friday flashback 10.30.09

Happy Halloween Eve!

Can't pass a chance to put up another Halloween themed flashback picture. This one's going waaaay back...





Wow! I'm thinking it's about 1983? 84? Maybe 85?

Looks like I'm some sort of scary dead guy. Kyle's a ghost, and Kristi's a witch- those are pretty obvious. Kevin's could be lots of things- a red Zorro, an all red clown, a tomato, but he's none of those. He's a devil. That costume was around forever. Almost everyone had a turn wearing it. I believe my mom made it. It was nylon or something like that. Chances are, she probably made those witch and ghost costumes, too. Halloween was always a fun time.

When we were kids, the traditional Foutz dinner for Halloween was tater tots and taquitos. The reason being- they're both finger food. We would usually spend half the evening handing out candy as a family, doing our best to scarily answer the door for the trick-or-treaters, so we couldn't just sit down to dinner.

As for my young family, we're not usually home to fix up a nice crunchy batch of taquitos and tater tots. But for tradition's sake, I may have to make sure I eat some taquitos from somewhere while we're out tomorrow, to keep the tradition alive.

Have a safe and fun Halloween everyone.

some halloween stuff

Last week, Duncan really wanted to make a scarecrow. So I helped him find some pants and a shirt, and got him stuffing those with newspaper. I stapled the leg and hand holes shut to keep the paper in. Then we stapled the shirt to the pants. Next we stuffed a plastic grocery bag with newspaper and formed that into a head. Duncan drew a face, and we added a beany hat to finish him off.

Here's what it looked like.



Monday, when the boys got home from school, Anna dressed them in some costumes to wear while they did their homework. The costumes were in our Halloween storage boxes that we finally opened up that day. The hats didn't stay on long.

Last night we did our pumpkin carving. Here we are, all set up and ready to go. I thought there was a "middle" of our carving night, but nope, there's not.

Here are the finished jack-o-lanterns. The kids are standing behind the pumpkins they each designed. Again this year, we had them draw a face on the pumpkin and we helped them cut it out. It was a lot of fun.

This year, I made sure to save out most of the seeds, and toasted them. They're really good, but kind of hard/tricky to hull, so I'm not sure what I'll do with them other than put them in a bag and snack on them occasionally. I saw a recipe for making a pumpkin seed brittle, but you need 3 cups of hulled seeds for it. That would take me forever unless I figure out a quick and efficient way to hull the seeds.

So yeah, it's been a fun Halloween week. Monday, for family night, we baked cookies and decorated them to ding-dong-ditch deliver them to some of our ward friends. Tuesday the whole family went to mutual for a "spooky" dinner. Yesterday, pumpkins. Now I guess we better come up with something for the next couple nights to keep it going. Sounds like fun.

Here's Tegan singing "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas.

You're on the edge of your seat with anticipation about the garden, I'm sure, so let's see how it is this week, so you can relax again...


The wind is kicking up something fierce out here. So much so, that it's flipped the middle of this pumpkin vine over. It did the same thing during the past week, and I turned it back over when the wind stopped. I'll be doing the same thing this time too, except the wind it due to blow a little longer this time.


As you probably noticed, the vine above, that has flipped over, is the vine growing our biggest new pumpkin. From the previous pumpkins, we know it won't get much bigger than it is now, but it's still cool to grow our own. I'm thinking we might use these more as food than decoration.

Here's the other pumpkin that seemed to be doing really well last week, but this week, not so good. The yellowing is a bad sign. I'm sure that by next week, it'll be withered to practically nothing. On the bright side, there are two others, about half the size of this one, that are doing well. By next week, I'm hoping they'll be as big as this one.

Here's a shot of the corn growing in box 2. Most of them are about a foot tall, and a few of them have really long leaves. They're doing really well.

The corn in box 1 are doing really well too, but they're not as big as the other ones in box 2.

I checked the older zucchini plant today, and luckily for it, there are a couple of good prospects for harvestable fruit. If when those are done and picked, the plant doesn't have any other prospects, I may just pull it out to make room for something else. The newer plants have a good prospect too, but it may have the same fate. We'll see.

There are a couple tomatoes that are about 95% red, bu that may be as far as they go. I pulled off a few this morning that were either withering away or being eaten by bugs that weren't as red. I'll give them a few more days.

I think that pretty well covers it for this week.

monday music 10.26.09

Last night, I was talking music with my good friend Ian, and we somehow got to talking about Siouxsie and the Banshees, and how Robert Smith from The Cure used to be in that group, and so on and so forth.

Therefore, I've chosen to share a couple of songs I really like from them...

The embedding is disabled on this one, so clicking the link takes you to youtube to watch it...

Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Dear Prudence" (you can see Robert Smith in the video)


The Cure, "A Night Like This" (one of my all time favorite Cure songs)




Joy Division had a huge influence on those bands...
Joy Division, "Atmosphere"


That's probably enough for today. If you wanted, you could look into some New Order music. New Order sprang from Joy Division after Ian Curtis died. That would kind of be keeping with the unofficial theme from today... bands from other bands.

Have a happy music monday.

friday flashback 10.23.09

This one only goes back a few years, but it's seasonally appropriate...

As you can see, it's Halloween 2006. We're in Pasadena at Grandma and Grandpa McAlister's house for tick-0r-treating in their neighborhood. We were with Josh and Sara's family that night as well.

Duncan is a fireman, Liam is "Bob the builder", and Jennan is a fairy. I'm pretty sure I wore my Charlie Brown shirt, and I don't recall Anna wearing a costume.

I remember that our kids got tired/bored after doing just one street. The next year, Duncan did a little more. Here's last year.

We'll see how it goes for them next week.

one more thing

I meant to put this in the post about Anna's GSA trip, but forgot... until now.



There was a display where you could stomp on a pad, and see what it looked like on a seismograph. How could Anna resist?

Anna's GSA Trip

Anna returned home from her GSA trip almost 12 hours later than she originally planned, but she made it home. (Her flight was cancelled, got to stay in a Hampton Inn & Suites for a night, then caught an early morning flight.)

Regardless of the strange ending, she had a great time. When you get to do what you love to do, how can you not enjoy it? There are lots of different types of smiles... these are the smiles of someone truly happy to be where she is.

Here's Anna with Mt. Saint Helens behind her.


She took a small walk to the famous Voodoo Doughnut shop in Portland. She brought some home for me. Sure they were about 3 days old, but still pretty good. I'm sure they were awesome when they were fresh. Anna had one fresh, and she said it was REALLY good.

Anna with her poster, sharing her research.

Anna and the Columbia River Gorge.

Apparently, through the clouds/haze is Mt. Hood in the background.

Anna took almost 340 pictures during her trip. Less than 40 of those are non-geological pictures. If you get the chance to see any of them, you'll need to get used to the over use of the words- gorgeous, beautiful, awesome, amazing, sexy, doesn't do it justice, etc.

Anna enjoyed Portland so much, that she said it would be fun to visit as a family. From what she's said, it sounds like a cool place. Sounds good to me.

We're glad to have her home. Glad she had a great time.

tardy update

I didn't get a chance to post an update on our garden yesterday because I needed to run a bunch of errands early in the morning. Then Anna came home from Portland. We decided to go to Disneyland, picked up the boys from school, and didn't get home till late.

So here it is...

I've learned to appreciate bees. The plants won't produce anything if the bees don't come and pollinate them. Other bugs can do it too, but the bees are the most efficient. I even find myself being happy to see them. I do my best not to disturb them. Here are 3 on a pumpkin blossom.


This visitor was a lot less welcome. One day last week, I was looking over the progress of the garden, and there it was... a big ol' nasty garden spider. I wasn't too happy about it, but left it alone. I thought, maybe there's a good reason to have one of those around? (Like the bees)

I left it alone for a few days, but I couldn't think of a good reason to let it stay. In fact, I kept thinking of reasons it had to go. I didn't want it catching bees- I need those around. I didn't need it catching ladybugs- they eat the aphids, I need those around too. There were a couple zucchini growing under it, and if I was going to pick them, that spider needed to be gone. I hit it with a blast of bug spray (away from the veggies), and took it's web down. Glad to have it gone, but I'm on the lookout for others.

This is not the zucchini plant the spider was in. It's one of the two second round zucchini plants, and this is it's first full grown fruit. Hopefully there will be more like it very soon.

I picked these on Tuesday. The one in the center is from the picture above (It's about 10.5 in. long). The largest one is from the old plants, and the smallest of the three was under the spider.

The Lima bean plant that was started in Liam's kindergarten class has a bunch of pods on it (about 6-10). It was nice to grow it and all, but I don't think we'll put them to much use. Neither Anna nor I are big fans, and I doubt the kids would eat them. So, not quite sure what to do with them.

We have some new pumpkins growing! This one must not be from the vine I cut into last week. There are two that are all tangled up, so it's hard to tell which is which. The vine I slashed might be on the way out- at least most of the little ping-pong ball sized pumpkins are, so I'm assuming they were on that vine. The one below hasn't withered, so it must not be from that vine. It'll probably be ready by Thanksgiving.

Here's another one. It's from an early vine that never produced anything but "almosts", up until about a week ago or so. When they're ready, they grow fast. This one is easily visible from the kitchen windows. The kids like to look out at it.

I didn't take a picture of the corn, but they still look good. The tomatoes are still mostly red. Not sure what to do with those. The plant it's self, isn't looking too grand these days either.

There you have it. The latest garden news.

BYU game

Duncan and I had the chance to go to the BYU game in San Diego this past Saturday. There are some hardcore BYU football fans in our ward and they invited half the ward to come down to the game. I think between the ward and their other friends and family, there had to be at least 60 of us.

The majority of us were from the ward, and we all went down early to do some tail gate bbq-ing. I brought hotdogs for Duncan and I, and some cookies and chips to share with everyone. Others went a little crazy. One guy brought a couple pounds of scallops and a couple lobster tails that he cooked in a pan with 3 sticks of butter... my arteries clog just thinking about it. It got quite hot, but there were canopies for shade. Lots of space sharing going on.

Here's Duncan playing catch with one of the kids from our ward early on in the day. I only brought Duncan with me to the game. Anna's mom watched the rest of the kids. (Thanks again Bonnie, you're awesome!)



We sat about the 3rd or 4th row back in the endzone. I liked being that close. Here's the SDSU band playing while they honored the armed forces (marching in on the right), during pre-game.

There's Duncan and I enjoying the game.

Near the end of the game. I thought this shot would be a better representation of how close we were to some of the action, but it felt closer than this shows. It was nice to go to a game that the team we were cheering for won.

It was a fun day. The driving seemed to take longer than I thought it would. I knew it was about 2 hours, but it felt like 2 hours. BYU will play SDSU in San Diego again in two years. It might be fun to take the whole family next time.

Good times.

monday music 10.19.09

I don't know if these would be considered "guilty pleasure" type songs, but they are a little different than the songs I would normally choose to put here and exclaim that I like... but I like them. I just do.

First is Regina Spektor with "Calculation"


I think it's the ska type piano under beat that catches my ear first, but then I find that I really like the progression of the vocals too.


Here's Kevin Rudolf with "Let it Rock"
It must be the pulsating beat and the harmonies that perk my eardrums the most. The slight changes in vocals during the chorus and bridges help to keep it from becoming monotonous. I really wish the Lil' Wayne part wasn't there, it's beyond horrible and unfitting in the song.


Anyway, those are the songs for this week's music. There were a couple other songs that I might consider runner-ups for this week: INXS, This Time (INXS is a great 80s band), and Green Day, Jesus of Suburbia (It's like 3 songs in one. It's over 9 minutes long.)

Happy music monday.

friday flashback 10.16.09

It's the middle of October, and Halloween is only two weeks away, so I thought I'd share a Halloween picture from the past...

That's Kevin and I dressed up to scare trick or treaters. This is from when we all lived at the compound. I'm guessing it's from 2002 or 2003. Maaaaaybe 2004, I can't really put my finger on it. I do know it was after I took that theatre makeup course at PCC though. My makeup skills were vastly improved.

I remember people thinking we were a haunted house group, and almost walking into mom and dad's house. The yard was all set up, and we had the fog machine out. I think this might have been the last year I did anything like this. I'm sure I'll do it again sometime in the future when the kids are a little older.

So yeah. Happy Friday.

yummy to my tummy

Last night was Anna's last night in town till Wednesday. She'll be in Portland, Oregon at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting, presenting the research she participated in over the summer. She'll have five days of guided hikes, geological presentations, rooming with up to 4 other interested persons depending on the day, etc. So...

We decided to take the family out for dinner!

Originally the plan was to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings because I have a coupon for 6 free wings, but the Dodger game was last night as well. I called the restaurant to see how busy they were, and they were slammed. It would be at least an hour wait from the time we got there. Darn.

Earlier in the day, I needed to get gas in the van. I like to gas up at Sam's Club because it's usually cheapest there, and right next to it is a BJ's restaurant. Duncan had mentioned he remembered eating there, and why haven't we eaten there for a long time. So when we were considering an option B, I tossed out the BJ's idea. That was fine with Anna, so we loaded up the van with the kids and headed out.

Side note: I had a headache earlier in the afternoon that turned into a borderline migraine by early evening. I took pills a little too late, and the pain was ahead of the relief. Luckily it kicked in by the time we were at the restaurant.

We weren't sure what would be safe for the boys there other than we knew the fries weren't ok (Anna called ahead to ask if the oil used to cook the fries was also used to cook breaded items, and it is). So we stopped at the In-N-Out in the near by area for fries and hamburger patties (we had our own buns) for the boys. The girls shared an order of mini burgers from the kid's menu.

Anna continues to maintain her dieting efforts, and ordered a dinner salad that she said was pretty good. It was pretty big too. I continued my unofficial quest to find another New York Strip steak as good as the one I had at Texas Roadhouse in Arizona, by ordering the one on the menu at BJ's. It came with a huge baked potato. I remember having a steak the very first time Anna and I ever ate at BJ's years ago, and I remember it being quite good. Since then, every other subsequent time, we've been unimpressed... BUT, the New York was excellent! Great flavor, very juicy and tender. It was a joy to eat. That, with the baked potato and green salad was darn well close to a perfect meal. I washed it all down with a BJ's root beer and topped it all off with a root beer float to go. (After typing that all up, I'm ready for more.)

Funny story about the root beer float... It was pretty much determined that we wouldn't get a dessert because the boy's wouldn't be able to have any. As we completed our meal, I wondered out loud if they did root beer floats to-go. We shrugged. When the server came around to ask about dessert, Anna said no, and the server left to put our bill together. I didn't even get to ask about a to-go float. Anna's reply was something like, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry." A couple minutes later, the boys needed to use the restroom, so I got up to take them. Our server was a couple tables over, and as I walked by, I asked about the float to-go. He said they do, so I said I'd like to order one. Our trip to the restroom was successful. Upon our return to the table, I can see that there is no float waiting for me yet, but that's ok. I sit down, and Anna's smiling at me with a "you're so busted" smirk, and says, "Uh-huh... root beer float huh?" I smiled back. Turns out that the server walked by our table after I mentioned the float, and Anna flagged him over to order a float for me as a surprise, and he said I already asked for one. I guess I foiled her plans. I stole her chance to do something nice for me. I said I'm too used to having to do nice things for myself; She better start upping her game. We had a good chuckle over it.

It was a good dinner. The kids were behaved, the food was delicious, and we shared a laugh.

harvest

Today is garden update day...

Here's what I picked from the garden today. Two of the zucchini are from the original zucchini plant, and one is from the newer generation of zucchini growing in box 2. They all look great. The tomatoes are as red as they get. I've had my eye on these for almost a week. They're not getting any redder.


I picked the pumpkins today. Here's Tegan showing off the smaller one.

Here's Duncan with the larger one.

I hope I didn't ruin the vine they were on. When I cut the smaller one, I didn't realise I didn't cut all the way through when I picked it up, and it tore some of the vine. One of the other reasons it did that was I guess I didn't cut very straight either, and cut into the vine a bit as well. There are a handful of ping-pong ball sized pumpkin buds on there, and with my luck, I just killed them all. We'll see. By the way, the one pumpkin bud that was doing kind of well last week?... it withered away. So I won't be taking any pictures of the tiny possibilities till they really seem to be future pumpkins.

The corn is still alive. Maybe once the cold snap passes, the sun will boost their growth without it getting too hot.

That's it for this week.

what a day

Duncan was kept home from school with a slight fever he started on Friday, but he seemed to be doing pretty well. Anna had a meeting that took her out of the regular classroom for the day, and she was done and home before noon. We knew that Mindy and Carter were in town to visit Disneyland, and contemplated whether or not we should go, mostly due to Duncan being a little sick still, and probably taking Liam out of school early to have a couple more hours at Disneyland than we usually get.

Anna talked to Duncan about how he felt, and if he thought he would be ok if we went to Disneyland. He thought he would be ok, so we decided to go. We began getting ready.

One of the things we needed to take was medicine, in case Duncan's fever kicked up again, and we were very low, so Anna ran to Walmart to get more. While there, she decided to look down the costume isle just in case there was a medium size Mario costume. In case you didn't know, Duncan really wants to be Mario for Halloween (Liam will be Luigi), and we haven't been able to find one for weeks. Anna even almost was willing to pay $30+ for one online. Low and behold! There was a medium Mario costume right on the end! That's a relief. So, no matter what else happened this day... it would be ok because we had a Mario costume for Duncan.

We were packed up and on our way. We got Liam from school with out any problems. We picked up a tshirt order in Fullerton. And made our way to Disneyland.


Here's a picture of the kids hiding from me as I emerged from the restroom. They play this hiding game every time as we each take a turn using the restrooms at the tram depot.



We went into California Adventure first. We enjoyed the rides there. Here's a picture of Liam and Jennan while we were on the ferris wheel. This time we chose to go in a sliding gondola rather than a stationary one. The kids thought it was fun, but my equilibrium could barely handle it. I was uncomfortable during a lot of this ride. I wish I didn't have that problem, and I'm sure it'll get worse the older I get. Not looking forward to that.


Of course, after the ferris wheel, Duncan and I went on California Screamin'. We had picked up a handful of fast passes for it so Anna and I could both go on it with Duncan, he really likes that ride now. I ended up being first to take Duncan. I was not even close to being recovered from the swinging gondola, but it was my duty to go with Duncan so I sucked it up. That ride is not as fun when you're feeling dizzy. I was glad when it was over. Duncan had a blast.

While we were doing that, Anna took the other kids on the carousel right next door. Normally, I would take them for another turn on the carousel, but today... Nooooo way. We went and sat down to watch the take-off for the Ca. Screamin' ride, and ate our dinner till Mom and Duncan came back.

After these, we made our way over toward the entrance where we could meet up with my parents, and Mindy and Carter and some of Mindy's family. Carter is one cute kid. He looked at me a few times with this kind of "you sort of look like my dad, but you're not" look on his face. It was nice to see them. It had been a while. Shortly after meeting up, all but our family headed off to dinner in Disneyland, and we headed off to Disneyland too.

The main lost and found is right next to the entrances of Ca. Adv., and we were right there, so Anna checked the lost and found to see if our diaper bag got turned in. There were other people looking for items they lost as well. Once it was Anna's turn, she gave the description, and TA-DA, the clerk brought it out! The diapers, wipes, and medical cards, and fruit snacks were all gone, but there were hair clips, a pen, toy cars, chapstick, all still in it. First the Mario costume, and now the diaper bag. What a day.

Once inside Disneyland, we went on the Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh, saw our family at Cafe Orleans, Pirates, saw Fantasmic and the fireworks. At one point, we had parked the stroller and walked to some of those rides and then came back to the stroller. When we came back, there were two girls, probably 9-11 years old, sitting in our stroller as their dad talks on his cell phone right next to them. The girls saw us coming, and as they see me seeing them, they hop right out. I shook my head at them. I think they felt uncomfortable about getting caught, but their dad was oblivious to the whole thing. Who ever they were meeting showed up soon after that, and they left. Luckily, there was nothing wrong with the stroller.

It was crowded yesterday, but not crazy crowded. It was a nice trip.

monday music 10.12.09

For today's monday music, I searched for, and found, one of my favorite, if not my all time favorite, Yo Gabba Gabba animated music videos...



Yo Gabba Gabba! - Pick It Up (GOGO13)

WTFMySpace Videos


The group the song comes from is called GOGO13.

Hope you liked it too.

friday flashback 10.09.09

Found this little gem today...

In case you can't tell, we're standing on lava.

Actually, Kristi seems to be doing the "out run the lava" pose, and is technically not on the lava.

Keith seems to be doing the "look, I'm touching lava" pose.

Anna's got her thumbs up pose going.

Kyle looks like a lost tourist. Or it's the "How did I get here?" pose.

I don't think I was posing, I was just capturing the moment on my video camera of us being on the lava on the big island in Hawaii.

This is from the Hawaii trip in 2001. Some of us were able to island hop over to the big island for a couple days, and this was one of the things we did. Good times.

jacked!

And I'm not referring to an encounter with Mr. Skellington.


We finally got a chance to slip away to Disneyland yesterday. We haven't been back since the Fantasmic incident. Partly due to taking a break from D-land, but then we just couldn't make it work schedule wise.

We headed straight for the Haunted Mansion Holiday ride to see the Nightmare Before Christmas crew. It was about a 25 minute wait. Not that great, but not too horrible either. From there we headed over to the Winnie the Pooh ride since we were pretty close to it.

Here's the only picture we have from our visit. And oh boy, it's a keeper!

Fun ride. We got back to the stroller, and the kids wanted a drink, so I dug out some apple juice drink boxes from the stroller basket, and realised that the diaper bag was gone! It was hanging from the handle and would sit right at the opening of the basket. LAME! As Anna and I quickly discuss it, Duncan becomes aware of the theft and almost gets emotional about the bag being gone. We explained that sometimes these things happen, and so on.

Luckily, there wasn't anything too important in there. Really, it was diapers and wipes, a handful of fruit snacks, a couple small toys, A&D, tissue, nothing worth stealing. The kids' Kaiser cards and immunization records were in there, but Anna says those aren't that big a deal. As we made our way to the Pirates ride, I noticed a fruit snack on the floor like the ones we have, and upon inspection from Anna, it was unopened. It probably fell out as they looked through the bag. Knowing it was a waste of the theft's time, we hoped they would ditch the bag somewhere findable, like a restroom, or along the walk way. Maybe a cast member would find it and turn it in to Lost and Found. We didn't stress over finding it, but we did look as we walked, and did check restrooms we happened to pass. Before we left, we did check out Lost and Found, but there were no bags fitting our description. They hold items for 2 weeks, so we'll go back and check again, just in case.

We did stop to watch the fireworks show. It was pretty good. We also made our way to Small World after the fireworks since 80% of the people in the park were headed out and we didn't need to be a part of that. The line was a little long, but not for us...

Actually, when we first got into Disneyland, Anna took Liam over to the City Hall to see about getting a pass for special needs kids. We decided to try it out. We would only use it for really long lines and when the kids are a bit restless. I took the rest of the kids with me to the Haunted Mansion and got in line. Anna used the pass to meet us at the entrance to the ride, and then we used it to get on Small World. It was about a 2 minute wait as opposed to a 20 minute wait. It was quite nice actually.

So yeah, first time back since our last poor experience, and jacked during this visit... what the heck?!

We may go back as early as tomorrow (I have a shirt order that needs picked up in Fullerton), or next week, Monday or Wednesday.

hortus

hortus=Latin for garden

This week I put in a "Y" hose adapter. This way one hose is exclusively for the garden, and the other for the yard. The back yard grass has really suffered this summer because as the garden plants got bigger, it became more difficult to unattach and reattach the hose to the drip line, so I just left the hose on the drip line. The grass and the citrus trees haven't been getting much water. But now that will change!



I believe I've mentioned it a couple times, but here's the little pumpkin bulb that's not withered away yet. Maybe it's because the weather has cooled as to why it's still here. Of course, I've jinxed it now, and to be honest, it's looking a bit yellow, which isn't a good sign. It's about the size of a cherry tomato.

I saw this one today. It's on a vine that's growing near the back fence where we dug out the slope. It's about the size of a marble.

Here's the large pumpkin. It's the same size as the last few weeks, so it's probably not getting any bigger. Might need to pick this soon- 'Tis the season.

Same for this smaller pumpkin. No change in size. Probably just needs picked.

Here are the corn seedlings. They seem to be doing rather well. Glad to see that.

Here's a shot of some of the tomatoes that are turning red. Most of them are speckled still, or a bit orangy. I think I might pick some soon though so they can finish ripening inside.

There you have it. The zucchini have slowed down. There are 2 fruits that will be ready for picking in a few days or so. So that's it for this week.

hooray for tasty GFCF treats!

Last night we had Family Home Evening. That's not such a big deal, we have FHE almost every week...


But the tasty treat afterwards was a big deal to us!



Anna needed to stop by the health food store to pick up some specialty items we use for the boys, and as she was picking those items up, she saw a display (or maybe they were just on the shelf) for gluten free ice cream cones!! Anna's glee was heard throughout the store as she gazed upon them.

Duncan and Liam haven't had ice cream cones since they began the diet well over a year ago. We used to have ice cream cones rather frequently before then. Duncan especially liked ice cream cones and was bummed that he couldn't have them anymore. It bummed us out too.

Anna was super excited about the cones, but one thing remained... will the boys like them? For our tasty treat/refreshments, I made a batch of GFCF vanilla ice cream. I thought we'd just scoop it out as usual, and put those scoops in the cones. Anna was WAY ahead of me... she had already planned to put the ice cream in one of her frosting bags with a large star tip, and pipe the ice cream into the cones!

They looked exactly like the soft serve cones you can get at any number of places. Duncan's face lit up as he was handed his. Anna almost got "happy" tears.




There was no hesitation in devouring those cones.

Needless to say, the cones passed the taste test with flying colors! Duncan even declared they taste better than the regular cones he used to have. Liam was never a big fan of eating the cone part, but likes having a cone, so that made him happy. Funny thing about all this is, Anna had just tossed out our box of regular cones a couple weeks ago because Duncan would see them and ask for one and she always felt bad saying no. Now that we have the GFCF cones, there were no regular cones for the girls. So they got to have GFCF cones too. Now regular cones are on the shopping list.

A small triumph we had to share.

monday music 10.05.09

I don't know why I thought I'd be able to not do the monday music anymore. Silly me.


One of my current favorites...

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Shade of Blue" (this is a fan video)



And here's a pretty decent live version of the same song...


I think it's the harmonies that really put this song over for me. Of course the thick overly distorted chords, and the pulsing drum beat as the foundation for those harmonies, really makes the harmonies shine. And for that matter, the piercing guitar lines too.

weekend round-up

Here's some stuff that went down this past weekend...

We went to the drive-in to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Hotdogs, french fries, popcorn, and we're ready for the show. The movie was pretty silly, with some weird and funny parts. The kids seemed to like it. G.I. Joe was the double feature, and we had seen that one before, so we weren't sure we'd stay for it, but Duncan wanted to watch it, so we stayed. He, as well as everyone but me, fell asleep before it was half way through. Anyway, it was a fun night out, and for $16 for 6 of us, it's not a bad deal. The next movie we want to see is Where the Wild Things Are.



We watched General Conference this past weekend. We only missed the Saturday morning session due to karate and errands. Sunday, as we were watching the second session, somehow Duncan ended up wanting to brush Anna's hair, so she let him. It was pretty interesting to see how he thinks it's done. There were a couple times I thought for sure Anna was going to end up with a tangly mess, but luckily, that wasn't the case.

After a while, Jennan wanted in on the action, and got Anna's pick to help. Those kids love their mommy.

Later that day, Anna was determined to get Duncan's tooth out. They spent a bit of time aggressively wiggling the tooth. Duncan was game at first, but soon changed his mind. Anna convinced him to let her try the lasso method again. The first attempt Anna tugged, but the lasso came off. I think Duncan was not too happy with the lasso method anymore at that point, but Anna talked him into in again, and POW, out it came. After a couple moments to regain his composure, and some sweet talking from mom, Duncan emerged from the bathroom with his tooth in hand, and happy to show it off.

Hope your weekend was as fun filled as ours.