Summer had to stop at some time

We had an awesome  last weekend of fun before school started  back. I had a girls night then Jack , my Mom and I had a great weekend at Holiday  World.   Homeschool is awesome.  We had a slow start in his first year but this second year of homeschool  so far has been great.  We even did a science  experiment  the first week. My kid loves Science and I'm  so happy  because I love science. He has Daddy  for the other  subjects , just kidding , I help  out with everything but my homeschool favorites  are historical  field trips , reading  comprehension  , spelling and science.
Um did I mention that  Holiday World has an all gluten free snack shack. It was amazing.  I ate gf pizza , baked pretzel with cheese  and a gf funnel cake . Yay! By the way, that picture of Jack eating , was Jack eating his very first funnel cake.

Yogi Bear Camping

As always , we had an awesome weekend  camping at Jellystone.  It was chocolate  lover's weekend  and they had lots of activities but Jack just wanted to play pool volleyball  , watch the movie at the outdoor amphitheater and go down the water slide . The one chocolate  activity he participated in was the chocolate  water gun fight.  We also went on a hayride and met Cyndi bear and played Bingo. This has been a fun but exhausting summer , just trying  to keep  him busy and off of his electronics.

What a fun , crazy , wild , random summer

We have had a crazy busy summer. The end of baseball season party , beautiful flowers  my mother in law grew and some pictures  of Jack's  wild flowers that  he planted . His sun flowers are huge. I made a yummy gluten  free heath bar  brownie trifle. We went to see the Weird Al Yancovik concert for Jason's birthday.

How to host a gluten free July 4th/birthday party

My family  comes over early and we eat appetizers and play  games then  we celebrate  all of our  summer birthdays and open presents. Then the July 4th portion of the day starts.  We eat a big meal , go swimming and shoot off some fireworks.  The more time goes by after  being diagnosed  with celiac disease  the easier it is to come up with a whole meal  to please everyone because it was not easy in the beginning.
For the appetizers  I have buffalo  chicken dip with fritos. Mini tacos, and stuffed mini sweet peppers. 
For the main meal I made chicken  parmesan  casserole, peanut butter greek yogurt  fruit dip with apples and grapes, tomato cucumber  salad.  For dessert  a heath bar brownie trifle.
Since it is not easy to  put the Web address of links on my blog from my cell phone, I  have screenshot  the recipes and put them in the photos  portion.

For the fruit dip it was just a cup of vanilla greek yogurt and 2 Tbsp  of pb2 stirred  together.  Pretty yummy and without  all the calories of using  regular  peanut butter. 

Everything  I made was naturally gluten free except  for the brownies for the trifle  which I used a gf Betty crocker mix for and the critics on the chicken parmesan casserole, I used Schar gf Italian  bread crumbs.

Another week off of work

Another  week off of work and we went camping  at Defeated  Creek on Cordell Hull Lake in Carthage, TN. We had a blast. Lots of swimming  , hiking , biking and eating yummy food. At the end of the trip I got to go to Beech Bend with Jen and her nephew. She took me to Shogun Bistro for my birthday.  It's  a little tricky  to order gluten free sushi , but I did it and I brought  my own  gf soy sauce. I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I have spent  my last  day off reading , walking at the park, biking and spending  time with  Jack. We celebrated  my birthday  early and Jason made me yummy breakfast this morning.  It has been a nice , fun , adventurous  yet still relaxing week off from work. I have  had a ton of fun but I am ready to go back to work.

Father's Day and crafts

With  father's  day coming up and wanting to keep  Jack from electronics as much as possible this summer , we had a whole craft day.  We tried the bic or sharpie marker baked coffee mug. It was pretty easy. Got a cheap mug at Dollar tree decorated  it with stickers  then Jack colored the mug with markers , we let it dry then pulled the stickers off. We baked it at 350 for 30 minutes. It turned  out pretty cute and Jack did it all himself. Some of my favorite  gifts I have ever  received  have been made by Jack.
We printed  off a Dad questionaire thay we found on pinterest , then he colored some pages from the library.  Then  we finished his present with  Dad's  favorite  snack  , ranch flavored sunflower seeds.
Jack and I also worked on our July 4th shirts with this dye kit that we got at Dollar tree too. The shirts  looked awesome  until they were washed. All the blue came out but the red was still there. They kind of look bloody now. Well you win some and lose some from the dollar tree ,  I guess. I think we will try the permanent  marker and alcohol method to try and fix them with blue firework bursts. A perfect end to a perfect day. We curled up on the hammock with  the citronella  tiki torch lit and read a while then Jack wanted to hear my funny camping  stories from childhood ,  since we are going camping  soon.