1996 Summer Memories

The summer of 1996 found us in Colorado again. (Well, since I'm going backwards with this whole Walk Down Memory Lane thing, I should say this is the first time we went to Colorado as a family.)

I remember we had a great time in the car on the way out reading books, listening to Adventures in Odyssey, listening to Bill Cosby, stopping to get ice cream, running off energy at rest areas.

This was the first summer we attended Family Camp at Bear Trap Ranch. It's in the mountains near Colorado Springs. The grown-ups get lots of great Biblical teaching and the kids have a great program geared towards them and towards teaching them about God.

Oh be still my heart. These two are adorable at ages 6 and 9. They had the best week at Bear Trap. (Caleb ended up working at Bear Trap the summer of 2008 as part of the kitchen crew. He was sooo lucky to live here and work here.)

We visited Whit's End in Colorado. Anybody else listen to Adventures in Odyssey?  (If you look close, that adorable little girl is missing a front tooth! So cute!)

After our week at Family Camp we went camping. Oh yes we did! Here's proof.... That's our van and I can see the back of me. We still own the tent, but it hasn't been used in a very long time. We sold the van to some friends before we moved overseas and I recently heard that they are still driving it! (I think it's 17 years old!)

What amazing kids to so cheerfully wash the dishes. Oh fun memories.

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Colorado. This is the Continental Divide. (Helpful travel hint: Don't eat a bag of Fritos before driving up to 10,000 plus feet altitude. Your stomach won't like it.)

We just love the majesty of Colorado!

How lucky am I to still be married to this wonderful, handsome man?

2001 Summer Memories

The summer of 2001was a momentous one for this family. We moved back to the USA after spending three years living in Singapore. It was a big adjustment for all of us. We moved from an Asian city/country of over 4 million people to an Upper Mid-West town of 15,000. Quite the change.

Here's a picture of my babies on their last day of school in Singapore. They went to an American school there and had the privilege of wearing uniforms. Aren't they adorable? Megan was 11 and Caleb was a cool 14, spiked hair and all. :)

 Before we left the country, we made sure to eat at all our favorites restaurants. This was our favorite seafood place.

Look at those prawns.... Yummmm!!

Before we headed back to our home country, we flew around the world the opposite way we had done before and stopped in Europe for a week's vacation.

We spent time in Paris:

Belgium and Holland

(Oh, I remember those days when my babies were shorter than me! How time just flies by...)

When we got to the USA, we spent a week in a hotel and were in our house for 5 weeks with only a smattering of rental furniture. Finally, our container that was shipped over the Pacific arrived. Just check out all the leftover packing material filling up the drive way:

Because we were just too tired of unpacking boxes, we headed out west to our  favorite family camp in Colorado and my loved ones decided to hang themselves off the side of a mountain.

Why didn't I go rappelling? Well, someone needed to take the pictures! And I wanted to make sure everyone else had a chance to rappel. Wasn't that nice of me? I went when I was in college, so check out the picture of me when I post about Summer Memories 1981.

2006 Summer Memories

We've had a pretty quiet summer so far. So much so, it's been sending me back down memory lane to what we had been up to in the past summers. I thought it would be fun to venture down those roads on this old blog. In a few weeks we will have been married for 27 years. No, I won't review all 27 years. Let's just go with every 5 years, okay?

The summer of 2006 found us out West in Montana and Wyoming. This was our second to last family vacation.  Caleb had finished his freshman year at college and Megan was 16.

It was a great time with these two almost grown kids. We had to stop at this sign for a wonderfully, predictable photo-op.

Then those almost grown kids had to run through this meadow and frolic. Yes, that's my babies. :) They are awesome.

In Yellowstone, we had a fun picnic in the woods. It was beautiful. And evidently my kids were saying something really funny based on my face and how I am obviously laughing. Oh, I miss those times of laughing with my kids. We still laugh together, but just not often enough.

We came across some of these big fellows in Yellowstone. It was pretty cool to be so close (AND to be in the car). Buffalo are BIG!

Later in the week back in Montana my babies went rafting down this river. (Ever heard of the movie "A River Runs Through It"? Well, this is that river.)

Aren't they having fun? (I wonder what Caleb is yelling...)

French Breakfast Puffs (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from me for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.** 

Saturday afternoon I made some breakfast food. Afternoon is the best time to make breakfast food, in my opinion. Why? Because it's not morning.
These French Breakfast Puffs are really simple to make. You do the basic mix the dry ingredients together and then the wet ingredients, then combine. Easy stuff. My mom taught me this when I was 9 or so. The muffins have a bit of nutmeg in them for some yummy flavor.

I like to use my ice cream/cookie scoop to fill the cups in the muffin pan. So quick and easy!

The muffins are baked until slightly golden brown. I took this picture to show my awesome tool I use for get muffins out of pan. I won it years (decades?) ago at a Tupperware party. If I remember correctly, its intended use is for potting plants. I remember the forked end was supposed to be used to aerate the soil or something like that. I have always used it when I bake muffins. It works great!

The next steps are what make these delectable... The warm muffins are dipped, yes dipped in melted butter and then dredged through cinnamon sugar. Oh my. Yummy!

Ree, The Pioneer Woman, says these freeze well and are just as yummy warmed up in the microwave. I have some in the freezer and will test that out.

Angry Birds

No, the title is not in reference to the fun, addictive game I play on my phone instead of going to sleep at night.

It's in reference to what happens when I go outside to grill something or turn on the hose to water the garden.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin have decided to build a nest over the light fixture right outside the back door

and they do not like anyone in their personal space. NO. ONE.

To avoid having a bird fly in my face or worse, one fly in the house I put this friendly reminder on the back door:

Whenever one of us goes out that door, we pound on it to get Mrs. or Mr. Robin (whose job is it to sit on the nest?) to fly away.
Yes, we have resorted to knocking as we leave the house.

Mrs. (for the point of the story, we'll go with the Mrs. having the nest sitting and guarding job) Robin will then fly to the nearest tree:

She will then proceed to squawk at me the WHOLE time I am outside. Did you know robins can squawk? This one sure can! A lot of the time I am grilling I will just stay out there and play on my phone. (What do I play? Angry Birds, of course!) She squawks and squawks and watches me the whole time. Once she got within about 10 feet from me. When I got my camera to take these pictures and stood at the top of the stairs to get the shot of the nest, she flew to the roof of the house very near me.

I told her not to worry, I wasn't going to hurt her babies!

(Hubby got this shot for me, blindly holding the camera as high as he could. 
Sorry it's a little blurry... but aren't they pretty blue eggs?)

What is she going to be like when those two babies hatch??? 

Maybe we'll just have to go out to eat instead of grilling. :)

Just Keep Blogging, Just Keep Blogging, Blogging, Blogging

I have really neglected this blog lately. I think I'll try to jump-start myself back into gear by answering this week's Wednesday HodgePodge Questions.

1. What is the most useful book in your house?
The Bible.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16
 

2. What's worse-being too hot or too cold?

I hate it when it is terribly cold outside. It's not fun when it hurts to breathe because it's -10 or more. 

But then... there's the whole personal furnace issue I have going on because of growing older. The other night I didn't sleep very well because I would wake up either over-heated or super cold. Sigh. If I really need to choose, I would say it's worse being too hot. I get quite grumpy. I need air-conditioning.

3. Share something that made you smile this past weekend.
I finally found a new wallet (or is it called a billfold?) to replace one I've have for more than 10 years. It's green. I like green.
I also got to go shopping at a Super Target! Happiness. 

4. How do you like your hamburgers? Or don't you?

I don't order or fix hamburgers very often, but next time I do, I think I will put some Swiss cheese between two (small) patties, seal the edges and grill. My dad used to make them like that. Yum.

5. What's your summer beach read?
I've been reading A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins.

(But not at the beach. I know it's probably unpopular, but I really, really, really don't like being at the beach. I think the most boring-est [I know that's awful grammar] day could be laying in the HOT sand or by a pool and getting all yucky and sweaty, not to mention sunburned and prematurely wrinkled. Ugh. I have spent days like that, but it's not high on my list of things to do. Not high at all.)

Anyway... back to the book. A Walk Across America was written a bit more than 30 years ago by a man who decided he wanted to walk across the country to find out if America was worth anything. He writes about the people he met and the experiences he had along the way. I read the book probably 20 years ago. It's been a good book to read again.

6. How was your birthday celebrated when you were a kid?
I always got to pick out whatever I wanted for supper and my mom would fix it. One thing I remembered I liked was a Banana "Salad". Mom would slice the bananas length wise, spread mayo and peanut butter in between, and cut the bananas into slices. It sounds kinda gross, doesn't it? I haven't had this in years. I wonder if I would still like it.

But, the best part was I also got to pick out what flavor and shape of cake I wanted. Here are pictures of my 3rd, 4th and 5th birthday cakes:

I did the same thing for my kids. I enjoyed making the cakes for my kids and honestly miss that now that they are grown and married.


7. What's something that is totally uncool that you love anyway?
Brussel Sprouts.

8. Insert your own random thought here.
 Here's a random photo from my phone. This makes me laugh because it looks like Charley (the dog) is helping my son-in-law figure out his next move in the game.

Anniversary

Happy 2nd Anniversary to Caleb and Amanda!

Your wedding was an awesome way to celebrate the 4th of July.