We leave on Sunday for our vacation, a little swing around the Olympic peninsula before we wind up at Virginia Mason the night before my surgery. I have been looking up restaurants and menues along the way so that I could get a handle on what food costs will be. There are also a couple of grocery stores that sell Organic Valley Milk. We will have an ice chest with us for milk, cheese, and fruit. We are also taking along cereal, granola and fruit bars, and some deli meat, bread and peanut butter. Every hotel has a fridge and microwave except the last one which just has a fridge.

I am so glad that so many restaurants have menues with prices available online. Not only to see that even some extravagant places have some lower cost menu items like fish and chips and cheeseburgers, but to see what's actually in the foods. Like if something is prepared with a demi-glace then we know not to order it for my son or mushrooms not to order it for me. It just makes things so much easier to have that information at my fingertips.

There are a lot of Mom and Pop diners along our route and that's really the food we prefer. Most of them don't have a ton of additives if you avoid the soda and desserts. The food is hearty and not as expensive and the servings are such that it is easy to each split a meal with one of the kiddos, maybe ordering an extra side here or there. Then there are some restaurants where we will just order soup and appetizers and still be fed well but for far less money.

I've got my list of questions ready. Not only do we ask about food additives/colorings, and whether grapes or apples are involved in any way, but we ask what is in their eggs. At least one namebrand restaurant we know of puts pancake batter in their omelettes to make them fluffier (but are happy to leave it out if you ask), and some restaurants use liquid egg product which has all kinds of shelf stabilizers in it. So we need to make sure it's made with real eggs and has nothing added other than the fillings if we order omelettes. Most of the time I am very careful with eggs and simply order them poached. DS is allergic to margarine so if a place doesn't use butter or oil in the frying or scrambling process, poached is always safe since it is always cooked in water.