Grandparent Fun

Yesterday my mom took Isabelle and Grace to Cedar Point. Isabelle loves Cedar Point . When my mom talks to her about going, this is what Isabelle hears, "Isabelle, do you want to go to See Your Point?" Instead of "Cedar Point" so when SHE talks about it, she tells us she wants to go to "See My Point"

Anyway, it was Grace's first time and she wasn't too keen on all of the rides, but she is easy going and loved the activity and attention she got too. Apparently, they were entertaining a crowd, as Isabelle sang "All the Single Ladies" so that Grace could boogie to it for a small audience on the train. She got the attention and applause she was looking for too! As you can see below, Oma got Isabelle's face painted like a cat. She LOVED it.

Yum

We are regular eater-outer's. I know that's not a good thing, but there are just a few times a week I just don't feel like cooking, particularly after long work days. Conrad has always been a big fan of Chinese food (I'm guessing sometimes his Asian blood just needs that the rice fix. Although we do quite a bit of rice at home...at least my American standards!

Anyway, if you frequent chinese restaurants, perhaps you'll agree that they all seem to taste the same. It's like there is one big company that makes all of the food and ships it out to little mom and pop "#1 Chinese Food" stores across the country. It's all...we'll...mediocre.

So a couple of weeks ago after church we stopped at a new resturant called Sogo Asian Bistro. They have a buffet on Sunday's. We thought we might as well give it a try. It was THE. BEST Asian food I have ever had. It wasn't your usual blah chinese buffet. It was fresh and crisp and unique. Highlights include Hot and Sour soup that is REALLY fresh and good, crispy melt in your mouth crab rangoon, and best of all? An on-sight Sushi bar and chef that makes fresh and interesting sushi, along with the classic's that are out of this world.

So, if you are ever in our neck of the woods, make sure you check out Sogo Asian Bistro...yum!

Oops...

Last week I was making a new cake recipe. It was some kind of berry poppeyseed cake. So I took out my little stash of poppeyseeds. When Conrad's family came from Inida, like all consciencious Indian Mothers, his mom brought her own supply of Indian ingrediants to cook with. Among these she brought a ton of spices. She graciously left them with us when she saw my bland bland spice rack.

So when she left, Conrad had to help me decipher what was what and label them into baggies, for future use. Because, especially five years ago i was pretty spice ignorant. Back to the story at hand...I mixed the beautiful cake with lovely ingrediants in my kitchen aid and then took a little taste..yum. The last ingrediant was the small black seeds to add that sweet crunch to it. I added it and the batter looked so good I just had to taste it again. I took a small bite and got ready to savor the sweetness when I tasted...what was that? French's Mustard?

Oh no. I immediately called Conrad at work and asked him..what do Mustard seeds look like? Small black seeds? Yep. Sure enough my little baggie of inherited seeds was mislabeled. Yuck. Down the garbabe disposile. Back to the drawing board.

Almost Finished!

We are rounding the corner toward having our home finished and ready to put on the market. Of course, now that we have everything done the way that we want it, we are feeling like we really don't want to move. If only this house had a few hundred more square feet... on the other hand, less square footage is less to clean, right?

Not being the handiest of families, we once again, invited our favorite handyman over to do a few improvements. By the way, let me know if you want his name and number...he does excellent work and is very reasonably priced. We had Jim tile the walls around our garden tub. Love the glass tiles, don't you? We also replaced all of the cheap-o aluminum blinds in the whole house with wooden ones. In my opinion that little thing is a deal breaker in a potential house.


I got this idea to frame up our bathroom mirrors, instead of buying new ones (pricey!!) or buying an online kit (again..rather pricey!) We used pre-painted regular ole' molding. Jim measured, cut, and adhered it to the mirrors using gorilla glue! Then he actually screwed the frames to the wall. I painted the screws with white paint. We did this in all of the bathrooms and I couldn't be happier with the results!




Lastly, i finally got some pictures up on my blank navy wall in the kitchen. The middle frame is the many faces of Grace, eating an Oreo Cookie. So cute.

So there you go. We are currently mulling over finishing the several hundred square feet attic over our garage. It could be a fun space. And Conrad is tempting me by saying I could use it as my "Craft Room" Although I'm thinking more realistically it would turn into a Man Cave or Play Room. Our only issue is what to do with all of the stuff that is up there now? It's all just too much to think about for now...another day perhaps!

Isabelle-ism of the Day

Yesterday Conrad was driving the girls to the babysitters and he was reminding her to be a good girl and listen to her sitter. Conrad said, "Isabelle, are you listening to me? Do you hear me?" After a minute, she said, "I hear your mouth." What does that mean?? Funny girl

Father's Day Gift

I think I'll go ahead and put in on record that I am a thoughtful wife and Conrad got an awesome Father's Day gift this year. I know Im a little late with this post, but it took FOR EVER for him to pick out which television he actually wanted. Not to mention, it's just difficult for this Indian to let go of any of his hard earned cash...even if it was a "present" from me and the girls. I finally had to force him to buy one. And I'll add that it took me forever to decide what to do with the big blank wall behind the tele. I'm fairly happy with the picture grouping. What do you think?

P.S. Is anyone out there? Does anyone still read the Michael Chronicles??

Workin the System

I love my girls. They are both so unique and beautiful in different ways. Isabelle is more like me in personality. As a friend in college used to describe me, "Pow! No sugar on that fist." And yep. That pretty much describes my oldest.


Grace takes a different approach to things. I can see her little wheels turning as she watches Isabelle's tacticts to getting her way and I can see her thinking, "Hmmmm that's not working well. I think I'll try something different." So her response to most everything? "Yaaes." and "Okay, Mommy." Even if she has no intentions of doing what you ask.

Her newest thing is if you ask her to do something that she really doesn't want to do. She'll look at you, smile, come up to you, and pet your arm or leg, and say sweetly, "Moooommmyyyy, Moooommmmmyyy." I think she hopes you'll get distracted by all of the sugar she's rubbin in. And, I have to admit, sometimes it works.

Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

I think I’ve mentioned before how much I. LOVE. Jeni’s Splendid Ice cream, right? Oh, this place is just delish. My favorite ice cream is their Gravel Roads, which is salty carmel ice cream, with crushed smoked krema almonds. Excuse me as I wipe the drool from my mouth. Better yet, you can wrap the ice cream in a soft almond macaroon, and roll in in more almonds. Heaven. I haven’t managed to re-create Gravel Roads...and honestly I’m a bit intimidated by it.

I have gotten their totally yummy Strawberry Buttermilk ice cream. So I decided THIS I could do. So, here is our current favorite homemade treat:

Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream
Ingredients

1 c heavy cream
1 c cold buttermilk
6 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c strawberries, 1/2 crushed, 1/2 just sliced

Bring the cream to a boil, slowly. In a bowl, wisk together the six egg yolks and the sugar. When the cream is at a boil, slowly add it to the sugar and egg mixture. Wisk it together and when it’s well mixed, put it back into the pan and cook it on medium heat until it thickens slightly. Remove from heat and strain it. Put it into a container, add the buttermilk and stir. Chill for two hours or more.

Put the mixture into your ice cream maker and follow directions. During the last five or ten minutes of mixing, add the strawberries.

Eat right away or put in the freezer for a couple of hours. Yum!

Cousins

A couple of weeks ago my sister Jona had a conference around here and she came to stay with us and brought Abby, my niece. And of course, wherever the three granddaughters gather, Oma isn’t far behind, so she came to visit as well.

The kids are all just now about old enough to interact and enjoy it and since we live hours away from each other, we try to take every opportunity we have to get together. The girls had so much fun hanging out, playing, swimming, and having a short toddler “slumber party.”

We thought about the zoo, but I vetoed that idea as soon as I saw the thermastat reach a cool 90 degrees (and rising). No matter how many polar bears are at the zoo...three toddlers, crowded zoo, smelly animals....that just didn’t sound like a good time.