Meaty Goodness.

Well the great meals just keep on coming. You will remember our friends the soup and coleslaw from last nights dinner. Today's new comer was some fried up ground beef with assorted veggies. This was generously heaped over a bowl of rice and then quickly devoured. I am now working on some chips and salsa and may make a snack run as I get up for some evening work. Almost at the weekend. Tank is almost dry. Must soldier on.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...

We are back baby. And the car is unpacked the trailer has been emptied and sold (now that was fast) and everyone is eating dinner. But I get ahead of myself.

You may remember that on Friday morning we were supposed to get packed and out the door to go camping. Amazingly enough we did. We managed to arrive at the campground by two in the afternoon and were fortunate to get there that early. The last totally empty first come first serve camp site belonged to us.Note the tarp covering the trailer. It was well used as it rained a fair bit the first evening and night. We were dry and snug inside. See don't they look dry and snug. Gratuitous baby shot coming up. If its not your thing then just skip this next one Our site was a double but we didn't mind someone else taking over the other half and it had a direct line of sight to the playground. Very important.The kids spent a majority of their time over their playing. My favourite quote has to be the son. After talking to some kids for five minutes we left the playground and were walkign back to our campsite. "Yeah, their my friends," he says to me matter of factly. To myself I thought, "its probably news to them." but to the son I signaled my agreement. As there is currently a campfire ban througout British Columbia the meals were less than camping spectacular. We definitely need to upgrade to the double burner Coleman stove. The single burner works when you can also cook on the fire but without that we were in trouble. Everything took a long time. So campfire ban was compounded by the weather. At times it was pretty cold. For the most part the rain held off and we just played under overcast skies. Swimming was out except for one spectacularly cold plunge I took. When I popped out I said to a friend on the beach, "my pores have shrunk down to nothing," which of course was the perfect set up for, "oh that's what shrank." Can't be lobbing up grapefruits like that. Its unbecoming. This is us bike riding down to our friends campsite. (Real friends not "five minute" friends, we had organized this trip in large part to hang out together).It is hard to see but these glasses are made of glow sticks and were glowing in the dark the whole evening, except of course when the flash went off.
We hung out a few times at the park and on the second night we went over to their site after dinner(they were sharing a double with some other friends of theirs) and we hung out till well past all our bedtimes. The lady with the kids on the left is part of the couple we were their with. Guy on the right is their friend who had organized the sites for them. My buddy is taking the picture. What a guy.

So that was the trip. No tubing, next to no swimming, weak camping meals, yet it was still a great time. I almost finished a book. I did finish my beers. The kids made tons of friends and just played their faces off. We went to the beach on the way home as it looked like the sun was going to make a break for it but in the end the clouds came back and after an hour or so we packed up and headed for home.

After arriving back home, before all the other work, I went out to the garden. This was today's haul.
Don't the eggplants look nice. I am very pleased. Also the basil continues to provide its green leafy goodness. Me likes it a lot. Below is the kids salsa. No hot peppers but with the garlic, basil, and tomato mixed in with zuchinni, apples, onions and red pepper it is really really flavourful. For dinner the wife was going to make some ground beef filled spring rolls but after cooking up the inside ingrediants I talked her out of going to the store for the wrappers and we just ate it over some rice. A very pleasant meal.Up next, another week of summer vay-cay. We have some swimming lessons and assorted paperwork and sundry coming up this week. Cleaning, gardening and possibly prepping the hallway for a paint. Back on the road next Friday so lets hope this week goes swimmingly. Weak as pun intended.

Endless Play

Well the kids had a great day today. The son and daughter played and played and played. The played outside and inside. Upstairs and down. I was tired just listening to them play. They are still at it. As for dinner we had mabo dofu. Ground beef, tofu, onions, garlic all fried up with some soy sauce and spices. It was great over a bowl of rice. The wife also sliced up a bunch of watermelon. Good stuff. Even the youngest got in on the watermelon act. Man was he lovin it.
I am currently watching Tropic Thunder. It is pretty good so far. We plan to go camping tomorrow. Should be good.

Double Trouble

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh..... That is the sound of first semester ending. Sure I still have three exams to prepare, invigilate and mark but that is peanuts. Sure we are down at the coast next weekend. Meh.. Its done. I get my preparatory block back this semester. I get to do Calculus this semester. Weeeee...Three levels of concious. Un, barely, overly. Which is who? You decide.

In celebration of this momentous day, I decided last night I would make dinner. I told the wife we would be having wraps with two types of filling. One was mexican style, just ground beef, onions, garlic and red pepper fried up with chilli powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, some vinegar and ketchup. The other filling was a chick pea, tofu, coconut curry mixture. It had onions, garlic, mushrooms and some frozen corn added to it. Usually I mess up one of the fillings and dinner is a lop sided affair but this evening they both turned out. I like the anticipation of working without a recipe. Its kind of like the trapeeze without a net. Only I am starting to take my failures harder. Maybe I should be writing these down so that when they turn out I can duplicate them. Nah, lets face it. I would never even read the recipe the next time. I guess it will just always be an adventure.

To fill up the wraps we also laid out, rice, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, guacamole, salsa, home made hot pickles, and some french fries but they didn't show up until after the picture was taken. I had two wraps, a tonne of french fries and a left over pop from Christmas. Uncomfortable would be an apt adjective for my bodies condition right now. Only, when one feels uncomfortable is it an adverb because it is a way of feeling. Probably not. If it were uncomfortably maybe but I am sure someone wiser than myself has the answer to this one.

As you can see from the top picture, the son crashed out early this evening. He is currently sawing logs. The wife and daughter just had their bath and apparently the daughter was doing lengths in the tub. Where does she get the energy? Well that is all for tonight. Hopefully we will have some guests and a real feast to show you tomorrow.

Later

Ps. On further reflection, I had three wraps. That might have been the tipping point.

2 for the price of one.

Well as I was out at a meeting last night I did not have the opportunity to get in on the pork chop fest. The boarder who has had our dinners recently wanted to do his part and came up with a bunch of fast fry pork chops. This is manna from heaven for the son. That along with some coleslaw salad and it looks like I missed out on a nice evening. I managed to get the curried chick peas and spinach in my lunch today and have to say I would have loved to try it hot at my table. I had pizza with veggies and dip at the meeting. Not bad but not the same as eating with the fam.

This evening I managed to get a run in with the boys and we all came back to the homestead for a beer. One of them had to go home to eat dinner but the boarder joined us for an amazing beef stew. Anyone who has had a bowl of Tony's beef barley soup would have thought they were living in West Van again. It was amazing. A start time of 9:30 let this cook all day and by 6:00 the beef was falling apart good and the flavours had totally blended. Filling out the dance card were onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes and beets. It was seasoned with red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, bay leaves and parsley. It rocked. The wife just mentioned that if we had had an open bottle of red wine she would have added that instead of the vinegar. It still rocked. The meal was rounded out with two salads. The boarder's chicken breasts were fried up and served over a green salad and last nights coleslaw was re-mealed. Some homemade bread was grilled after being slathered with margarine and crushed garlic. This extraordinary Thursday nighter was capped with a serving of super healthy browny and mint chocolate chip ice cream. My eyes are currently only a third of the way open and the head is drooping visibly. Too bad that work is calling my name this evening. Perhaps a cup of coffee is in the offing. One more day this week. Fridays, what is the deal with that.