Coconuts Galore!

MMMM..... Coconuts!

Get them fresh from the local tropical market for about 20 cents!

Young coconuts are great for coconut water, which is naturally alkaline

Also great is the flesh, it's like coconut pudding

There's mama coconuts and they have a sweet treat inside, looks like another white nut. It's incredibly sweet with a funky after taste

I believe that it's the mama coconut that the oil comes from as the inside it quite oily

The middle aged coconuts also have good water (I prefer young coconut water)

These are great for shaving out the coconut

My FAVORITE is coconut cream. YUM! You take the middle aged coconut, shave it and then put it in a milk bag and squeeze the juice out. It's so delicious

Island Eating

The best food here on the island I've found is the fresh produce. There's an open market where dozens of women stay the week Monday through Saturday afternoon and sell their produce around the clock. Everything is sweet, the sweetest carrots and lettuce I've ever tasted!

Some of the women make prepared foods at lunch time, I have no idea what they call the things. The have some kind of potato thing with fish or chicken and various sauces. I sometimes go for what looks like a huge rolled pancake made of tapioca with coconut cream inside. It's very rich and so scrumptious. There's a little french restaurant with delicious cream desserts. For the most part we've been sticking pretty close to a raw diet.

Husband eats everything but I had a light case of traveler's sickness and have been eating produce that has a peel on it. Got a peeler yesterday though, so I'll be able to expand my diet.

Mangoes just came into season and showed up in the market today, will definitely be getting some! Fresh grapefruit grow on our property and they're not at all sour, very sweet. Husband and I share one of those in the morning with fresh coconut cream that husband makes by opening a coconut with a machete, then using a coconut scraper to get the meat out, then squeezing the meat which makes the coconut milk/cream. DELICIOUS!

Flying with Infant

About 30 hours of travel time with a 7 month old - I thought it was going to be horrific!

It actually went surprisingly quickly! The first flight of 13 hours was overnight so we all slept most of the time. Baby slept through most of it with the occasional potty break and diaper changes. Daddy put Your Baby Can Read! on his iPod for her to watch in her car seat. That was the only time she was in it, the rest of the time she was strapped to me.

There was a little potty accident... I was changing her diaper and trying tp decide if I should potty her or not. I decided not to and went to get a diaper. Well... my indecision cost me and she wet the seat! Then I took my sweet time putting a diaper on her as I used the diaper I was going to put on her to clean the seat.... and of course she pees again! LOL. Good thing it was on daddy's seat ;)

Selling Everything to Leave the Country

Five weekends of garage sales, dozens of EBay ads, hundreds of craigslist ads later, several truck loads to donation centers and 4 dump runs later.... WE HAVE SOLD ALMOST EVERYTHING!!!

We're down to 6 bags to check, 3 carry ons and a car seat. We also have a tote of keepsakes we're leaving with family and a small box of things to be sent to me for when I have the next baby.

What baby hAS TO Say about the whole thing.... hfdzsqzca 43333333333333333333333333 nn dvf 8i m,
I totally agree baby girl!

Necessities I'm taking... I suitcase full of cloth diapering supplies, a baby potty, jack LaLane Juicer and our Athena water alkalizing machine. We sold our blendtec (like a vitamix), our bed, my jewelry, most of my clothes, baby things I was hoping to keep and several other things I thought I could never part with.

I feel amazing at peace with the whole thing, though I did have some rough dreams... that'll be my next post :D

Update!

Okay friends.... It's been a looooong time since I was here.

We're moving!! ...Out of the country!!

We've sold almost everything. We have about 6 bags of belongings that we have to take with us, 3-4 small boxes to store at my parent's, and 3-4 boxes of things still listed on EBay and Amazon oh and half.com. I've been a busy little bee.

We've had about 4-5 excruciating weekend garage sales. During which I had many strange dreams - like the one where I was on the titanic when it started sinking and I swam to the bottom where I found all my jewelry (that I had sold that day in the garage sale).

We've sold stuff on craigslist, donated truck loads of stuff and even more truck loads for the dumps - How do two people accumulate so much stuff? Boxes and boxes of stuff. And two huge closets of clothing. Now I have A suitcase.

COUNTDOWN We leave to visit family in less than 2 days. We fly out in less than 2 weeks!!

Today we went to Thrive in Seattle. We had ginger lemonade - very good. Mightly Thai salad - which I think is their best dish. Chia Bowl - Husband liked that one. Porto Bello burger - which I thought was just awful. For dessert chocolate moose - okay and key lime pie - which is delicious!



Baby is 7 months now. She's sitting up, which is a huge relief for me because she is so much more contented these days - though she was never really a fussy baby to begin with. I started playing some sign language DVDs a week ago... She's already signing!! Her favorite is "more milk" "more more more!!". She's kind of talking... She was watching her signing video and when they said milk, she replied "mill" - not a typo. Then just a couple days ago she signed more and said "more" - not exactly as we pronounce it, but I can't figure out how to get what she said onto a computer.

She's about 22 pounds! A bit of a chunk :D

The answers to your questions are most likely yes! Yes, we still carry out baby. I know, she's big. No, she doesn't hurt my back. I just sold my moby-like wrap as I didn't like how stretchy is it, also sold the baby bjorn active, which hurt my back for long trips. So I bought an Ergo carrier off of my good buddy craig (craigslist). I've also got a Storchenweige wrap on it's way - Which is a long woven wrap that gives a lot more support than the stretchy wraps so it's better for mommy and baby's developing and growing back. Found the cutest bear tonight that promotes babywearing... Organic Sleepy Bear Sleep Wear.
http://www.sleepywrap.com/index.php?page=news
It's a bear that has a baby wrap carrier and carries a little baby bear!!

Yes, she's still breastfeeding. Yes, she still sleeps with us. Wait, here's a no... She doesn't sleep through the night but she doesn't pee all night! She wakes up with a dry diaper and I put her on the potty first thing, she almost overflows it!

Daddy got peed on!

There are definitely misses when you practice elimination communication!

Most of the time at home she doesn't wear a diaper. I generally do have a prefold (thick cloth diaper) under her and then a fleece blanket wrapped around her, which keeps misses from getting onto me or the couch. I also have her bouncy chair set up similarly. As you can see in the pic with Zoamore, she has a blue fleece blanket and then a prefold on top of that. So much easier to just switch the cloth out instead of changing a diaper everytime. Also makes it to she's not sitting in a wet diaper long, because i notice it quicker and also helps me to learn more of her ques.

Scrumptius Carrot Cake with Orange Frosting RAW

I got this recipe off of www.goneraw.com Submitted by earthintruder

Here's what I did different...

Cake: Instead of shredded carrot, juice carrot and use pulp and juice - makes for a more cakier cake

Grind Cinnamon sticks in a coffee mill so that there's little chunks of cinnamon

Topping: Shredded coconut on the icing. The decoration is carrot slivers and parsley!

Servings: 

 6-8

This cake was adored by everyone I shared it with at work. It is highly fiberous with just the right amount of sweetness.

Ingredients: 

2 cup shredded carrot
2 cup soaked seeds + handful walnuts
½ cup diced pineapple
½ cup raisens
¼ cup agave, honey, yacan syrup, add more or less to taste
1 sprinkle cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 sprinkle fresh ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract or scrapings of bean
1 pinch celtic sea salt
½ cup shredded coconut, optional

Preparation: 

Soak seeds 6-8 hours in purified water, or overnight.
Rinse and Drain. In a food processer, combine seeds and walnuts. Grind until smooth, but be careful not to make into “butter.” You may have to scrap the sides down more than a few times to get well blended. set aside.

Combine all other ingredients in large bowl. Taste as you go along. After mixing all the ‘sweets and spices’..add the seeds and form into a round circle. I then freeze this cake for about 2 hours, then frost it with the orange frosting I posted earlier. =) peace and love, enjoy!

The first time I created this cake, I put way too much cinnamon, and apparently Jonny ( my BF ) claims it tasted like ‘Big red’ the chewing gum.

Servings: 

 enough for one cake-or about 1 1/2 Cups frosting

this “frosting” is a perfect compliment to carrot cake. I absolutley love making carrot cake with pinnapple and raisens and topping it off with this decadent fluff. Make sure to adjust sweetner to your tasting as I don’t like that sweet of stuff. enjoy! peace and love

Ingredients: 

1 cup coconut butter
1 tablespoon orange zest
juice of an orange
1 teaspoon vanilla, or scrapings of bean
pinch cinnamon
pinch sea salt
extra water for consistancy
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

Preparation: 

In a food processor, combine all ingredients except extra water. Add water slowly as needed to make that “fluffy” dollop frosting.