Big Surprise

I have been feeling a little sad because all of my sisters are going to be at my mom's house. It was not as bad as it could of been because I just kept saying I am going to Italy. That is huge consolation. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a phone call today asking me if I could come. My very lovely family members are flying me out to be with my sisters as a birthday present. Wow, what a present! I am still in shock. So, although I have tons to post about, Amanda turned 16, James and I had our 17th anniversary, none of that is going to happen because I am too busy traveling everywhere to do it. Also, the computer that has the pictures is dead, and no one can find the tip to the charger. Frustrating, and I highly suspect a very naughty dog had something to do with it's disappearance, but I am not about to check his poop to find out.

BBQ Rules

I just received these new standard operating procedures that we all must learn.

BBQ RULES
We are about to enter the BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity. When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:
Routine...
(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert .
(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside the grill - soda in hand.
(4) The woman remains outside the compulsory three meter exclusion zone where the exuberance of testosterone and other manly bonding activities can take place without the interference of the woman.

Here comes the important part:
(5) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine...
(6) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
(7) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is looking great. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another soda while he flips the meat

Important again:
(8) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine...
(9) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
(10) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.
And most important of all:
(11) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(12) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed 'her night off ', and, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women.

Who Is A Better Driver?

This post was inspired by my niece who just received her first ticket. Her post got me thinking about the tickets that have been acquired at our house. Let me just say, for the record, that I have not gotten a single ticket since I have been married. I have only had one in my whole life and that was for speeding when I was 18 years old.

James, has gotten two tickets since we have been married. I know that is not a lot, but the reasons he got those tickets are pretty funny. The first one, was not long after we were married. He was a bike riding crazy nut in those days. You were more likely to find him on a bike than in a car. One day he was out doing one of his 60 mile rides when he had to stop at a red light. He was watching the light in the other direction to anticipate when he could go. When that light turned red, he just took off. Problem was, there was a left turn signal first, and he was going straight. Instead of stopping when he realized what he had done, he just ran the red light. There was a police car behind him, and he was pulled over on his bike and given a ticket for running a red light.

Ticket number two happened just after we got our second vehicle. James had registered the car and gotten the two license plates, but the car did not have a place to put the front license plate. The previous owner, from a different state, had removed the hardware for this. He placed the license plate in his front window thinking it would do until he could purchase the hardware to install it on the front of the car. Well, apparently that is not good enough, and he was pulled over and given a ticket for not having the license plate on the front. Silly Maryland.

What is funny about this is the kids tease him for being a worse driver than me, because he has gotten tickets, and I have not. When in fact he is probably the safer driver. He keeps the vehicle closer to the speed limit than I do. In fact, he has been called old on more than one occasion by the kids and I hate to admit it, but by me as well. He is a good sport about it, and laughs it off and keeps driving at his safe, slow speed. Although, if you cut him off in traffic he grows horns and drives like a crazy man that usually ends in me yelling at him to knock it off.

Honor Roll Part 2

Today was Kelsie's honor roll celebration. It was very fun to be there with her, and she was very cute.

American Idol 2009

Spoiler below for all you west coast folks.

All I can say is I am completely shocked, but the person I wanted to win actually did.

Way to go Kris!

Honor Roll

Today I got to go to an honor roll celebration for the 7th graders at the middle school. It was fun to be there with Kerrie.



Tonight was her school concert. I needed to take Amanda, Ashley and their friend to the church for their trek interview, so I missed the concert. James was there to support Kerrie and take pictures. As I was heading home from the church I got a phone call from Kerrie. She said, "Mom, you are taking me to the next concert. Dad is not allowed to come to my concert." At this point I can hear the tears coming in her voice. When I asked her what happened she said that her dad had embarrassed her so much. She told me that as she was walking in to sit down for the concert, James said, "hi, Kerrie" so loud that all the parents heard him. At this point I was trying very hard to not laugh because I could tell she was really hurt by this. So I calmly said, "so, you are embarrassed that your dad said hi?" To which I got a "yes." I asked to talk to James, just because I could not hold in the laughter any longer, and I did not want her to hear it. Funny teenage girl. I think she will live down the embarrassment.

This is her after the concert picture where you can see that she was not happy. She did say it was one of the benefits of being angry with her dad that she did not have to smile.

Blue

I am a little sad today. My niece headed home, and I am left with a home void of visitors again. I guess that is the normal way of things, but it is sad to me because I do not know when a visitor will come again. It is so rare for us to have family here. I am so glad that Kirsten was able to come out, and it was so fun to have her here.

Thank you so much for coming and fixing our hair. I miss you already.

Secret Passageways

That's right, today we went looking for secret passageways at Mt. Vernon. We took the National Treasure tour. It was really awesome because we got to go places that they do not usually let people go. We also heard about the filming of National Treasure, Book of Secrets. We saw the spot where Nicolas Cage came out of the water.

We also saw the hill he climbed up to attend the president's birthday party on the east lawn.


Then we got to go into the basement where they went to look for the secret passageway. (We weren't supposed to get these pictures, but our tour guide forgot to tell us not to take pictures. Oops)



Then we saw the Ice House. That was pretty cool.

After our tour, we went to see the mansion. It has 9000 square feet, and is beautiful. They would not let us take pictures in the house, but here are pictures from outside and the view from the house. Beautiful.




We really had a good time exploring the home of George and Martha Washington. Now we are going to watch National Treasure, Book of Secrets. Kirsten has never seen it.

The Concert

I am doing two posts today. So be sure to look down to the other post about Ashley's hair. The concert was absolutely amazing. They played only three songs, but the concert was almost two hours long. The first song they played was Nabucco Overture written by Giuseppe Verdi. The second was Piano Concerto in A Minor, Opus 16 by Edvard Grieg. Brian Ganz played with the symphony and it was so fun to watch him play. His facial expressions were so fun to watch, and you could tell he loved playing with the kids. Then after intermission they played the New World Symphony by Anton Dvorak. This was by far my favorite. It is difficult music, and everyone did a great job. Mr. Gatto puts so much heart into the music, and the kids respond to him and it makes it so beautiful to watch. I took a picture of Ashley playing, and then there is one picture with Ashley, Brian Ganz and Mr. Gatto together.

The Hair

Here are before and after pictures of Ashley's hair. The process started last night when Kirsten put her hair in sponge curlers, that Ash slept in. Then at about 10 am this morning, Kirsten took out the curlers and started fixing Ash's hair in an up do. An hour and a half later, with a little break for some crepes, the result was amazing. She had a lot of compliments on her hair at the concert.

BEFORE

AFTER

Inner Harbor

Today, Kirsten and I headed to Baltimore. The first thing we did was eat at James Joyce. It is an Irish pub that I just love. Just to be obnoxious, we called Kirsty's sister Maria and told her where we were. When Maria lived here, she and my nephew Michael would eat there a few times a week. It is really close to where they worked. Oh, I miss having them here.

By the way Maria & Mike, you would not recognize the place. That field that was in front of James Joyce, is completely built up with hotels. Weird.

Now back to the day. After I ate a seriously awesome cheeseburger, and Kirsten ate her first Maryland crab cake, we walked to the inner harbor. We toyed with the idea of going to the aquarium, but the lines were insane, and we were not crazy enough to join in on that. Instead we walked along the water, and did some shopping. Kirsten found a really cute ring, and I found a necklace and earrings for Ashley to wear for her concert tomorrow.

We were a little early picking up Ashley from dress rehearsal, so we sat in and listened for a little bit. I laughed at Kirsten's response. I think she was expecting a little high school orchestra, and was seriously impressed with the music. The thing that she said that I loved most was that she thought the concert was going to be the highlight of her visit. I am excited for the concert tomorrow. It is going to be one of their best that I've heard. They really stepped up the difficulty of the music because of the tour in Italy. The kids rose to the challenge and have worked so hard. Mr. Gatto is a miracle worker with these kids.

We headed to Target to get some supplies for Ashley's hair for the concert tomorrow. Kirsten put sponge curlers in her hair tonight, and is going to put her hair up all curly. I will post pictures tomorrow. What are we going to do when our personal hair stylist goes home? That will be a very sad day!

The Bull

Bongo went crazy when Kirsten came. The first day she was here, he kept barking at her. Every time he would start barking, I would put him outside. He spent most of the day outside. I kept trying to bring him in, but then he would start barking again, so I would put him back out. Nathan saw me doing this and he said, "you run with the bull you get the horn." Kirsten and I started laughing. What a character. I am sure he heard that on some show or something, but it was funny to hear him saying that.

Captain Fancy Pants

This morning James is taking part in a military retirement. A man he met while on active duty in Florida, has since been his commanding officer, and is now retiring. The dress whites is one of my favourite of his uniforms. He does not wear it often, so when he came down stairs today, the kids called him captain fancy pants.

Ft. McHenry

Today we headed out to Ft. McHenry. I was a little worried because the weather called for 30% chance of rain, but we were lucky and it did not rain. Kirsten did however get a nice big dose of Maryland humidity. Seriously, it was sticky today, and we all felt it. The kids had the day off school, so we brought them along. It was a lot of fun.



I just had to post this one picture because you can't see it really well in the slide show, and it just makes me laugh.

Beauty Day

Today was spent getting our hair done. Kirsten did my hair first, then each of the girls. She did such a good job and worked so hard for us. Now we play!

Visitor

My niece Kirsten came into town last night. I am so excited to have her here. She is here to do my hair. Doesn't that just sound like I'm a snob? We are going to play for the next week. The last time I had family here was about two years ago. Kirsten has never been to the east coast, so we will be seeing lots of fun things. I just hope we do not get rain while she is here. Oh well, if we do, we will just grab umbrellas and head out.

Picnic

I should be cleaning because my niece comes tomorrow, but I am blogging instead. It was the same this morning when I got an email from Mendy inviting all to come to a picnic today. Did I pass this up for the cleaning that needed to be going on? Nope, Nathan and I headed to the picnic. It has been a while since I have been able to do something like this, and it was just delightful. The weather was perfect, and the park was beautiful. Thanks Mendy, this was a fabulous idea.

MYPO May Concert 2009

Saturday was the last concert for the Maryland Youth Preparatory Orchestra. That means no more Saturday morning rehearsals, well that is no more until the fall. They did a very nice job. I love listening to them play. Ashley and Kerrie played together, and that is fun to see as well. Ashley's last concert is next Sunday. Her rehearsals will not be over until June, because they will still rehearse until we go to Italy.

Down and Derby

This is what Nathan calls the pinewood derby. It was Saturday, and the boys had fun racing their cars. They did not do so well, but hey we tried. My brother-in-law, Richie has a philosophy that I have adopted. Here it is: it does not matter how well you do, it is how you look doing it that counts. If looks counted in the race, my boy's cars did pretty well. If it is speed, well, we won't talk about that. This was the last year for Nicolass, which kind of makes me sad. How did these three years fly by so fast? I guess that is the way with life. By the way, Nicolaas and I have the same foot size. That floors me. He is only 10. I forgot my camera, but Michelle agreed to take pictures for me, so here they are.

Chicken Crap

Here is the recipe for the chicken crap. I love it because it is good, and easy to make.

1 can of cream of chicken
3-6 Chicken breasts
1 package of cream cheese
1package of Italian dressing mix

Place chicken (frozen) in crock pot
mix soup, cream cheese, and dressing. Pour over chicken.
Cook all day on LOW 7-9 hours or HIGH 4-6 hours

Serve over rice.

Of course we have to double it for our family. I use 4 chicken breasts for each sauce mix, not 6 because I like more sauce than chicken.

My mother's day gift is an iPod, not an iPhone.

Mother's Day

My day started with breakfast in bed. It was really good, I got pancakes, scrambled eggs and turkey bacon. It was super yummy! Then came the cards from my kids. I always get a kick out of what they write. Amanda wrote that she hopes I have a good life, and that I get to do something fun before I am dead. Nice! James' card was sweet and made me happy. I did not go to church because Kelsie threw up and Ashley was running a temperature. So I stayed in bed all day doing nothing but reading and listening to music, thanks to my wonderful mother's day present. One present came from Mendy (at least James gave her the credit) but the tithing count was put off so our men could come home right after church. That was a good surprise. Thanks Mendy! The day ended with a wonderful dinner that I had very little to do with making and cleaning up. James made a crock pot recipe from my niece that is just wonderful. I don't remember what she calls it, but it is affectionately known at our house as chicken crap. I know, terrible name, but it is very yummy and super easy to make. After we had brownie, ice cream sundays.

It was a good day! Here is my mother's day present. Thanks James!