(Just Own the Night Like the) 4th of July Week in Review – (‘Cause Baby You’re a) Firework WIAW

As I mentioned on Friday, I had a big internship presentation to give so I wasn’t able to finish my blog post. So, I am going to post it today as my WIAW and Week in Review!

Don’t forget about the giveaway that I posted on Monday. It ends this Thursday night so you don’t want to miss out.

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I left off last with my recap of the week leading up to my long 4th of July weekend.

Friday morning I literally rolled out of bed and crawled into the car. My mom drove me to the hospital for my gastric emptying study where I had to eat oatmeal and then lay under an x-ray machine for 1 1/2 hours while they measured the time it took for me to digest my food (more soon!). All that I will say now is that there is a reason that I haven’t eaten oatmeal in a year. My stomach took almost a week to recover from eating grains.

Thankfully with some rest during the day I was feeling good enough to socialize later. On Friday night I drove over to my best friend’s house to meet up with about ten others and head over to a nearby lake to watch some fireworks!

Usually I’m not a fan of fireworks because they are so loud, but these were surprisingly mellow in volume. But not mellow in looks for sure. They were beautiful and lasted quite a long time. I’m really glad that I went because they were certainly worth the trip.

The next day I had an eye doctor’s appointment in the morning. Thankfully my prescription has stayed the same so I just had to get some new contacts and that was it.

Afterwards I met up with my friends again to just hang out and talk about our summers and what we’ve been up to.

Later on I went on a short 15 minute walk with my mom down the driveway to pick up the mail and newspaper. And we brought Lilly!

I know that sounds a little crazy that it took us that long to walk to the mailbox because I’m sure a lot of you have your mailboxes right outside your front door. However, I can assure you that while slow, 15 minutes over the span of about 1/2 a mile while walking a curious dog (that stops every 30 seconds to sniff at the grass) is pretty normal.

Sunday morning my mom and dad left the house early to drop my brother off at our church because he was leaving for a missions trip.

When they got back I made them some…

You guessed it! Pancakes 🙂

Unlike my pan perfect pancakes and unbelievably grain-free berry pancakes, these suckers took a lot longer to cook and were much harder to flip. This did not deter my parents though because they still tasted wonderful!

Dairy and Grain-Free Cinnamon Apple Pancakes

Makes two servings, approximately 4 small-medium pancakes each

Grain/Gluten/Wheat-Free, Dairy-Free, Nut-Free Option, GAPS/Paleo/SCD-Friendly, No Added Sugar

Ingredients:

• 2 apples
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon each of vinegar and vanilla
• 1/2 cup almond flour (or sun-flour)
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon each of baking soda and cinnamon
• dash of sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat your griddle to 350 degrees or your pan to medium heat. Spray or oil to prevent sticking.
2. Peel both of the apples. Take one of the apples and put it in your food processor and puree with a little water until it reaches applesauce consistency.
3. Add the eggs, vinegar and vanilla and blend until smooth.
4. Measure in the remaining ingredients and mix again until fully combined.
5. Scoop out the batter into a medium sized bowl. Put the second apple in the food processor and blend for a few seconds and/or grate the apple until finely shredded. Add the apple pieces to the pancake mix.
6. Using a 1/4 cup pour out the pancake batter and if necessary spread out with the back of a spoon.
7. Cook on each side for 5-10 minutes (these need to be cooked a lot longer than usual pancakes because they are grain-free and much more delicate with the applesauce).

Sunday afternoon before I left to head back to my apartment I went to our church to help my mom set up for the summer reading program that she directs every year. As I said previously, I’m really missing getting to actually help with the program itself in getting the snacks ready and running errands for the teachers. I still got to set up all of the books though, and while it is probably my least favorite part, it still made me feel good that I got to help a little.

Look at some of the books that I found! These remind me of one of my WIAW posts of children’s books that feature food!

After I was done setting up the books (which took me about an hour! They were so unorganized…) I went home, packed up my things, and hit the road again.

I snacked on a few bananas on the way back. #Publicbanana at its finest. 😉

This week the weather has been pretty crazy. There have been lots of thunderstorm warnings and a lot of water!

Thankfully I haven’t seen much damage around these parts, but back home our neighbors lost electricity due to the storms and a friend from high school had a huge tree fall on his car while him and his family were on vacation!

My actual week was pretty boring until the next weekend hit. And that was only made exciting by the fact that I got to buy things for my blogiversary giveaway (Mention #2 😉 ). Make sure that you leave a separate comment for each entry!

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Questions for you:

Did you enjoy any fireworks on the 4th?

Are you tired of pancake recipes yet? Too bad. Ha. 😉

Do you wear glasses or contacts?

What food have you been enjoying lately?