More daily 365 pics and a weekend trip to Solvang

Time for another weekly update!  #2 for 2017!  

Still doing my 365 project.  Last Sunday I set up the tripod and took this picture of all of us sitting down to Sunday dinner (pan-seared garlic & herb chicken with caramelized onions and rosemary garlic aioli with vegetables and potatoes on the side - soooo delicious and also Whole30 compliant).  While it's not my best image ever, I like the concept of it and think it would be fun to take these pictures every now and again to see how the girls grow and we all age together as a family gathered around the dinner table.  I also like seeing parts of our house and the way we have decorated - the light fixtures we chose, the Ikea clock that spoke to me like no other clock has, the picture from the Wave that Paul took back in law school, my favorite blue checked tablecloth, etc.  Whole30 is going well - we are halfway through as of today and are both feeling so much better after two weeks of clean eating!  It's also way easier this go around than previous times.

I got my first sponsored post opportunity for my food blog and I'm super excited about it!  It goes live on Tuesday and is really fun.  Rose went to the grocery store to help me pick up the ingredients I needed for it while Clara was at school.  The company it is with requires a couple of in-store shots of the aisle where the product is purchased.

After that, we headed over to the school to pick up Clara from Spanish class, which she is really excited about, especially since a friend from her Kindergarten class is taking it with her.  We had quite a lot of rain but it was momentarily dry while Rose and I were waiting so we took advantage by playing in front of the school so she could get some energy out and I could take photos of her.  I love the way the front wall of the school is painted.

Rose also had fun playing on the playground for a bit until it started raining again and we went to wait for Clara where it was dry.

Clara has a new gymnastics schedule that is much later than before and I didn't feel like struggling through the lesson with a hungry, bored, tired Rose so I caved and brought the iPad.  She was perfectly content watching movies while we waited for big sister.

Just a quick Wednesday picture of Clara (with her reflection - something I have been trying to notice lately) as we were leaving school.  Wednesdays are definitely the girls' favorite day because they have swimming lessons.  Rose earned her Preschool 2 ribbon.  I love watching her get her little arms up over her head and prepare to push off the steps to swim to her coach, Joaquin.

Thursday afternoon was actually beautiful so I took the girls over to the church parking lot with the scooter and bike so they could ride through the puddles.  They absolutely loved it and rode circles around me for a solid 45 minutes, squealing and giggling the entire time.  I had fun taking their pictures.  Win-win.  On the way home Rose told me I am the best mom ever.

Unfortunately, that same night, Rose woke up around 9:30 throwing up.  That never, EVER happens in our house.  Like, this may be the first, real time that I can ever remember either of the girls throwing up like that.  She threw up twice more before midnight.  It was so sad.  I rocked her and she finally settled in but then Clara woke up having a bad dream so we rearranged sleeping arrangements and I ended up in Clara's bed across from Rose to monitor her for the rest of the night while Clara got to snuggle with dad all night.

The next morning she didn't want to eat anything and we weren't sure what to do because we had planned to go to Solvang that day.  Paul took Clara to school (he had already planned to work from home so we could get an early start on the drive down) and I coaxed Rose into drinking a bit of Gatorade.  She kept that down, then some crackers, then took a nap (like, she fell asleep face down on the hardwood floor while watching a princess movie), so once Clara got done with school we decided to go ahead and head out and hope for the best.  There were no more stomach troubles for Rose the rest of the weekend, so we were super grateful for that.  Still not sure what caused the throwing up.

Solvang was a fun, relaxing weekend getaway for us.  We got there just as the sun went down and ate at the Little Mermaid restaurant across from one of the Solvang windmills.  That was our least favorite meal, but it was convenient and we were able to get back to the hotel and the girls were out by their regular bedtime.  Rose & Clara both love exploring hotel rooms (like all kids) and Rose cracked me up when she found the bible in the nightstand, climbed up into bed with it, and proceeded to "read" all about Snow White out loud to herself.

Saturday was really relaxed as well.  We enjoyed a yummy breakfast at a cute breakfast place, then spent the morning wandering around the town, ducking into toy stores and bakeries and gift shops.  Clara got a flower headband with long ribbons in a shop that sold dirndls and Rose played with a tea seat so much in one of the toy stores that we decided to secretly get it for her to unwrap on her birthday.  She wasn't happy being ushered out of that store so we could make the purchase, even though she had already spent a good 20 minutes playing with it, so I'm pretty sure it will be a hit when she opens it on Tuesday.

We just love all the detail about the town, from the half-timber structures to the statues and figures decorating the buildings.  There were storks on top of many buildings, which are supposed to bring good luck, and Clara loved keeping an eye out for them.  We were also watching for windmills and a statue of the Little Mermaid that we had heard about.  The town is very, very Danish and from everything we have read and heard, it is actually quite authentic to what a town in Denmark is really like.  We are dying to verify this in first person now.

There are 5 bakeries in a little 2-block radius and they all had the most delicious looking pastries.  Good thing we are doing Whole30 or we would have been in big trouble.

We met our friends Marnie & Stephan at this big shoe.  Clara was so cute posing for her picture with her new flower headband that she wore the whole day until one of the ribbons started to fray and I put it away for safe keeping so the entire thing didn't unravel.

We drove out to Ostrichland, just outside of Solvang, with the Lovstedts and viewed the ostriches from outside the fence (because we weren't exactly keen on paying $30 to do it inside).  We got scolded for it by some ostrichland employees, but we had read online and heard from people in town that it's fine to just look at them from the rode.  We actually had quite the show when a couple of ostriches went all "national geographic" on us (or, erm, each other) if you know what I mean.  It was quite the display and I think I'll leave it at that.

Sunday morning was foggy and cold, but we went for one more walk to a different breakfast restaurant that is known for its aebelskivers.  And okay, Paul and I each had one, which definitely is not in line with Whole30 and technically we should restart, but you know what, I'm okay with one little aebelskiver when I've already completed a true Whole30 before in its entirety and this time around I've been totally good about sticking with it up until this morning, and even then it was a conscious decision and not like I just couldn't resist one more moment.  I could have passed it up but I chose not to.  So there.  And I only had one, not many.  We're back on the wagon tonight.

One more fun story from this week that doesn't have a picture to go with it - on Monday I was looking high and low for a library book I had been reading and I couldn't find it anywhere.  For hours!  It was driving me crazy and I kept asking Rose if she had taken it (she has a tendency to wander off with things).  Finally, late in the day, Clara came into the living room with the book and was so pleased with herself for finding it in the toy room.  I exclaimed that she was "my hero" and she beamed so brightly at me that I knew I had just made her day.  It was a happy, happy moment, and I hope I can always remember it even though it was such a small, little thing.  

Rose also nabbed my wedding ring while we were in Solvang and we had to hunt around our tiny hotel room on Saturday morning for a good 15 minutes before Paul finally found it underneath one of the beds.  Little stinker.

Paul had a busy week at work and spent most of his evenings after the girls went to bed out in the cold garage working on Rose's birthday present.  It's a new big girl bed to match Clara's (except while we bought Clara's through Craigslist as a used Pottery Barn Kids bed, Rose's is going to be homemade in the same style) and it won't be ready by her actual birthday, but it should be done pretty soon.  I will definitely post pictures!

And that was our week!