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Archive for Holiday
July 4, 2010 at 2:14 pm · Filed under Beer, Food, Holiday
Yeah, I know, once a week isn’t working out so well for me, is it?
Since D is spending part of the 4th of July tending to his delicious homebrew (smoked porter is on tap, and the apricot wheat is on deck), I decided to attempt some culinary creations with the profusion of lavender in the front yard.
I checked out the cookbook The Vegan Table from the library and made the lavender lemonade and the lavender tea cookies. Both have a subtle, fragrant lavender taste to them. Pretty yummy!
I also infused some (cheap) vodka with fresh lavender. My obvious error here was using the crappy vodka, but I didn’t want to ruin good vodka if it wasn’t going to work. The lavender vodka is really nice, but the harsh vodka kinda ruins it. I’ll have to try again with our regular Monopolowa.
December 4, 2009 at 5:36 pm · Filed under Family, Food, Holiday, Kids
Ever since O was little, we’ve let the kid or kids help rip the bread for the stuffing. I now present to you a retrospective of stuffing making:
2003 - this requires a lot of concentration!
2004 - hmm, no picture of stuffing ripping, but clearly we had help in the kitchen
2005 - still serious business.
2006 - we were in China, but we did have bread!
2007 - XM’s first time!
2008 - she still thinks it is awesome to have her mouth wide open when we take her picture…
2009 - by now they are old pros at this.
I can’t wait for the teenage editions, you know the ones, where I force them to at least hold onto a piece of bread near the bowl and they do their best glare/withering look/eyeroll as I take the picture…
November 4, 2009 at 9:41 am · Filed under Family, Holiday, Home, Kids
We had a nice Halloween, I can’t believe that it stopped raining and was actually warm out!
I allowed the kids some control over the Halloween decorations, which is how we ended up with a string of pumpkin lights down the hallway.
XM got to go to the pumpkin patch with her school and picked out a big pumpkin, a baby pumpkin, and a gourd. I also miraculously ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in about seven years, so that was great!
The tiny art directors had me carve the pumpkins into their chosen shapes: Boo (from Mario) and Darth Vader.
Their grandma helped them make caramel apples…
and we decorated Zombie Eyeballs (a peanut butter fudge type thing dipped in chocolate).
XM couldn’t wear her princess dress to school for Halloween dress up day because it sheds glitter like nothing else. She opted to be a tiger at school:
And they wore their chosen outfits on Halloween night and at O’s school Halloween Party. O saved up his allowance all summer to buy the Optimus Prime voice changer helmet, so his “trick or treats” were very robotic.
We had almost 100 kids come by this year, beating our record of 73 set last year. I promised D I’d take down the Halloween decorations by December…
April 16, 2009 at 8:38 am · Filed under Family, Holiday
Another Easter, come and gone - time for the obligatory pictures! First though, I must regale you with a tale of woe. In our part of the world there was a serious shortage of Cadbury Mini Eggs. I’m not talking about the Creme eggs with the delicious goo in the middle (we had plenty of those). I’m talking about the solid milk chocolate eggs with the insanely delicious candy coating. For three weeks leading up to Easter we looked in stores all across Portland, to no avail. Cadbury Mini Eggs were MIA.
A few days before Easter I found a giant Chocolate Cadbury egg with promises of mini eggs hidden inside.
We cracked it open and lo and behold there were mini eggs inside! Four of them! Four. I guess there was some truth in advertising, as the picture on the box showed four little eggs nested inside. It was a sorry sight, but I savored them the best I could.
This sad story does have a fairy tale ending. My friend from California was seeing mini eggs all over the place, and sent me three big bags! Jackpot! They had so many in her area that she called me yesterday to ask if I needed more, as they were now 50% off. O, to live in her world of plenty.
The kids, as always, had a lot of fun coloring eggs. We had to hide them many times, and when they tired of that they hid the eggs for us to find.
Despite all the activity Sophie wasn’t about to budge from her favorite spot, providing us with a fun hiding place.
The most exciting part of the day was the arrival of Sara! The kids were super excited to see their cousin again. They loved that her eyes were open and she could look at them.
March 26, 2009 at 8:22 pm · Filed under Beer, Family, Holiday, Kids, On The Road
We decided that today was a day where we needed to get out of our pajamas and leave the house for a while. We got up at 6am and headed west, hoping to get to the beach by low tide. We arrived at Indian Beach at Ecola State Park about a half hour after low tide, which was still a little too late for a great tide pooling expedition. We did see a lot of mussels and anemones and the kids liked discovering the various sizes and shapes of seaweed that was strewn about the beach. There were some nifty spots in the cliffs that were actively being eroded by water, and there was a lot of neon green moss growing on the rocks.
XM was determined to build a sand castle. Despite being bundled we couldn’t stave off the 35 degree temperatures (feels like 33!) with cold wet hands, so she only got one bucket filled before abandoning her project.
Otherwise we did regular cold Oregon beach things - wrote in the sand, watched the surfers, hunted for shells and things. O found a rope that was buried deep in the sand. XM wouldn’t dig it out for him, so he tried to pull it out.
We finished up with the time honored tradition of beat the waves up the beach before your shoes get soaked, and then headed back to the car to warm up.
We stopped at Seaside for a bit and browsed a nice little bookstore with a big fat cat and a toy store with a nice collection of board games. The kids rode the carousel and then we hit the road again for lunch in Astoria. We ate at the Fort George Brewery and had a really nice lunch and some great beer.
I had their Vortex IPA, a super hoppy beer that made good on its delivery of putting my palate and taste buds in a “lupulin-ecstasy of pleasure”. D got a taster of 12 beers and enjoyed its bevy of deliciousness (my tag line, which I’m sure they will now want to steal).
Food was good, kids were happy, so I’d give Ft. George a big thumbs up. We walked the neighborhood a little then headed on home down Hwy. 30. O is about half way through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and he read the entire two hours home (and some more after he got home, pausing only to stuff some pizza in and only stopping for bedtime). Unfortunately XM slept the whole way home, and is still up past her bedtime and forcing us to find kid friendly tv to watch. Overall though, the day was loads of fun. We’ll have to go back when the weather is warmer. At least it didn’t rain!
December 12, 2008 at 10:57 am · Filed under Holiday
I couldn’t find Snoopy last year so we had to buy an actual sparkly star tree topper. Now that he is back in teh game O insisted Snoopy rule the treetop once more. I think we’ll have to alternate each year…
November 27, 2008 at 10:27 am · Filed under Family, Food, Holiday, Uncategorized
We are gearing up for a small Thanksgiving with the family today, though we have enough food to feed the neighborhood. Hey man, we are all about the leftovers. On the veggie Thanksgiving menu today:
- Chicken-Fried Tempeh
- Mashed Potatoes and Cashew Gravy
- Italian Chard Stuffing
- Artichoke Parmesan Stuffing
- Ale and Garlic Stir Fried Brussel Sprouts
- Pumpkin Pie
- Blueberry Cobbler w/ ice cream
O and Grandma made these place holders this week while I helped out at XM’s preschool. XM is having a great time yelling “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!1!!” to everybody.
O brought this home from school. It is a far cry from the days when he was thankful for Lego Star Wars (though I’m sure he is still thankful for that too). It says “I am thankful for ‘are envierment, my familie and are oxegin.’” Those are some pretty good things to be thankful for.
November 9, 2008 at 10:41 am · Filed under Better World, Holiday, Pets
EcoMetro has some great tips for enjoying a more eco-friendly holiday season. Some suggestions are Portland specific, but if you don’t live here I bet you can use them as jumping off points for ideas in your neck of the woods.
/channeling of Willard Scott
I had a discussion with Sophie the cat last night about what I expect from her with regards to our future Christmas tree. Since she spends a lot of her outdoor time like this:
I’m not holding out much hope for the tree. Looks like the breakable ornaments will be staying in the box this year.
October 31, 2008 at 3:54 pm · Filed under Holiday
I carved one of our pumpkins to look like Hello Kitty, and it made a really cool projection on the wall.
October 21, 2008 at 4:57 pm · Filed under Holiday
Found some time to read through blogs and things today, and discovered an interesting variety of pumpkin carving options. I always aspire to be creative when I get to carving, but by the time I am done gutting it I’m ready to be done and end up hacking out the requisite triangle eyes and nose and a crooked, toothy grin.
From The Office (U.S.) - Jim & Dwight, Kelly, Pam, Ryan & Michael, Angela, Andy, Kevin, & PB+J kissing.
Or your pumpkin could Rock the Vote.
And my favorite - the Dr. Horrible Pumpkin. It has a PhD in Horribleness!
I do have pictures of our attempts at unique pumpkins from the old college days (note the hint of a plastic patio chair at the dining table…classy).
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