Day 1

of my new exercise program- ouch.  A bunch of girls at work decided to start walking/jogging/wogging/running the track outside of school every day.  There are a variety of stages of fitness, so everyone just goes their own pace, often in little packs.  Today was day 1 for me.  Of course, I woke up with a stiff neck.  I can't turn my head to the left- yikes  I decided to do it anyways.  Bailey joined me and was a good support.  My ipod came in handy too.  :)  We ended up doing 2 miles in about 30 minutes- not bad for a lazy butt like me.  I'll keep you updated on my progress.  Who knows?  Maybe one day I'll be like K-dogg, my fitness hero!

He's baaaaack!

Remember our cute little tree frog from last year? He's back and fatter than last year.  He's still only about as big as my thumb nail. He also is still using our banana plant as his home.  We've decided to name him- any suggestions?

She's just like her mama

What did Bailey want for dinner tonight?  Apple slices, crackers and Stilton cheese (a very stinky blue).  When she was done with hers, she moved on to my plate of crackers, Stilton & a grapefruit.  LOL

Just one of the reasons I love Dave so much...

He can build anything.  He surprised me on Thursday by coming home from Home Depot with lumber and in two days had completed steps to our backyard from the retaining wall.  Previously, to get down to our backyard, we either had to go down through the basement, or go all the way around the house down a steep hill, so this is a big deal!

Here is a picture when it was in progress. 

How cute is this?

Dinner at the fire pit

No, that's not some fancy restaurant, it's our backyard!  Mike, Heather, and the girls came over and Jake had Ahmed and Evan over as well.  First, we built a fire with pinon wood from New Mexico.  Then we roasted hot dogs.



Then, we ate the dogs!





Next came the smores.  Yummy!



Gotta love hanging with your best friends and cooking your own food on a firepit!

We got our first letter!

Recently, our family decided to sponsor a child from Compassion International.  We chose an 8 year old  boy, Andrew Ng'ang'a, from Kenya. 



We got our first letter from him this week- how exciting!

The letter tells us some general things about him, such as his parents and brother's names, his best friend, that he lives in a village, etc.  He also wrote that his favorite game is ball, school subject is math, color is red, food is rice, bible story is Creation and song is Glory!  When Andrew grows up, he wants to be a driver.  He says, "Thank you for sponsoring me.  God bless you.  Please pray that I grow to a bright and God fearing boy and that I also excel in my studies." 





Even though we had a picture and a bio on him, it seems so much more real now. He actually wrote these things to us!  Bailey is going to send him some of her school work, so he can see what she does too.  For those of you that also sponsored a child, I can't wait to see what they send you, so make sure you blog it!

How did you spend your Friday?

As it's our last night sans kids, we bought filet mignon, fried some eggplant, cooked an artichoke, and uncorked a bottle of Merlot.  After a lovely, satisfying dinner, Dave conked out and went to bed.  I caught up with my DVR- I watched Eli Stone, Top Chef, & Chimp Eden- all while playing on the net, and all with my fabulous cat warming my belly. Have you ever tried to balance a cat and a laptop on your lap?  My legs have fallen asleep a few times!  At 8 am tomorrow, I am on my way towards Florida to pick up the kids.  Oh, how I miss them! So, how did you spend your Friday evening?

Traveling in my own backyard!

After all the fun we had, K-dogg and I decided to go visit the local hispanic grocery store.  I've been there a few times, but Kristen hadn't, which is funny because she ministers to hispanic children in the area. 

Alas, it's a great place for fresh seafood, produce and cheese, but it is just not as stupendous as the asian market.  Maybe because the food at the Super H Mart is from another continent, but it was much more strange that the food here. But, we had to get our obligatory photo op!

I wanted to get a picture of K-dogg with the cow tongue.  She refused to pick it up, so I made her lean in!



Here I am with some very frightening dried shrimp that we found in the spice section and with a large sugar cane that I picked up for the kids.



I don't have any pics from lunch, but we decided to go to my favorite Indian restaurant.  We got there and it had moved!  So, we got back into our cars and drove to the new location, which was right down from the mercado del pueblo!  It was worth the drive.  The food was excellent and so filling!  Chicken tikka, naan, rice, vegetable curry and a yummy lentil broth soup, with rice pudding as the dessert.  Yum.  The company was even better!

Stay tuned

K-dogg and I are going to a local Hispanic market tomorrow!

My durian eating experience

We cracked into the durian today.  It never really had a bad odor (Dave thought it smelled rotten), but I read that it's because it was frozen.  It was surprisingly easy to open, given it's spiky exterior. 

 

The first glimpse...



Getting ready for the first bite...





I'm done at this point.



Well, I'm not a durian fan.  The texture reminded me of a persimmon, whick is one of my favorite fruits.  Kind of slimy, stringy and custardy.  The texture probably would have grossed me out, had I not been such a huge persimmon fan.  The taste is what got me.  My best description is that someone made a custard of banana, persimmon and passionfruit, but accidentally added lots of fresh garlic. It's like someone made a mistake in the making of the custard!  I just can't get past the garlicky taste.  Dave asked if I was going to puke and I had to admit that if I continued to eat it, I probably would have.  I made myself eat about 6 bites just to see if it got better, but by the end my gag reflex was kicking in. 

No thank you.  I'll stick to persimmons.

My random asian grocery store experience

Needless to say, I watch a lot of Travel Channel programs, such as Bizarre Foods, Anthony Bourdain, etc.  Needless to say, I'm the kind of person who will try anything and possibly like it!  I'm always hearing about this nasty fruit called Durian.  Durian is a fruit that supposedly smells like decaying flesh mixed with rotten eggs.  Interesting.  It also supposedly tastes really great.  To get an idea of the smell, it is actually banned from the subway and from hotels because of the odor.  So, needless to say, I had to try it.  The only places to get in in America is in an asian grocery store.  I'm childfree this week, so I started looking up stores and saw that there was a Super H Mart nearby!  Sweet!  Now, who can I take with me?  K-dogg of course! K-dogg, aka Kristen, has been to China multiple times and likes Tall Chais, so she'd be perfect to go.  I texted her and she was just getting off work.  Perfection!  So, we're off to the Super H Mart. 

Our first thought?  It's huge!  Like a Whole Foods!

 

Mmmm.  K-dogg loves dried shrimp!



I just picked up some random strange item for the picture.



Yummy, fermented eggs.  Hmmm, I wonder if this is like balut?



Wow!  Talk about some giant seaweed- I'd love to see that sushi roll!



Along the right wall of the giant superstore is a food court with everything from sushi to noodle bowls to spring rolls to dumplings.

K-dogg got a yummy looking shrimp spring roll.



I ordered some egg rolls and a King dumpling, which was superb!



Look at this King dumpling! Yum!



We tried to get a photo of the two of us.  What is happening to my face??!!



Did I buy anything while I was there?!  Yes!  $36 worth of yummy asian goodies.  I can't wait to take my mom and dad!



But, the bigger question...did I get me some durian?  You bet I did!  I can't wait to taste/smell this one.  You can be sure there'll be a blog about it.

And Now I'm Found

After reading this on Amanda's Blog, I had to join in.  These are some of the strange search engine terms people have used to find my blog.

beck furniture + jail

Hmm, that's interesting.  Is there a girl name Beck who went to jail and is selling her furniture?

beckers logo

Maybe I should search this.  I could use a logo!

pipsa amato

This is the strangest to me because this is the name of my mom's best friend and it sure isn't a common name!  The strange thing about it is that I know I've never blogged about Pipsa, so how did it link to my page?

hot pink hair

I get constant visits to my page by all kids of searches for pink hair, mohawks, etc. 

bad photography

Wait one minute!  BAD photography?  Shouldn't this be good photography?

lesley hannah montanna's best friend

Well, I don't know about Hannah's bff, but my bff is Lesley!

how and where the black swallowtail butt

I can't even begin to wonder what this means and how it got to my page!

huge cookie

Who doesn't like a huge cookie?  Unfortunately this person just got to see my 30th bday party with my Sisterchicks. 

rotton teeth

Ew.  Do I look like I have rotten teeth to you?

becks blueberry

Sorry, I'm all out of blueberries.

blew my nose dizzy fell floor

Other people do this too? I bet no one's story is as hilarious as mine, though!

 

Now, I want to see what people are searching to get to your page!

My friends aren't fickle

But we do love us some Fickle Pickle, a quaint little restaurant nearby.  When Staci found out that the kids are visiting their grandparents in Florida for the week, she said that she and Amanda were going to try to do lunch today.  Was I interested?  Of course!  By the time I got there, Mandi had torn herself away from work to join us.  The best part, other than hanging with my sisterchicks, was the homemade potato chips with homemade ketchup!  Mmm.  What was the worst part?  As Mandi says here, no one took any pictures!

Do you know what this means?

Hint: this is my apple tree that bore no fruit last year.

A look at my garden.

Last year, anyone who read my blog saw the beginings of my first garden.  So, here's the first look at my garden in 2008.  I planted 5 new flowers today, and I'll give you a glimpse of those as well. 





This is a picture of the sedum I planted last year and this lovely purple sedem I picked up at Lowe's today.



I loved the colors of these cute little perrenials. 



These perrenials have lovely, tiny pansy looking flowers. 

 

Now for the veggie garden.  I'm still waiting on my Italian Ice tomatoes from Burpee, but for the time being I went and bought a Big Beef and a Celebrity tomato plant.  I stopped at a rare plant nursery today and he was just planting seeds for some interesting varieties.  I'll be picking some up in a few weeks when they are ready.  I'm going to get a Brandywine and a Cherokee Chocolate tomato.  Sounds yummy, huh?

Other than tomatoes, I planted the peppers and eggplant that I've been growing from seed, plus I bought an eggplant from Home Depot, just in case mine don't make it.  I also put cucumber seeds in the ground and I'm soaking the green bean seeds to plant tomorrow.

Tomatoes:



Eggplant:

 

The veggie plot:



Well, that's the garden so far!  I'll keep you updated.  We have some lovely Spring color on our trees, so I'll make sure to take some pics tomorrow before they stop blooming.

My tulip surprise!

In the fall, I planted a lot of tulip bulbs all around our house.  By the time Spring  arrived, I couldn't remember what I planted, so it was a lovely surprise.  I took pics of all 6 types except for the ones that haven't bloomed yet.  Those appear to be a deep purple.  Enjoy!









Look at the mosquito sitting on the upper right petal of the flower above!  Ick!

 



Can you see the pollen on the petals?  I hate pollen, but I love the clarity of my new camera.