Where Does the Time Go?

Not only has my little man learned to ride his tricycle, but recently, while camping, I was witness to the following series of events (click on it and it's clearer):
She's getting SO big.

Remember

I watched this first one with my little girl this morning and it still brings tears to my eyes.

6 Year Anniversary

Another Good Reminder

A Visit with Mr Cheese

To beat the heat, we recently enjoyed a lunch at the air conditioned home of Mr Charles Edmund Cheese (known as Chuck E. to his friends). The kids not only got to share their lunch hour (or two) with some friends who joined us there, but also got to play lots of games: Ride on lots of rides:Climb around in the play structure:And also at the end of it all they got some nifty prizes:The highlight for mommy, however, was watching the kids play skeeball. My little man couldn't catch a break trying to share balls with the girls so he figured out where he could get some of his own....
I found myself muttering out loud "Who's kid is that? someone should be watching him..." They're kids, so whatta ya gunna do? I'm sure he wasn't the first one ever to climb up there in search of where the balls were going. Thanks Mr Cheese for a fun afternoon.

Forces of Nature

It's kind of a family tradition that we spend Labor Day weekend (or the weekend after) at Silver Lake up in Northern California. This year was no exception. Here's a picture of our campsite the day we got there. Notice that there are two tents. The blue one is the one we were sleeping in and the red one is the one that we had the kiddos toys set up in so that they had a cleanish safeish place to play.
We got there late Wednesday night and everything went smoothly until Friday night when we had a bit of a hard time sleeping due to the tent flapping in the wind. Undeterred, we spent all of Saturday fishing on the lake and were served a hard lesson by mother nature Saturday night. At some point around 1 AM we decided to switch tents because the red tent was made of a less noisy material. We uprooted the kids and all bedding and headed to the red tent. At about 2 AM I could take it no longer and got up having not slept for the previous few hours and needing to use the facilities. I was shocked by what I found. The majority of our campsite had been carried by the wind into the neighboring bushes and campsites. I spent a while searching for our items and battoning down the hatches. After about an hour of picking up and leaning into the wind, hubby came out to meet me and we agreed to move the kids (and ourselves) into great-grandma & great-grandpa's RV.
Here's a shot of what our red tent looked like with 200+ pounds of hubby & kids in it plus another 200+ pounds of firewood (used to hold down the corners inside).
Here's a shot of what happened to our blue tent after we got out of it. Keep in mind that there was still 100+ pounds of firewood (in the hopes of the tent not blowing away) and all four of our bags full of clothes and shoes and other miscellaneous items. It was blown in the air several feet along the bushes.
I guess we should have paid attention when mother nature tried to warn us on Friday night that winds are coming.

Pros & Cons

Labor Day was spent mostly unpacking from our camping trip and washing then waxing all of the cars. We were done in good time and Daddy had the great idea to go out into the national forest and barbeque our dinner. This is one of the pros of living literally across the street from the national forest. We can do things like that on a whim and since it was late on Labor Day, most of the flatlanders had gone home already. We only saw a few hunters looking for dove on our way out there.Unfortunately, the con of the plan is that they don't let you have campfires up here due to the threat of wildfires. SO we packed up the hibachi, some burger fixin's and marshmellos then headed to the trees. All things considered, it was worth not having the campfire though. The kids got REAL dirty (which is good for them), we spent a bunch of time together (which is always good), and we got to do "going - going - gone" while watching the sun go down.

What to Make

First, for those of you who like sushi, but think plain 'ol rolls are kinda bland, buy some premade California or tuna rolls (like the ones Costco sells), take a frying pan and heat it up with a small layer of vegetable oil on the bottom. Dip your rolls into a mixture of breadcrumbs or cornmeal with seasonings (any will do), then set in the oil very shortly just to brown the breaded side of the roll. Voila, you get the texture and taste of a crunchy roll without the calories, cost or time taken to make them. It makes rolls that are merely "good" taste "great".

Second, I did a twist on a previously posted recipe. I took gingersnaps and put them in a food processor with mixed nuts (I used almonds & cashews) and a VERY little bit of margerine, just enough to make it crumbly. I processed the mixture then put it into oven safe dishes, smashed onto the bottom and lower edges. Then I cooked it at 350 for 15 minutes. Finally, remove it from the oven and add sliced fruit (I used banana) and fat free chocolate pudding. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.