You may remember from previous summer blogs, that my sister and her family live in Europe and come home to visit every summer. This year my 8th grade niece has spent several days with us. We have had so much fun with her.

One day my son, daughter, and I took her to a water park called Schlitterbahn. It is advertised as the "hottest, coolest time in Texas." There are more double meanings in that advertising campaign than I want to explain in this blog, but suffice it to say that the rides are "hot" and we had a "cool" time.

One of the best things about Schiltterbahn is that they allow you to bring your own food into the park. Most amusement parks forbid outside food because they want to increase their profit by forcing you to buy their food. Rarely does an amusement park serve anything that a Type O can eat. So I'm stuck with eating avoids or trying to sneak in contraband food.

For our day at Schlitterbahn, I packed turkey sandwiches, fresh plums, and raw nuts. My "sandwiches" were turkey, mozzarella, and ghee rolled in a sushi nori paper. My niece thought the seaweed was a little weird. I made the sandwiches for the rest of the group out of pita pockets. I've used pitas a lot this summer. Though wheat is neutral for my Type As, I don't like to give them big fluffy rolls that dominate the rest of the food. Pitas are thin and cracker like. Since my Type O son wants an occasional sandwich, I feel a little better about the thin pita than two full slices of bread. In addition, I can stuff quite a few veggies in them along with the turkey. The nuts were in place of chips.

There was an interesting irony. As we explored the park, I kept getting whiffs of delicious meat cooking. It turns out they serve barbeque, which makes a Type O's mouth water. Here is an amusement park that offers two good choices - serve the customers something beside junk food, and allow them to bring their own food from home.