These are the sort of days I hope they remember when they think back on their childhood(s).
Lazy days on the lake. Seeing who can do the best canon ball or flip off the boat. It’s part of what summer should be, right?
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Dieting Lesson: Not All Salads Are Healthy
Since being on this diet, salads have come to be my best friend. They are an easy meal to prepare at home and when dining out, just about every restaurant has a couple of good salads on their menu. One thing I am learning though, is that just because it’s a salad, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Especially when it comes to fast food & fast casual food.
Two recent dining out experiences as examples.
1) Wendy’s – Most of the salads at Wendy’s, before personalizing, have 40+ grams of fat. Only the new Berry Almond Chicken Salad has less than 20 grams of fat, and not much less, it’s still has 16g. I recently ordered the BLT Cobb salad, thinking I was doing OK, only to later find out it had 46 grams of fat! Now, I picked around the bacon, but still, that is a lot of fat. Oh, and 21 of the grams of fat were from the salad dressing alone!
2) Applebees – Again, most of their salads before personalizing, have 30 – 50 grams of fat. Now, they do have two WW salads that are low fat, but they don’t share fat content on their menu, just WW points and calories, if less than 550. Today I had essentially the 1/2 pecan chicken salad and yes I new the chicken would make the fat count higher, but 48 grams of fat??? REALLY?
So which fast food restaurants actually have healthy salads? I had no idea, so I went searching and I found this great article over on ABC.com from ShopSmart Magazine where they shared some of their top picks.
1) Panera Bread: BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad // 10G// Without the Panera BBQ Ranch Dressing
2) McDonald’s: Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken// 8G// Without creamy southwest dressing
3) McDonald’s: Premium Asian Salad with Grilled Chicken// 9G// Add 2.5g of Fat with ginger sesame dressing
4) Burger King: Tendergrill Chicken Garden Salad // 7g// Without ranch dressing
Read the complete article: ShopSmart’s Best Salad Choices at Chain Restaurants
So be careful out there when ordering on a diet. Learn from me. The word ‘salad’ is not synonymous with the word ‘healthy’.
If you have any suggestions for places with healthy salad options, I’d love to hear them. We don’t eat fast food a lot, but when we do, I’d like to be able to still stay inline with my diet!@!@!
Another Birthday Passes
A few weeks ago the boys, my Mom and I spent an afternoon at Lazer Kraze. The afternoon made such an impression on my oldest, that we returned this past weekend for his BIG 9th Birthday!
I can’t believe another year has passed. Each one seems to go by faster than the last and I am just trying to soak up as much as I can. I know it’s cliche, but I really do wish I could stop time. I have so much fun spending time with my boys, really the best time of my life.
Watch out, he's a sharp shooter!
Nine. My baby is Nine! (Don't tell him I called him my baby....)
SM was nice enough to invite his little brother 
Vacation-Palooza –> Cincinnati Museum Center
During the month of June my husband traveled quite a bit. To distract ourselves the boys and I set out on what we called, “Vacation-Palooza.” Translated, I took off several days from work and we ran around town having a variety of adventures.
Included in our adventures were two trips to the Cincinnati Museum Center - once to see Cleopatra and a second time to check out the Duke Energy Children’s Museum.
If you haven’t had a chance to take your children to see Cleopatra yet, it’s a must see. Both of my boys (ages 6 & 
really enjoyed walking through the exhibit and learning about all the cool artifacts on display. Additionally, the LOVED the audio wands they give you to use. As you walk through the exhibit there are numbers placed throughout. Each number can be entered into your wand, which results in a brief audio clip giving you more background on Cleopatra and the artifact(s) you are viewing. The 6yr old was OBSESSED with playing the facts on the wand and was even reciting them back to me.
Getting ready to head into the exhibit. When you first enter you watch a quick video with background on Cleopatra. This is where you are also given your audio wands.
Among the many artifacts found and displayed were large-scale statues.
Several of them, like this one, were massive in size.
It blew our minds that they were able to survive this long and still look so detailed.
The boys found the hieroglyphics fascinating.
They spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to decipher them.
Photo provided by Cincinnati Museum Center
At one point when you are going through the exhibit you come to a glass walkway, giving you a sense of how the artifacts may have appeared under water. While it gave me “jello-legs,” the boys thought it was pretty neat.
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A few days later the boys and I returned to Cincinnati Museum Center, but this time to check out the Duke Energy Children’s Museum.
First up on the to-do list? Eat lunch! Gotta fuel up, and good thing we did. We spent 4+ hours at the Museum Center that day……
This is Bman in the ball pit area. They played here the longest…. coming in at 1.5 hours! That’s right. And they could have stayed longer if I would not have drug them out of there to go check out the rest of the Children’s Museum areas.
Up next? The make believe area, filled with replicas of real-life places – Grocery Stores, Kitchens, Doctor’s Offices, etc. The boys loved playing “grocery store” and took turns between running the register and being the shopper.
Thank goodness for the waterproof aprons! The water area could have really taken a toll on us. This was a great area filled with various water toys. Creating the tubed paths was probably their favorite part.
And finally, on our way out, we couldn’t leave without dropping some cold-hard coin into the donation drop. It was for a good cause, the boys thought it was fun and my purse was lighter too!
A Win-Win-Win!