Snow Time is here!

Well the snows have finally started falling in our neck of the woods. We had a pretty good storm a couple of days ago, but most of it is now melted away. Luckily the mountains still have plenty and it looks like the ski season will get under way shortly. This is good news, as my parents got a season pass for Liam this year to ski. We already bought a set of skis and we just need to get him some boots for the winter now. He should be all set to go after that. I am thinking that we will head up the mountain some time in the next two to three weeks and ski a day or three.

My sister-in-law is moving in with us while he husband, Russ, finishes up their new house. We are finishing out our bathroom in the basement for her as well. She is 7 plus months pregnant so it will be nice that she doesn't need to climb up the stairs to go to the bathroom 10 times a night.

I am tired, the kids were up a lot last night. Liam was kinda sick with a sore throat and Darius ended up throwing up three times. We have a lot of laundry to do today. So sad. I think he was feeling better this morning. To make matters worse, ViviAnne was also sick with a head cold last night. I think they will all make a recovery today though.

Go Cougs! They beat the Zags last night.

Turkey Day, You Bet!

November has long been one of my favorite months. It has Thanksgiving, a holiday devoted to eating good food, it has the beginnings of winter, and the anticipation of ski season and Christmas holidays. It is the best and consequently busiest months of the year. Only two posts so far this month!

We had a good five day Turkey break with dinners at both my parent's house and ViviAnne's parent's house. After dinner at my parents we went down the street to visit the Hollands. Liam built a crazy domino tower with Josh while we chatted for a couple of minutes. I also spent most of Saturday helping Russ and Autumn do electrical work in their new house. I have a couple of pictures form the long weekend to share as well. I will try to post one more this month, but you never know, you may have to wait until December.


I made Cheddar Beer Bread last night in the bread maker. Mmmmm!

Do ya Doula

I spent yesterday evening at ViviAnne's doula association meeting. It was a lot of fun and I am glad that they invited me to join them. They have asked me to build them a simple website to promote their association and I agreed. They are a great group and I think that they will enjoy having a little website as well. I even started making the pages up and will continue developing them over the next couple of weeks. I will add a link here too, once the site is live and kick'n. ViviAnne also meets with a birthing class tonight to discuss her doula service and the Bringing Baby Home parenting classes that she is now trained in.

My sister-in-law has surgery this Friday and I am hoping that everything goes well. ViviAnne is making a lasagna for Shynne's family to eat and my mother-in-law is going to go take care of her on Thursday. My sister, Vera also arrives on Saturday, but will spend a couple of days at the cabin with my parents before coming down to visit with us. I think the plan is to all have Thanksgiving Dinner together on Wednesday with my family and then on Thursday with ViviAnne's family. If we end up going to Shynne's, we will also go see the festival of lights on Friday night. It is a great event where the whole downtown area gets it's Christmas lights turned on and there is a fireworks show over the lake as well. Should be fun.

Holloween and Darius's Birthday

Candy time has come and gone in our house. We went out trick-or-treating on Halloween night. The kids got a couple of buckets of candy and we brought it all home and sorted it all out. It was fun, and all in all, they didn't get to crazy from eating it all over the next 5 days. Partly because, ViviAnne and I snuck most of it in the evening when they were asleep. Hee hee. Mmmmmm candy.

We had a birthday party for Darius on Sunday, a couple of days late, but he was sick on his actual birthday. We made chocolate pudding for him, and he loved it. We also had a couple of presents for him to open as well, like a little scooter to ride around on and some books and little push and pull toys. He has made an almost complete recovery from his surgery two months ago, which is fantastic.

Most of the yard is put away for the winter now too. I spent some time taking down all the garden a couple of weeks ago and mowing the grass and weeds around the house, so everything is ready for snow. Well, all most, I need to go around the yard and pick up toys and tools that the kids have strewn about every were, but then we will be ready.

Morgan likes my Thai food

Morgan couldn't come over last night, but Mike and Heather brought her a plate of my food that I had cooked. She called me around 9:30 and said that she was only going to try a little before going to bed, but that she couldn't stop eating it, because it was to good to put down. That made me think of Granny, whenever anyone complemented Granny about her food like that, she would say, "You may come again." with this sweet little southern voice.

So Morgan, "You may come again."

I survived the weekend

I made it through the weekend. ViviAnne had a great time in Seattle at her workshop and I had a great time with the kids. I ended up going three full days and four nights watching them. That is the longest I have been with them by myself. Pretty long time actually. I think that ViviAnne's longest by herself has been 6 days, that is beating my 40% but that is fine. She takes off again this weekend for a girls night up in Cd'A. But this Saturday should be a cake walk compared to the whole weekend.

My key to survival was to keep them, and myself, busy. We went to the Science Center one afternoon, and another day we carved pumpkins. My mother-in-law was also nice enough to watch them most of Saturday afternoon to I could work on my brother-in-law's remodel with him. That was nice.

Mike, Heather and Morgan are coming over for dinner tonight. I am going to make Cashew Chicken, Fried Rice and Tempura. Should be wicked good eats. I will post the Cashew Chicken recipe soon...

So you say it's your birthday!

Today is my birthday, I am 32. It has been a nice day so far. I spent the morning sleeping in a little with my wife and then had some doughnuts and coffee with Liam and ViviAnne. I am looking forward to my birthday dinner with my parents, granny and parents-in-law tonight. We are having roast and Granny made a Heavenly Hash Cake. I will try to get the recipe for this cake, it is possibly the best confection ever. I know that the kids went to the dollar store yesterday to get me a present, so I am looking forward to see what they got for me. I think it is some type of chocolate, but I am not sure. I also think that my parents might be getting me a skill saw, which I have wanted for some time.

My mother-in-law is making me cookies, chocolate chip. These are the best cookies in the world. I have had a lot, and I have seen the recipe that she uses, nothing extravagant or different, just your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Man do they turn out good, it is amazing. I have had a lot of cookies and I have no problem saying that her's are the best. Hands down, she would beat the pants off Betty Crocker in a cookie bake off. I wish I had a picture of them, I will try to get one.

Well that is all for now, happy birthday to me!

Quick Fried Rice - Thai Style

Hello friends and family. Last night I whipped up a quick and easy veggie fried rice. Here is the shake down.

3 cups cooked Basmati Rice
1 onion (sliced)
1 head of broccoli (cut into small pieces)
1 carrot (sliced with a peeler)
1 can of bamboo shoots (sliced)
2 Tbsp of Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp of Soy Sauce
2 tsp of Fish Sauce
3 cloves garlic (diced)
2 eggs
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

In a wok, heat about 3 Tbsp of olive oil and then add your garlic, saute for about 30 seconds and add your sliced onion. After about a minute add in your broccoli, carrot, bamboo, Oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce. Stir fry for about three minutes on med high heat. Salt and pepper to taste. Add a little more oil and scramble your 2 eggs in the middle of the stir fry. Add in your cooked rice and a 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro. Fry for 5-6 more minutes stirring every couple minutes.

This would also be great with sliced chicken, beef or shrimp and crab. Serves about two hungry adults and two kids. This is a great stir fry to go along with main courses as well, like pork chops or some other type of chicken or beef stir fry.

Chicken Fajita Eggroles

Yesterday I made chicken fajita egg roles for dinner. Here is the recipe.

1lb of chicken
2 portabello mushrooms
3 avocados
1 sm can of green chiles
1 egg
1 package of egg roll wrappers
olive oil and a fajita spice packet

Boil chicken and then shred with a fork. Put a little olive oil into the skillet and combine chicken, fajita spices, can of green chiles and a 1/4 cup of water. bring to a simmer for a couple of minutes. Slice your mushrooms and avocado into thin slices about two - three inches long. Wrap a scoop of the fajita mixture, a couple of avocado slices and mushroom slices in the egg roll wrap, seal it with a little whipped egg. Continue making the egg roles until you run out of stuff or wraps.

In a large skillet or wok, bring about a cup to 2 cups of oil to mid-high heat. put your egg roles in the oil and crisp on both sides. I like the color to be like caramel. remove with your fingers, ha ha, just kidding, use a big slotted spoon or tongs.

Serve with a little sour cream and salsa. These turned out pretty good, but the next time I do it, I am going to add in an onion, cilantro and lime juice to the fajita mix. I might also make a variation where I take out the mushroom and add in a slice of cheddar or pepper jack cheese. I think this would be marvelous!

Connecting the dots

Kids say some of the funniest stuff. Yesterday we all went on a hike and then to the grocery store. In the van Liam said,

"Mommy you are going to have another baby."

"Why do you think that?", ViviAnne said.

"Because your tummy is big." Liam said. ViviAnne got a little sad look on her face, but then said, "That is just leftovers from the last baby."

Liam, "I guess we will eat your tummy for dinner."

What in the heck, that was out of left field. ViviAnne and I started laughing. We both said, "What do you mean?".

Liam said, "You know, leftovers for dinner."

Oh man, I was rolling, it is so funny how kids minds work, to connect English jargon like that together. Hilarious!

TTFN

Zucchini Parmesana

As you may have read earlier, we had a garden this year. It did pretty well and I learned a lot about gardening, so next year it will be even better. We got some zucchini from a friend and it had been sitting on the window sill for a couple of days and I suggested to ViviAnne that we could make eggplant parmesana, but with the zucchini instead. It worked out great and here it is so you can enjoy it too:)

big zucchini
olive oil
Italian breading
1 egg
spaghetti sauce (from a jar, its easier)
mozzarella and Parmesan cheese

Warm the olive oil in a pan. My wife was telling me what she did when she made it and she actually said, "Gently warm the olive oil so as to not harm it's integrity." What? I couldn't stop laughing. Anyways, do that, then cut up your zucchini into 3/4 inch slices (no need to measure the exact thickness). Dip the slices into your egg, coat in bread crumbs and sear both sides in the olive oil. Put 1/3 of your spaghetti sauce in a 9x13 baking dish (stone or glass), place seared zucchini into dish and top with sauce and cheese. You may layer this if you wish:). Bake at 350 until tender.

I love this stuff, and you will too. It is even vegan, so my friend Robert can eat it. Oh, crap, it has cheese, never mind. Your loss Rob, your loss...

Taped Delay

Ok, So I am back from my two weeks off. I really took them off too. I rarely checked my email and didn't do any blogging at all. Too bad for you I know! Darius has made a fantastic recovery. At our two week appointment after the surgery, the doctor said that his mouth is healing perfectly. That is good news for us for sure. It has been a little difficult the past two weeks keeping him from putting his fingers and stuff he picks up in his mouth but we have persevered. We still have to go until November before he will be allowed harder foods, but he doesn't seem to mind all the pureed stuff:)

I have a nut cake recipe for you today, in fact it is Mrs Wilder's Nut Cake. I asked my grandmother who Mrs. Wilder was, thinking that it was some exotic french chef of some kind. But no, just the lady down the street, Mrs. Wilder. Nice, she does have a mean nut cake recipe though, so here you go:

7 eggs (separate yolks from whites)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 cups walnuts (ground)
1/2 lemon (juiced)
3 1/4 oz semi sweet chocolate (ground)
1 Tbsp Rum extract (or if you want you can use real Rum)
3 Tbsp bread crumbs

Some kind of jam to put between the two cakes.  I have used apricot, raspberry and fig jams, and I have to say the fig is my favorite.

Combine 7 egg yolks and sugar and blend. Add in the remaining ingredients except 7 egg whites and mix. Whip your egg whites and then fold into the mixture. Poor into two 9-inch cake pans. Line your pans with parchment paper first, or your cake will fall apart when you take it out of the pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. It is going to come out very soft so be careful when you take the cakes out of the pan.  Once the cakes have cooled a bit, spread your jam over one of the cakes and then top with second cake.  Proceed to chocolate sauce below...

Top with a chocolate sauce:
6 1/2 oz semi sweet chocolates
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup milk

In a double boiler, melt chocolate, butter and milk together until smooth. Poor over the cake.

I am thinking that the best way to eat this cake would be slightly warm. So enjoy. Picture soon:)

Recovery

Darius is doing great and has tons of energy. He woke up this morning and was ready to eat, he ended up finishing off a whole jar of sweet potatoes in one sitting around 11:00AM. That is good and might mean the we will be able to head home a little early. We'll see though. We have gone on a couple of walks and he is saying hi to everyone that see him, and even waving as people pass by us. It is pretty cute I must say.

The doctor has not yet stopped by, so hopefully once she sees how well he is doing she will be inclined to let us go. It is kinda tough to be in the hospital room all day, pretty boring for ViviAnne and I and very boring for Darius. There is not much for him to do here and he is getting pretty antsy.

Surgery

8:35AM - My son is in surgery. Right now. They (the doctors) took him away about a half hour ago. I kissed him on his head as he went in to have the cleft in his pallet repaired. The surgery is suppose to take around 3 hours. I am happy that so many people have called us and talked to us today and yesterday offering up prayers for Darius and ViviAnne and I. It warms my heart! I took a picture of him this morning before he went it to surgery.
Amazingly, he slept through all the pre-op for the surgery. They even had to draw blood for an HnH test and he slept through that as well. (My friend Mike just called too. We have good friends, no doubt.)

11:36AM - Darius is still in surgery, but will be out shortly. Updates say that he has done well and the the surgery has gone well. It is a little over the estimated time of three hours, but not unusually long for this type of repair. Right now ViviAnne and I are sitting in the waiting room and waiting for the doctor to come in and tell us how everything went in some detail. Maybe in 30 minutes or so.

1:05PM - Well, it was more than 30 minutes, but he is done with his surgery. We spoke with the doctor and she was very pleased with how well it all went. She said that she feels that the repair is very good and that he was just great throughout the whole process. Right now we are still in the waiting room anxiously awaiting Jan, who will take us back to see him once he is starting to wake up. The doctor said that he did wake up, but he tore out the IV, so they put him back under general anesthesia to put a new one back in. So he is at least as feisty as ever:) So, his total time in the surgery was around 4:30 hours. A little long for two fretting parents, but we will survive. Luckily, there is a bed in the room that he will be in, so ViviAnne or I will be able to stay the night with him.

We also know that for the next day he will be on liquids and then tomorrow afternoon, we can start to introduce some pureed foods. If all goes well we may be able to leave a little earlier than we thought. It all depends on him, he is tough!


4:19PM - We are now in the recovery room at Sacred Heart. He is in the intermediate care unit. His pain is pretty high, and he is on a pretty steady cocktail of drugs to keep him pain free and sleepy. I have a picture of him here... Let me explain all the cords. First, after getting out of surgery, he pulled out the IV. Then he got really pissed and it took the nurses 7 tries (30 minutes) to put it back in, so he has quite a few needle pokes in his arms and legs. They ended up getting an IV into his neck and have taped it up and even sutured it in place. Yes, that's right, they stitched his IV to his neck. Fun. There is also a suture in his tongue with the thread still attached, so that if there are some breathing problems they can pull his tongue out of the way to help him breath. He managed to already get his fingers tangled up in the thread and started to pull on his tongue. That was not pleasant either. Now he is sleeping though and the discharge and mucus from the repair site is subsiding. We also put socks on his hands and taped them on so he can't get them into his mouth or get his fingers tangled up in the cords or stitch in his tongue. We will try some liquids tomorrow morning I think.

8:50PM - Well, good news for us, Darius started drinking liquids already. He had kinda woke up for a bit, but was pretty fussy, and we just kinda decided to try it. He ended up drinking about 5oz of pedialite. He did great too, actually taking drinks like a normal person with a normal pallet. It was fun to watch and then he was in a good mood for a couple of minutes and I was able to play peek-a-boo with him for a little bit. He was smiling and everything. Very good!

I am signing off for tonight, will talk more tomorrow and post a recipe for a couple of days ago:)

It happened at the Fair

Hey Y'all!

Me and the family went to the county fair this weekend. It was fun. We started off with some tractor climbing activities and then moved over to the rides. I think this was Liam's first roller coaster ride. I was going to go with him, but the seat was so small that I couldn't fit. It was just for little kids anyway:) He went right to the front and sat behind a big dragon head.
It was pretty cool! Luckily, our neighbors were also there and Liam and Kiara rode on a car together with Asa. His very first ride also. Now that I think about it, they went on bumper cars a couple of weekends ago, while we were in Joseph, OR. Lots of rides lately for them:)


After we used up all our tickets, we headed back to the tractors and got some food to eat. I like fair food, everything is fried! We headed back home around bedtime. It was a good trip.

First Day of Kindergarten

Liam had his first day of school yesterday, Wednesday. I think it is a little hard as a parent to let your kid go off to school, out of your nest, so to speak. In fact, he wanted to ride the bus to school by him self yesterday morning too. I don't think any other little kids were on it, just him. ViviAnne ended up meeting him at the school just before the bell rang to start classes. Ha, I say classes, but there is only one class. She wanted to see him off and take some pictures. I am so glad that he wanted to ride the bus, and really proud of him. That is a big deal to ride all by your self and he just did it. With out any fan fair or anxiety, it was pretty amazing. I think that he must have felt pretty comfortable because of all the bus riding that him and I would do after pre-school last semester.

After he got home, I took him and Asa and my niece out for ice cream. They and I loved it, Liam got to tell me about his day while we all watched people clean up after making cheese.

Salmon with Avocado Salsa

I love to eat fish. I remember when I was young, really young, my dad would feed me fish from his plate and I would eat all of his fish. My wife and I came up with this recipe a couple of years ago. It is an interesting pairing: Salmon and avocado, but delicious.

1 lb of salmon fillets
1 lemon
1 lime
2 avocados
1/4 a red onion (a small hand full)
small hand full of cilantro
tomato
citrus and basil rub from Pampered Chef

Put the fillets in a baking pan and preheat the oven to 350. Apply a liberal amount of the Pampered Chef Citrus and Basil rub to the salmon and then squeeze the lemon over the salmon. Put in oven for 20 minutes or so.

Peel and de-seed the avocados and put into bowl. Mash them up a bit. Dice the tomato and red onion and put into bowl with avocado, add chopped cilantro, salt, pepper and the rest of the juice from the lemon to taste. Slice the lime and cut the peel off and discard. Chop the lime and add to the bowl. Mix well.

Remove the salmon. One your plate put a heaping spoon full of salsa and place the salmon on top. Serve with a rice pilaf or potato and veggie. My kids like broccoli, so we always seem to serve broccoli. I like it with asparagus too.

Summer Cabin Trip 07

Each and every year my good friend Josh Holland has a cabin trip in August. His parents' cabin is in the Wallowa Mnts, right at the base of Mount Joseph, named after Chief Joseph. He has been doing this for quite some time now, more than 12 years I think. I have been to about 6 or 7 of them, half is pretty good considering that we had three kids in the last five years. He use to do it on the same weekend as the Blues and Booze festival, but it got to be to crazy in Joseph and around the lake, so he moved it to the week before WSU starts classes.

The Eagle Cap Wilderness Area offers some of the best hiking and backpacking in the U.S. I have only been a couple of miles in, but plan on backpacking it fairly extensively once my kids get a little older. The surrounding area also has some great little rivers and creeks for fly fishing Rainbow, Brook and Brown Trout. The lake itself, at over 300 ft deep has Lake Trout, but you are going to need a boat and down rigger equ. to fish it. I might try fishing the shores this weekend with Liam.

We got a flat tire on Saturday evening around 7:15PM. We were able to make it back to Josh's cabin but we didn't feel comfortable driving 90 miles back to Lewiston on the donut tire. So we will be going back down again this Friday. We will take all the kids this time and maybe Katie, Darcy and Charlotte to stay the night and play at the lake on Saturday morning. Liam really wants to go fishing, so I think I should take him out early in the morning and try the lake a little after dawn.

Fun weekend! and I am looking forward to another.

Thai Turkey

I can't believe I finally did it. I made a Thai Turkey. It was pretty good. I ended up just doing the turkey and not all the other stuff, but it was fun. Here is the recipe.

8 lb Turkey (defrosted)
3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp honey
3 tsp sesame oil
3 tsp soy sauce
3 dried red chili peppers (chopped w/ seeds)
6 garlic cloves (chopped)
3 tsp Five Spice
3 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all the stuff up in a bowl (you can use a food processor if you like) and then rub it all over the bird, inside and out. Put a little bit of water in a roaster pan and then put in a rack. Place the bird on the rack, cover, and cook for about 2 hours. Serve with your favorite thanksgiving foods (potato, beans, stuffing, corn).

I think that I might try this one for thanksgiving. I was thinking with a saffron rice with potato tadehk, pumpkin and sweat potato curry, spicy Thai green beans and asparagus... I am getting hungry.

Preparing for a big feast

Cooking something new is pretty fun for me. Two thanksgivings ago, I made a Thai Roast Duck. It was very good, but it got me thinking that I could do better. So, ViviAnne got me a turkey a couple of months ago. I took it out of the freezer yesterday and I think that I will cook it up on Friday. I was thinking a Thai Roast Turkey (using the same recipe from the Roast Duck), with a saffron rice and some other semi traditional Thai/Thanksgiving combinations, like sweat potato curry and a spicy green bean/asparagus stir fry. I suppose I should invite some people over to enjoy the food, but then again, maybe not. Maybe I will eat it all my self and make everyone jealous:) Ha!

Trips to the River

Vivi and I have gone to river a lot this summer. Maybe four or five times sense May. That kinda doesn't seem like a lot, but it is. Our summers are packed and getting away with the kids is hard to do, plus it is a lot of work. Speaking of the kids, they have been little hellions lately. Mainly just Liam, he can really push my buttons, how the heck do they know exactly what to say to piss you off. Really, it is pretty amazing that they are so intuitive. We went to the river on Sunday, for about five hours with friends (Robert, Heather, Morgan and Nathan). It is was good fun. Plus I got to sit in the water with Darius. He is hilarious in the water, just splashing around with a huge smile on his face. I think he might be a swimmer some day. I need to get boat. That would be mucho fun as well. Vivi wants to get one too, maybe in five or ten years:) At least the kids would be older and really able to enjoy it a bunch. We bbq'ed cheddar dogs and ate watermelon, very traditional river food if I say so myself. I think that I need to take Liam on a camping trip, he would really enjoy it just him and I. Maybe in Sept. and we could go fishing at the same time. Something to think about...

Evening at the Park

I took Liam, Asa and Darius to the park last night. Darius slept the whole time, so I was able to play with Liam and Asa on the swings and slides. Fun. Here are our pics from last night.

We try to go to the park at least once a week, it is nice to get them out of the house and able to run around where there is some stuff to play on. We still don't have much in the way of a lawn at our place. I would love to have the time and money to build them a fun play set, or even to get a giant trampoline, but it is not going to happen for a while. Maybe in a couple of years once Darius has grown up a little and ViviAnne has started working again.

Tomorrow is my anniversary, which I am looking forward too. 7 years and counting. It is nice to think about it. I have loved every moment and look forward to many more years. We are going to head over to Moscow and have dinner at The Red Door. It is a pretty nice place and then we will probably go back home and sit on our front porch and watch the sunset. This will be our first anniversary in our new home.


TTFN

30th Birthday party (a couple of years ago)

I love this pic, thought I would share!

Gotta get a present!

My mom's birthday is tomorrow and I need a present stat! We spent the weekend at the cabin, with Grandpa Fischer, Granny, Vera and my parents. It was fun, the kids were a little bit sick and had a tough day yesterday. Hopefully today will be a bit better, we are having a BBQ at our place tonight, so that should be good. Phil's (ViviAnne's dad) birthday is also tomorrow, so I need to get something for him as well. Busy, busy week!

Peace

Back to the Northwest

Well, I am back from San Antonio. It was a good trip and I am pretty sure that I will be going to Hawaii next May to help with the SSR Annual Meeting as well. Ya, trip to Hawaii! It is in Kona on the big island so that should be a lot of fun. ViviAnne is planning on meeting me after the conference is over and we will spend some romantic days and nights together on beach. I got a pretty desent picture of the last evening dance, here it is. These people are really great and love to party, plus they had a fantastic band that could play just about anything. I added a picture of the Alamo, I didn't take it though, I stole it from Google Images, Ha!

ttfn

At the Alamo

Well, my hotel is just a block away from the historic Alamo in downtown San Antonio. It is just a tiny winy little fort, not too much to look at really. I think that most people who have never been to it hold it in such high regard, as a place where Texas nationals held back the forces of Mexico, if only for a short time. I don't think that I have every really been impressed by it. This is a bit odd as I grew up in Texas and the whole educational system is bent on teaching kids that Texas is the biggest, bestest place on earth. It is ironic that they failed with one of their most iconic historical sites. Such is life.

San Antonio is very nice though, I spent the better part of an hour last night walking through the River Walk area and checking out the places to eat, which there are a lot of. Tonight the SSR reception is at the Institute of Texan Cultures. Pause. Not to sure what this name implies. Pause. Or why Cultures is plural, but I will find out tonight!

Texas Ho!

I am off to spend the weekend and the better part of next week in San Antonio, TX. I work a nice little gig for the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Each year they call me out to help with their speaker presentations and trouble shoot any speaker related issues with their talks. It is great. The people are great and fun to be around. I have been doing this now for four years and look forward to next year as it will be in Hawaii. The only down side is that I miss my family quite a bit when I am away from them, especially for a short week.

My grandfather (dad's dad) will be coming to visit us from AZ, on the day I get back. He flies in as well, but I am on a different flight from him. I was hoping that we might have ended up on the same flight out of Seattle, but we didn't. I am really looking forward to seeing him, it has been several years and he has not seen our youngest yet. So it will be fun. We are going to head up to Schweitzer Mt. at the end of next week to spend some time at the cabin with everyone. Here is a pic of my parents place at the ski hill. Not so much a cabin as a lodge!

Have a good weekend!

A Fruitfull Garden

Our garden has finally started producing for us. Over the past couple of weeks I have been watching the lettuce and spinach grow into some beautiful produce. Right now we have two rows of green beans at about 5-6 inches tall, a row and a half of carrots that have just started to sprout, a long row of corn that I hope will pollinate, some summer squash, winter squash, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, basil and peppers. The peppers have barely gotten above the ground though, so I don't think that they are going to be doing much. The tomatoes look great as does the rest of the veggies.

Here is a pic of ViviAnne with a couple of bunches of lettuce.

We spent this last weekend with some friends of ours from Seattle. They drove over on Thursday and we went to the water park on Friday and the river on Saturday. I forgot to take pictures, oh well, next time. ViviAnne and I are planning on going back to the river sometime this next week in the evening. It is really nice at sunset. We will try to make a date out of it.

Till next time, enjoy the sun!

4th fo July and my best hamburger

Happy 4th of July. We pretty much always do a cookout on the 4th. It is one of those American traditions that I love to do. We cooked hamburgers last night for dinner. I love hamburgers, more specifically, cheese burgers. I like them in pretty much any situation with all kinds of different toppings. Cheese, ham, pickles, tomato, onion, avocado, bacon, pineapple, mayo, mustard, Ketchup, lettuce, mushrooms, whatever. Your mouth is watering isn't it?

Here is a great hamburger recipe.

1.5 lbs of Hamburger. (I use an organic meat from a wygu cow, it has a pretty high fat content)
Cheddar Cheese (about five thick slices)
Lettuce (whole leaf)
Tomato (sliced)
Pickles (sliced)
Avocado (mashed)
Spreads (Mayo, Mustard)
One packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix
Worcestershire Sauce
BBQ Sauce
Hamburger buns

In a bowl, put hamburger, onion soup mix, Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce and 2 Tbsp of BBQ sauce. Mix well and mold into 5 med sized or 4 large sized hamburgers. They should be a little bigger than your palm.
Put them on the BBQ and cook. A high fat content meat will cause a lot of flame up, so be careful when turning them. Place the cheese on just before they are done. Cook till done (med rare is my preference).
Put your buns on the grill to toast them, it won't take long.
How to layer your burger:
Bun, mayo, burger (w/ cheese), avocado, tomato, lettuce, pickle, mustard (I like to use a cipotle mustard), bun.
Put it on your plate and take it to the table, sit and enjoy!

Lubia Polow

I made a Persian rice dish last night for dinner. This one is a simple one that doesn't take a lot of time, I think from start to finish it was about 40 minutes. I don't think I have it quite to where I want it yet though, so I may be adding to this recipe in the future or modifying it. The biggest problem I have is that I can't get the right amount of salt, I am typically short on salt for this recipe. Also, I think that the addition of a couple of cloves of garlic and a little saffron would do wonders. But I digress, here is the recipe as I made it last night.

1 lb beef or lamb (cut into bit sized pieces)
3 cups rice (basmati, washed)
6 oz tomato paste
2 cans green beans
1 onion (sliced or chopped)
salt + pepper to taste
potato (sliced into thin pieces)
oil

Cook washed rice for 6-10 minutes, you want the rice to still be a little firm. Make sure that you salt the water as the rice is cooking. Strain the rice and blanch with cold water, set aside.

While the rice is cooking, saute your onion in a little oil. After is turns a light brown, add your meat, salt and pepper to taste. Brown meat and add in tomato paste and green beans plus enough water to cover. It should have the consistency of a thick stew. Simmer for 10 minutes and add in salt and pepper again to taste if necessary.

In a large non-stick pot or cast iron pot, put enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot and turn stove onto med. heat. Put a layer of potato slices to cover the bottom of the pot then add a couple of scoops of rice and a little salt and oil, fold in a couple of scoops of meat/green bean mixture and repeat until it is all gone. Cover your pot and reduce heat to simmer. Let it cook for about 20 minutes. This will steam the rice the rest of the way to completion and fry the potatoes on the bottom.

Flip the pot upside down onto a serving platter and serve with pita and cucumber yogurt sauce (recipe to follow soon hopefully).

I might come back to edit this recipe in the future. This dish is really one of my favorites, and I want to get it just right. I am thinking that the addition of garlic and maybe saffron will do the trick. Plus, don't forget to salt the rice, otherwise it will be pretty bland.

Nachos a la Justin

I really love simple foods made well. I don't know what it is but I just like the basics, and when they taste phenomenal it is even better. Case in point, Nachos. This is simplicity at it finest. Corn chips with melted cheese. Easy as, well, nachos. But can they be more, can they be taken out of the mid-day snack and appetizer realm and made into a meal? I say they can, try this recipe for a tasty dinner that kids love.

Bag of corn chips (get ones that have a little bit of salt on them)
can of refried beans (black or pinto)
small can of fire roasted green peppers (the hot kind, not bell peppers)
small can of olives (sliced)
3/4 lb of ground beef or diced chicken breast
1 pkg of Lawrey's taco or fajita spices
2 tomatoes
3 avocados
1 onion
cheddar cheese (grated)
Cilantro
lime
Sour Cream
Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder

Put the refried beans into a microwave bowl and add a little water, stir and microwave for 45 seconds to warm them up.
In a skillet, cook your meat and add the spices when it is cooked through. Follow the directions for the spice package. Turn on your oven to 350. Dice your tomatoes and onion. In a 9 x 13 pan (I like to use stoneware), place a layer of chips and then cheese. Add about half of your beans, half your onion and all of your green peppers. Add another layer of chips and cheese. Put on your meat, olives, tomatoes, and rest of onion and top with a little more cheese. Put in the oven for 12 minutes.
Slice your avocados into a bowl and add a little bit of salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder (to taste) and a scoop of sour cream. Dice your cilantro (about a 1/2 hand full) and put into the guacamole. Squeeze 1/4 a lime into your guacamole. Mix and mash to desired lumpiness.
Put your oven on broil for about 2 minutes (watch it so it doesn't burn). Take out your pan and squeeze 1/4 a lime over the nachos. Serve the nachos with sour cream and guacamole. Mmmm, so good and easy!

Doula Training for ViviAnne

ViviAnne spent the weekend training to become a doula. For those of you that don't know, a doula is a birthing assistant trained in a more natural approach to child bearing and pregnancy. She spoke very highly of her weekend, saying that it was both very educational and emotional. Many of the women at the training talked about their personal stories with their births. All in all it sounded like a great weekend for her and I was happy to be able to give her that by watching the kids Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I think that she will be an excellent doula and birthing assistant. Her background in human development and her personal experiences make her open to many different styles of birth, and a great repository for information about pregnancy, birthing and child development. Plus her kind heart, giving nature and strong mind make her an excellent person to have in your birth experience.

So, what is next for her? She needs to complete her training. She needs 6 births to get certified as a doula. She has two, I think, done right now, her mother's (which she questions as countable) and her sister Shynne's. You can't count any of your own births, otherwise she would just need 1 more. She has already been approached by a friend of ours to attend her birth and she is trying to convince her other sister, Autumn, to attend her birth. If she is able to do both, than that leaves two and I think she could fined local women just by advertising in the paper and online.

Have a great Monday!

Fish'n Derby

ViviAnne and I took Liam, Asa, Darius, Hannah and Sidney to the Fish'n Derby on June 9. It was quite the big deal. You have 30 minutes to fish or time slot was at 11:15 to 11:30. You show up, park, and then get your stuff ready. If you preregister you get a shirt, and every kid gets a fishing pole all hooked up and ready to go. Once you get your stuff you head over to the pond. It is stocked with trout from some local fishery. The pond itself is about 70 or so feet across the short way and maybe 130 feet the long way, shaped in an oval. We head over to the back side of the pond and get the kids ready. Asa is to young to fish and Darius is sitting in his car seat watching to whole thing.

OK, we start fishing. First we are given some worms, big ones. ViviAnne doesn't really know how to get the worm on good so Hannah's worm falls off on the first cast. Liam's cast goes out and over another kids line and they get tangled up for a couple of minutes. Sidney catches the first fish. A nice 12 inch trout. Into the bag it goes, no catch and release here, these fish are for eat'n.

Hannah gets the second fish with the help of one of the event staff on hand. and then Sidney and Hannah each catch another one. With about five minutes left and Liam totally discouraged, I get a nice cast out of him into the deep part of the pond. And walla! Fish on! Liam reels it in and I pick it up for him to take the hook out. But, if you have ever fished with worms before you know that the fish just inhaled the hook and worm and it is in it's gullet. As I pick up the line to grab hold of the fish, the hook rips out of the fish and gets bits of fish gore and blood all over myself and a little on Liam. He is not to happy about this sudden display of carnage and withdraws a little but he still had a good time.

We ended up cooking the fish a day latter on the BBQ. They were pretty good, but Liam didn't want to eat any of them. I think he was a little sad that his fish died like it did. But he did say that he wants to go fishing with me again, so it probably wasn't to traumatic.

First you make a roux...

I love Cajun food, it is down to earth. Rich, flavorful, soul-full! The best! My Grandfather, David Bierhorst, was from New Orleans, and my granny, Milly Bierhorst is the best cook alive today. No question. Everyone I know says so, this is not just her grandson talking. Ask Rob, he regularly breaks veganism to eat her amazing Cajun food. So, she taught me how to make some of her best recipes, and I am getting pretty good at it. This weekend I made Shrimp and Crab Etouffee. Here is the break down so you can try it at home.

3/4 cups of flour and 1/2 cups of oil for the roux

1 large onion (chopped)

8 oz can tomato sauce

3 cups water

garlic powder (to taste)

1 + 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (red pepper)

Tabasco (to taste)

1 pound crab meat (claws and/or legs)

1 pound shrimp (de-veined and de-shelled)

You will need a cast iron skillet and a pot or a cast iron dutch oven/pot. I use a dutch oven pot so I don't have to transfer the roux from the skillet to a larger pot.

Make sure that you have all your ingredients prepared before you start your roux (you don't want to burn your roux).

First you make a roux. Combine flour and oil in a cast iron skillet over med/high heat. Stir the roux to break up clumps and to keep it from burning. This is very important, you want your roux to turn brown, like chocolate, but you don't want it to burn. What I do is reduce the heat to med-low after it starts bubbling and continue to stir. If you are using a skillet you will need to transfer to a larger pot now.

Once you have the nice rich color of chocolate you are ready to add your chopped onion, simmer the onion in the skillet for a minute or so and then add your tomato sauce. Stir once and add your 3 (plus or minus) cups of water. Stir the water in one cup at a time until you have a nice gravy like consistency. Add in your crab then add in your salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and Tabasco. I like it a little spicy and garlicky but add a little bit first and taste, you can always add more later, but you can't take it back out once it's in. Simmer it all for 20 minutes (or longer, this type of dish only gets better the longer the ingredients sit together)

Add in your shrimp about 10 minutes before you want to serve. I serve it over a nice long grain rice, like Basmatti rice. Here is a picture of me with pot full of Etoufee.

Eat it up any left overs the next day. My grandfather would eat it cold out of the pot for breakfast, I always liked to heat mine up in the microwave though.

Frost Free Installed

It's in, it's in! Finally, I have my frost free hose bib installed. From this point on the irrigation project gets a lot easier. This afternoon, I will finish burying it and bring all the irrigation hoses up to the hose bib. Hopefully tomorrow, I will put the irrigation manifold together and I will have a working system. Then all that is left to do is put my pop-ups in and cover my trenches. This has been a fun project, I am especially excited that it will really make ViviAnne happy. She hates to water and the irrigation system will make it easy to keep our flowers, garden and grass green.

I had a good father's day over the weekend. I bought a hammock about 8 years ago, a nice rope one, the type that stretches a bunch and you tie it off between two trees about 6 feet off the ground but by the time you get all your weight into it, it is 6 inches off the ground. Well, ever sense I got married, I have been wanting a hammock stand to put my hammock on, that way I don't need trees. My kids got one for me for fathers day. But not just any hammock stand, but it is collapsible and portable. You can take it car camping or to the beach/river. Or just put it out on you deck and look up at the sky (which is were I have it right now). I can even blog laying down on my super cool hammock while I watch the kids make mud messes in my trenches in the front yard.

Truly, my "King of Comfort" saga lives on.

The view from up high

I have been working like mad on our landscaping. I trenched the entire yard and up by the garden and have dug out were I will put in my frost free spigot and irrigation system control center. It has been a lot of fun, sometime a little frustrating, like when it rains, but over all very fun. I am hoping to finish up this weekend. Getting this project done will be great and give me a lot more time to do other stuff. First off, I won't need to spend as much time watering the garden and yard. Just turn on a switch and let it go for a half hour or so. Secondly, I was smart and installed some spigots near the garden and out in our future lavender field. This will make it so much easier to water specific parts of the garden that I might not want to do with soaker hoses. Third, ViviAnne hates to water and will be so happy once this is done. It is always good to make the wife happy.

I got a couple of pictures from a neighbor of our property from about 800 - 1200 feet in the air. Our house is the one sandwiched between the three in the middle of the picture, in case you don't recognize it from other pictures. You can make out our garden in the back of the house, it looks like it has been watered recently. You can also see that my mother in law is at the house as well, because her white Highlander is in our driveway. I always think that our place looks so small compared to the other houses around us, but then I remember that we have three levels to their two, so i think that we are on par with our neighbors.

That's all for now, but I will be posting some more recipes soon, so stay tuned.

Summer Weekends

Summer weekends are great. We went to the river on Saturday and the pool on Sunday. Both were very fun. Liam took a picture of ViviAnne and I on our way to the river. All of the Palouse is green right now, so going on drives is great. At the river, we were joined by Mike, Robert and Morgan for a little BBQ. We cooked sausages, hot dogs, corn dogs and veggies. I was taking a gamble on the corn dogs being cooked on the grill, but they turned out great. At the pool, ViviAnne's sisters helped us out with the kids so it was a little more manageable. We stopped off at Jack in the Box for burgers on the way home.

The big project this weekend was trenching for the irrigation system that we are putting in. This is Asa, helping me stake out all of the irrigation lines. Over all, I have about 2300 feet of semi-flexible PVC tubing that I will begin laying tonight. We want to put drip irrigation in for the gardens and trees, and put in pop-up sprinklers for the lawn. I am hopping that it is all pretty straight forward, so far it seems pretty easy, just time consuming. It is actually pretty in expensive if you do it all your self. The pop-ups and piping is the most expensive part along with a back flow valve. We should be able to get it all done this week I hope, although, I might be taking a day off from work to make it all happen.

Last night as I was putting the trash out, I have to carry it about 200 feet to the end of our driveway, I saw a big great horned owl perched on our roof. It was pretty cool, I went inside to get the camera, but it took off as I was turning it on to take a picture. You will have to settle for a sunset instead.

Weight Goals

This is my year for losing all the weight I have gained over the past 12 years. After high school, I let myself go a little, but that is over now! Sense January I have lost more than 25 pounds and it is great. My goal is to get to 205, which would be 50 pounds lost total. So kudos to me for being half way there. This morning I weighed in at 228, this is the fist time I have been in the 220's for quite some time. It feels good.

How do I do it, well, mainly it is cutting back on the sweets. I don't drink corn syrup any more and try to limit my intake of sweets in general. I also an trying to eat a little slower and not have seconds. Finally, I am trying to not eat after 9:00PM. I think that this is the biggest thing for me, as I get the munchies like crazy around 10ish. The best thing about it, it that the weight loss has been steady and slow, which I have read is the best way to loose weight. My goal is to be at 225 by July (which seems reasonable) and 215 by Sept.

ViviAnne is also losing some of that baby weight. She is on the "Plan for ViviAnne". In it, she is cutting out coffee, wheat, and corn. She is trying to hit 1500 calories and have low sugar intake and exercise five times a week for at least a half hour each time. It is a good plan. I think maybe the calorie intake could be upped to 1800 as a goal instead of 1500, but I think it will work. She has never felt well after eating something with a lot of corn in it, so it is good that she is phasing that out.

I have added this picture of ViviAnne and I at Andy and Jill's wedding. I like it, we had a lot of fun that evening with everyone. Andy is coming to town this next weekend so it will be fun to hang out with him again. See you soon bro!

May update

Wow, I have been on a blogging hiatus these last few weeks. Meat week has come and gone, culminating in a beast feast. Robert ate at least 3 sausages and two hamburgers. Well done vegan man, well done!

These last few weeks have been very busy at the home front. I have been planting tree, mainly maple and quaking aspen, but also a couple of blue spruce. ViviAnne decided that we should name our trees so that we can reference them and places on our property. A good idea I thought. The two blue spruces are named Bruce and Spruce. One of our maples is names Tony (Liam's imaginary friend and his favorite name apparently). We have not yet named the others, feel free to post some suggestions, you may get a tree named after you!

Our friend Erin has been complaining that there is no picture of Asa yet on this blog and that he is truly becoming the middle child. I don't want that to happen so here he is in all his glory. The Asa!

More later, gotta work:)

Meat Week (day one)

Last night some friends came over for dinner. My buddy Robert, who is a Vegan, decided that he was going to have Meat Week start yesterday. He does this every once in a while, maybe once in a year. He eats meat, which he doesn't eat normally. I thought that I should make some Ghormeh Sabzi to begin his week of excesses - It's good! I made this for the first time ever last night. I had it again for lunch today. Essentially this is a bunch of green herbs cooked with onion, meat, and dried lemons. I will break it down for you.

1 lb of meat (lamb if you are serious, beef or even chicken would also work, I used beef)

1/4 cup of oil

large onion (sliced)

can of kidney beans

3 garlic cloves (minced)

4-6 dried lemons

salt & pepper to taste

3 cups of dried Ghormeh Sabzi herbs or you could make it your self by chopping up 1.5 cups of spinach, 1/2 cup of parsley, 1/4 cup of coriander, 1/4 cup of garlic chives, 1/4 cup of fenugreek. You want to end up with about 3 cups of finely chopped green stuff. If you have kids, just buy the herb pack and simplify your life.

rice (washed and soaked for an hour or two)

oil

potato (sliced thin)

How to: Soak the herbs in water for about a half hour. Remove from water and press out extra liquid. Set aside. Cut your meat into small bit size pieces. Add oil to deep pan or wok and heat it up, add in garlic and onion and fry till golden. Add in meat and fry till it is not red anymore, basically you want to sear the sides of the meat, but you don't have to cook it all the way through. Salt and pepper it. Add your herbs that you set aside earlier and saute for a minute or so. Add in about 2 cups of broth (beef, chicken or veg - I used beef). Bring to simmer and add in the lemons. This all needs to simmer for about 30 minutes. Add in the kidney beans and simmer for another 15 minutes. You also can slice open the lemons so that they release a little bit more flavor to the dish. If you have and extra hour just keep it on the stove and let it simmer, if you have kids that are going crazy, slice the lemons to save time.

For the rice, cook to a boil and then simmer for till the rice is firm, but not crunchy. Make sure you add plenty of salt while it is cooking. Blanch with cold water to stop the rice from cooking any more and to wash off the excess salt. Put oil to cover the bottom of a non-stick pot, add your sliced potatoes to the pot and then put the rice over the top. Add a little more oil and turn up the heat. You want to steam the rice now. I like to bring the heat up till I see steam coming from the covered pot, then turn it down to simmer. After maybe 30 minutes, the potato is a golden brown and the rice is prefect.

Serve the Ghormeh Sabzi over rice. Watch out for the lemons though, they are tart! After dinner you should step outside and watch the sun set.

This dish is great the next day for lunch as all the herbs and lemons have had more time to release their flavors into the dish.

Every Kid Loves Mud

ViviAnne and I had a birthday party for our eldest son Liam last weekend. His birthday was the 29th of April, and our young man turned 5. We had a mud party. Crazy huh? It was the best little kid party I have been too in quite a while. We dug a large pit in our back yard and filled it with water and dirt. The great thing about the Palouse is that there is a lot of good dirt for making mud. All the kids just jumped right in, amazing fun. I feel like I am always telling my kids to not get muddy, we live out in the sticks so there is a lot of dirt and mud after a rain. It was nice to say, "Go play in the mud." It made me feel good to give that back to them after trying to keep them out of it for the better part of the spring.

The other big thing we did was make clean mud. If you don't know what it is, this is your chance to learn. You take bars of Ivory soap and cheese grate them. Take regular toilet paper and shred it long ways so that you have thin strips about a foot or two long. Then add water till it turns into a kind of mud/paste. This stuff is great, not only is it supper clean from all the soap, it is like mud.

If you are going to have a mud party you should serve Dirt Cake, recipe to follow:

1 20 oz Oreo Cookie pkg

1/2 cup melted butter

1 12 oz Cool Whip

1 8 oz Cream Cheese (softened)

1 cup powdered sugar

2 sm pkg vanilla inst. pudding

3 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

Flower pot (8 inch) and garden trowel, gummy worms, plastic flowers, etc... for decoration

Dirt Cake is made in layers. Crush the oreos in a food processor, take about 10 seconds. I love food processors. I once crushed the cookies by hand, don't do this. Put a layer in the bottom of the pot, about half the crushed cookies.

Combine butter, cool whip, sugar and cream cheese. Use a kitchen aid if you have one, so fast.

Put about half over the first layer of cookies.

Mix the pudding, vanilla and milk together. The milk is about 3/4 of what is required for the pudding so it will mix up thicker and be a more firm layer than if you used the regular amount of milk suggested by the pudding box. Put about half in the pot.

Put the rest of the cream cheese/sugar/cool whip layer in and then follow with the rest of the pudding layer. Cover with the remainder of the crushed cookies, looks like a nice pot of dirt now doesn't it. Add flowers (plastic or real ones that you cut) and maybe a gummy worm or ten sticking up out of the "dirt". If you have a tiny little garden gnome, you should add that in as well. Serve with a garden trowel to complete the ambiance.

Fun, fun weekend!

Mole, mole mole mole. Chicken

My friend Morgan came over for dinner the other night. I made Mole Chicken. I was thinking that I would start posting recipes that I make online. I have seen a couple other people do this and it sounds like fun. So here it goes.

Mole Chicken - from memory!

2 chicken breasts (boneless is easy)
1 large onion
12 oz can of black beans
4 oz can of green chilies
mole paste
chicken broth
packet of taco of fajita seasoning (I like Lawreys)
2 avocado
2 tomatoes
cilantro
lime
rice (I use Basmati)
oil (olive is good)
cheddar cheese (optional)
sour cream (optional)

Start the rice first, I like to soak it for about an hour before hand and then boil it. Once it is mostly done (a little bit firm, but not crunchy) I drain it and wash it. Then it goes back into a non-stick pot with oil. I add a hand full of sliced cilantro, juice from half a lime and a little salt.

Put the black beans in a pot and simmer with 2 oz of the chillies.

Slice onion and then saute in oil till a little bit brown. Set aside. Slice chicken and put in frying pan or wok with oil. Add about a half a packet of the taco seasoning and cook chicken. For the mole, follow the directions on the paste. Usually you will add two or three Tbsp of mole and then three times as much water or chicken broth. Maybe one day I will come up with my own mole recipe, but not today. Once chicken is cooked, add mole sauce and reduce heat to simmer. Add onion and green chillies back to pan and a small hand full of cilantro. Simmer for 5 minutes or so, basically you need enough time to make your guacamole out of the avocado, cilantro and half a lime. Add salt and pepper to taste for the guac. I also like to put a little shredded cheddar in my guacamole.

Chop up your tomatoes.

Serve the chicken over rice with the black beans. Garnish with tomatoes, guacamole and sour cream and cheese(optional).

If I had been on the ball I would have taken a picture, but I am sure that I will make it again, because it was great. I will add a picture in then. Maybe next week.

Hurt myself again

Well, I play a lot of basketball. I usually play around 3-4 hours each week at noon on the WSU campus. It is a great time and splits my day up nicely as I can come in and work for 4 hours, play ball, and then work the rest of the day. I injured myself, sprained my ankle, yesterday. I normally don't get to up tight about getting injured, it is part of the game. If you are going to play sports than you are most likely going to hurt yourself at some point. But, that said, I am a little ticked about yesterday. To make a long story short, there are a couple of people that play completely out of control, I was at the receiving end of that yesterday and ended up getting hurt. Out of control people are really the only downside of playing.

Enough of that, I planted one of our trees yesterday. It looks nice in front of the house, it is an ornamental cherry, so it will have a lot of flowers. I also worked up our garden beds with the help of my friend Robert on Saturday. We managed to get five beds done in about 3 hours. I think that we are going to do some more though. Robert and Mike are also going to be doing some planting we us this summer. This will help us out quite a bit, sense they can take some of the burden of growing a garden off of ViviAnne and I.

Here is a pic of Vivi and Darius, both are very cute.

cheers,

justin

Hot Wedding in Seattle

This last weekend ViviAnne and I traveled to Seattle and Gig Harbor for my friends wedding. It was great. We started off by celebrating our friend Morgan's birthday. She road over with us on Wednesday night and we spent most of Thursday at the Bellevue Square Mall. After about 4 hours of dress shopping we had dinner at ViviAnne and my favorite Thai restaurant, The Chantanee Family Resturant. It was great, we were joined by many of our friends from home who where coming over for Andy and Jill's wedding. After dinner we went to a Mocha Bar on Capital Hill, Dilettante Mocha Bar. It was great, the rest of the friends meet up there and we visited and ate great deserts.

Friday brought us to Gig Harbor and to the wedding rehearsal and dinner. It was a nice time and it was great to see all of the people that I love to most. Saturday was more of the same, we had pictures. There were 16 groomsmen and 7 bride's maids, plus Andy and Jill. The wedding was nice, although I think the deacon was a little out of it. He forgot all his notes, called Andy a wife and forgot Andy's last name, but as with all such blunders, laughter was shared by all. At the wedding reception everyone got down to some great music by one of the best wedding DJ's I have heard and we even had a little bit of FireBreathing. I have attached some pictures from the weekend to this entry.

Through out the extended weekend we stayed at our friend's house in Kirkland, Erin and Borhan. It was nice seeing them again, but we didn't get to spend as much time as we wanted to with them because of all the wedding duties that I had. I was a groom's man by the way. Thanks Erin and Borhan for being wonderful hosts and throwing ViviAnne a little birthday party. We ended the weekend by driving back to Pullman on Sunday, which was Vivi's birthday. We had a small dinner and cake at her mom's and then went home to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Peace!