Summer has begun...finally!

Last week was our church Vacation Bible School. What an amazing week it was. We averaged about 150 kids a day! Amazing! The kitchen was a happening place with snacks of many kids being made daily. I had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I had amazing help from so many awesome people, they all made my job so much easier! I felt extremely blessed to have each one of them helping. It was a very busy week and it left me feeling VERY tired every afternoon. I did manage to get a bit done around here though, thankfully. Never enough hours, don't you know. :)

This week, we have focused on reclaiming our house and just enjoying being home. Laundry had piled up, the kitchen needed some attention and the rest of the house as well. Thankfully, we have all pitched in and reclaimed most of the areas around here. YAY! It has felt so good to just be home, other than running Brandon to his driver's education classes. I've gotten out in the garden to do some weeding, Brandon worked on mowing and Dylan and Alyssa weeded the berries. Things are beginning to look like someone cares around here. :)

Between all of the loads of laundry and various other activities, I have been reading on several different sites about soaking grains and flours. We have been living gluten-free here for many years. It has worked well for a long time, but we are exploring other options to eliminate the stomach issues that began our gluten-free journey. So much information has been swimming around in my head regarding all of this from what I've read, our history and the time line of the stomach issues we've seen in our family along with eating habits we've had. I am finally at a place where I feel like I can start to try some of the soaked flour recipes I've found. I just took a batch of soaked whole wheat muffins out of the oven and they look and smell amazingly good! Once I have all of the information and sites that I have visited in my searching, I will post a detailed list of facts that I've found and where I found them. Eating whole foods, whole grains, and more fermented foods has been on my heart and mind for some time. We've been there in the past, eating only whole wheat products, avoiding pre made and pre packaged foods. Over time I have gotten lax in this area, but we are now trying to focus more on the whole foods way of eating. Our goal is to find a way to eat that will be the most benefit for our family nutritionally, health wise and financially. I think we may be on the road to a workable plan, time will tell. :) I can tell you know, that I am EXCITED!