pins or screws need to be put in, and then finally a cast.  Right now he is hobbling around in a air cast and crutches.

It was a crazy, stressful two days.  But we made it through with a lot of humour between ourselves and our friends.  We realize how lucky we are that it is just a foot.  Matt is pretty upset that he will miss out on a lot this fall such as hunting, hauling wood, and the yard work he wanted to do this year.  But all of that means nothing considering he is still alive.  Friends have offered to help out whenever we need it and we are so blessed to have people like that in our lives.

Having fun before the accident!  Matt just had to try going through this hole.

Happy!  Kid free time in the busy!

Still happy!  Kid free time in the health centre!

And still grinning!

The boot didn't survive the day!

Still happy and kid free in the Whitehorse hospital!  The lengths we go to for a date with no kids.

50 shades of purple.

Hard to see in the picture, but his foot is extremely swollen and bruised.

But it could have been a hell of a lot worse. (sign I saw at the Faro Health Centre)

Now I just need to find a way to keep myself from beating him with his own crutch as he sits around the house irritating me all day.  He is off work for the next two weeks and I am sure his only mission is to drive me nuts!

Oh the whine!

And how I wish I could chase the whine with a bottle of wine.

Cavan at age three and four months is a pretty awesome kid.  He can ride a bike with no training wheels.  He can go across the monkey bars.  He can climb anything.  He knows to clean up his dirty laundry and do all the right buttons on the washing machine.  He can unload the cutlery from the dishwasher.  He knows the difference in the measuring spoons we use to make cookies.  He goes to bed like a dream right at 7:30pm each night.  He is finally sleeping until around 7am every morning.  He loves to read books and has so many of them memorized.  He can count.  He can sing his alphabet.  He knows all the different veggies we have planted in the garden.  He can tell most of the furs in my sewing room apart.  He is fearless in the pool.  He is awesome.

But this hunting season he has decided to be a royal pain the ass.

I have been looking forward to this weekend all month.  Matt's first weekend off in about three weeks and we were going to spend each day making day hunting trips on the quads.  We did it last year and he was perfect!  Heck, we even went back country camping on the quads with him for four days and he was easy. 

But Friday night was not pleasant.

He had napped.  He was well rested.  He was fed.  He was a miserable little turd.

For four hours and 50km he whined.  And whined.  And then whined some more.  His whine could be heard above the roar of my quad and the buzz of the bugs.

The only time he didn't whine was when we put the run on two bears with the quad.  And then he laughed and wanted to find more bears to chase.  That was about 10 minutes out of the 240 minutes that evening.

So today instead of a family day trip, Matt and Hunter headed out on the quad while Cavan and I hung around here.  And tomorrow will be the same.  I just cannot endure an entire day of him whining on the back of my quad. 

Instead I will try and put a positive spin on it: the boys are each getting quality time with a parent.

(But secretly I want to flick his ears just out of spite.)

Dear Cavan, 
I will give you this year to ruin hunting season for me.  But next year, you had better be on board with sitting on a quad all day exploring the back country.  If not, I will be selling you on Ebay.
Love your mama.

Hunter has hit the perfect hunting age!  He wants to spend every day out looking for moose and caribou.

This is where I want to be.  Not at home.

Oh little turd.  It is a good thing you are still so awesome.

The Dot Rogers Memorial Park

Last night was the grand opening of the newest park in Faro.  The park has been open since late June, but the big ceremony was a little later in coming.  One of the reasons the ceremony was held a bit later was to allow the community a chance to vote on the name for the new park.  Everyone was encouraged to submit a name for the park and then later on vote for their favorite.

We submitted a few names and the boys even got in on it.  When I asked Cavan what he thought the park should be called he said, "Poodit Park".  I have no clue.  Hunter went with the obvious, "Park Behind My House".  I submitted them as a joke to our rec manager but then she put them on the ballot form!  Oh my.  I am sure Poodit confused a lot of people!  Thankfully people were smart when then came to voting!

The new park has been named in honour of a resident that passed away a couple of years ago, Dot Rogers.  She was a lovely and kind woman that is much missed from Faro.

The party held at the park last night was fantastic.  There was a bison burger bbq, desserts, music, prizes, and of course the park to play on! 

Making cakes for the party.

Party at the park!  The view from my back deck.

Date Night

Matt and I do not get alone time together very often.  I guess that would be one of the very few downsides to living far away from family, where you could be selfish and just drop the kids off with the grandparents for a night to get a break.  Also, we don't live near a movie theatre, restaurants or those other typical date spots.  There are youth in town that we do get to babysit, but they are busy with summer jobs and enjoying the sun right now too, so it can be hard to find a sitter in the summer.

Thankfully though, we have great friends who are willing to put up with our crazy kids for a few hours.  Yesterday evening Matt and I got two and a half hours of freedom while our friends had our boys.  So what did we do for our date night?  Nice supper?  Nope.  Movie?  Nope.  Make-out session in the truck?  Well you will never know that one for sure!

We went out to the range to sight in our rifles!  A true Yukon date.

12 years together and he hasn't turned the gun on me yet.  Not bad!

Wishing I was shooting at a caribou instead.

Love birds!

We need to do this more often!

First Garden Harvest!

My raised bed garden has been doing phenomenal so far this summer!  The boys and I have been tending to it almost every day.  There was so much lettuce that we started handing out bags to all of our friends to help clear it out.

Today I did some serious thinning of the carrots.  Prior to this we have just been grabbing here and there as snacks while we were playing in the backyard.  I came away with two and a half pounds of little carrots that I will pickle tomorrow if I can track down some garlic.  The peas put out two cups worth tonight and the beets were thinned as well and I got a big handful of mixed sized beets.

But my favorite item of the evening were the POTATOES!  The purple potato plants had flowered a while back so I was anticipating a few gems hidden under the soil.  Well holy crap!  Just from digging under two purple potato and one red potato plant (which hasn't bloomed yet), I came away with two and a half pounds of potatoes and some of them the size of a man's fist!!  And that wasn't with any serious digging, just a wee bit of rooting around in the soil.  It is 9pm and I have four of the wee potatoes boiling in a pot that I am going to enjoy this evening with a bit of butter and salt.

Menu plans for this week are now going to include our very own moose roast with veggies from the garden and butternut squash soup made with our backyard-grown with carrots and potatoes.

This next month will be so much fun to see what all we harvest each week!  And just imagine next year when I have all of my raised beds growing veggies.  I am already dreaming about it.

Now.... please share your best tips for putting up carrots and potatoes just in case we don't eat them all and want to stash them away for the winter!

Potato Row

Peas and carrots.  Carrots and peas!

Romain lettuce is still going strong!

Beets, beets, baby!

Look at the guys hard at work in the backyard! 

The thinned carrots that will be pickled.

Tonight's harvest!

Little Boys Love Big Trucks

We have been waiting for months for the Military Vehicle Preservation Association (MVPA) to conduct their 70th Anniversary Convoy on the Alaska Highway.  My husband loves old trucks, especially old military ones.  And the little boys love anything with wheels.  Last night they were in Ross River and this morning they drove past Faro.

We really wanted some of the vehicles to stop so we could say hello and the boys could get a chance to check out the trucks.  The best way I thought to convince them to stop was cute little boys and homemade baking!  And it worked like a charm.  Last night I whipped up 10 dozen homemade strawberry and rhubarb muffins and two signs for the boys to hold up.

This morning starting at 8am we were out there eagerly waiting for the convoy to roll on by.  When the first vehicles arrived and saw the little group of excited Faroites waiting at a pull out on the highway, they radioed the group and told them to pull in!  This is no small convoy either.  They travel in four groups and total about 100 support and military vehicles with about 150 people.

The signs were a hit, as were the muffins.  I think every person that came through took a picture of my boys and I handing out muffins.  Hunter and Cavan got to climb into vehicles, blow horns and sirens, and came away with money and stickers!  As I was handing out muffins, the participants kept asking where to pay!  I told them we weren't doing this for money- just for a chance to get to say hello, good luck, and hopefully let my boys have an up-close look at their vehicle.  The old guys were tickled pink with my boys and kept handing them change to put in their pockets.  Pretty adorable.  Not a single muffin made it back home!

All of this was done in the pouring rain for two hours this morning.  But it was completely worth it!  My boys are learning about kind acts and old vehicles all in one shot.  Can't beat that!

How can you resist cute boys with signs?  The convoy participants loved the signs so much, they asked to take the big trucks sign with them!  Of course we let them have it.

Hunter was ready to drive away with this rig!

Boys, trucks and mud!

Checking out the vehicles.

Can I have this one, mom?  Pwweeease!

Look Ma! No training wheels!

Hunter is a little late to the two-wheeler club at five years old, but Cavan makes up for it by being early at just 3 and a quarter. Before I know it, they will be bombing around town on dirt bikes.
medium from Kara Went on Vimeo.

Random Bits

Random bits to add to the blog from the last week:

Scored some new to me furniture for the living room!  Now how do you get cats to not claw leather?

The kids nearly shat their pants with excitement when this fighter jet buzzed town twice!

Learning how the fish weir works!  This is just a few kilometers from our house.  No fish this time.

Always have to take time to drive the Faro dumptruck!

The boys and I went to Whitehorse for a few days.  They had a blast with their friends from Ross River who just moved to the big city! 

Train ride with friends!  After this we took all the kids to the theatre.  It was Hunter and Cavan's first movie experience and they both loved it!

Thanks for taking such a great picture of me, Ella!