Thursday, June 24, 2010

Confession

My family already knows that I like playing basketball on mini hoops and with a mini ball. My parents got a small indoor mini hoop one year for my little brother who was like 7 years old, but I think I played on that hoop in the family room more than anyone. I played on it through my high school years. I could hit any shot in the room :)

Another one of my favorite things, still, is to play on the real basketball hoop at my parents' house, but I like to lower it as far as it goes (7 1/2 ft.) and have a dunk-fest by myself.
When my family got together this Memorial Day, Kalli had her camera and I just happened to have a mini ball available, so we took some action shots.

I know this is lame to post pictures of myself dunking the ball, but I figured I would finally confess my childish hobby/talent.

Kalli knows how to make anything look good and she worked her magic making the hoop actually look pretty high (it's not). However, I have to say, if I was a foot taller, I would be getting paid to do this right now!






Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The REAL Good Green

If anyone told me 6 months ago that I'd be mixing up vegetables and fruit in a blender and drinking it (by choice) I would NOT have believed them! Well, now I am, on an almost daily basis (and so is Joel which is pretty remarkable for him too) and I am really liking it!
I heard about the Green Smoothie Girl from my friend Natalie's blog a while back. The first time I saw this lady's site I think I was up till 2am reading her posts on her blog and reading what she had to say on her website. A few weeks later I braved up and made our first green smoothie. We were pretty grossed out after my first attempt, but I'm glad I kept at it. After a few tweaks to her recipe I finally had my own version of a "green smoothie" that I liked and even craved after a while! I made my first one out of a little bit of fruit, water, and about 2 1/2 cups of packed spinach. I wasn't used to the taste or the green color so I had to ease my self into it by adding some healthy orange juice, and a few other naturally sweet things.
I didn't like the green color at first, but now I really like it and actually prefer my smoothies to be green (they turn a nasty brown color if you add blue or black berries)
I have never been one to happily eat veggetables or salads and when I do they usually aren't the dark green kind, so disguising them with fruit is perfect for me! Plus you can pack waaay more greens in than you'd eat in a salad at dinner or lunch, and it's already smooth and smashed up so your digestive system doesn't have to work as hard....it's genius I tell you!
I make a big blenderfull in the mornings now, half for my breakfast and I put the other half in the fridge for Joel's "pre-dinner snack". It's so nice being able to drink something yummy and easy to make and know it's so good for you. We've been trying to implement a few of the green smoothie girl's other suggestions and I've finally been realizing that what I put into my body really affects how I feel (and how I will feel down the road).
I've tried to make a few other different kind of smoothies, but the one that Joel and I like the most right now consists of water, orange juice, spinach, banana, frozen fruit, almonds, and a little raw honey (I'm trying to slowly get rid of the juice). I made one last week that was pretty good, it was made of almond milk, spinach, banana, organic peanut butter, and raw honey. A few weeks ago my friend Kristin and I spent quite a while gathering ingredients for a hot pink smoothie I was so excited to try it out the next morning, but much to my disappointment neither of us could handle the taste. Both of us were gaaging it down. It was vvveeerrrry pretty though, it really was the most beautiful color of pink, the picture doesn't do it justice.

This is what our "every day" smoothie looks like usually (in a frosty mug! haha yum!). Here's to health!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Kind of random, but kind of funny!



Kalli and I were taking some video for fun on Memorial Day at my parents' house and I was jumping on the tramp. I guess it had been a while since I had landed on my back, because I apparently forgot how. Kalli told me to jump on my back and before thinking about it at all, I went for it and it ended up being a little awkward, as you can see in the video. It's like when a little kid tries it for the first time. We laughed about this for a long time!