T- Minus 5 Days.

Well faithful reader, the landslide of detritus continues from our house. The thrift store, library and dump were the lucky recipients today. Most of the dump stuff actually ended up in the reuse center and was being put into other peoples vehicles as fast as I could put it down. It was pretty heart warming to arrive at the dump thinking I was going to make a serious deposit and then to only have a few fatally broken things end up actually ending up there. Gotta love giving stuff you don't want a second life. In our case it was a third or fourth life for a lot of it. Tomorrow is the couch and the second dining room table we have.

On the storage front we have probably filled about 500 of the 800 cubic feet of space we have been allotted. With three beds, four bikes, two desks (legs removed) a bar fridge and a barbecue left to store it is going to be close. Lets put it this way, if there is an earthquake I am not worried about anything falling over.

Now to get down to business. Though we have eaten a meal every night this week, this evening was a nice chili burrito affair, we have but one picture. It is the Thursday evening meal. I came home from work earlyish and the Mrs. took her break and went shopping. She arrived back with fixins for burgers and fries. I did the honours and I was truly honoured by how well those patty's cooked up. Once again we have to say that you can't beat the quality of meat at the Overwaitea up here. For those of you playing along at home, yes those are yam fries. Very yammy.
After dinner we all sat down to watch a movie in the rearranged house, computer is now by the kitchen, living room is pretty much empty. The kids settled in to the big chair together and ate their ice cream bathed in the blue electric glory of dessert and a movie. Good times.

Winter Arrives

So we got our first taste of winter today. So of course we came home from school and started making a snow man.
Rumour has it that the man got crashed down and we now have a snow dog. I have yet to investigate but judging by how wet these kids were when they came back in there was definitely some serious snow play afoot.


Here is the littlest practicing standing. Walking can't be far away now. Then nothing will be safe.They say that when kids start crawling it has a big impact on brain development. Something about the right arm left leg coordination that brings things along. Well we have definitely noted a huge change in the littlest. When ever you change activity he totally reacts. For example if I am holding him and put him down he freaks out. However, if I sit with him and play for a bit then he gets into playing and everything is okay.
And finally we have dinner. Remember, this is a blog about dinner. The Mrs. went with finger food this evening and it worked. I shaked and baked some chicken. We got some home fries with yams. The Mrs. got brie cheese and crackers. Some kids salsa and nacho chips. A little green salad.

A lovely end to the week.

More comfort food.

Nothing crappy happened today. We just weren't into cooking so we went with something easy. French fries, perogies and a green salad with orange segements (the wife added the colour, I was in charge of the starch).
I actually had some good news today. A colleague called and offered up her husbands old bike. Turns out they just bought new ones and are no longer in need of their old ones. Their old ones are like new to me so I am very excited to be back in the bike game. Talked to the insurance people and though our deductible is a little steep we can replace everything and get reimbursed for it. So it sounds like insurance does work. We don't know if we are willing to cough up the deductible but maybe once I am getting paid again in the fall we may change our mind. In any case we will definitely be replacing the bike trailer.

In another neat piece of news I saw a family travelling by bike today. Two parents, three kids, two tandem bicycles with one of those ride along trailers on the back of one of them. Talk about seeing a picture of yourself in real life. It definitely looked like the kind of setup we could work. And they were riding through the Kootneys. Saddle bags and the whole bit. Yes it was a little piece of perfection if you ask me. Give me four - five years and I hope that will be us.

Lunch and Dinner

Well the lunch today looked so good I just had to take a picture. I was in charge of the french fries and because I started early and didn't rush things they turned out great. A little basil, salt and pepper backed in the oven at 450 for 35 minutes and then broiled for about two. I also nuked them for 3 1/2 minutes in a bowl in the microwave before starting and rinsed off the starch before and after the microwave. The grilled cheese were your classic sandwich maker grilled cheese. I love our 3 dollar sandwich maker. Picked it up at one of those garage sales in the parking lot of city park. Anyone can come and sell their junk at the tables. It looked so sketchy at the time and since then it has been used almost as much as the pizza oven. Lovin it. The Mrs. did a great job of her coleslaw and it was a complete meal. All the major food groups, vegetables, fried potatoes, cheese and ketchup. Those are the four main food groups...right?
After the rest of our event filled day (Bank, Post office, library, shopping, visiting friends, swimming) We arrived back home to a wonderful Te-maki spread with a simple yet heart warming bowl of miso soup. My classic blunder of the day was not buying the main thing I was sent out to buy. During the shopping I had taken a can of Tuna off the shelf and put it in the shopping cart. However, it never made it onto the conveyor belt or into the bag because it wasn't on the receipt and it sure isn't in our kitchen. So we were lacking the fish department. However, the rest of it was awesome and I am pretty content. Nothing a cold beer or warm back rub couldn't improve but that is true of pretty much anything.

Finger feast.

Well we started making a new movie today. Its got a princess, a witch, a dragon and a parrot. If you want to know where it is on YouTube then drop me a comment and I will send you the URL once I have it edited and posted. Now on with dinner. Originally it was supposed to be a pork stir fry night but I never took out the pork this morning to thaw so at 4:30 as I was supposed to start making dinner it was still a solid block of ice. The wife had tried to save my butt and took it out around lunch time but it was too late. So instead we took out some chicken nuggets and the leftover french fries from the perogie night and that was dinner. That and the wicked awesome spinach dip the wife made. Now knowing the wife there was no cream cheese or sour cream in this bad boy. Instead there was tofu and homemade yogurt. But it still rocked. Not your classic spinach dip but it was still awesome with both nacho chips and raw veggies. I say next time add a little cream cheese and send it over the top. But it was still delish. So with some not hot salsa, this was a total finger food night. The wife mentioned as she looked over the dearth of dishes, "we didn't use a single fork." Nice.

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.

Full Friday

At least for me. I was out the door at 8:30 to take part in the union contract meeting mentioned earlier. We read through our almost complete contract for two and half hours. Mind numbing but informative. Then I bought some hockey sticks, look for hockey pucks in vain and brought home some boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner.

Upon arriving home I found the family engaged in a movie and waiting for their dough to rise. They decided to make bread today. Interesting little buns of all sorts. Sticky Jam buns, chocolate chip filled buns and a wonderful cheese, garlic and dill number that was really awesome. The picture doesn't do it justice because we have already finished about a third of them. I really need an alarm that goes off right before I eat anything reminding me to take a picture.

Before the buns went in the oven we put the hockey sticks to good use and played some hockey outside. We also did some slalom skating and had another snowball fight royale. With all the plus 3 and plus 5 days recently the ice seems to be getting a little thin. If winter doesn't return in full force we may not be skating much longer. Some leaves that were frozen into the ice managed to melt holes from the warmth of the sunshine. However, if it gets nice and cold I am sure I can keep the sheet solid for another month or two. Post skate we came back in and watched another movie. The kids had been snacking on buns [ed. no the time line doesn't work but live with it] so they didn't really need lunch. Around five I started chopping up the last three potatoes. No one mentioned we were down to three when I said earlier that I was making fries so that was what we had. It all worked out and no one that was hungry for fries went without. The chicken breasts were sliced in half, soaked in soy sauce and sugar and then fried up in the fry pan. Instant Terkiyaki chicken burgers. The tomato and lettuce that were purchased with the breasts filled out the burgers nicely. Everyone else snacked on them seperately but I had a proper burger. Now we are fed and ready for another movie. I believe it will be Underdog. Good times.

Movie and Meal

Well we spent all day working on the latest ginger bread movie. You can find it at youtube. Just search for Gingerbread and adventure. It is a good one I think.

As for dinner we had a quickie french fries and pasta and sauce dinner. The son wanted french fries and the daughter wanted spaghetti. So that was what I made. In the end the kids weren't that hungry so there is some good leftover action for tomorrow's lunch. I have to admit I was so focussed on the movie making I burnt the sauce to the bottom of the pot. Well thats life I guess. Almost 2009, come on next year.

Treats Night

Well it is Thursday so it must be treat night. However, I will start with a breakdown of this days events. The son went to an orchard and farm today with his preschool class. He had a great time, tormented some chickens, and came home with his very own, "princess pumpkin." Pretty cute. It is really an amazing thing when your children start to move out into the world and have experiences without you. The amount of passion he puts into his story telling is awesome. He never remembers everything but the things he remembers obviously had a great impact. The daughter went to a Terry Fox run with the rest of her school. She did eight laps and was very proud of that fact. As it was a rainy sort of day I was met by the whole family when I went to pick up the daughter after school. It was a nice drive home but that walk home on a Thursday is something I am starting to enjoy. No hurry. I bring some change to buy a treat. Good times.

As for dinner this evening the wife decided to push the envelope. She made spinach pastries. Now the fillo came in a box but it was still great. She had some left over and decided to make curry pastry baskets with the left over curry. It was too juicy and they had to be lifted out of the pan with a spoon but they were oh so good.
The french fries were home made and the pasta salad was a leftover item but that never seems to detract and it was again a superb meal. The daughter ate the meal with two teeth missing as before dinner she asked me to pull out the other wiggly one. It gave her a little pain but after a pull forward, the twist got the job done. It was well on its way so I didn't have to inflict that much pain.
After dinner I felt like this. I was pretty wiped out. However, Mom mentioned that we should get cookies or make cookies. Well the daughter picked that one up and ran with it. So inspite of feeling like the picture below, we decided to make brownies.
And they turned out pretty well. We used a recipe from a Christmas cooking magazine the wife got last year. I think the brownies were meant to be firmer than ours are but all in all they are delish. Very very sweet. We ate them while the brownies were still hot and the icing though cooled kind of got melty on top. Wow. The extra coloured m&m tinies add something nice visually.
As part of the deal the daughter helped with the dishes post cooking. This wasn't in the original deal but she seemed to understand the value of saying yes she would do it. She actually did a lot of the work for the brownies. My level of patience was not very high so I probably had a few more mildly explosive moments than I should have. Put those in the parent guilt jar. I am saving up for some massive inappropriate gift. I wonder if she will ever know why she got it.
Brush teeth, book time, bed time here. Deep exhale. I am sleeping in tomorrow. At least until 7:30.