I forgot to tell everyone the most exciting news in our little household...
Evan is BINKY-FREE! Yes, you read that correctly. No More BINKIES!
It was such a non-event that it slipped my mind completely.
Next time you talk to him...make a BIG deal :)
Today is the first day we've had without sunshine...it was 'mostly sunny' but got kind of grayish in the evening.
Oh, I know, I'm rubbing it in. What I'm really trying to get to is how hard it is to be in the Holiday spirit when you are 1400 miles away from all of your family and the weather is so oddly perfect all the time!
We are supposed to have some rain later this week. That may get my head on track!
Anyway, since this will be the first Thanksgiving in 31 years that I haven't been with my family and only the 2nd or 3rd time in 37 years that Danny hasn't been with his Mom, we've decided to just throw tradition out the window this year and go with something completely different...a Mexican/Indian themed Thanksgiving Dinner.
We don't want to get all sappy thinking about the way Mom and Grandma make it while we're eating my sad version. We'll be pitiful enough without that :(
Danny's boss, Bill, and his girlfriend Lori are joining the 5 of us for dinner Thursday so we'll have enough to call it a party...
Here is the potential menu:
Indian Fry Bread to go with everything!
Appetizers
homemade salsa and guac
homemade corn and flour tortilla chips
roasted pumpkin seeds (sweet and spicy)
Main meal
turkey and ham
camote (like sweet potatoes but with honey and butter)
spicy mexican corn
sweet corn cake (that wonderful stuff they put on your plate at Mexican restaurants!)
roasted garlic broccoli
candied bacon
Dessert
capirotada (mexican bread pudding)
candied pumpkin
cactus ice cream
We'll take pictures of everything and let you know how it turns out!
Today, we bit the bullet and took the kids hiking. I'd really been avoiding it because I thought it was going to be a disaster but Danny found our nice carrier backpack (actually meant for hiking) that we've basically NEVER used and we decided to venture out to Usery Mountain.
We left around 8:30 this morning and were on the trail by 9:20 (you know everything takes twice as long when you have kids :)
Tracy and a friend of hers decided to take the hike, too, so we have lots of great photos of all 4 of us!
We took the trail just halfway up, to Wind Cave. Evan hiked all by himself only needing a hand a couple of times. He actually stopped several times to "help" Mom and Aunt Tracy.
Everyone we passed mentioned what a big boy he was and how good he was doing.
We climbed 1.5 miles up, to 2,800 ft elevation (only an 800 foot gain)... it's very pretty up there.
At the trailhead...
On top of the world!
Climbing, climbing, climbing...
At Wind Cave...
Danny and Caitie coming down
Caitlin seemed to really enjoy the hike. Our typically noisy girl didn't make a peep all the way up and fell asleep on the way down!
We toyed with trying for the summit but it's a good thing we decided to let well enough alone because Evan was VERY tired and fell apart on the way back down. He's a TROOPER! We came across the park ranger and when he heard Evan climbed all the way to the cave he gave him a Jr. Park Ranger badge!
We did actually find the Halloween pictures...
Couldn't manage to get Evan with his eyes open but they are still cute!
Tracy was an escapee from the asylum...she looks a little scary here! She and Evan are actually standing right in front of our house here. They had just hopped over to the neighbor's for some candy and were coming back to start some serious candy hunting!
And, just a few minutes later Caitlin was already tired of the whole thing! It was 80 and she was in a thick kitty costume...hot, hot, hot!
I wrapped up little chocolates with my business card and gave them out at each of the houses we visited. People didn't really know what to make of that!
And that's about all you will know about Halloween because I can't find the pictures we took for some reason :(
Hopefully it's just a momentary loss...they were so adorable!
He LIVES to freak people out, scare them, do gross things JUST to see their reaction. I'm sure he's really bummed that he can't be there when you read about the scorpions and black widows so...please leave him a comment!
It would make him very happy :)
First off so that everyone knows, this is Danny. I realize that it says that it is posted by Kristin but that is because I just haven't taken the time to open my own account. So I have actually written several posts like Vulture City, Office pets and so on. I'll make a point to identify myself so not to confuse anyone.
Anyway, I thought you guys would like to meet Scorpio. He's a very friendly little guy just so long as you don't look at him, touch him or blow on him.
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Cute little guy, isn't he.
