homeofthebudds

A gazillion and one pictures of a certain someone's first smore's experience

Ahhhhh, bliss...

a little culture

We went to the symphony last night. It was another one of Dave's work events where he takes a client as a sort of "thanks for your business."

It was amazing. We had beautiful seats - I'm not sure there were better seats in the house. It was a cello concerto (I think?) and the music was just...spellbinding. (Did I just write a symphony was spell binding? I did. I didn't know I would think that.)

This is the kind of thing I can get into - in person. Just listening I tend to be distracted and even fall asleep, but when you're there and you're front and center and really there are no distractions because your seats are just that fabulous, it's pretty amazing.

 

Just before the symphony we stopped in at The Melting Pot - a fondue restaurant. I've never been to a fondue restaurant but I can say it's been on my list of places to visit. We just had enough time for the desert - (the important part) and, well, let's just say I'll be scouring the thrift stores for a fondue pot. Is there anything that's not better dipped in warm chocolate?

 

things I do on vacation - baking day

Today we went to Bob's Red Mill, among other places, and purchased a sizable amount of flour.

25 pounds.

That's a lot for a person who doesn't usually use the oven.

I'm toying with the idea of baking our bread so I thought having the flour pre-ground might be a good idea.

Today we did not bake bread.

Instead, we baked...

graham crackers! I was rather impressed with myself on this one. They're downright tasty.

The kids have awarded them the "just like the real thing" award. :)

We also baked cookies. And applesauce bread.

And then I got adventurous and actually cooked a dinner.

A new recipe.

A spinach lasagna with a fancy white sauce that I can't remember the name of.

But I can definitely tell you what goes into it. It took me a good 2 hours of solid cooking time to pull this dish together, but oh my word it was worth it.

I think I may have eaten more than my share.

Sunday goodness

This last Sunday, we went to Waffle Window which produces works of art like this, (Raw as I am, I can still appreciate the beauty here.)

...and like this. This little boy scarfed that waffle down. Everyone did really.

And then, after some church and some good naps all around (grown ups included) we drove along the gorge to Bridal Veil Falls.

If you're ever looking for a very short walk with a water fall at the end, this is the place for you.

The entire loop was 2/3 of a mile.

It was absolutely beautiful in that sort of way that's hard to capture on camera.

But we tried.

Family photo op!

Wendy took a coupla good ones for us.

See her way over there? Balancing a baby and a big camera on sharp rocks? Impressive.

And see Dave, who climbed to the top of the big scary rock? Impressive.

"Now, you see this pinecone....?"

"Hmph" says Kaia. "Yes, that's very interesting!" Says the always interested Auntie Wendy.

(Tell Wendy you like her hat. It's cute, huh?)

Good times.

Waffle window goodness.

Last night the kids had the wonderful idea that we should meet Dave at Waffle Window for dinner. Unfortunately for us, Waffle Window closes at 3pm. So after a quick run to the store for eggs, we opened our own Waffle Window.

Ellen took the orders and the money (Only a quarter each! What a steal!)

p>Dave and I worked the kitchen,

And the boys worked the food. Well okay everyone did.

Everyone but me that is. I stuck with the green smoothie. No more experimenting for me (at least for a while). This one is just spinach and mango and its actually not bad at all.

smoothies

I mentioned a while back that we got a Vitamix and that I loved it. I still do. I use it every day. At least once.

Every morning for breakfast we have a fruit smoothie. Or sorbet, really. I like them really thick. I get a lot of frozen fruit, or cut up what we have fresh and freeze it. I also froze some carrot juice and pop whatever I happen to see into the ol' Vitamix. It's pretty darn tasty. And the kids like having 'ice cream' for breakfast.

I've been thinking a LOT about how fun it would be to open up a little smoothie booth at our farmer's market. I'm a *touch* intimidated by the amount of work involved. But it keeps popping back in my head. Day after day.

In the past coupla days I've started incorporating some green vegetables to our morning combo, trying to make a green smoothie. The last two days I put in quite a bit of spinach and we had a pretty tasty brown smoothie. You can't even taste the spinach. Although every once in a while someone will find a small spinach leaf that didn't quite make it to the blade. We've determined that person to be the winner of the day. It always seems to be Ellen.

Anyway. tonight I made a truly green smoothie. It tasted acceptable. Not exactly awesome. But the color - it was the most disgusting smoothie color I've ever seen. I had to make a conscious effort to look away while I drank it. Brennan looked at it, made a face and shook his head. Pretty sure that one wouldn't make it to the market booth.  

Dinner cooking entertainment

Brennan was fussing and fussing and wanting to be carried everywhere one night when I was making dinner. Finally I gave him his own tools and set him to cooking up his own dinner. He got the spice jars open after a few minutes, so I wizened up and limited his choices to wheat berries the next time. Much easier to sweep up.

African feast

Last week, no wait, two weeks ago we started studying Ancient Africa. It's just one lesson in our book, but I've been dragging it out - spreading the suggested activities through lots of days.

One of the suggestions was to have an African feast. Before our dinner, we made some crafty things our book suggested. Here is our paper bead necklace/bracelet:

It was a little tricky for all the kids - so I did a lot of helping.

Brennan wanted to try too.

We also made some shakers, experimenting with different grains and beans to hear the different sounds they made.

For food we made "date balls" as we called them. They were much tastier than I expected. Tasty enough that I overdosed on them. I didn't take a picture of anything else, but the rest of our menu included Chicken with lemon and figs, papaya rice, and a banana date bar.

We invited our friends the Fox's over to share our feast.

Pretty fun times. :)

Chef Boyarbudd

Tonight while I was cooking dinner,

The kids were, too.

Brennan didn't tell me what he was making,

but Ellen and Isaiah were shouting out orders of "eggs and vegetables! Quick! I need another eggs and cauliflower!",

and asking "Were you the one who ordered the apple spice cider smoothie?"

Chuck E Cheese gets its own post

So yeah, we took the kids to Chuck E Cheeses tonight. Everyone else in our neighborhood had the same idea.

Ellen and Isaiah played a little air hockey. Ellen's perfected her goal scoring dance.

Isaiah didn't really care who put it in the goal.

Brennan was fairly nervous of the rest of the rides - but he loooooved the carousel.

*There's screaming at the start of this one - just so you know. Dave was encouraging them to make it realistic. And there's Brennan who doesn't look as thrilled as he started off, but still does not want to get off.

It was crowded enough that we did take the time to use up all of our tokens or stand in line to cash in our tickets or stand in line to find a toy. The kids were pretty unthrilled about that decision. Pretty super unthrilled. (it's a word. i like it.) But now we have extra tokens and coins for the next time we go. Which means we get to go again - woo hoo!