I saw Kavita unload her groceries the other day at work and she had greek style yogurt among her things. So it’s kind of been on my mind lately.
When I was at Trader Joe’s yesterday, I reached for my normal yogurt, but then I spotted the Greek Style and gave the label a read. The fat free version has about the same calories, twice the protein and half the carbs of regular yogurt. Well that right there is cause to sign up. I grabbed two flavors: Honey and Blueberry to try. They also had Pomegranate, but I thought that might be too tart to start with, so I passed it over.
I just had the Honey flavor for breakfast, and let me tell you it was AWESOME. It smelled yogurty and had the consistency of full fat yogurt, which was very satisfying. The honey flavor was light–just a hint.
How is it that I have never tried Greek Style Yogurt before today? I know, for some reason I thought it would be sour tasting. Why? I don’t know. I’m food judgmental sometimes.
I bought a container of unflavored Greek Style yogurt too because I read somewhere once that it can be used as a substitute for sour cream. Since it has a modest amount of cholesterol, I think it will work well for our new diet to bring Mitch’s cholesterol levels down.
Today was Super Bowl Sunday. Although, that didn’t matter to us. We didn’t watch the game. I don’t know which teams played or who sang the National Anthem or who provided the half time entertainment. Simply unamerican! I know. Right?
I work a full time plus job. My weekend time is very precious to me, and I’m not going to waste one second watching a sport I don’t care about or commercials for products I won’t buy. Instead, we spent the early afternoon at the JCC for some family swim time. Just like every Sunday.
Except that instead of going home afterward, we stopped in Japantown for some noodles and sushi at Mifune.
Izzy was hungry so I pulled out a jar of sweet potatoes and fed them to her. When that jar was empty, I pulled out another jar of what I thought were pears. They looked a little green, but I didn’t give it much thought, and when she took a bite, she gagged. Her gag face is hilarious! She screws up her face real tight then her tongue convulses out of her mouth and she tops it off with a shudder. The damned dyslexia foiled me again! I didn’t grab pears, I grabbed peas. She HATES peas. Poor thing. Still hungry, but also tired, she fell asleep.
Mitch and I walked around the mall a bit. We considered getting a crepe, but decided against it since we just found out Mitch’s cholesterol is 350. We also thought about getting our pictures taken in the photobooths at Pika Pika, but we got overwhelmed by the choices.
Finally, we decided to go home, but as we were leaving, i spotted these awesome cutouts, so we took our pictures. I love being a tourist in my own home town.
Once outside we changed our minds yet again and went to Ichiban Kan instead going home. So much awesome cheap Japanese goodness to be had. We spent $16 and got four hard boiled egg molds, a squeezy grabber thingy, some things to wrap our earphone cords, a paper keeper thingy, a dish scrub brush to brush Kirby (he hates it), and of course the obligatory weird gummy candy and Pocky!
Now, it’s time to go home. Oh wait, gotta stop at Whole Foods to pick up a few groceries to get us through the week–baby food, milk, kitty grass, lunch meat, fruits and salad fixings. Just like any other Sunday.
Now we can go home!
Izzy was still hungry when we got back to the apartment so I feed her more: a half jar of chicken and sweet potatoes, a jar of pears (really pears this time) and a half jar of bananas.
Mitch put her in her room so Izzy could play on her belly while I cleaned up the kitchen and got Blanca started on the dishes and he could tinker around on his computer. Just like any other Sunday.
While I was in there, I heard Mitch scream, “ohmygod!” I came running to see what happened. I didn’t know if he was dying from the cholesterol or if the house was on fire or what!
When I made it to Izzy’s room, he told me that he put Izzy next to her pack n’ play. Just like any other Sunday, except she was no where near it. She was clear across the room reaching for a never before played with toy and we watched with mouths agape as she plucked it off the shelf! I wonder how many weeks she spent eyeballing that toy and wanting it but didn’t know how to go about getting it. Well her litle brains finally figured it out. We spent the next several minutes watching her inch forward infantryman style trying to grab the toy as I pulled it just out of her reach.
I’m so glad I was home to see her first crawl. (We’ll post video soon.) I always worry that I’m going to miss these big milestone events because I’ll be at work. I’m so happy to be able to share this experience with Mitch! We need to work on getting his cholesterol levels down so he’ll be around long enough to see the next big milestone and beyond. If you have any good recipe suggestions for lowering cholesterol please leave them in the comments.
Izzy has the best daddy, and Murky has the best owner*. I was watching them play on IzzyCam today and grabbed a couple of screenshots:
I had to step away from my desk for a few minutes, and when I came back to check in and see what they were up to, I found this:
Mitch, you are the the sweetest, most awesomest person in the world! I love you too!
* We were out of wet food, but we still had plenty of dry food. Mitch left the house early this morning to pick up a few cans of wet food so Murky and Kirby could have their special morning treat.
We heard about Family Swim Time at the North Beach Park & Rec pool a while back. We’ve been meaning to take Izzy, but with the holidays, we never got around to it. Plus, we had to buy a special swim diaper. That’s an added complication we weren’t prepared to deal with.
This being the new year, and the time for new beginnings, we finally got off our lazy duffs and bought her a swim diaper, and we planned to go to the pool on Saturday. On Thursday, I got online to double check the Family Swim Time schedule. I found out that the pool was closed indefinitely due to a mysterious leak. Bummer!
That did not deter me. I looked for other Park & Rec pools, but they all had Family Swim Time scheduled during my work hours. Double bummer!
I had been thinking about the Jewish Community Center (JCC) lately. They have a really good preschool and I heard that we might have a better chance to get in if we were already members (among other criteria). I hopped online to check out their facilities and found that they have Family Swim Time seven days a week! They also have a good gym for Mitch and me, as well as parking, child care, art classes for adults and kids and so much more! All of these great features were enticing. To top it all off, the family membership cost the same as my individual membership at Sports Club LA.
We signed up on the spot. I had a feeling we might, so I came prepared–I packed a bag with all of our swim gear. We took Izzy for her first swim right then and there. (Well, after we stopped at the cafe for a snack of bagel/cream cheese, hard boiled egg and juice.)
They have family changing rooms so we can all go in one room at the same time. It was a little awkward because I didn’t want to set Izzy on the damp ground, but we managed. (It will be easier in a few months when she’s walking.) we got suited up and headed to the family pool.
The pool is a nice size, and the temperature seems to be kept at around 85, maybe even 90 degrees. It is also littered with toys for a variety of age groups.
I thought Izzy might be overwhelmed by the size of the pool, but it wasn’t a problem. She squealed with delight when we stepped down into the pool and began splashing right away. We had so much fun swishing her around and passing her back and forth. We handed her toys to play with and she immediately put them in her mouth. (I’m assuming the chlorine killed any germs.) At one point we got a ball to play with. I pushed it towards her, and she pushed it back at me.
There were clusters of parents and children playing and splashing through out the pool. We exchanged pleasantries with a few people, but didn’t go much beyond that. It was really all about interacting with your kid(s) and the family time. You could see the joy on everyone’s face and feel the love between each parent/child set. It was a very moving experience.
After about a half hour of playing, we decided to get out. As we walked from the “deep” end to the shallow end, Izzy reached out and grabbed every floating toy we walked by. She looked so proud of herself hugging all of her new found prizes.
I’m so happy we joined the JCC. After hanging out that first day, Mitch remembered how much fun he used to have at the JCC when he was a kid. I’m happy that we’ll be able to expose Izzy to her cultural heritage during these visits as well as activities and other kids. I’m really looking forward working out again, playing with Izzy and Mitch in the pool every Saturday, meeting other members, and building a new community for ourselves.
