Pasta Salad

We have had some warm to hot days around here, with school just starting to wind down here. Favorite school lunch items at the moment include pasta salad and fruit salad. I used Organicville salad dressings with my pasta salads.

I love having a big bowl of pasta salad in the fridge during hot days, the kids help themselves during the day, great in school lunches and they can be served cold with dinner on hot days.

First I boil the pasta, drain and cool in fridge with a little oil. I add chopped vegetables like cucumbers, carrots or onions. When pasta has completely cooled I mix, adding my dressing.

During the summer I plan to spend more time hanging out with the kids, If anyone (blogger or not) would like to do a guest post over the summer here at Avoiding Milk, give me an e-mail. I have been collecting fun places to go with the kids at Ontario Family Fun and plan to blog their, with some of our day trip adventures over the summer.

Summer Fun

Summer sadly is about to end, we have had some grand adventures with the kids this year. We mostly went places where we were able to bring our own food this summer. Camping, parks, swimming are all easy "bring your own food" activities.

We went to:

Donkey Sanctuary of Canada we learned about these animals, the tame donkeys are free to walk around the barn and large pen where people can pet or groom them. We ate in a picnic area in the shade by a pond, and did some of the walking trails.

Crawford Lake guided tours of longhouses used by native people, walking trail around the lake. We brought our own food and ate in the resource centre, where they have tables and washrooms. They had more difficult trails, and out door picnic areas.

Balls Falls Guided tours of heritage buildings and trails, to two beautiful waterfalls. Nice sheltered picnic areas.

Jordan Historical Museum Mennonite home, pioneer school guided tours of more interesting stuff. grass area to picnic in.

Royal Botanical Gardens loved the nature walk, art and gardens. We brought our own food, and ate at the benches through out the gardens.

The Horse show at the EX the horse shows are free before the EX opens, we plan to go again next year. We brought snack foods and ate as we watched the horses jump. They also had wagon rides and other kid friendly activities.

Fort George historic site, we brought food for lunch, they have shaded picnic areas, out side the forts walls, we had our snack under a tree within the fort. We ate at the Spice of Life in St. Cathrine's on the way home for dinner, our allergic daughter had dairy free pizza with vegan cheese.

ROM Royal Ontario Museum, we brought our own food, we had to leave bags with coat check, then got our food from our bags at lunch time. We then went to the very allergy friendly Swiss Chalet for dinner.

Morningstar Mill historic griss mill and saw mill, brought our own snacks and ate at a picnic table, enjoyed a walking trail.

Wings of Paradise Butterfly Conservatory, ate outside on picnic tables, little shade.

Ontario Family Fun

The Summer

I finished my Web 2.O lessons, It was "self directed" I think I would of preferred some traditional classes, as well as the drop in and get help workshops. The most challenging was getting started with new things. The most important thing I learned was some of those computer terms, and it's worth trying more computer applications. I learned how to stream videos here on my blog. I would recommend the program, that I took through my local library.

My eldest daughter did one week of art camp, and her art is being displayed at our local Art Centre this September. My youngest did one week of dance camp, her performance was so cute, and fun!

Summer

This summer I'm taking the Betty Blogger coarse. Hoping to learn a few more things about blogging and other computer networking tools. I started Avoiding Milk Protein five years ago, and blogging July 5, 2008. I just realized it's been over a year when I looked up the date, for this post.

I started blogging to network more in the allergy community, and give the readers of Avoiding Milk Protein a chance to interact with my site more, and me with my readers.

I love having my kids home for the summer, however the girls are each taking one week of camp. My youngest is in dance camp, my oldest is in art camp. They have both been having a blast this week.

Summer

Summer is officially here, and school for us will end this week. I am looking forward to outings, to the park local museums and trails.

I went through the board games for those rainy days, and picked up some summer reading for my self, and a few books from the thrift shop and some trips to the libary are planned. I'm stocked up on sunscreen for summer.

My rhubarb plant is far to busy, and my cherry tree is surprisingly late this year. One of our family traditions is to ride our bikes to friends houses and deliver bags of cherries, so I'm looking forward to them ripening on the tree.

We are planning a couple of camping trips, one great thing about camping is everyone brings their own food so we don't look the least bit out of the ordinary bringing all our own food. Most of our day trips evolve places where most people bring their own food.