Spring Break Road Trip

I promised details on my recent Spring break trip and here they are. My cousin agreed to road trip with me from Oklahoma to Buckeye, Arizona.  You may remember that I was just out there for my daughter's wedding. That was a wedding only weekend so I told the grandkids that I would come back out the following weekend to play.  We got in town on Monday evening and by Saturday morning I was back on the road!

I  had convinced a cousin to go along with me. We spent a lot of time together as kids but not much time as we became older. We both thought it would be fun and we were right!  My goal, as usual, was to make it to Albuquerque before stopping for the night. My cousin Chris had never driven through New Mexico. I have more times than I can possibly count. I was able to advise of upcoming sights to watch out for and possibly photograph. 

We made it much farther than Albuquerque almost through New Mexico stopping at Gallup for the night. This meant we would have a much shorter drive the next day.We took our time, enjoyed the scenery and finally arrived at my daughters house. Now the fun can begin!.

Donuts for breakfast is a favorite with the grandkids and we managed this three mornings! They have a good donut shop not to far from their house. We did some shopping with granddaughter  Cady, watched a football practice, made a field trip to see Hobo Joe, hiking in the dessert with the boys, movie in the park on our last night, worked in some Pinterest projects, track meet and a trip to the comic book store. That's just a quick synopsis of what we did. Let's now hit the highlights. 

The first full day we shopped and did the field trip. We also decided to try a Pinterest project of a
Watermelon Pizza.  This proofed to be a disaster. Let's say that there is a reason Gary does not usually let me use knives. I was trying to slice the watermelon. Trust me when I say I don't know what happened. But when I look down and see a big gash in my hand I rush to the sink and some water. Tell Tarinda I need a couple of paper towels. Then I really look at the cut. I tell her, I think this may actually need some stitches. We get some paper towels wrapped around my hand and I'm holding it up and off we go to the Urgent Care. Tarinda asked if we should call Gary but I say no let's wait until it's stitched up. 

The Urgent Care doctor looks at it and says he won't touch it I need to go to the ER. Great!!!  I decide maybe I better call Gary just in case it's more serious than I think. His response?  Hilarious laughter! Yes, that's right - he laughed at me. It's nice to know that over a thousand miles away I can still make laugh like that. Well, four hours later we head back home with me sporting 7 stitches and my hand all bandaged up. We also have lots of pictures thanks to  my daughter.  Anyone who really wants to see them message me - I don't mind sharing but not everyone has the stomach for them. 

Well, that's already a lot of excitement and the week has just begun!  The boys decided that we needed to introduce Chris to our version of Family Fun. So we go to the Dollar Tree and stock up on silly string.  Wow! Two silly string fights in a little over a week - we are lucky! As we are cleaning up our mess outside I ask Billy C. to bring me the broom. He heads my way with it to be stopped by Tarinda telling him not to give me the broom. His response, 'It didn't have any sharp edges so I thought she would be ok".  LOL  

Oh the fun doesn't stop here. One of the boys got a long board for his birthday. Of course I tried it. Wouldn't you? Billy very carefully helped me balance while I rode it a short distance. I tell you, skateboards and long boards always look like so much fun. I just have trouble balancing on them. He was not watching when I kicked off my sandals and tried the long board again.  Yep, I fell backwards. Hard!  You should see the bruise I got on my good hand from that fall. Most impressive to him was, since I was barefooted, when my feet slipped off it took callouses off my feet. He said a whole layer of skin was on his longboard!  My best bud Remington, upon hearing of this, told his mom that was what he liked about me. 'Even with  my limited abilities I was not afraid to try things.' Let me explain that  my limited abilities he is referring to is my fake knee.

A few days later Jimmy gets a set of ramps for his birthday present. Man those really look like fun. I can't wait to try them out. Gary, however, upon learning of this informs Jimmy and me that I AM NOT to try them out. It's only because Jimmy wants Grampa's comic books when he dies that he agrees with Grampa. I, however, am quick to remind him that Grampa is not there and would really have no way of knowing if I tried them or not. Let me put your mind at ease - I didn't. I do however think I could easily done the scooter on the ramps. Even I know that me trying a long board on ramps is a really bad idea.

Did I mention we tried a couple of Pinterest projects. Well, the first one was obviously a big disaster. Our other one turned out quite well.  We made clay pot lighthouses. This was a successful Pinterest project that I will be displaying in my yard after I get a clear coat on it for protection.

Chris and I head back home on Saturday with the intention of stopping 'on the corner in Winlow, Arizona.' This was a fun stop and we enjoyed it. Chris picked up an Eagle's CD and we spent the remainder of our trip just taking it easy!  Can't wait for another road trip but still healing from this one.

There you have it, highlights of my Spring Break,  Who wants to road trip with me next?  It doesn't have to be this long - we could do a short 3 day trip somewhere. 

Going Irish

It's been a while since I posted.  I've been a little busy. Will post about that later but wanted to let you know what we had for New Food Night this week.

Yes, we did have New Food Night every week. I just didn't get any posts made about them. I'm sorry. You missed out on some good stuff -- Chicken Fried Steak being one.  Oh well, your loss. That was kinda rude but perhaps this weeks food will make up for it.

Last Tuesday I was in Arizona eating Corned Beef and Cabbage prepared by my daughter. Gary was here in Tulsa eating Chicken Cacciatore  prepared by Miss Annette. It occurred to them that they didn't plan their week in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day. So they decided that this week should be Irish.

Here's all the ingredients Gary needs for his contribution, Shepherd's Pie.  I think my across the street daughter may be starting to worry about us.  We had to borrow vodka from her for one dish a while back  and then I called for a corkscrew for this meal.  She may be thinking it's intervention time.

Gary browned up the hamburger, added some carrots and onions to the mixture. Some flour for thickening, chicken stock, red wine, worcestershire sauce and thyme. It didn't call for it but he added some garlic salt too.  Now typically Shepherd's Pie also has peas in it but Gary did these separately as he doesn't like peas.  This mixture was put in casserole dish. (That new birthday present Gary got is sure getting a lot of usage.)

Here's a little interesting piece of information for you. The recipe calls for a 'glass of wine'. How much is this?  I thought 8 ounces but I was wrong (guess this proves I'm not a wine drinker  LOL). A glass of wine is 3.5 ounces.  Now you know.

I boiled up some potatoes and mashed them up with butter and milk and piped these on top of the beef mixture. This was then covered with an egg wash. I used a pastry brush for the egg wash which kind of smashed the pretty tops of the potatoes I had piped on. I'm thinking if I did this again and wanted to pipe the potatoes on instead of just spreading, I might try putting the egg wash in a spray bottle and spraying on.

Gary made some creamed peas to go with the meal. These could be eaten by themselves or added to the Shepherd's pie for those of us who wanted the 'real' thing.  I love peas!

Miss Annette made some traditional Irish Soda Bread.  This is not made with yeast so it is a denser bread. We all agreed that we really liked it.  She also brought some Soda Bread that she bought at Reasor's. This had raisins in it and was a sweeter bread. Both were good but for the Shepherd's Pie I think you would want the traditional Soda Bread. The store-bought bread with raisins would be good toasted for breakfast.

Now just because I thought we should have some type of dessert, I made Chocolate No  Bake Cookies.  I forgot to get a picture of them. These are extremely rich and I personally can not eat them but they are Gary's favorite.

There you have it, our meal for the week.  Wait until you hear about next week's meal. It is going to be a little bit different as a challenge has been given. Can't tell you any more than that, you will just have to wait and see.

Wedding Weekend

We had another wedding in our family! Aren't weddings wonderful things to celebrate? And our family loves to celebrate. There is a lot of planning that goes into weddings. A LOT of planning. Now consider that my oldest daughter lives in Arizona and we live in Oklahoma. That's more than 1100 miles to plan a wedding.

There were numerous phone calls, texts, pictures, emails, pins on Pinterest between my daughter and myself regarding the wedding. Many decisions to be made, centerpieces, decorations, food,songs, logistics, etc. many decisions to be changed. My daughter wanted to have the wedding in her back yard,  She wanted to invite 160 people, many of whom were children.  I said, 'if you want it in the back yard we will make it work. Send me a diagram of the yard with your dimensions.'

Gary and I were going to cater the food for the wedding. Some people would say, "Why?'  We would answer 'Why not?' This is what we do. Gary loves to cook - we have the necessary equipment and we have catered several weddings, receptions, dinners. Not an issue for us.

So we loaded up the van with all our catering equipment, items for centerpieces and decorations, and a little bit of luggage and left Tulsa. In Freezing Rain/Sleet. We traveled through white-out conditions of blowing blinding snow - more freezing rain - even some freezing fog in New Mexico. After the first day of driving the weather cleared and we made it the rest of the way without any bad weather.

There were many projects still to complete. One project was to color sand to make sand jars with candles to line the driveway directing people to the back yard. I was doing very well with my sand dying until Tarinda decided maybe she should put some paper on the table to protect it. Then I had all kinds of problems!  Sand spilt everywhere but we got the sand all colored and ready for her mason jars (which was part of our load from Tulsa).

Yes, my hands came clean. And after mixing the sand all together we had one uniform color to use for the finished project.

We also had to get rose petals separated for the centerpieces, put a wedding arch together, and make up bags for s'mores. And someone had to download the music for the ceremony and reception. Between my daughter and her future husband they have 6 children. It stands to reason that most of their friends are also going to have children. This was going to be a very kid-friendly wedding. My daughter wanted a s'mores bar. She also had glow sticks for all the kids.

She has an amazing group of friends who volunteered to help out. Tables and chairs were set up. Yes, we were able to get 20 tables and 160 chairs in her backyard as well as an arch for the actual ceremony and also we made a pathway to walk down. We used the patio for the food line. She had a photo booth set up on the side of the house and friends were everywhere doing anything that was asked of them. This included that on Thursday evening while we are in the house doing a myriad of projects she says 'someone's in my backyard'. She goes outside to find one of the neighbors on the side of the house hanging lights for the photo booth!

Part of our supplies was the stem ware for the centerpieces.  The carnival glass was my mom's. Tarinda wasn't sure she wanted to use it. I took it all along anyway knowing that it was her colors, blue and purple, and the sun would set it off perfectly.

The diagram I made for the table set up worked perfectly. Plenty of room for 20 tables.

Well, needless to say the wedding went off without any problems. It was a beautiful ceremony. Their attendants were their children. And they had the mothers as flower girls.

The twins walked her down the aisle. Don't they look handsome

 The 'headband' Tarinda is wearing is a necklace my mother had crocheted. Very fine string of some sort with pearls interwoven in.

Now this wasn't just a wedding weekend. Being Grandma and Grampa we found time to have some fun also. Friday morning we took the kids out for donuts for breakfast. Isn't that what grandparents are supposed to do?  Also, Friday evening after the rehearsal I had everyone gather in the front yard. I then dumped out 26 cans of silly string (2 cans for everyone) and we had a silly string fight. This is kind of a tradition for us. We love to have fun. And, anytime grandson Billy asked me if he could have coffee I always said yes.

Just us having fun.

 Now if you follow my blog you may remember that back in November of 2013 our youngest daughter got married. If you  missed reading about this check my blog posts on 11-15-13, 11-4-13, and 9-27-13.  And keep in mind - we have another wedding coming up in May of 2016! More good times ahead.

South of the Border

You didn't miss out on New Food Night - I'm just a day late in posting about it.  Last night we had Mexican Night!  Gary makes enchiladas frequently. He has never made Spinach Cheese Enchiladas before though!

They require several ingredients.

The top picture is a pan of onions that are getting ready to be sauteed.

Middle picture shows more ingredients: garlic, sour cream, lime juice, green chilies, green enchilada sauce, spinach, cumin, chili powder.

Bottom picture is the cheese, tortillas and Gary's new baking dish he got for his birthday!  We've been looking for a reason to use it.

Here's the product ready to go in the oven.  Look at all that cheese!  You know with that much cheese going in the oven it's going to be all melty, yummy goodness.  I'll show you later.

We started off with some chips and salsa provided  by Mr. Rick.  It's certainly not Mexican without chips and salsa

I don't eat salsa but Gary said it had a bit of a bite to it.  LOL

Next up -- those Spinach Cheese Enchiladas!

I told you melty yummy cheese.  Miss Annette brought some chopped up green onions, tomatoes and avacado to put on top.  Yummers!

We also had some Cilantro Lime Rice to go along with the meal.

Just some chopped up cilantro, some lime juice and some lime zest. Cook your rice and add the cilantro and lime juice.  If you haven't tried this you need to.  I think it could easily become my favorite rice dish.  Just a nice pleasant surprise on your tongue.

And of course you have to have dessert.  Miss Annette provided us a dessert smorgasboard courtesy of the Mexican Bakery in town.

We had churros - strawberry filled and creme filled, a cream filled empanda, some sort of Mexican cookie thing (the brown looking thing on the right corner of the plate) and some sort of cinnamon filled type dessert and of course - all on it's own plate -- flan.

Everyone got a sample of everything!  Oh man!  That dessert just put me over the limit!  The cookie thing and the cinnamon filled thing (sorry I don't know the names) were both a little dry. We did, however, think they would be good for dunking in coffee.

There you have it - a little trip south of the border.  Who wants to make a trip to Tulsa and be a mystery diner next week?  There's always plenty of food for at least one more (or two or three).  We'd love to have you .