Date Night- Game Mania

Andrew was in charge of this night. We simaltaneously played four games. It got a little crazy! We played backgammon, dominoes, chess, & checkers. We had a bean bag for each game that we used to mark whose turn it was. So basically we just ran around looking for a bean bag on our side and took our turn and then threw the bean bag back on the other side. We tried to finish within a time limit, which I think started at half an hour, but we were having so much fun we ended up just finishing all of the games no matter how long it took. I discovered that I don not have the skills to play more than one strategy game at a time. I was so confused with the chess game. I lost that one so fast! Andrew totally beat me. He won backgammon, dominoes, and chess. I managed to win checkers. I think we will definately repeat this date night.

Dinosaur Museum

For Andrew's birthday, one of the things we did was go to a dinosaur museum. Even though this wasn't a dinosaur we thought it was fun! It was pretty crowded. Miles was especially having fun exploring his vocal chords but since it was loud anyway, no one could really hear him. It was perfect!

Their absolute favorite was "digging" for dinosaur bones at the end. They didn't quite work together and so they were constantly finding and covering the same bone the whole time.

Adelia's room

This is an art project I did on Adelia's wall inspired by my sister-in-law, Tonia. The butterflies are made out of paper. I thought it turned out pretty cool.

Tucker's Faith

Yesterday Tucker couldn't find a specific Lightning McQueen toy. I haven't seen it for a really long time. He had only looked for a few seconds when he wanted to say a prayer. He said a simple prayer that he would be able to find it and right at the end of the prayer Miles spit up everywhere. He rarely does this but I told Tucker after I took care of Miles I would help him look for his toy. I went up to get a burp cloth and what was in the the burp cloth basket? Lightning McQueen! I know that Heavenly Father answers even the simplest of prayers. It was so sweet to see Tucker's faith.

Kennecott

We went on a fairly spontaneous visit to Kennecott Copper Mine with Grandma & Grandpa. It was amazing! This is one of the tires from the trucks they use. I could not believe how big they were. Tucker and Adelia both loved the museum with all of the replicas of machines. It was SO crowded and we were especially grateful for the extra arms from grandparents.

Date Night- Chopped

So recently Andrew and I got into a show called "Chopped." Four chefs are given a basketful of random ingredients that they have to incorporate into a dish in a short amount of time. After each round one of the chefs gets chopped. Anyway, because of this show and another culinary show that we watched for awhile we thought it would be fun to let our creative juices flow in the kitchen.

We decided to work together rather than compete and we gave ourselves one hour to complete three dishes in. We made an appetizer, a drink, and a dessert. After we started our time we randomly drew out of a hat our ingredients. Appetizer- Carrots; Drink- Soy Sauce (gag!); and Dessert- Cauliflower.

We decided to saute the carrots with some zucchini in olive oil. We added parsley, onion powder, and oregano and then topped it off with parmesean cheese. Pretty safe but it turned out well.

You know how sometimes you go to a Chinese place and the sauce for the egg roll or lettuce wrap is so good you just want to drink it? Actually the only person I know that has ever felt that way is Andrew and this was our "inspiration" for our drink. We decided that we put rice vinegar with the soy sauce. It needed a more drinkable flavor so we decided to do a fruity-slushy drink. We ended up with ice, nectarine, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, a little ginger, and more sugar. It tasted ok.

We decided that since cauliflower looks like mashed potatoes we could use it to make doughnuts. You know like spudnuts? Any connection was good enough for us because cauliflower and dessert don't seem to go together. So we tried to concoct a very small amount of batter. Then we put carmel frosting with it (because we already had some...) It turned out pretty much how you think cauliflower in a doughnut with carmel frosting would.

So to sum it up, I would definately say this date idea is only for those with strong stomachs. Or else give yourself really simple ingredients that go good in everything. Like sugar & chocolate. It was fun to try this once but I don't think our stomachs would be able to handle round 2. We definately would have been chopped.

Word Roundup

So as I have mentioned we usually have date night at home and as cheaply as possible. That's just what works for us because of our little family right now. Because of that we have the "opportunity" to get creative so we aren't just watching a movie together every Friday night. My sister-in-law told me I should start a blog with the ideas we come up with but I don't think I have time for that so I will just include an occasional date night idea that we have fun with.

This idea is actually a website: Word Roundup It's just a silly game but we love to play it together. When we do this it usually is followed up with a movie or something...