I realize I’ve been remiss in posting lately, so allow me to fill you in on what’s been going on.
“Cheap Mexicans” – on Friday night we met our friends Tony & Kim & Natalie, at our local Los Bravos for some kidtastic dining entertainment. Let me just tell you that unless you have kids, stay away from Los Bravos between 5pm and 9pm. Consider yourself warned. It’s like Chuck E. Cheese’s in there, without the animatronics rodent band and old video games with today’s prices (yeah, like I’m paying 50 cents for Galaga). If you have kids, however, take em and let em get all over themselves at cheap mexican. I’m rather partial to their Fish Tacos.
Tomato Sauce Making and Canning – I spent two weekends at the Marietta Farmer’s Market buying fresh vegetables and herbs. I already posted about the first attempt. On the second trip, I got up early and let Stephanie sleep in as I took the kids with me. I didn’t let the twinkles run around on foot since the Market is on the edge of the square and they could easily get into trouble – they were confined to the Chariot. That actually came in handy as I bought about 15lbs of tomatoes from Craig of Two Mule Farms. Craig also tossed me an additional couple of pounds of tomatoes with bad spots gratis. I scored a couple of ounces of just-picked basil and oregano from another vendor. I say ounces, because I don’t know how much basil is in 3 zip-top sandwich bags, nor do I know how much oregano is in 3 zip-top sandwich bags. I made two batches this time, one as a standard tomato sauce recipe, and the other as a fantastically spicy version that the kids will not be allowed to taste. Oh wait a minute. Never mind then, I suppose they might like it. So I’ve only a crock-pot’s worth of spicy tomato sauce left to can and I’ll be done for a while.
The Rocker – Saturday night we were childless as we booked Karyn to babysit. We had dinner at P.F. Chang’s and for some reason we decided not to have the Cool Lettuce Wraps as our entrees. Mental note for next time: have the Cool Lettuce Wraps as entrees and enjoy. You can’t beat ‘em. We finished up the evening with a viewing of Rainn Wilson in The Rocker. Some folks have compared this to a poor man’s School of Rock, but the storyline is much different, the characters are different, and the plot is different. Sort of. It was cute, enjoyable and we had a good time.
We wrapped up Sunday by doing a little canning, getting the dogs’ baths and pedicures, running errands with the kids and just generally taking a little bit of easy. It was a little crazy as Karyn kept the kids up past bedtime on Saturday, which meant that they awoke quite early on Sunday. Grrr. Usually when this happens we have to give Devin an extra long nap in the morning rather than a short one in the afternoon. While that means that we don’t get any time to do chores while both kids are sleeping, we do get some special two-on-one time with each child. That’s actually pretty special because it doesn’t happen very often. In this case, I had a daddy-daughter lunch with Maya, while Stephanie stayed home to do school work (yeah, seems like that never stops) and some father-son wander-around-the-electronics-store time with Devin. Steph got to have some playtime fun with each as well – but she’ll have to fill in those details as I was busy with other things and didn’t witness it myself. Then again, with the course load she has this semester I suspect it will be December before you see that post. Don’t hold your breath…
I have pix to post at some point. Perhaps tomorrow.
Oh, and one last thing. Lately Devin has been talking up a storm. Not all of it intelligible, but he has some good 6-7 word sentences with about 75% of the words being recognizable (at least by us). Maya surprised me this weekend with a few words I didn’t know she learned: teapot, spacesuit, terrific, and… *ahem* asshole. Yeah, sooner or later it was bound to happen – and it did. I was getting her out of the car seat, and removing a toy from her kung-fu grip, and she said, “Hey, stop it, asshole!” I didn’t bat an eye and continued and then she repeated it. I just ignored her, but boy was I laughing inside. Not that I want her to repeat that, but it was certainly worth a chuckle to hear that phrase out of my sweet, sweet treasure. Let’s hope she doesn’t follow up something worthy of a Kevin Smith script.
