Family Time

Rick had to work overnight last night, so while he was dozing this morning, I took Tyler over to the Lowe's Build and Grow Clinic. They were making little putting greens. It was a super easy project...taking less than 5 minutes to complete.

That was fine by Tyler...the sooner he was finished, the sooner he was able to start playing and repeatedly exclaiming, "Hole in One!".

Afterwards we stopped at Costco to pick up my latest photo prints and some fruit. I'm telling you, the honeydew and pineapple are the best deal in town. Then on the way home we stopped at a roadside cherry stand and scored a cool 6 lbs of cherries, bing and rainier mix for a mere $1.50/lb. Yum!

Once Rick thoroughly slept the day away, we went out for dinner and then for a walk on the Greenway. Well Rick and I walked, but Tyler rode his bike. We stopped at a playground along the pathway and let Tyler play for awhile. It was nice hanging out at a different park for a change. We usually just go to the closest one to the house.

Cool...a zip line low enough for Tyler to reach all by himself. He loves those things, but I get tired of hoisting him up over and over again. He could probably do it 1000 times and never get tired of it.

Then they had this crazy tire ladder, or was it a tunnel that you could climb up through to get from the ground to the upper play level. Tyler popped up, but then headed back down...

to hang out with Daddy.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the car. Help me if I can't keep that child on the right side of the road. Psst, Tyler...your other right! Mercy!

Lazy Days

In the past, whenever I noticed that the house was completely silent, it usually meant one of two things....either Tyler had fallen asleep somewhere or he was up to extreme mischief. But lately, the silence has meant something else....

he is deeply engrossed in reading a book. Phew! It's so much better to find Tyler reading a book than to find him, oh I don't know, using my ink pads to "color" himself, for example. He's been busy with the Summer reading program, gotta get those 20 minutes in.

It was such a nice day today, that we couldn't stay inside for long, so we spent a few hours at the park. The weather was right around 80 degrees. Perfect.

I love days like this!

One Busy Afternoon

I started Tyler on the Summer reading program at the library, so we went today to pick out some new books. Things have changed since I was young...no more paper and pencil. Now you keep track of your reading on the computer using the library website. Fancy stuff.

Anyway, Tyler was eligible for his first prize, so I went to the desk and asked one of the librarians what the procedure was for obtaining the prize. She looked at me like I had asked her what the price of tea was in China. "I don't know", she shrugged and pointed over my shoulder, "ask her". She seemed annoyed. I turned and saw that she was referring to another librarian that was busy emptying the book return. I decided not to bother with it, but thought...boy, the clueless one should take a moment and figure it out. I'm sure Tyler is not the only one enrolled in the reading program.

While we were at the library, Tyler took some time to put together his new favorite puzzle. It's a giant floor puzzle of the United States.

He chattered on and on about how he could do the puzzle all by himself, because the box says ages 4 and up, and he is 4 years old, so he could do it all by himself.

Got it...no help from me!

Right around the corner from the library, in the adjacent shopping center, was a new addition for the summer months...a shaved ice hut. Yum, so many flavors, so many choices. Tyler looked at the flavor board and declared that he wanted banana. Yuck. Are you kidding me? There's like 50 flavors and you pick banana? So he changed his mind to Bubblegum. Much better....we were sharing after all.

This was Tyler's first shaved ice and I'm not quite sure how it went over. He was making faces the whole time, but then he does that a lot when he's eating something cold. We'll be back again, I know it.

I popped into the grocery store next door to look for the famous pear cider, but only found apple. It was pear or nothing, so I left empty handed. Well, not entirely....I found these new Coconut M&M's.

They were good, kind of tasted like bite sized mounds. The M&M's themselves were larger than the chocolate variety, but smaller than the peanut ones. I'm a sucker for gimmicks, especially when coconut is involved, but I probably won't buy these again. Can't say that they are worth 210 calories.

The Good Stuff

I've been on a roll lately with the grill. I made kabobs last week and then those yummy turkey burgers. Most recently I made Sesame Chicken over Greens, a recipe out of one of my Light & Tasty annuals. It's a real simple salad with grilled teriyaki chicken, red bell pepper, olives and green onion. Easy and delicious.

I marinated the chicken for a day and a half, so it was super flavorful. Yum. Tyler cleaned his plate in a jiffy and Rick was not far behind. Hah! He didn't even notice those green onions hiding under the chicken and he thought the bell peppers were tomatoes.

For tonight's dinner I made Enchilada Stuffed Shells. I was trying to use up the leftover enchilada sauce I had sitting in the fridge and this was the perfect recipe for that.

The recipe calls for ground turkey, which I've used in the past, but tonight I went with ground beef. I think I prefer it that way.

And for dessert, a recipe I came across on the Betty Crocker website....Chocolate Banana Snack Cake. You know I can hardly pass up a banana recipe...those overripe bananas were ganging up on me again.

This one is too easy for words. You mix the batter in the baking dish, so you don't even dirty a single bowl. Love that.

More Work In The Yard

The weather was only in the mid 70's today, which made it pretty nice for working in the yard. I took Tyler with me this morning to the Farmer's Market and then to the grocery store, leaving Rick behind to get started on the weeding. The work in the backyard is slow going, but I think we're finally getting a leg up on the weed situation.

While he was out there, Rick put some wooden stakes in the garden and ran several lines of string for the peas to climb up. They were really starting to get tangled up, so this should help with that a bit.

I saw all kinds of sugar snap peas for sale at the Farmer's Market this morning, so I'm anxious to have some of my own.

We also put the tomato cages around the tomatoes...way easier the second time around! So most of the garden is moving forward nicely, except for the middle box. We planted bell peppers and eggplant in that one, and they really don't look any bigger than they did a month ago. Rick says he'll pick up some steer manure tomorrow, maybe that will help.

And as for the bird nest in the back of the house...it didn't have a happy ending. We had a heavy storm come through last Thursday night with high winds, rain, thunder and lightening. The next morning when Rick went into the backyard he found all of the baby birds scattered on the ground under the nest, having already expired. The babies were way too young to be out of the nest...they had no feathers and their eyes weren't even opened yet. It was sad.

Here is the daddy. He's been spending a lot of time perched on the edge of the nest, just looking. He must not even know what happened. Poor birdie. I don't know where the mom is, I haven't seen her visit the nest in several days.

First The Fun And Then The Work

Our mission this morning was to stop in town at a local sand and gravel company to pick up some rock for the side of the house, but not before getting a few crafts out of the way. It's the first Saturday of the month, so that means it's craft day at both Ace Hardware and The Home Depot.

At the Home Depot, the kids were making hardware sorters for Father's Day. I thought they were kind of cool, they came with a plexiglass lid and everything.

Tyler went a little heavy on the wood glue, so I'm pretty sure that thing is never going to fall apart.

Ta-Dah! The finished project covered from end to end with groovy tool stickers.

I forgot to bring the camera inside with us at Ace, but here is a look at the project Tyler made over there. It's a tile coaster for Father's Day. He covered it with "manly" stickers and then applied a coat of Mod Podge to seal.

Back at the house, it was time to unload the truck.

One wheelbarrow full at a time.

Tyler strongly insisted that he could do this part ALL BY HIMSELF! Gotta love that he could only pick up about 10 rocks at a time, though. I hope that those rain clouds overhead don't get any ideas!

Rick finished laying out the rock in a relatively short amount of time. Doesn't it look good? Much better than a bunch of weeds.

You Have To Try This

Last week, Rosauers had 1.25 lb packages of Jennie O lean ground turkey on sale for $2. Ummm, that's cheap!! I wasn't immediately sure what I was going to make with it, but I went out and bought enough to restock the freezer. I mean, heck, if nothing else, I could always make chili, right?

But since the weather is a little warm for chili, I began searching my cookbooks for something less "hot". That's when I came across a recipe for Turkey Burgers with Avocado Sauce. It's from Taste of Home's new 2009 Healthy Cooking Annual.

Yum! These were so good! Rick and I never make anything other than regulation ground beef hamburgers with ketchup and mustard, so this was a fantastic change. These burgers have corn, red bell pepper, red onion, lime juice, cumin, and chili powder mixed in with the ground turkey. Then after they come off the grill they're topped with a yummy sauce made of avocado, sour cream, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro. It's okay Susan, you can leave it out....I won't call the cilantro police (although I probably should). The only thing that could make the burgers tastier, maybe, would be bacon. I don't know. Something about turkey and avocado together, makes me want to slap on a few slices of bacon.

Bacon or not, you have to try these burgers sometime this Summer...you won't be sorry.