Canning chicken with a toddler and a baby in the church parking lot

Last Saturday my Relief Society had a "Super Saturday" and we canned chicken. I had some previous commitments (a birthday party, not to mention naps for the kiddos) so I contemplated not going at all. I remember my mom canning when we were kids. It looked like so much work, the kitchen (and therefore the house) was hot and steamy all day, and I remember being kind of afraid of it. I guess I would see my mom sticking her hands into the hot, boiling water and being warned a thousand times to not touch the jars on the counter.

Anyway, part of me wanted to can chicken because I knew I should for food storage purposes, not to mention I already had the jars. I decided to go for just long enough to get my jars packed and in the pressure cooker. I got there (with both kids since Robert was working) at 8:30 and realized upon arrival that not only was there NOT a child care room set up, but I was the only one who had brought my kids. Ethan was calm and mellow, as usual, but Craig wanted to run everywhere and touch everything, including the propane stoves and burners (which weren't lit yet). We were set up in the parking lot and as I tried to stand there and listen to the directions while corralling Craig and keep him from running in front of cars (the pine wood derby was happening in the gym), I started to wonder how I was going to do this. I decided to call a neighbor and see if I could bring Craig over for an hour while I got my chicken started, but then I realized I forgot my phone and I didn't know their number. I was just about to give up and go home when I thought, "I'll just put him in the car for 30 minutes." I was only doing 10 jars so he wouldn't have to cry and scream for too long. And then I remembered: we have a DVD player in our new van! Hallelujah! I popped in the Wiggles and Craig watched four grown men dancing and singing, "Toot toot, chuga chuga, big red cah" for a half an hour, Ethan enjoyed being held by a gracious sister in the ward, I got my jars done, and we were off!

The chicken is very tasty, by the way, and I've decided that I want a pressure cooker because I really like canning!

Executive Sous Chef!

Robert's been promoted to Executive Sous Chef at the country club that he works at! He is now the second in command for the restaurant, right below the Executive Chef and above the day time Sous Chef (and everyone else). I am so excited for him. He is finally getting the recognition he deserves and has worked so hard for over the last 5 years...well really over his entire working life. This means we'll probably be moving closer to his work when our lease runs out this summer, but that's not too much farther away from here. It's a cute little town called Fountain Hills.
As another cheer for Robert, I thought I would post a picture of something amazing that he did last week. A woman named Birdie had a birthday and her husband threw her a party at the restaurant (they're members and live at the golf course). She doesn't really like dessert and cake so he requested a fruit plate for her instead. However, Chef Robert decided that it needed to be more than just a fruit plate. This is what he did:

Those are slices of fruit stacked up with raspberries on top! Then he carved a pear to look like a little bird, since her name is Birdie, and the little banner the bird is holding says, "Happy Birdie-day." I am in total amazement at the creativity involved there. Robert continues to impress me with his skill. He SO deserves this promotion!

Craig's best friend (besides me)

I've been meaning to get a video of this for a while. Craig loves the kitty and he's found a way to really play with her. He just holds a string and runs around the house and she chases him. He thinks it hilarious. It's pretty cute to watch her jump out from behind the couch and surprise him, and then he busts up laughing. She has been a great distraction for him more than once when I needed him preoccupied.

Flash back to 1989

Yesterday was a beautiful, breezy spring day with temperatures in the low 70's. I opened the doors and had a lovely cross breeze. As I was sitting in the living room with Craig and Ethan, a sound floated in that instantly took me back to summers in San Leandro when I was a little girl.

We would each take our turns spending a week at our grandparents' house in the suburbs of San Francisco. Their house is in a classic 1950's-style neighborhood. The kind that ice cream trucks loved to visit. I remember hearing that upbeat tune coming from three blocks down. Listening for it as it got louder and closer, waiting for it to appear around the corner, trying to guess which direction it was coming from, was like Christmas in July. We didn't have things like that in Sonora.

That is where my mind took me as I was sitting in my living room yesterday and "The Entertainer" came playing along with the breeze. I jumped up and ran out the door. I saw a girl two doors down, about 15 years old, come bolting out of her townhouse with dollar bills in hand. Sure enough, there was the ice cream truck with a long line of kids of all ages waiting to buy their ice cream.

Well, I guess it's more of an ice cream van. But the flash back was neat at least.

P.S. This reminded me of the last time I saw an actual ice cream truck. It was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in a shady-looking apartment complex. My companion told me that often in that part of town the ice cream truck was a cover--they sold something, but it wasn't ice cream. :) Who was that companion anyway? One of you out there? I can't remember.

March 18, 2005

Happy Anniversary, Robert!

Thursday was our anniversary. It's been 5 years, and I can't believe it. To celebrate, he got the day off and we all went to the Wildlife World Zoo (more on that later). That night, a neighbor babysat and we went to Red Lobster for dinner then came home and watched a movie. It was a really good day.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from March 18th, 2005.

When we got to the church for our reception, there was a basketball! We played a tiny bit but I admit, the dress got in the way a little.

Five things I love about Robert:

1) His patience with my moods. (And they've been bad lately.)
2) He takes the time to really be a great, fun, caring dad.
3) I can tell him how I feel, even when it's not good, and he'll listen.
4) We have our own little inside jokes and can make each other laugh.
5) The way he wakes me up when he leaves in the morning to give me a kiss goodbye.

Another new outfit

When we went to see Robert's mom a couple of weeks ago, she gave Craig his birthday presents since she won't be able to be here on his birthday. This outfit was one of them. I think it's the cutest thing. He never liked hats before, but when I put this on him, we would not let me take the hat off, not even for nap time.

I took him to the park that day and as I was talking with another mom there, she asked which kids were mine. I said, "The striped one." She looked over and saw him and chuckled. Then she said, "Yeah, my son isn't very stylish today either."
Wait...what? I thought. Well, I think he's adorable and don't care if it's stylish or not, so there!

And just for laughs, when I took the camera out to take his picture, he wanted to play with it and I wouldn't let him, so he threw a tantrum. This is the picture:

What do you think I said to him? Yep: "There's no crying in baseball!"

Wildlife World Zoo

So here's the Wildlife World Zoo. It's different from the Phoenix Zoo. Apparently, this place is a research and breeding facility where they help repopulate the world's endangered species. As a result, the admission price is fairly high (a once a year kind of trip) and the zoo itself is a little rudimentary (like no pavement and many of the enclosures are just logs dug into the ground instead of expensive fencing). It's smaller, too, but I think we liked it better, overall. It was very accessible to get around to see all of the animals. Plus they have an aquarium, which was fun to see. First, I have pictures of the baby animal nursery.
A baby kangaroo. We didn't get to see him either, but I thought this was just so cute. :)

Baby porcupines. While we were watching, the one on top crawled over to snuggle with his or her sibling. It's hard to snuggle when you're a porcupine.

Here's a picture from the aquarium.

This boa was hanging on this tree as we walked out of the aquarium. As far as we could tell, he wasn't tied down or anything. Kind of creepy, but cool.

I thought this garden of flamingos was kind of neat, too.

From the top, you really couldn't see this guy. I think he was trying to hide from us, but he didn't realize that the glass wall went under water, too, so we could see him anyway.

One of the white Siberian tiger "cubs."

This was really neat. This cage went over the walkway between the white Siberian tigers and the cheetah. Here's the cheetah just taking a nap/showing off. I didn't zoom in at all for this picture, by the way. That's how close he was to us. If it weren't for the extra layer of fencing, a tall person could've just reached up and touched him.

Craig and Ethan did really well. There was a petting zoo, too, but we didn't get any picture of that. Craig loved feeding the goats and being practically run over by them. They even had a few baby deer. I think petting the deer was my favorite part. By the way, deer are a little rougher than goats when they're eating from your hand. Just FYI. Ethan slept off and on in the stroller. Craig should've napped on the way there, but didn't. Having missed his nap, he did relatively well. We got back into the car at about 3:00 (2 1/2 hours after his usual nap time) and within literally a minute, he was out:

It was a really good day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here's your joke for the day:

What do you call an Irishman who stays out all night?



Paddy O'Furniture

Ba dum bah!

Finally!

Sorry it's been so long. My classes this semester are really killing me. For those of you who don't know, I've been doing an online bachelors program through BYUI since last Fall. This semester I have three classes and they seem to consume all of my computer time. I try to get updates on here once a week, but life flies by and I forget. I have two semesters left (Summer and Fall of this year) and then I graduate and can dedicate all my computer time to blogging. Well, we'll see about that. Anyway, here what's been going on the last week or so.

I can't believe Ethan is 6 months old already! Here he is with his first taste of rice cereal. He didn't really like it at first, but he's getting used to it. (That bib says "Lunch is on me." Ha ha.)


I got Craig his own little chair at a garage sale last Saturday. Gotta love garage sale-ing in rich communities. :) This was $10 but I only had $9 in my wallet and they gave it to me anyway.

Craig's new church suit. He's so cute. He didn't want me to take it off.

Last Sunday Robert had the day off and it Stake Conference so we decided to head up to Show Low to see his mom. She hasn't seen the kids since last September, so it was time. We almost got stuck in this storm on the way home. This was about 5:00pm and we kept thinking we should turn around, but it cleared up as we got down the mountain. I love the Mesa winters, but it was nice to get up to the snow again. We had a lot fun.