Scrumptious

I found out last night during my nightly walk around the yard with Lane that the blackberries were ripe. Our blackberry bush is very overgrown and very thorny. Thorny isn't really even a proper description. The thorns are more like spikes, really, or maybe nails. Every year when I've gone out to pick the blackberries I return all scratched and bloodied. So last night I picked what blackberries I could easily reach and Lane agreed to get the rest in the morning. So this morning he donned his chain-mail and went out to pick the blackberries. Overgrown as it is, we got a good bunch of blackberries, more than I've ever had before in a single picking, and I got enough to make up a batch of jam. I've always before had to mix my few blackberries with strawberries, but this time I did straight blackberries. And what a mess it made!

So while my jam was "jamming," I proceeded with dinner prep. Tonight is our FHE dinner with Grandma, so I had planned on having Lane grill up some chicken. So I made up a marinade of fresh lime juice and zest, a little olive oil and some fresh herbs. I used basil, thyme and oregano. That was quickly done, so I went ahead and made up some bread, but didn't take any pictures because it was the same garlic and herb bread I've done before.

I then moved on to the pie. Taylor wanted a strawberry pie for her birthday yesterday, and I had intended to make it yesterday, but my strawberries turned ugly on me so I had to go get some more today. I wish that someone had told me years ago that pie was as easy as . . . well, as easy as pie. Now that I've discovered that little secret, we've had pie quite a lot.

My crust even rolled out quite nicely on the first try. Yeah, it usually takes me 2 tries.

Scrumptious - Extremely pleasing to the sense of taste.

July 27, 2009

Almost nothing in the world (except for corn on the cob) tastes like summer more than strawberry pie. Stop it! My mouth is watering again.

Joy

As the Meanest Mother in the World, I have meticulously spent the last week or so telling Taylor that due to all the costs involved in getting her into school, clothes, fees, etc., we just couldn't afford to get her a fun birthday gift, so we were going to get the fancy calculator she needs for geometry for her birthday gift. As the Dutiful Daughter that she is, she played along nicely, trying to understand the hard realities of family finance, trying to be respectful. Only once (and I tormented her with this DAILY) did she express dismay that school supplies are just not an acceptable birthday gift. I did my very best mom lecture on how life is full of disappointments and lots of other kids would be grateful to get a fancy calculator! So the day of her birthday she moped around. She moped while we got ready for church, she moped after church. Finally at dinner time I told her I was going to wrap her gift. Her response was why bother? She already knew what it was. I replied that at least it would make it a little bit exciting to have a pretty package to open.


So I went off to wrap her gift. I wrapped up the make up she had asked for, and signed the card from the family, on which I wrote a 7 digit number. I took her the little gift and the card, and she, still moping of course, took it and commented that it was a pretty small calculator. So she opened it up to find that it was the make up instead and made some remark about at least it's more exciting than a calculator. I pointed out the card. She read it, set it aside, and informed me I was standing in the way of her TV show. I asked her to read the card again. She read it again, smiled at the Far Side cartoon, and again set it aside. I asked her to read it again. Finally she noticed the number, but apparently didn't get it because Jack yelled out "It's a cell phone!" And she responded, "whatever." So the rest of us kind of smiled and started to laugh, so she got really excited that it was for real.

Joy - To fill with ecstatic happiness, pleasure or satisfaction.

July 26, 2009

Continuing on in my Meanest Mother in the World role, I had hidden the phone, so she had to go find it by calling the number. Naturally, Jack found it before she did and she is just so thrilled with the whole thing. We went over the rules and stipulations involved with having a phone, but I think she is up to the challenge and I am hoping this is a good opportunity for her to demonstrate her ability to be responsible.

But more importantly, how in the world did I get old enough to have a 14 year old?

Finally, when I went down to bed last night, I found Addie's best baby, Iddy, neatly tucked in for the night on my bedroom floor. When I asked Addie this morning about it, she told me that Iddy wanted to have a sleep over. How cute is that?

Play, Rich, Steep

Play - To take part in a game.

July 25, 2009

Tonight was Taylor's birthday party, so the rest of us were banished to the basement. We didn't have a whole lot to do, there's nothing good on TV on Saturday nights, so Jack and Addie played Lego Star Wars on Playstation while I balanced the checkbook and paid bills. How's that for exciting? And by "played," of couse I mean argued and fought.

Our group that made the hike so early on a holiday morning.

The valley view from the G.

Steep - Having a sharp inclination; precipitous.

July 24, 2009

My extended Walker family has a family reunion breakfast every year on the 24th. This year an invitation went out to all who were interested to hike to the G before breakfast. I hiked to the G a few times in high school, and it wasn't a bad hike, so I dragged Taylor and Jack along and we met up with the few other Walkers at 6 am and off we went. For reasons that are unclear, Calvin led us up a very steep trail to begin the hike. I'm not sure if he forgot what he was doing, or if he wanted to make it faster, but I burned up every ounce of energy I had climbing one steep section after another. The hike I remember was a lot of slight inclines with a few sharp ones here and there, and this just wasn't THAT! Part way up I thought I might have to just sit and wait for everyone to come back down, but with some encouragement I persevered and made it to the G. Nearly everyone else continued on up to the top of the G itsself, but I wasn't feeling so great so I just stayed where I was. I'm very proud of myself for sticking it out, and am anxious to go again, so long as we stick to the other trail. My apologies to all seasoned hikers for my weakness and shame.

Rich - Containing a large amount of choice ingredients, such as butter, sugar or eggs, and therefore unusually heavy and sweet.

July 23, 2009

My new baking mentor, Nicki Wilson, put this recipe (peanut butter truffle brownies) up on her blog and so I had to try it out. It turned out so good! It is super rich though, so even a sweet-aholic like me can only manage a small square. A big glass of cold milk washes it down nicely, though. A link to Nicki's blog is on the right side where my blog list is. It's called Shirley's Swirleys.

Learn

Learn - to acquire experience of or an ability or a skill in.

July 22, 2009

Jack likes to cook. He almost always helps me if he's around. Today was his turn to help with dinner again. You'll notice the girls never remind me it's their turn to help, but Jack always does. Anyway, he reminded me this morning that it was his turn to help again, but after I got home from work I had to take him and Addie to library class and then after that he went to his friend's house, so I didn't expect him home in time to help with dinner. Believe it or not, he came home from his friends house at 4:45 just to help me (we eat at 5:30). I was well into dinner prep by then, but he was just in time to stuff and roll the enchiladas. Yeah, yeah, I know. Enchiladas again. I had been looking in the freezer for something the other day and I found a dish of cooked and frozen sweet pork that has been in there for who knows how long, so I decided we would just have that for dinner today. I took the time to warm up the tortillas so they were easy to roll (I usually skip that step because I'm lazy), made up the lime rice and the pico, and everyone was happy. I made some creamy enchilada sauce as well since we've learned we prefer that kind over the tomato base kind. I filled 2 pans with enchiladas and we didn't have much left over.

I finished up that cross stitch. I'm still all gung-ho so I've got another one ready to begin. Christmas is coming, you know!

Countdown

Tonight as I was getting ready to go up to Pack Meeting, I heard a helicopter outside that sounded terribly low. So I peeked out the window and Life Flight was landing at the intersection right by my house. I ran outside to see what was up, and it turns out a little boy in our ward had been hit by a car. I had been downstairs so I hadn't heard the ambulance come. They loaded him in the helicopter and off they went. I have heard since that he is doing quite well for having taken the impact that he did, and we are all praying that things continue to go well. His parents are with him and other ward members have stepped in to take care of the other children. It is comforting to see everyone join together for a common cause. Lane is Cub Master, and after conferring with other members of the committee, it was decided to postpone Pack Meeting for a week. A fun evening of water games had been planned, but everyone was feeling pretty somber and more concerned with this little boy than having Pack Meeting. So they had a short discussion of bike safety and then a prayer and called it good for a week.

Countdown - The counting backward from an arbitrary starting number to indicate the time remaining before and event or operation.

July 21, 2009

Today is the magical 60 day mark before our cruise. It is at this point that I will start doing little things, here and there, to get ready. I have started, but not completed, my "Fun Pass" online. Around August 1 I will start my little pile in my bedroom of things that I don't want to forget, such as sunscreen, water wallet, Lane's Hawaiian shirts, stuff that I won't be using until the cruise. It warms my heart to see that little pile start to grow as the time grows shorter. I have my shore excursion for our first stop all lined up. We will be going to the Mayan ruins at Uxmal, but I don't have anything set for Cozumel. We have already been to Tulum, plus two trips to ruins on the same cruise might be a little much. We did the stingray thing in the Cayman Islands. Suggestions, anyone?

I thought I had put up my recipe for Pico de Gallo, but it turns out I didn't so here it is for anyone who is interested:

3 large tomatoes, diced

1 medium onion, diced

Cilantro - to taste, I don't measure it. Use fresh if you have it, put dried will do in a pinch

The juice of half a lemon (or a lime, which I prefer)

1/2 t minced garlic (I usually use 2 cloves because I love garlic)

1 t salt (I use coarse ground sea salt)

2 peppers - I use whatever I have on hand, sometimes just a bell pepper or canned chilis if that's all I have.

Mix it together and and serve

Pout

We went for a picnic tonight for Family Night in American Fork Canyon. We went up early, around 4:00 because the place fills up really fast, and Addie immediately set to work getting as dirty as she could. We washed her off once in the faucet before this picture, so this is dirty round 2.

Pout - to protrude the lips in an expression of displeasure or sulkiness.

July 20, 2009

No one would play with her, and we had to keep bringing her back from the river's edge, so she was sad.

She was positively filthy after a little while. She would use a sharp rock or stick to dig in the dirt, and then she would rub her face and eyes.

Addie, Jack and cousin Sager exploring the picnic area.

I picked my first tomato last night. It is decent sized, perfectly round and evenly red. I haven't eaten it yet, but I am looking forward to slicing it up and seasoning it up with salt and pepper. The neighbor even brought over some cucumbers I can slice up as well. He also brought 2 huge zucchinis, so I guess I'll be baking zucchini bread. My freezer is so full I don't know what to do with it. That is a subtle warning in case some zucchini bread should show up on your porch.

Request, Replicate

Replicate - to duplicate, copy, reproduce or repeat.

July 18, 2009

I used to cross stitch all the time. I forget who turned me on to this addicting little activity, but it was during my sophomore year at Snow College. The first thing I stitched was a Jordan River Temple which I sent to Lane on his mission. He kept it the full 2 years, and it is currently hanging in my sewing room. So over the years I have done a ton of stuff, but have not done much in recent years. I got back to it to make a gift for someone, and I was reminded how much I loved doing it, so after I made the gift, I started on this one for my mom for Christmas. Don't tell her.

Request - Express the need or desire for; ask for

July 19, 2009

All Lane wanted for his birthday this year was a banana cream pie. The sad thing is that his birthday was last Sunday. But in my defense, he spent his birthday weekend fishing and then all week long it was just one crazy day after another so I got it done today. I've never made one before, but it turned out great and every crumb is gone, inluding all the leftover pudding.

We had no Mythbusters to watch today, so I had my kids watch Ferris Buhlers Day Off. They liked that ok, but had fun at my expense pointing out all the huge hair and funny clothes. Then after that there was still nothing to watch so we got out my DVDs of The Wonder Years. That was, hands down, the best show ever on TV. I cry every time I watch the series finale. Why don't they make more shows like that?