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To The One I Love …

Nine years ago today, I walked on the arm of my handsome father down an aisle to be formally bonded to the man of my dreams.

He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. An awesome husband. A wonderful dad. An amazing friend.

Wow. I am so lucky.

Nine years of fun and laughter and the occasional tear and squabble. Nine years of projects and recipes. Nine years of trips and lazy weekends. Nine years of holding hands.

Grow old with me … the best is yet to be. Cheers to 9 years … and many many more.

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The Haps

So now that we’re back from camping, what is going on this week? Plenty.

  • We went to see Cars 2 with some friends last night. We’d already seen it in Nashville but Ben was on a tear that day and Matt and I both missed a few scenes taking him to the hall. He did much better this time, but still didn’t really want to sit still. $2 movies are great for that though. It’s all families and pretty loosey goosey.
  • We probably should have stayed at home though because our cleaning people come today and we needed to get the house picked up … so Matt and I stayed up too late last night cleaning.
  • But I’m super glad the house is going to be cleaned because I’m hosting Bunco on Thrusday. We are having quiche made by the fine folks at Costco (or one of their suppliers) and a lovely salad (made by me). Maybe some bread if it works out. I will also be making the most excellent peach crumb bars for dessert. Swoon.
  • The kids were supposed to start tumbling classes tonight, but we’ve decided to skip their first one in favor of going to a going-away party for my cousin and his girlfriend who leave for a semester abroad at the end of this week. Should be fun!
  • Tomorrow is our 9 year (WOW) anniversary. We have nothing planned. We were going to go away to Vail for a weekend, but we haven’t found a weekend that works yet. Maybe October?
  • Friday I’m hoping to go visit a good friend of mine who just had a baby. I want to bring her a little something and a meal for the freezer. I’m thinking I may do Mexican Chicken Casserole for the meal, but not sure what to get the little guy for a present (or his big brother). Hopefully something will come to me.
  • This weekend is booked up too. Saturday we’re getting together with our cousins for some shopping and a movie.
  • Saturday afternoon/night Matt and I are hanging out solo while the kids visit my parents.
  • We can’t stay up late though because we’re running the Heart and Sole Half Marathon on Sunday Morning. I’m not looking forward to this … I haven’t run more than 8 miles since May and it is going to be HOT.
  • We are also supposed to borrow a pressure-washer this weekend and work on some of the nastier bits of our house … i.e. anything the kids touch. Not sure we’re going to have time for it, but I’d love to get that done.

What’re you up to?

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Camping!

I won’t lie. I’m a bit stressed at the moment. Things in our house keep breaking, including our A/C and I’m supposed to be hosting Bunco on Thursday. But I won’t think about that right now … I will think about our first camping trip and how well it went.

We went to the lovely Poudre Canyon, home to the Cache la Poudre River, Continue reading “Camping!”

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Woman on the Edge

We were up super late last night (about 3 hours after my bedtime) getting ready for our camping trip. So far today, going on less than 5 hours sleep, I’ve … 1) held plank for 5.5 minutes, 2) done over 100 pushups, 3) run over 2 miles, 4) had my teeth drilled, 5) braved Walmart to purchase a water jug and some batteries, 6) all without any breakfast (I can’t eat for another hour).

Those mountains better be freaking awesome, because I am exhausted and cranky!!

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What’s Cooking: The Camping Edition

So … we’re going camping this weekend. Well I’m still not entirely sure I can call it camping what with our fancy “Rolling Ramada” as my dad calls it. Ha. But I’ll go with “camping” in the interest of simplicity.

Previously when we’ve done these things, my dad plans it all. I just show up. Now I have to figure out what we will be eating for 2 dinners, 3 breakfasts and 2 lunches. I have to figure out how it all gets there and stays “safe” from food-borne baddies.

Happily I have a few resources. For my b’day I received The Camping Cookbook. Oddly enough, it’s not the one featured on the left. It’s actually another book with the same title put out by the “Love Eat” press and I cannot find a link to it ANYWHERE on the interwebs. Anthropologie apparently has it though. I also have the latest edition of Sunset Magazine where they do a whole “gourmet cooking” article and also have some really handy tips on packing a cooler and storing food for a few days. Lastly, I downloaded a copy of The Real Family Camping Cookbook to my Kindle (app on my phone). Unfortunately, a lot of what is proposed depends heavily on doing some prep at home and then doing the rest at camp. But the way this trip came together means I don’t have much (any) time for that. But I did my best. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Breakfast

  • day 1 – scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese, toast
  • day 2 – banana pancakes
  • day 3 – cereal … cuz we’ll be packing up camp and mama didn’t raise no fool

Lunch

  • day 1 – tortilla chicken bowls
  • day 2 – sandwiches, etc.

Dinner

  • day 1 – turkey bean chili with cornbread
  • day 2 –  salmon, green beans, rice

Extras

  • smores (of course)
  • popcorn!

Hopefully no one will go hungry!!

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For My 31st Birthday I …

  • received a card from my darling daughter on which she had printed every letter of the phrase, “Happy Birthday Mommy” and signed her name and drew about 50 little flowers (heart melt!)
  • completed 10 rounds of Cool Hand Luke (CrossFit workout involving rounds of 200m run, 10 pull-ups, 10 burpees, 10 kettle bell swings) scraping in right at the 45:00 min time limit
  • found a note in my purse from my hubby telling me he bought me a new macro lens for my camera
  • had a lovely lunch out with my husband, conspicuously free of the need to cut up food, clean up spills and referee battles, followed by a few stolen minutes exploring a nearby town
  • had a mom who was generous enough to watch the kids so we could have a lovely evening playing Geeks Who Drink Trivia with some good friends
  • received birthday wishes, greetings, notes, emails, FB shout-outs, cards and gifts from lovely people near and far
  • had a wonderful birthday party on Sunday where my whole family made me a super delicious meal of fried chicken, green beans, corn, fruit salad and lemon blueberry cupcakes
  • received lovely gifts including a new gym bag, some cute clothes, and a necklace (Tabby’s selection)
  • delighted in listening to my darling son sing umpteen rounds of “Happy Mommy! Haaaaaaappy Mommy! Happy happy mommy”

… and Happy I was

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The Pop-Up Has Landed

Last night while I was slaving away over a hot stove making the kids some fried rice for dinner and cleaning up the house, Matt was picking up our new (to us) pop-up camper.

It is a nice 12′ size with sleeping room for 8 (if most of those sleeping are kids). We put it up and put it down and it was pretty easy and quick. Hopefully soon we can stock it up and hit the road. We’d like to get a couple trips in before the weather starts getting too cool, possibly to The Great Sand Dunes. Matt also has designs on a trip to the western slope to do some apple and peach picking.

But of course before we can do any of that we need to get it all stocked up and ready to go. I think that will be a project for the weekend. And I’m hoping this will be a wonderful way to get the kids out into nature and spend time together as a family!

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A Big Ol’ Weekend

Quite a bit happened since my last post 3 days ago. For one thing, it is now August. Beyond that …

  • Friday Morning I ran N Table Mesa (this is a redundant phrase since Mesa = Table, but that’s what we call it around here) with Kelly in the AM. It was beautiful. Then I got to sleep while Matt took the kids to the gym.
  • I spent most of Friday cleaning the house. It was quite a slog with the kids to contend with, but it did improve.
  • Friday night we had the family over Movie Night. Matt and I made Chicken Parmesan salad which was AWESOME. Everyone liked it. Then we watched Freaky Friday (new one with Lindsay Lohan as specified by Tabby, though I still prefer the old one) and Tabby got her movie snacks. Not sure which she likes more: movie or movie snacks.
  • Saturday morning we hung around the house and had breakfast and then eventually went to Costco. After Costco, we dropped the kids off with my parents so we could have date day.
  • We had grand plans for FUN but as we are OLD, we spent a few hours organizing the house. We cleaned out both kids’ closets and bookshelves (our new niece has a box of books heading her way) and their playroom.
  • After that we went to Good Will to do a drop off. I almost lost it when I put Tabby’s old crib bedding in the bin. Of course it’s not the bedding … it’s what it symbolizes. *sigh*
  • After that we went to IKEA (you know, the one that just opened a couple of days ago) to embrace the insanity (we stood in a Disneyland style queue, only longer just to get in) and buy stuff for the pop-up camper and a new peppermill that I am in love with. Also we looked at beds for our kids who are officially growing up TOO FAST.
  • Of course after IKEA, we were starved, so went to dinner at Smash Burger (best burgers EVER) and then to Bass Pro (gag) and Target.
  • We came home, unloaded the car, gathered running stuff and passed out.
  • Because next morning we were back up on North Redundant Mountain running again.
  • We picked up the kids. They had an awesome time, of course. Ben was the life of the block party. Tabby got stung by a wasp. They both got pancakes, snuggles, and thoroughly spoiled.
  • We had to stop by Walm*rt on the way home. I spied the super-delicious food-like product you see on the right (it has not only slim-jim style beef jerky but also mini ritz crackers with cheese-product sandwiched between them) while we were in the check-out line. I did not buy it.
  • We had lunch then naps (for the kids). We thought they’d never wake up. But eventually they did. So we took them to the pool (it was SUPER HOT yesterday).
  • They didn’t want to leave, but we had to go home and have dinner. We made steaks and super super awesome zucchini feta fritters (highly recommend).
  • Amazingly after all of that, we could do little but put away some laundry and then put away the kids in their beds. We followed very shortly.

It was somewhat difficult to get out of bed this morning.

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Chasing Waterfalls

I seriously love photography. When I believed my camera to be dead, I was adamant that I would have a DSLR back in my hands within one day, dip-into-savings be damned (and I don’t take $$ out of savings without a fight). I think my favorite thing about it, besides the obvious memory-making aspect is the fact that it’s a continuous learning process.

I had my DSLR for years before I really dug into how to use it. Most of the time the sheer speed of the DSLR was more than enough for me to use it and Matt has a pretty good background in the technical aspects of photography so whenever I wanted to achieve a certain effect, he was my cheat sheet. He’d tell me to do this or that and I’d do it and generally it would work, but I didn’t really know why.

That was fine for a long time since I was busy raising the kids and just wanted to take some photos already!! But I did finally get a wonderful little book that somehow made all the stuff I sort of knew, in theory anyhow, really crystallize. It’s got a bit too much on shooting with film, something I have no time for or interest in, but otherwise it’s a great book. I have not switched over to shooting fully in Manual mode … my main subjects are the kids and I’m not good with speed in manual mode, but at least I know now when I need to and I’m comfortable enough to switch over and set things as I need to get what I want. Like awesome blurred waterfalls.

There are only about 100000 more things I want to learn and hopefully will over time.

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Make-Them-Your-Own Muffins

One of the simplest weeknight dinners I make is a pan of scrambled eggs. I season/flavor them with whatever’s on hand: cream cheese and some dill, smoked salmon, leftover bacon, salsa, spinach and feta, ham and swiss and mushrooms. They are always a hit with the kids.

And whenever I do that I like to have some sort of lightly sweet baked good to go along with the meal. Sometimes it’s two-bite cinnamon rolls from Costco or just toast with jam, but likely as not, I make homemade muffins. I have used tons of recipes, but these are my go-to muffins that are perfect for using up any fresh fruit that’s getting past its prime or the tail-end of a frozen bag of fruit.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (you can do all one type if you like)
  • 2 t baking powder
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1/2 C sugar
  • 1/3 C natural applesauce
  • 1 egg
  • ~ 1/3 C milk
  • 1 T oil
  • 1 cup chopped fruit or a bit more if you’ve got it
  • spices to compliment your fruit

Note about fruit/spices: this is a great recipe for doing your favorite or using what you have. I’ve done blueberries with just a little vanilla extract, blueberries with some lemon zest and peaches with cinnamon, allspice and cloves. I think these would be wonderful with apples and/or raisins and cinnamon or anything else you fancy.

Directions

Heat your oven to 400. Place liners in a muffin pan – this recipe seems to make between 10 and 15 muffins depending on how much fruit you use and how generous you are when putting batter in the muffin tins.

In a bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. In a 1 cup measuring cup, add the applesauce, oil and egg. Add enough milk to go to the 1 cup line and stir. Pour this into your dry ingredients along with any spices you’re using and stir until combined, but do not over-mix. Carefully fold in your chopped fruit.

Pour batter into prepared muffin cups. I like to do 2/3 to 3/4 full though the original recipe calls for filling them to the top! Bake for 18-25 minutes or until just browning on top.