Some things I am excited about

1. Sometime during the summer, Caden started playing around and learned to make homemade yogurt.  I think his motivation was to always have some on hand to make frozen yogurts with, which he did in abundance.  He also made lots and lots of homemade ice cream! Yum!!

Since then, we have been making our own yogurt, which, like anything else that is homemade, is 100% more tasty than the store yogurt.  As you probably know, to make yogurt, you have to buy some plain yogurt that has live cultures in it.  Not very many brands have live cultures anymore, sadly, because that is what is so healthy about yogurt in the first place! In fact, store yogurt looks to me like some of the best junk food you can buy, with up to 40 grams of sugar in a 6-8 oz. cup, in some brands.  If you want a sugary dessert, that is great. But if you want yogurt to be healthier, with "good bacteria to benefit your digestion, improve immunity and lessen food allergies", you may want to try making homemade yogurt! This doesn't require any fancy equipment.  We mix it up, pour it into glass jars and leave it in the oven with an oven light on all night long.  That's it!

At first, we were making yogurt with a starter from the store, but before long, we found that even some of the store yogurts that claim to have live bacteria in them really don't.  That is when we discovered this:

yogurt starter culture

These come five to a pack, and you just store them in your freezer. Then they last and last because you only have to open up a new one if you don't keep up on making yogurt before your current batch runs out, because you can keep using your yogurt as a starter.

We still get a goat supply magazine from when we had goats that has all sorts of supplies in it. If you are interested, you can find it on-line at: http://www.caprinesupply.com/products/cheesemaking/cultures-and-rennet.html. Best yogurt ever!  We like it for breakfast with homemade granola, or with fresh or frozen fruit and some honey drizzled in....and of course in frozen yogurts!! We are also using their sour cream and cottage cheese starters, and I can't wait to experiment with making even more of their things (or at least watching Caden experiment with them). So much fun!  We just use our powdered milk from our food storage and it works out great. I love things like this that make us more self-sufficient.

2. My new glass bread pans!

I bake four loaves of bread 2-3 times per week - we LOVE our homemade bread around here!!  Around Christmas time, my loaf pans got looking really rusty and disgusting, so I stopped baking for awhile.  (Which, btw, did you know that metal loaf pans get rusty if you stack them while they are still hot?  My friend Sheila was here one day when I dumped some loaves out and immediately stacked my pans, and filled me in. I wish I would have learned that one sooner...) Caden got me some new pans for Christmas but they were too big, and upon looking around, everything is made super big now days. I started looking specifically for glass pans because those are supposed to be healthier anyway.  I finally found some, and I know it may seem so silly that I am so excited about them, but I am!  I love being able to watch with the little kids how the bread is rising - (it doesn't take much to entertain us around here:)

3. The Great Courses

If you love to learn, you have GOT to check out this site: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Courses.aspx?ps=915  What this site has, is lectures on just about every topic imaginable, given by some of the best college professors in the country.
We were able to get in on a huge sale, (that unfortunately ended on January 30th - but I'll bet they have some regular sales) and bought some great courses.  You can purchase DVD or audio for most courses, so you can even learn while you are driving around.  I opted to order all DVD because there are many days that I can't accomplish anything more than hold Pace, and I figure that this way I will feel like I am still getting something done and will be learning something interesting. I can't wait to hear every lecture - they are great!! I think I will definitely be buying some more of these every year.

Dad in front of a  mammoth tree on Oyster Island

4. I notice that my parents get on my blog, clear from Vanuatu!! They also leave mine and look at all of my siblings that have a blog.  (Come on family!! Keep up-dating - they like to see all the happenings and pictures!:)

Mom with her fan that she takes everywhere because it's so hot and humid in paradise

A resort close by the place they live