To Ve(gan), or not to Ve(gan) that is the question!

I am not a hater of all militant meat eaters but I eat vegan on most days. The reason is that I've found that it's a wonderful way to treat and prevent several health problems (like bleeding ulcers, migraines, and ba-donk-a-donk) that I deal with. The problem with this lies in my growing desire to feed my family vegan in order to address some of their various issues as well. (Don't get me wrong, we none of us are dieing, it's just easier and less expensive to prevent rather than treat.) Owen and Dylan both heartily eat their veggies and fruits but if I dare to serve a meal without meat or other animal products, I get many rueful looks and comments. I have begun using meat flavored tofu, tempeh, and other meatless meats in place of cooked animal with great success. Owen and Dylan usually can't tell that there's a difference and no one suffers the consequences of eating too many animal products. Owen still fights my determination to vegan-fy the whole family. He has made his feelings clear with the wearing of this shirt... I remain undeterred.

Dylan had a fabulous birthday yesterday! Our many thanks to those who participated or sent gifts. The above is an incomplete rough draft of the scrap pages that I'm putting together but I wanted to at least share a gist of our celebrations. I'm very sick today so I will also postpone sharing all of the details until later.

Birthday Dylan

Dylan's other best friend, Zeek announcing that the cake was finally bubbling.
Bubbling lava/ Indiana Jones cake. Yum!
Dylan and one of his best friends, Julianne
Dylan with his big birthday grin right before leaving for school.

Dylan-xs

Dylan often gets up earlier than 6am to draw. This morning's picture was of his future baby brother. He called him Dylan-xs or extra small. Dylan has been instrumental in helping us decide on the age group/ sex of the child we will be adopting and so he felt that he should be able to name his new brother. I told him that we were not going to call our new brother Dylan extra small but another name that is just his. This did not make Dylan happy but by the time we were walking to school, he'd accepted it.

Captain Huggyface

One of the secret joys in my day is watching PBS with Dylan. One show that Dylan has really been into is Word Girl. Word Girl is a superhero who fights crime with the use of big words. At the end of the show, the commentator asks Word Girls side kick, Captain Huggyface, to show in action what this or that word means. When Captain Huggyface receives praise for being correct, he does a dance. It's the sort of dance I've actually ended phone conversations to watch- its that funny to me. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni_8ZEoBm0A

Reply about pictures

Due to the response of my latest post, I wanted to comment further on the pictures that we lost. Thankfully most of the pictures that were lost had a duplicate or I had scanned into our computer. Only 6 pictures survived and they were ones from the day we sealed Dylan to us in the Provo Temple. I think that it's remarkable that those were the only ones unscathed (and coincidentally the only ones that I can't find the picture CD for). The one's that were the most painful to lose were the baby pics of Owen and me. Luckily there were only a few of those. I'm usually very conscientious of the care of pictures and would never put my beloved scrap bag into the garage. Unfortunately, we've been moving everything around lately and I had put it out there temporarily which is why I didn't remember about it when it began to rain. I'm still really sad about losing all that stuff but it's gone so I might as well get over it. Everything we own is really just future garbage anyway so I just threw out some of the stuff sooner than expected.

Lost in the Flood

This morning I braced myself and commenced the cleaning out of our recently flooded garage. It was a mess! Excising mold, funk and rot was the order of the day. Among the things destroyed were our sleeping bags, some little kid toys, and worst of all, my scrapbooking bag. In it contained scores of pictures from mine and Owens childhood, professional pictures of Dylan, beautiful paper etc. As I combed through all of the pictures trying to find any that were salvageable, my mind wandered to those who's wake of destruction is much more severe than mine. The people of East Texas who are dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Ike. The things lost? Much more than mere pictures. Homes, cars, family members... I read a story in the news that reported that at least 17 people are missing- presumed to have been washed out to sea. At that moment I wished so badly that we had the resources to rush down to Huston, don work gear, open our wallet and do something. Unfortunately all that we have to offer is prayer so I prayed with all the energy of my soul that the hearts of those who have enough to give would be softened. That humanity would reach out to our brothers and sisters who have lost so much. It really humbles me to think of how blessed I've been in my life to not have suffered such loss and I pray that those who have lost everything will be able to find respite, comfort and healing.