donut holes for dinner

michael said he wasn't hungry and i didn't feel like making dinner. but, i had the almonds already soaked and ready to make these raw vegan donut holes from ani phyo's cookbook. so i made them for dinner and they were amazingly good.

if you closed your eyes and wished a little for them to taste like fried dough balls they did!

the cool thing about raw desserts is that they are guilt free. the ingredients in these donuts are almonds, dates, dried pineapple, vanilla and coconut flakes. i also like how you have to really take the time to chew the food and enjoy each bite. it helps me to eat more mindfully. i know in my past i've inhaled at least 5 donut holes in one sitting (maybe in 5 minutes)... it took me a while to eat these three very dense donut holes.

i also made a delicious strawberry compote to go with them that was so simple to make. i blended up 5 strawberries, a cup of golden raisins and a splash of water.

this was a great little treat and i've got more in the fridge!

Ezra Loves His Daddy

and I do too....

Happy Father's Day to all the loving daddy's out there.

a beautiful day

michael completed his second block exams for the semester yesterday. he prepares for these exams by studying daily and well into the night. i have posted before about how he is either in school or studying about 70 hours a week. it is a lot of work to be a medical student and i am always in awe of the amount of information he is learning. leading up to blocks can be stressful in our home as he is trying to learn as much as he can in what some days feels like not enough time. factor in a wife and child who are there and especially the child who needs some attention from you and you can imagine how hard it is to be a 40 year old medical student. when block day comes around, we get to have michael hang out with us all day and night afterward and it always makes for a great day of celebrating our life together. yesterday we had a wonderful time with our friends erica, who is also a medical student, and her boyfriend jon, who recently joined her on the island. we went to baie longue, one of our favorite beaches on sint maarten. it is one of the longest stretches of beach on the island and there usually aren't many people there.

the puffy clouds floating by, gentle breeze, and warm salt water are the perfect antidote to the stress accumulated from blocks.

an interesting storm was brewing over anguilla

erica back on shore mid-snorkel to retrieve her underwater camera

ezra loves going in the water with daddy

here they are returning to the big building site michael dug for ezra before going in the ocean

i bring my camera everywhere so i can capture happy moments like these

and it's a perfect day when i can tote along a little knitting and actually get to work on it some

erica and jon are sweet friends to us three

ezra's sandbox for the day

we live just over this ridge past the yellow crane

this cat passes our balcony everyday and ezra loved running after it waving goodbye

Through Ezra's Eyes

Ezra got a hold of my camera today and figured out how to use it. This was his first shot. He's got that look of serious concentration on his face.

After a few close ups of the counter and what was on it, I told him to take a picture of me. Here's the first one

and the second.

His own self portrait also got better with the second try! I think he sees me doing this a lot...

Me: take a picture of Daddy!

Me: take a picture of my watermelon!

Now the rest of this series is purely Ezra's inspiration.

He is pointing the camera at my beach bag because that's where we're headed.

The sun on one of his Eric Carle books.

The base of the new walkie talkies Daddy brought home today for us to play with.

The food plate mommy and daddy barter with me everyday to eat but which I never do.

The mining station

Lady, Percy, and the wheel of the red plane

Fearless Freddy

It was a lot of fun to let him have the camera for the 10 minutes he did and not watch or interfere with his creativity. I enjoyed being surprised with what I saw after uploading them to the computer. Fearless Freddy is my favorite and I think he liked it too, because he took two.

Maybe the trains will eat the food.

Another self portrait

Ezra and Daddy's leg

Mommy and Daddy are out the door.

I think I want Ezra to play with the camera some more!