Cute pic I took of the kids a few days ago...

I was looking at my brother Michael's MySpace and found this pic of him and I. Cool. I don't think we've ever had a pic of just us.

Below I've included a slideshow of pictures from our gathering to spread ashes at Lake Chelan. If you click on the slideshow you will be taken to the album and can look more closely at the picture.

This event was far more emotional than I thought it would be. It was painful for me to see Grandpa scattered into the creek, though I know he would be happy that it was done. I saved a small portion of his ashes and will treasure them. It was just another reminder that he is not vacation. He is not coming back. You'd think that I'd have that part down, but its amazing how you can just avoid thinking about the reality of it.

I enjoyed spending time with my cousins and family, especially the camping we did on Saturday night (we spread ashes on Sunday and drove home same day). It really wet my appetite for camping!

We just had a yummy dinner... Italian Sausage and Bell Pepper Paella. Jason and the kids (and I) really liked it and it was easy. My review is at the bottom.

ingredients

2 links hot and/or sweet Italian sausage (about 6 ounces total)
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips
1/2 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips
1 small onion, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup Arborio or other medium-grain rice or converted rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup drained canned tomatoes, chopped coarse
1 1/2 cups water

preparation

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Squeeze sausage meat from casings into a 10-inch heavy ovenproof skillet and add bell peppers, onion, and oil. Cook mixture over moderately high heat, breaking up sausage with a fork and stirring occasionally, 5 minutes, or until vegetables begin to brown. Add rice and sauté, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in wine, tomatoes, and water and bring to a boil, stirring to loosen brown bits. Transfer skillet to oven and bake, uncovered, 25 minutes, or until most liquid is absorbed. Season with salt and pepper.

Gourmet, December 1996

reviews

see all > 07/17/07

Kristi from Seattle

Yum. I doubled the recipe. If you do this I wouldn't suggest going over 2 1/4 cups of liquid. I used just over 2 cups and it was a little bit dry. I had to add in a bit more at the end, cover, and pop back in the oven for 5 minutes. I added garlic, used Italian seasoned tomatoes and threw in some red pepper flakes for good measure. We topped with fresh parm and there was nothing left at the end of the meal

When we were at the cabin, my sister and I were overjoyed to finally be there when the apricots were ripe! We have many memories of eating endless apricots under that tree, but our trips over the past years happened too late during the year and we missed their goodness. I do think they smelled even better than they tasted.

Apricots don't keep, so I had to make quick work of this box. I loosely followed a recipe, but made adjustments (like only using half the sugar since I ran out!). It tastes great.

Our box of gold


Did you know that if you crack open apricot pits there are little almonds inside? They are very similar to the bitter almonds that are banned in the US. If you eat something like 50 or 60 they can kill you. The recipe called for 18 for flavor, but not having a nutcracker on hand and after nearly killing myself with flying pits, I decided to leave them out.


There were only two ingredients. Apricots and sugar. I did add in a pinch of salt, some cloves and ginger at the end though. It cooked for a very long time. At least an hour. You knew it was done when it would set immediately on a cold plate.


The finished product! 12 half-pint jars of apricot-y goodness.

This is what an unattended Gwennie can get into

Better late than never

Here are some pictures we took on Easter Sunday. I'm fairly sure I've not posted these already and just found them today as I was cleaning out my massively bloated picture folder. Poor Ethan. This was the high point of his Easter. He basically slept the rest of the day and the day after this picture we found out he had pneumonia.

 
 
 

We are still alive... we are still here!

What a whirlwind of activity since July 4th. Phew.

After our July 4th activities, we went to Spokane for the weekend and had a good visit with family there. The following week I was busy just about every day, then left Saturday to go spread my Grandpa's ashes at Lake Chelan. I got a bunch of good photos from that trip, but the camera is still in the car and Jason took it to work.

However, I do have pics from July 4th (technically 3rd I guess) and the day after, which we spent at my Mom's, as well as Spokane pics. Enjoy.

(you can click on any of the photos to open them up. Also, if you put your cursor on the slideshow you can skip forward, backward, or pause)

We've been incredibly busy. Last week we only spent 2 nights at home.

Heat makes me bitchy and unwilling to blog.

Lots of pictures and info coming soon, as soon as its not like 80 degrees in my house.

I know I haven't been blogging much... I apologize. There are times when I feel I could blog 100 times in one day, and other times where I just can't be bothered.

We've been busy busy this week. Friday we visited Grammy, ate yummy snacks and lunch, played at the park and worked on some computer stuff. Had a blast! Here are some pics from that day.














Along with our social activities I turned out three sewing projects that I'm fairly proud of. A skirt, a dress for Gwen and some bloomers. Yep, bloomers :)

Today we went to church, then to a baptisim at one of the church goers pool, followed by a BBQ. We had a scare pretty much as soon as we arrived at the house for the festivities. I coated the kids with sunblock. It wasn't our regular kind because I couldn't find it, so I used some really old stuff that I found tucked in the back of a drawer.

I put it on their faces and immediately Ethan started to rub his eyes. Now this isn't so unusual. Poor boy has been having allergies for awhile now. But he kept rubbing and started crying about how badly his eyes hurt and then, oh, it was so scary, his eyes swelled up enormously (the eyeballs looked they would pop) and almost closed. He got hives all over his cheeks and forehead. Luckily, he didn't seem to have a problem breathing, but as it got worse and worse we decided to take him to the ER. We left Gwen with the Pastor's wife and took off... right before we had left I'd had a wash cloth and basically drenched his face with it. This seemed to help a lot and by the time we got to the parking lot of the hospital his face was a bit better. He still had his appetite too. He was eating chips on the way there :)

We decided to go to RiteAid and get him some children's Benadryl and wait and see. We saw a significant improvement right away and he started asking if we could back to the party now and see Gwennie. So we did. He was still enormously swollen under the eyes, but was able to play and eat and was just fine the rest of the day.

That, other than when he had pneumonia, was the scariest thing I've ever seen happen to him. He looked horrible.

Here's a pic of when we finally left the BBQ, at about 4pm. As you can see he's pretty swollen but this is NOTHING compared to how he looked just a few hours earlier.

The kids are currently asleep on the couch and we'll have to get them up soon so they'll go to bed at their regular time. What an exhausting day!

This upcoming week is jam-packed too. Monday has a couple possible plans, still waiting to see what firms up. Tuesday its out to my Mom's for a 3rd of July celebration. We're spending the night there, so most of the 4th will probably be hanging out with the fam too. Then Thursday either Grammy or my Mom will be babysitting while I shop and prepare for... our departure to Spokane on Friday! Oh, how I dread the drive to come. All 250 cruel miles of it. There are good things at the end of the drive at least! Here on out we are very busy through the summer, which is both good and bad :)