Here's Joe Cool

I took this pic of the B-Man the other day because he was just quite cute, all lounge-y on the couch:

Then he put on some sunglasses and this happened:  (sorry for the shakiness-- I was laughing!!)


HAPPY FRIDAY!

Hitting the BIG TIME

(When BIG TIME equals anything more than the rides at the county fair, that is!!!)

We realized just a week or two ago that all the scheduling stars aligned for us to embark on a little day trip adventure yesterday.   While there is still an entire month before school starts, the speedy approach of the football season is enough to make us feel like summer is already over--wah WAH--so we had to grab this opportunity for a jaunt while we could!

There is an amusement park about 2 hours from here that is geared specifically to children.  I have been hearing people rave about it for years but just hadn't made the trip....until now.   While B is old/tall enough to ride plenty of rides at a "big" amusement park, there wouldn't be as much C could do and that would just not be as fun as going to a place where B is actually too tall to ride on some of them (but still has enough really cool rides that his parents had a blast, too)!

Approaching the park, which is "castle"-themed:

We took many a form of a transportation during our time there.  First up:  a "boat":

Trying to get the boys' attention:

Next up:  a ride in the sky:

No, really- we were up in the air!  Here's a look at the passengers behind us:

We may not live in Texas but it still gets hot in these parts.  We were pretty excited to find this very COOL (literally) shaded area o' dinosaurs:

The kids enjoyed getting this one to move:

The park also has a really nice (though crowded on this hot day) water park area.  We had determined ahead of time--and discussed with kids--that we were not bringing swim suits.  We were just going to use the spray park area for a little "spritz" to cool off if we got hot.

One of my children listened to me.

I don't even know what to say:

And she's the one who NEEDED to be rinsed off!  Girl loves some cotton candy:

The other really neat treat of the day was meeting up with some friends who moved away from here and to the area near the amusement park.  They came and met us for a little while to play.   It worked out well:  the BG took the big kids on the bigger rides; I managed the two smaller ones, and (loyal blog reader) S took care of photography!    I've never done a lying-on-the-stomach ride before but this "Kite Flight" was really cool!

She caught the others at exactly the right moment on the log flume!

 The B-man apparently did NOT want to sit with the girls:

The BG was the photographer for this shot.   The park has two roller coasters:  a "family" one that's smaller/shorter and then a bigger one that Miss C is just tall enough to ride and even B requires an adult.   Shortly after we arrived at the park, I took B-man on the "family" one to see if he liked roller coasters:

 Spoiler alert:   He DOES.  (And so does his sister, we found out later!)

I'm pretty sure B went on the "big" one 6 times while we were there.  I stepped in as the parental accompaniment on his 3rd tour and, um, I had to apologize to the guy in front of me for screaming in his ear the whole time.   It is a legit coaster! 

I didn't get a picture of the coaster itself but here's a shot of the waiting line to get on it when all 4 of us decided to end our day with one last trip:

We screamed our way around the track, pulled in, and C declared: "Can we go on that again?!"

So we actually just stayed in our seats for the next run-- that's how few people there were in line!!!

We hit some traffic on the way home that was less than ideal but, all in all, we had a WONDERFUL time!!!    Can't wait to do it again next summer!

Impromptu (and Sizzlin') Fun

Monday afternoon, we spontaneously made arrangements to drive 60 miles each way the following day (yesterday) to visit some friends.   We weren't going to leave until noon so, when I got a text in the morning about meeting up with some of our besties at a local playground, we decided to just jump in on that, too!     Miss C was so happy to reunite with the other Miss C after they'd been gone for a couple of weeks!

 Even at 10 in the morning, we all got super sweaty super fast.   So it was a good thing our afternoon in the country was centered around trying out the new backyard pool our friends just had built!!

So pretty!  

Wisdom of Lucy

When I saw this little plaque in a Hallmark store last week, I figured it was perfect for our kitchen.  Can the power of Charles Schulz get a certain boy to be better about eating dinner??

We shall see!

Pitching In

I don't have much to report from this weekend because....wait for it.....not even a full week after completing a 10-day round of antibiotics for strep throat, I ended up at Urgent Care Saturday with another positive strep test.

I don't even know what to say.

Kudos to the BG for taking care of everything this weekend while I was in bed.  I'm on a different/stronger antibiotic now and have to take it 4 times a day which means, if I'm to follow those instructions, I have to set an alarm since I sleep longer than that.   Last night's midnight pill was no problem without accompanying food, but the 6:00 one this morning has left me feeling no bueno for the last hour+. Guess I also have to eat something when I wake up at odd times to take them--oh, and the instructions say I'm also supposed to sit up for 10 minutes afterward.  Good times.

In any case, one of the projects the BG accomplished this weekend, while also being in charge of everything else, was building a cornhole set for a friend.  For some reason, this guy thought the BG was in the cornhole-board-building business and asked him if he could do it.  Never one to shun a challenge, the BG said he'd try.   So the guy bought all the wood and also brought over some instructions and the BG pretty much got it all done while I was lying on a table at Urgent Care.

The friend came over last night to pick up the set (which he's going to paint/stain himself) so the guys had a little fun while waiting for him:

Then one got moved to the front walk and the little girl came out to join:

Why, yes-- they are pitching Hello Kitties!

Quotable

We were driving along in the car yesterday when, out of nowhere, the B-man said the following:

"Mommy?  I'd like to have a camera.   Then one day, when I'm dying....in the hospital....of a stroke, I can plug it into the television and watch my life."

I know many of you know/remember that I always describe one of my favorite things in the world as a "coming-of-age movie that has a montage at the end of scenes from throughout the person's life with a voiceover narration by the adult version."

I think it's clear he's my kid.  (And that he only understands one kind of death.  Such innocence.)

I also think it's possible he's been pondering such things because he's sleeping behind a wall of photo albums!

May inspiring memories surround you this weekend--  HAPPY FRIDAY!

Gourmet Lunch

We've been bustling around this week and hit up the very haute cuisine Costco food court for lunch the other day.    Since the kids had recently had pizza, I ordered them the $1.50 hot dog + drink deal.  To be clear, they split the hot dog and their dad had the drink.  (Side note:  someone recently pointed out to me that Coca Cola must rue the day they didn't get that contract.  Pepsi everywhere!  sigh.)

Of course, we're talking about the B-man here, so even eating 1/2 a hot dog was a chore.   Face #1:  "What is this thing I have to eat?"

Face #2:  "Grrrrrrrrrr."

To the surprise of no one, Miss C finished her portion* first and got to dive into the $1.30 frozen yogurt dessert.  BRAIN FREEZE:

* I ended up not even making them eat the last couple of bites or we would have been there forever....with a whole bunch of melted froyo.    Again....sigh.

Naan-derful!

I was really good last week about sitting down and planning 3 meals/recipes and then shopping for the items necessary to make those new concoctions.  (This week, not so much.  I am totally playing the game of looking into the freezer and seeing what I can thaw for the next day.)

All 3 meals were successes but I only took pics of the final day because I had such a cute helper.  To accompany a fresh corn and yellow squash chowder I made with our CSA veggies, I decided to use this recipe for Homemade Naan.  (You need to scroll all the way to the bottom because the post itself is also about a dish she made to go into the naan and I didn't do anything with that.)

May I just stop and say that not only was making the naan not very difficult but also IT WAS SO TASTY.

Back to that cute helper-- here she is "painting" the garlic-infused butter onto the fresh dough:

You can see the tools/evidence of making infused butter in the background of this next pic.  Basically, you saute some garlic in butter and then strain it out.  Super easy!   And look at those lumps and bumps as the naan cooked (very quickly) in a hot cast iron pan:

mmmmmmmmmmmmm:

Oops

Ran out of time this morning!  Not sure that's ever happened!!   That makes us all feel saaaaaaaddddddd...........

(All is great, though!  See you tomorrow!)

Weekend Review

I'm having trouble pulling together a coherent theme this morning.  After week upon week upon week of saying, "On Monday, I'm going to start being healthy again and get up early and exercise" (and this not happening), I finally did it this morning.  It was just a long neighborhood walk so nothing impressive-- except that I did hoof it for quite a ways (to this non-runner, at least) and now I'm finding it difficult to walk on my shaky noodle quads.   Apparently it's also causing me mental issue trying to come up with a blog post! I suppose that could also be attributable to the homemade brownies I decided to concoct at 9pm last night- I mean, if you're going to try to be good starting the next day, you might as well go out with a bang, right?!

(Of course, I didn't think about all the remaining brownies being a temptation today.  Guess my family will be inhaling chocolate for awhile until they're gone!!)

We had, for us, a full and fun weekend.   The BG left at 6am Saturday for an all-day football tourney.  It wasn't supposed to last all day but they had a 2-hr rain delay.   So he got home at the same time we did (6pm) after an afternoon pool date with friends-- actually, he pulled up next to us on the way home and scared us to death!

I took the kids to see Inside Out on Saturday morning at 9:45.   That will henceforth be the only acceptable movie time since the tickets are only $6 at that point.  We had a great time there, at Potbelly for lunch afterward, and then walking around the shopping center's lake to the carousel for a spin.

Yesterday, we went to church in the morning and then had a fun "doll tea party" for a friend of Miss C's in the afternoon.  The whole family was invited so we all went (it was about 30 minutes away) and then hit up a tasty local taco place afterward for dinner.  C insisted on taking her newly-acquired-from-the-party cup and saucer inside the restaurant and drank water from it at the table:

You'll notice that the B-man is communing with his fave cartoon characters.  As I type this, the kids are watching the various trailers for upcoming The Peanuts Movie......over and over.  Like, she actually just said, "Let's watch the Spanish one now!"    I'm not sure how the obsession synced up with pop culture so well (the movie comes out in November), but we sure got the jump on it!

Beanboozled!

I enjoy the random bits of knowledge I glean from reading blogs/websites.   I happened to read someone's account of Jelly Belly's Beanboozled product and determined it would be a fun activity for our family adventure in Colorado.   I had no idea that my son would transform into Head of Marketing for Beanboozled, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after seeing him become Mr. Scentsy back in the day.  (Seriously, on the plane, he stage-whispered to me, "Did you tell those people you're sitting with about BEANBOOZLED??!!!!")

The Beanboozler:

Have you been Beanboozled?  Basically, Jelly Belly made sets of jelly beans that are the same color but have VERY different flavors (e.g., peach or barf?  buttered popcorn or rotten egg?  coconut or baby wipes?  licorice or skunk spray?  etc)  You never know which one you're going to get!!

I took all manner of hysterical videos of relatives getting Beanboozled, but I'm not going to post those without permission.  So I present to you one of the B-man's own videos-- know that this is but a sliver of the video fun, like Jackson saying, "I'm literally gagging right now" or Caleb getting a rotten egg one but being tough enough to keep chewing!



Big D was a good sport with his grandkids, too!

This guy might have been conked out with strep throat during the main event but he didn't get to escape!!


HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

Pip Pip!

Monday morning, Miss C and I were headed to Wegs while B was at camp when I suddenly realized I was driving right by the thrift store that marks a bunch of stuff down 50% on Mondays.  {insert sound of tires screeching}   We had the most fun time wandering up and down the aisles.  She's really into checking labels for sizes of clothes so she had a ball standing by the little girl clothes and informing me which items in her size she would like.   So many things were SO cheap that it's possible that many of them ended up in our cart!

It was in the "toy" aisle, however, that I made my grand discovery.  I happened to look up at exactly the right time and found something familiar that was hanging in a plastic bag.   I've only ever seen this toy in C's preschool classroom but I have loved it every time I've ended up in there.   Do any of you know this "Pippy Pals" toy?  A quick google search suggests it's not something that's made/sold anymore:

It's basically a wooden doll cut out and you lay different fabrics across the body shape.  When you close the wooden top, it forms the fabric into clothes.   The outfit possibilities are endless!

Also, meet Clara the unicorn-- another thrift store treasure:

Stripes and Sweets

The B-man is doing the morning camp thing this week so, after we dropped him off yesterday, the other 3 of us had the most leisurely stroll around Target.  (As in, at one point, I commented to the BG that I don't think I'd ever walked so slowly anywhere!)  But you know what's really nice?  Leisurely strolling around Target!   And we didn't actually buy that much stuff that we didn't need.  ;-)

The clouds were gathering as we walked in but it never actually rained.   I sure was happy to spend the morning with not only my spouse of 14 years but also this girl, so coordinated to her madre!

After picking up B and enjoying a tasty lunch at a local pizza place, we headed home.   Since we'd eaten out for the midday meal, I knew I wanted/needed to cook dinner.   After our homemade dinner, however, I was able to surprise the others with these tasty desserts I'd bought Monday at Wegmans and then hidden in the back of the downstairs fridge!    I didn't even realize it at the time but these two do a nice job of representing the bride's cake/groom's cake wedding dichotomy!

July 14th

In an ironic twist on the unity of marriage, I am getting NO HELP in trying to come up with a themed blog post for today.  I tried crafting a free association game ("When I say the word "wedding" what comes immediately to mind?") but the BG refuses to play for fear you might learn too much about him.  I tried to ask the B-man but it took too long to explain the concept of "free association."  Then I asked Miss C what she thought about weddings and I got an unsurprising "I don't know!" from her spot on the carpet where she was waving her Hello Kitty slippers in the air.

Sigh.

So I just walked over to the couch and took a picture of us all:

Marriage, 14 years later.

Continuing the Peanuts Love

The BG took the kiddies out to the sandbox to play.  I knew there was some searching in the house for necessary items before they went-- turns out they were enacting quite the battle.  Snoopy (aka French Foreign Legion Officer) would be so proud.

I received these texts, sent from the backyard...

"The retaking of Fort Zinderneuf":

"The aftermath of war":

Rocky Mountain Reunion

A brief photographic retelling of our recent adventure...(gotta save some pics for future "storylines," you know?!)

There are two brothers, one of whom you might recognize as BIG D and the other as his (taller) younger brother:

These two generous men decided to gather as many of their sons and daughters as possible to spend time together in Colorado Springs.  To their surprise, all of the family units except for one could make the trip so a giant house needed to be procured.  Check!

(Fun fact: I didn't think to take a pic of the house until the day we left when it was sooo cloudy that you couldn't even see the mountains out the window.  So weird!)

The adults (minus the sick BG and the photographer/blogger) at the Garden of the Gods:

(Fun fact: the BG was only the 3rd tallest on this trip!)

And the kids:

(Fun fact: the oldest nephew, at 14, is larger than half of the BG's Varsity football team-- ha ha!)

While the group enjoyed many local attractions (such as the cog railway up to Pikes Peak as shown here as well as a white-water rafting trip that apparently was awesome), the majority of our family time was spent in the large kitchen.  We are modeling only two of the four gourmet cheeses that went into this particular afternoon cheese tray:

(Fun fact:  I love cheese! SHOCKER!)

Big D's branch of the family was put to shame by the others in the meal department.  Our aunt and two cousins + their significant others whipped up some seriously good meals (for 18 people!!!) several of the evenings.  Check out this pizza: from-scratch dough, shaved asparagus bottom layer with some proscuitto and then eggs cracked on top!

(Fun fact: we all got fat.)

These two had soooooooo much fun with their cousins and all the activity!  We can't thank Big D and Uncle M enough!!!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

(I did test positive for strep and spent the entirety of yesterday in my bed.  Feeling better now, thankfully!)

This Isn't What I Was Expecting

(Or maybe it is.)

See that guy?  That was one of the first times he emerged from his bed.  We experienced a "first" for our marriage which is pretty bizarre: this trip led to the first time in 14 years that I've accompanied him to a doctor.  

He had a cut on his foot that seemed to be getting infected so, when the fever and chills set in on Friday, we decided we needed to get him to an urgent care.  Of course, we were in a completely different region of the country and also on the official Independence Day holiday so there was a LOT of hold time on various phone calls trying to get an appt set up.

When we got there and mentioned his tonsil kinda hurt, we discovered he had strep throat on top of whatever was going on with his ankle (which turned out to be fine). After a couple days of resting, he emerged ready to enjoy the Colorado landscape.

Aaaannnnndd....my throat started to hurt last night and I woke up with a 101-degree fever.  Off to the doctor I will go later this morning but, for now, I am wrapped in covers.  Lovely.

(But hey-- check out that countryside!)

I'll Take Some of This Energy, Please

We walked in the door of our house at 1:30am after almost a week away.  Our adventure in Colorado Springs with 14 of the BG's relatives was wonderful but it's still too early (in the morning) for me to tell you about it.  How about you come back tomorrow?!

In the meantime, check out the moves of this little girl who found a way to entertain herself while waiting for us to return our car minivan:


PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to loyal reader Kathy!!!!

Snow in July

Both falling from the sky on the summit of Pikes Peak...and in that beard! ;-)