A Sleepover for the 10 year olds

Katie had a sleepover to celebrate her birthday.  For this party, we made pizza!  One Hawaiian and one pepperoni and black olives.  One of the friends had to come home from school with us since her parents worked late.  When we drove into the drive-way, the garage door wouldn't open.  Strange.  I got out of the car and tried the keypad entry.  Didn't work.  Hmmm.  I unlocked the garage door and flipped on the light.  It didn't come on.  Hmmm.

With a sinking feeling, I went in the house.  Flipped on the light, but, of course, it didn't come on.  Groan.  Why is the power out on a sunny day?  I sent the girls to the neighbors to see if they knew anything and started to panic.  How would I make the pizza?  What if the power didn't come on and I was trying to entertain four little girls with flashlights and candles?  Oh, man.

When the girls came back, they had discovered that the power had been out for a couple hours.  A substation had a blowout and 10,000 customers were out of power.  I called Arnie.  We needed a backup plan.  He would get pizza before leaving work.  We'd figure out some games and things to do with candlelight.

Thankfully, about 15 minutes after the girls got here, the power came back on.  I called Arnie to cancel the pizzas - he thankfully hadn't ordered them yet - and made the pizza.  The girls played twister for a while, ran around the yard, and played hide and seek in the house.  At bedtime they watched Ramona and Beezus.  Such a nice group of girls.

Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

A colorful and fun group of girls.

Katie's B-day

 For her 10th birthday, Katie requested stuffed green peppers.  Yum.  I used sausage and hamburger, onion, tomatoes, great spices...melty cheese.  A Better Homes and Garden recipe.  So delicious.  We made rolls and steamed some vegetables.  What a great dinner!

She also wanted to try pound cake, but I had very little time, so I bought a mix.  It was fine - I made a quick glaze and we feasted heartily.  10 is such a great age.  She laughs a lot and asks great questions.  And - the big 10 in our household means DS time.  She has a fashion game that she loves!  Pretty cool.

Ahhh! The End of Spring Break

And the end of the leftovers in the fridge.  Here's a great reason to keep cans of refrigerated pizza dough on hand.  I had leftover bottled pizza sauce, leftover crushed tomatoes and a cupboard full of Italian spices.  I had leftover smoked chicken, leftover steak, and a vegie drawer full of veggies.  Two great and terribly easy to make pizzas.

The steak pizza has green peppers, onions, and a hint of garlic.  The smoked chicken pizza had sun-dried tomatoes, onions, and a hint of garlic.  Several kinds of cheese and voila!  I mixed basil, oregano, and marjoram together to enhance the crushed tomatoes and made a wonderful sauce.  Pizza that pleases the people perfectly.

On a normal week, I wouldn't have the jar of sun-dried tomatoes.  Lately, though, I've been checking out the shopping cart full of crap at the grocery store that says something ridiculous like "Last Chance: 60% off" or something that really means, "So old, going to have to throw it away".  I do check the expiration dates before I splurge, but sometimes, as in the case of the sun-dried tomatoes, they are deals that just shouldn't be passed up.  Today at the store all I found in the cart was a very dented and bulging can of tuna and some strange shampoo products that looked like champagne.  Oh well.  I guess I can't find something every time.

We have a not-so-busy week this week.  I'm looking forward to getting back to school and being able to come home in the afternoon.  Thursday will be fun.  We will be having the drama program's Academy Awards.  The kids bought new clothes.  I'm making fancy turtle brownies.  Very fun.  More on that later.

I'd love to hear from people.  You should be able to leave a comment without having to sign your life away!  What do you do with your leftovers?  Any creative ideas out there?

The Sun! The Sun!

We had about 60 minutes of sunshine today.  Katie and I had plans to organize photos, but I quickly changed plans when the sun came out.  Normally, Arnie and I do not pay the kids to do chores.  We view chores as a normal, everyday part of living and hope to pass that along to them.  However, they both rocked their extra chores today, so we paid them.

Arnie has been wanting to change the phone and cable lines in the attic - he wanted them to drop in different parts of the house.  He asked Robby to help him. They spent an hour crawling around in the rafters together moving the lines.  I asked Katie if she would help me weed the front garden area.  She groaned.  But what a great kid!  She worked out there with me for an hour.  The front of the house is looking way better now.

No pictures, yet.  Not until it looks way better.  I have a big project planned out there for the spring time.  I want to put a brick wall around our rhodies and fill in with red stone.  I think it will beautify the yard.

We'll post pictures of that.  Spring break is almost over.  I am tired, but satisfied that we did what we want all week!

Lenten Friday

One of the traditions that we have during Lent is making some of the recipes from the Rice Bowl calendar.  We always save our change for the rice bowl at school and then try to follow the messages and ideas on the calendar.  We read about the different areas of the world that the money goes to and then celebrate that country by making the dish the calendar publishes.  Last night we read about and celebrated Kenya.  The recipe was a mashed potato dish called Irio.  Today I found several variations of the dish.  Some call for the peas and potatoes to be cooked and mashed together which would be tasty and green!

The recipe I used did not have the peas and potatoes mashed together, so was really mashed potatoes with vegetables in it.  I liked it.  Katie ate it.  Robby picked at his, leaving most of the vegies behind.  Arnie took a huge helping and then only ate half of it.  Oh well.  The more I make it, the more they will eat it.  I think I will try it once with the peas mashed with the potatoes.  I'll keep you posted on that.

I didn't feel badly about whether or not they liked the irio because I also made homemade breadsticks which were very yummy.  And pan-fried salmon cakes and green salad.  Also yummy.  No one left the table hungry!

Encouraging Improvement

So...I have always been active and have always exercised.  My children have always seen me do that although my workouts have morphed over the years.  Before they knew me, I ran hard.  Even when they were babies and toddlers, I was still running short races.  Then, sometime during my thirties, my hips started to hurt.  My doctor went "blah, blah, blah" about my body changing as I went through pregnancy and got older.  Take it easy, she said. Run on dirt and grassy pathways.  Hmmm.  Even where we live, this is not a safe option!  So, I kept running, but now on the treadmills at the YMCA where I could also see the kids at swimming lessons and use the Nautilus equipment.

Then, for our 10th anniversary, Arnie and I went to Palm Springs with our good friends, Kelly and Rob Portmann, who were also celebrating their 10th anniversary.  Kelly and I took a Pilate's class at the spa where we stayed and I was sold.

6 years later, I try to do Pilate's 2 or 3 times a week whether at the YMCA class or at home.  Relaxing, muscle-building, and rewarding.  Once the kids started swim team, I got brave enough to try swimming myself.  I'd swim laps when they were at practice.  I found swimming meditative and rewarding.  Now, I do a combination of these fine exercise workouts at least 3 times each week.

All this in that effort of mine to guide my kids and participate with my kids without pushing or being over-bearing.  This season Robby began to show interest in the competitive side of swimming.  He asked for a book that helps kids with workouts to strengthen muscles and hone strokes.  With the regular season of swim team over, we decided to lap swim a few times so that he could try some of the workouts.  What a great couple of kids they are!  Katie wanted to come just to hang out and get some swim time in. 

Robby prints out his workout, then "glues" it to a kick board.

Robby heads down the pool working on butterfly.

I just swim laps; nothing fancy here.

Katie warms up with a kick board.

The Grays Harbor YMCA is in Hoquiam and so is the new Tully's!  We headed over there after our workout to enjoy a pastry and a drink.  We ran into a couple friends of ours also working out and stopping in to get warm and out of the rain.  Yum and fun. 

Cappuccino and biscotti for Maureen.

V-8 and a plain bagel for Robby and a banana-strawberry smoothie and lemon pound cake for Katie.  I could have predicted their orders!  Robby is simplistic and Katie is complex.

I hope these experiences keep my kids motivated to enjoy life and to take care of themselves.

Day Trip to Portland

Yesterday we made an early trip to Portland, Oregon.  The drive is about 2 and a half hours for us.  I found a conference that I wanted to attend featuring Robert Probst, a literature and response guru that we studied in college.  He works with Kylene Beers, another guru who helps teachers understand struggling readers.  Since the conference was during spring break, we got up early and left the house at the unthinkable hour of 5:45 am.

Katie and Robby and Arnie went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).  They had an incredible time.  They played with lasers, built bridges, learned about space...on the ride home, the stories and anecdotes about the museum came fast and furiously until they all blurred together.

Katie the laser Jedi.

Their stories always had a "and then Dad..." component to them.  I think the day would have been great no matter what since it was just Dad and the kids.  Here's every mother's story.  The kids went shopping with Dad and here's what he bought them:

Mom added the rules:  Inside only in Robby's room where there are no breakable items.

My conference was great.  I think the ideas discussed are motivating to students, creating a passion for reading rather than a need for reading.  I want kids to love what they read and believe that analyzing and discussing material is the way to get them engaged and then loving what they read.

On the way home, we checked out this great fish shack that Arnie's boss recommended.  The Pacific Northwest Best Fish Company.  Wow.

Here's the cafe.  The outdoor seating is in the covered area.  Indoor seating is in the fish market.

The fish market is the large building on the right.

This enormous fish scale is on the porch of the market, so of course we had to find out how heavy our family is.

Almost 600 pounds!  Eeeek.

Katie had a quesadilla.

Salmon taco and wonderful french fries.  A glass of Merlot from East Fork Cellars.

Robby's deep-fried shrimp basket.

It is in a beautiful suburbia outside Vancouver called Ridgefield, Washington.  It was great.  Quaint, unassuming exterior that is a cafe on one side and a fish market on the other.  Indoor and outdoor seating.  I ate a salmon taco and delicious skinny fries.  Robby had a deep-fried shrimp basket and Katie ate a quesadilla.  Arnie tried the clam chowder - a must at any great seafood restaurant.  He said it was one of the best he's had.  He also had a shrimp and crab cocktail salad.  Fresh and tasty.

Next door to the cafe is a winery.  Of course, the cafe carries the winery's brand, so I had a delicious glass of Merlot.  Rich and full-bodied.  It rolled around on my tongue and left the tannins making my mouth water.  So, I went next door and bought a bottle.

The day was full and exhausting.  The kids got a little crazy, singing loudly and laughing a lot.  All in an effort to stay awake and lengthen the day.  Even Arnie and I sang "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" when they tried and got the tune all wrong.  They thought we were pretty funny.