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.

The Beer Can Chicken

Here's Arnie's new kitchen gadget:

It's the beer can chicken cooker gadget.  He smoked a whole chicken over the top of a can full of beer.  The chicken was very moist and succulent, but really did not taste like beer...we need to research this process a little more.  It was a great experiment, though.  This was the first time he smoked a whole chicken.  It took three hours!  Well worth the wait.

Can you see the beer can peeking out the chicken's...hmm.  I don't think I want to consider which end of the bird that is.

Katie thought the chicken was very funny looking - as though it was standing up squawking at us.  She was impersonating (maybe that's imitating) the bird, so I snapped a shot of her.  She looks just as yummy.

I Used to Bake Often

The smell of warm yeast.  Bread rising and baking.  Smells that I love.  When the kids were little, we were home more often, so I used to bake rolls and breads.  I would bake a lot on one day and put some in the freezer for later.  I would even freeze the dough after the initial rising and forming of the loaves.  When we were ready to eat the bread, I'd pull the frozen dough out of the freezer in the morning.  By afternoon, it was ready to bake.

Robby set a play list for cleaning time.  We rocked out.

So today, we had nowhere to go and nothing to do.  Yay!  I made wheat rolls.  The kids, sadly, did not remember me ever making bread and were pretty fascinated by the process, although not for long.  They lazed around the house after their chores were done while I slaved in the hot kitchen.  Sweat dripping from my brow as I labored over...okay.  It was fun and not hot and not sweaty.  I forgot how much I love making bread.  I might try a buttermilk loaf of some kind on Friday. 

Katie Conquers Breakfast

On Saturday, our first official day of Spring break, Katie woke up early and found me at the kitchen table looking through cookbooks for coffee cake recipes.  Breakfast remains a lazy meal of sorts for me.  Usually breakfast is every man for himself in the Lewis household. 

Weekdays we are pouring bowls of cereal or boiling water for oatmeal or toasting English muffins or bread - on really great weeks we have frozen pancakes or waffles from the weekend that the kids heat in the microwave.  Weekends sometimes bring pancakes or waffles made by Robby or Maureen.  Sometimes Arnie makes garbage eggs - eggs and anything he can find in the refrigerator.  Arnie's concoctions are Katie's favorites.  Robby loves the pancakes and waffles.

On Saturday, Katie helped me search the cookbooks.  We found a simple recipe for buttermilk scones with currants and orange zest.  We had lemons and dried cranberries, so we went to work.  Katie enjoyed using the pastry cutter and I loved using more dried cranberries!  (Continue to have a couple bags on hand at all times!  One of my student's dad works at Ocean Spray and gives us sample bags of Craisins often.)

Katie and I are so proud of our scones.  Crispy on the outside and dense but crumbly and soft on the inside.  The lemon zest made the scones brighter and citrus-y while the cranberries added bursts of flavor.  Robby and Arnie liked them a lot.

Katie really did most of the work.  She is really fun to work with in the kitchen.  She is motivated to learn how to cook and bake - this week we are going to make granola!  More on that later...here's the scones.  This is a recipe we will make again.

Sprinkling them with cinnamon before they finish baking.

Maureen Tries Meringue

Pie crust still baffles me.  Yet I persevere.  For Robby's birthday in February, I made a chocolate meringue pie - after I made him a devil's food cake for his "friend" birthday party.  We all liked the pie.  The meringue was especially yummy.  I used a jar of marshmallow creme to add the fluff.  Purty, too.  Shiny.  Not good the next day, though.  The meringue got too weepy and the chocolate cream tasted too watery.

Day one, though, the pie was delicious.  The crust was okay, but I wasn't completely happy with it.  It still wasn't flaky - too heavy.  This time I followed a recipe from a cookbook that Sandy and Rochelle gave me called The Complete Southern Cookbook: More than 800 of the Most Delicious, Down-Home Recipes.  The recipe was great, but I still think I overworked the dough before baking.

I will keep trying.  Heather and Dan brought jars of lime and lemon curd when they were here at Christmas.  Any ideas for pies?  Can I just mix the curd with whipped cream?  Sounds yummy to me.  Send me your ideas!

First Spring Wildlife Sighting

Frogbert the green tree frog.  Sweet.