Photos from the Highland Games!

Here we are, in the car on our way to the Games. We took 7 kids + 2 adults. Woot!















The next photo is of my oldest son, demonstrating How Not To Sit While Wearing a Kilt. His was given some skirt-wearing pointers, but as you can see, he didn't take the advice.















The first thing I did when we got to the Games was to fall and hurt myself, thanks to a sharp difference between the pavement height and the grass next to it. Somehow, I was so skillful as to have my right foot get half on the pavement and half off of it. So my right foot kind of rolled sideways downhill, and my left knee went crashing into the cement. So here is a picture of my scraped up knee, just to prove it. (thankfully, I was wearing cropped pants that covered my knees. I am so thankful that I didn't hit the concrete with bare skin. And, extra bonus!, my new cropped pants *did not rip* which I thought was pretty great)














I got right up and kept walking. My husband has been ahead of me, as had most of the kids, so they hadn't seen what happened, although they heard me say ouch. They checked in with me and I thought I was fine, so we kept on truckin' for another few feet, and then I decided that maybe I should get some ice.

We found an ambulance so walked over to it, only to find not a single emergency services type person in sight. What a crock. We couldn't find any ice near where we were, and then we saw a pipes and drums band starting, so we just went to watch that. I toughed it out.















After that we had to go to the farthest reaches of the grounds to find The Old Man, who is the vendor with the cheapest array of wooden swords, knives, and muskets. THIS is what our boys were looking forward to more than anything.















As you can see from the next photo, they had fun selecting their weaponry just in time to take the closest hill in a battle.















The thing that I was most looking forward to was seeing NeedFire play again. We just loved this group last year and have listened to their CDs since then. Well, they did not disappoint! Such a fun group to watch on stage, and super nice to their fans off the stage. Four of our kids had t-shirts that they got signed by the band members. Cool people. Very fun to see them again.





















































The one and only down side to the concert was that as I sat there, I noticed my foot starting to hurt. It had hurt just a little bit after it twisted as I fell off the pavement.

I don't know if it was sitting for so long, or the amount that we walked, or just the amount of time since I fell, but the pain started intensifying and then extending all the way up my leg, almost to my hip. And that was just when I was sitting.

When I got up to walk...zowee! The pain was quite intense, and all I can say is that having birthed six babies, I do know how to breathe through pain. However, constant pain is quite a bit different than intermittent contractions with a cute baby to show for it at the end.

My husband stopped at a store on the way home to get me souvenir meds. (My daughter said to him, "Maybe you could find something herbal and natural for mom.." He was like, "Honey--they aren't going to have anything herbal here...." It was nice of her to think of that, and I realized that I really, really need to get that first aid kit made up for the car like I've been thinking of doing for....years!) Neosporin for the scrape, Blue goo to make my foot feel cold, and Aleve, which ended up saving the day.




















I could walk on my foot without too much misery by the time we got home. Yay! Thankfully, by Sunday my foot was feeling quite a bit better, although I took a lazy day to mostly stay off of it, seeing as how *Monday* we will be helping my husband's sister's family move into their new house, near us! They are moving here from 14 hours away.

Overall, it took a lot of energy and patience to take the kids to the Games, particularly when speaking through teeth clenched in pain. They had fun, though, and say they want to go back next year. :)

True to my make-lemonade-out-of-lemons personality, I have decided to experiment with a wonderful herbal healing salve on my knee scrape. One side of the scrape is getting the herbal stuff, the other side I am leaving alone. I already notice an obvious different in how much each part hurts. (the herbal side feels much less painful) I am thinking of offering this new product after I return from my vacation. :) This is a perfect opportunity to give it a good test.

Photo Op: Kilts-n-Stuff

So it's been a year since my husband and I first went to the Glasgow Highland Games, and the whole family has been looking forward to attending in 2008. Since we knew we'd be going back, we started accumulating some good Scottish garb for the children. Would you like to see...??

This first little Highlander is my 5 year old. It was kinda sunny that day, so he did a lot of squinting.

Pained squinting, to be exact....




















And this is my 6 year old. Cute, eh?




















My daughter was quite happy with her costume.















Wild clan of cute young men...





























Here's one of all the kids together.

We had these kilts and my daughter's outfit made by some very sweet and talented young ladies. You can go to their web site here. I highly recommend them.

Tune in next time for actually photos from the Games!

We Haven't Starved Yet

So we've been working on our No MSG quest (we meaning, me, myself, and I--of course!) for a few days now and I am happy to report that nobody has gone hungry.

I have been able to relax a little bit, going ahead and using up the regular foods that we already had opened pre-quest, even though they aren't perfect. I figure that this buys me some time to just work on finding replacements for the things that we're out of, and later I can work on the other stuff. It is getting kind of routine for the kids to ask for something (ie: right now they are eating the leftover ice cream from a birthday party awhile back) and me to tell them yes, followed by a comment that goes something like this: "Enjoy it because it might be the last time we ever have that in this house." They look at me with some fear at that point, and I just smile and tell them that I'm sure (SURE!!) that we will be able to find a suitable substitute. :)

I did go through my pantry and bagged up every baddy-cat food that hadn't yet been opened, and actually returned it all to the store. There weren't very many of those, fortunately, but what there was I knew I didn't want to use and would much rather have the money to spend on salad stuff. :)

Right now we are in the midst of getting ready for my husband's parents to visit us from out of state, so I don't have the time to share every recipe that we're using to live :) but maybe after that I *might*. (many of them are in my ebooks, anyhow, so probably a lot of you already have those) Big, fat salads are definitely on my food agenda every day, and that makes me feel like I'm taking good care of myself, which is a plus.

In case any of you are wondering if I came up with any brilliant recipes for the bread-gone-wrong, the answer is no. (not for lack of information, I'm sure. Just for lack of time to work on that particular project.) The kids have eaten most of it, some remaining pieces were turned into French Toast for tonite's dinner, and the rest will probably end up as bread crumbs, which is a worthy and noble end for unloved bread. :)