Fun games and some planning

We had a fab weekend kicked off with a bday party on Saturday which was fun except for a little chilly (stupid weather this year).  The girls were a great hit and it was nice to mix and mingle with adults :)  Sunday was relatively calm and relaxing, James worked a bit on the garden, increased my clothes line length so we can hang more than one load out there at a time.  We also had time to just sit and relax with each other as a family.  Course we managed to leave our new sippy cups and a baking sheet over at Kats (would have forgotten my head I swear).  Monday we got to catch up with Debbie and co and tried a new recipe after my Penzy order arrived...I mixed and matched a couple of recipe ideas and made ... deviled chicken with grilled plums, and added an additional sauce which I was just itching to try using an Arizona spice blend...add to that Debbie's fantastic Mexican rice and red velvet cake we had a feast and I was told I can make the sauce again and got a good thumbs up from Sam (always a good sign).

Today I've got a skirt steak marinading in beer and maple syrup and I'm going to pair that with sweet potatoes with a warm pear compote.  I'll let you know how that one comes out and I'm intrigued by the concept of using orange soda and soy sauce on chicken as a marinade.

Hoping for a trip to the park this morning followed later by a girls night out although as Claire's sister is paying a surprise visit this week thanks to Ges not sure if that will happen or not will play it by ear.  I'm also praying my new phone shows up sooner or later.  Oh and the other major news this week we start potty training!  Well soon as we have the cash to run to ikea and get some potties and a side trip to target or somewhere for a step as well so they can reach the sink, I'm also tempted to turn the heat down a bit more on the water heater as even tho it's not set that high the water can still easily reach scalding out of the taps and I'm a little worried once they start washing their hands after potty.

Good grief another week has almost flown by!

Well this week we have had the roofing adventures, old one was ripped off and we almost have a brand spanking new 'energy efficient' cool roof, missing a few of the ridge tiles as they ran out of them and had to order extras, unfortunately they won't arrive in time to be installed this week so they will have to finish up on Monday.  Otherwise I'm pleased with the look of the new roof, although there is no noticeable color difference imo from our old one to our new one, but there is the obvious lack of wear and tear on the new roof.  Have we noticed a huge difference, honestly hard to tell although we did manage to go the whole of today without having to run the ac, but then the temperatures never really soared as high as they did earlier in the week, officially we didn't break 90 although my car said differently.

I had a bad day Monday, and I'm just going to put it down to Monday blues.  Tuesday, Wednesday were sorta a wipe out due to the soaring temperatures although we did manage to get out for a bit on Tuesday.  Thursday was a knock out day with 2 trips out a short nap and a lovely afternoon with plenty of tea and good company, it's also nice to get the girls out of the house although our Isabel tried to give Claire a heart attack by launching herself off the stairs at her.  Food wise oh I made my wonderful watermelon gazpacho soup, I love this recipe and I was still eating it Friday for lunch...seeing as it fed 4 of us Tuesday and Wednesday, lunch for me Thursday it's a very economical meal, if you like that kind of thing.  I can certainly see myself doing it again once my tomatoes actually ripen.

You know it's taken me years and years to regain what I felt I gave up when I left the UK in terms of the close friends and family, it really has, it has been one of the fundamental things I feel I've been missing in my life.  All of a sudden I have discovered the most amazing group of women and that I'm no longer afraid to show my feelings, I feel like I can be me, I can show vulnerability and I can be strong.  It's been a long slow road and to have friends like I have now is so special to all the special wonderful people in my life I love you all dearly and thank you for sharing your lives with us as well, we are honored.

Fun weekend after all

I was worried about this weekend being boring...turns out it was far from it in the end.  I had a lovely evening yesterday with my hubby and Debbie and Matt, which we actually managed sans kids in tow (sheer miracle).  Unfortunately due to stomach flue Claire and her family were unable to join us but we will give that one a rain check for later in the month.  Rather than doing the shopping as a family I ventured out alone, not a bad choice as James stayed at home with the kids and waited for his grandma and aunt to come over, this is the first time Theresa has met the twins, visit went well except we managed to fail to take any pictures on our camera (smacks forehead).

Dinner was a delightful mandarin chicken salad, I followed the basic recipe from the link except I substituted agave syrup for the brown sugar and low fat sour cream for the mayonnaise, we used the left over tea soaked chicken from the previous night.  All in all a fabulous easy meal and we could go back for 2nd's without feeling too guilty.

Tomorrow should be fun as we are having our roof ripped off (yipee!) so we will be camping over at Auntie Debbie's, not sure if we will sleep there or not shall wait and see how hot it gets and how easy it will be with no roof on.  And our social calendar is filling up for the next couple of weeks too!  Watch this space.

Survival of another day

Yesterday...yesterday oh yesterday.  Started off with having to do a rather large costco run, went rather well and the girls were well behaved, then I had to go get a prescription..oops I buried the stroller and the lead backpacks under all the shopping, /sigh well I just need suncream and I need my meds (of all things blood pressure), I figure I will try this no really I will (someone give me a sanity check), three times I'm running around the store trying to find my children who have slipped my hand (argh!) whole experience not one I want to repeat any time soon.  Call Claire to just get a sanity check and respond to a text, ah relief they are hanging out in the backyard and at the pool oh yeah I'm all into that one!  Throw stuff out of the car, throw other stuff back in, run off to spend the rest of the afternoon in the pool.  Girls scare me to death jumping in and out of pool...Isabel dunks herself numerous times comes up spluttering and goes back for more, oh and not to mention the repeated diving out of the boat, no fear except the Mum's watching. 

Urgh a week already...

So it's been an interesting week, no really, lets see I babysat for a friend on Friday so I had three kids and a husband that didn't get home till 8 pm.  Then Saturday we do our usual chores and my poor hubby has to work a full swing shift (have I mentioned I hate the swing shift?) even a half swing puts him home to late to help put the kids to bed or he has to leave too early, either way yuck!  That brings us up to Sunday where we had the TVMOTC summer picnic, which was fab, James got to be in the pool for the first time with the girls although the pool was a tiny bit COLD, yes it really is August.  Food was provided and drinks so all in all a great day out for $10 for the whole family and well worth it.  Oh and there was the bouncy castle (my girls love those), and em balls to play with (not my husband's) and a nice day out for the whole family.

Then we had Monday, first I nuke oatmeal with no water (oops), then I get a phone call from James, someone called out sick on swing and he's going to have to cover the first half (did I mention I hate swing?) then I bake a cake which overflowed the pan, talk about not having fun.  However, I made a phone call and ended up spending the rest of the morning / afternoon with my girlfriends and the kids in the pool oh yeah baby, I left there in a far better mood than I started, left there ran home picked up the cake (it was edible just not that pretty), and went to Debbie's.  At this point I want to mention I have the most amazing friends, they pick me up when I'm down and keep me company and from going insane, then I have others who cut my hair for me.  I get to Debbie's we run to the salon get color in my hair, run back have dinner which Matt was cooking, Debbie prepared, and we ate, at which point I jump in the shower to rinse out the color.  At this point James arrives and gets fed he then takes the children home who by this time are rather grumpy as their only nap was the half hour in the car from Claire's to Debbie's.  James then gets them in the bath and to bed while Debbie cuts my hair in the front garden hehe.

Now that brings us to Tuesday, where I spend time in the mornings with another local Mum with twin boys.  Not a bad morning and we were able to sit out in the garden.  Tuesday night James cooks these lovely club burger sliders with avocado ranch dressing, I have to say the ranch dressing is amazing and worth making extra for dipping, the girls also enjoyed the dinner and we had left over cake for dessert.  That brings us to tonight, I pulled out a few stops for this one, we had deviled chicken and grilled stone fruit, using plums as our fruit, oh amazing and wonderful and much love for this one.   I paired the meal with the grilled potato salad, and grilled brussels sprouts, worth the extra time it took to make this meal.  Oh and I also did a trip to the park we managed about 40 minutes there till after 2 runaway attempts I packed up the girls into the car and took them to Fosters for an ice cream.  Not a bad week.

Bowling ball finally getting some use

Lets turn the clock back a bit to when we used to live in Livermore I don't remember much about it but we decided that perhaps we would try our hands at bowling.  We took some lessons, bought a bowl and shoes each (after all who really wants to wear the shoes they have at the alley?) and who knows where fingers have been in some of those holes?  I'm not a germ a phobe but bowling alleys they just look grotty as does most of their equipment.  Oh and in addition I have big hands...most holes are simply not large enough for my fingers, it's as simple as that I normally end up having to use a ball far to heavy for me.  So anyway we invested in some gear went a few times dreamed of joining a league then moved then got pregnant then well the best laid plans and all that.   Where is she going, well I've been finally able to use my gear again!  Every other week we are trying to go bowling in the evenings...just me and a couple of girl friends.  It's a relief it really is we get to be adults we get to drink we get to let our hour loose and I get to hang out with new people.  Yay!  Totally win on all fronts.  I've not totally disgraced myself and it's relaxing and pretty cheap.  Ah bliss!

So dinner last night was something new, italian-style grilled chicken lettuce wraps (yep that's a mouthful!), not too bad on the flavours and I was able to use some lovely fresh basil from my herb garden which is always a bonus.  I have to say prep and cooking was a breeze and start to finish we were eating within half an hour.  Seriously guys I don't slave away in the kitchen I really don't and I still haven't used the oven or burners much in the last 2 months.  I am so totally curious as to what our electricity bill will be like for the summer as we are on a prorated plan, but given I'm not watching as much tv we are out more and we have barely run the ac this year so far I think we will be doing good.  Oh not to mention I've started to hang the washing out on the line as well.

The garden is going well, my herbs seem to have taken nicely now and the thyme is still alive, it's alive I tell ya it's alive!  I'm already planning next years additions (yep I'm that crazy!).  Anyway I want to add to my plant collection a bay laurel as I am a huge fan now of fresh leaves rather than the dries tasteless things on the spice aisle.  I'm also contemplating a pepper plant and I will try again to get marjoram to take, I may also go for some lavender as that always just smells divine.  As for the gardening I really don't do that much, and I always bring the girls out into the garden when I'm working on my little patches, it's surprising what you can get to grow in a small space.  Of course I will be happy when we can take down some of the flowerbed protectors which will make weeding and gathering of herbs a bit easier, but better to keep them up for now and protect the irrigation systems.  I'm useless at watering and I mean useless if I didn't have an irrigation system my plants would be dead because I would forget to give them the tlc they need.

Now I'm slowly learning with the gardening, and trust me it's taken three attempts to get thyme to grow successfully, 3 basil (1 normal, 1 varietal and another normal set) to get those going.

Same old same old...

Nothing really new at the moment on the cooking front, although I am itching to try some old fashioned cakes...we shall see.  Other than that rehashing the same good old bbq recipes that are tried and true, mostly because they are quick and easy.  Tonight's concoction involves portabello mushroom burgers with the side of potato salad.  Oh the nice part tho is the fact that I could use thyme from the garden as it appears to have taken finally, that is unless goliath swamps everything out of there...we shall see.  I have definite tomatoes appearing on the vines which is a great thing and I'm already contemplating what I shall try to grow next year.  Could be interesting as I hope I can get the little ones involved in growing a bit next year too.  Although not sure what I'll grow as it seems one of my choices I don't think will grow properly here, peas (sob), most years it's just going to be too damn hot for them, shame although maybe I could do them as an early spring crop, hmm maybe strawberries.  I don't want to overrun the garden completely with produce as I want to keep it manageable.

Plans for a new roof are well underway and we have put down the deposit, so I think at this point there is no real return.  I hope the cool roof we are putting on will make a difference with cooling costs, and my husband is considering putting in a 2nd vent fan to reduce the heat up there as well.  Oh and I've been heavily influenced by a new friend to start hanging out the laundry to dry.  It's a habit my Mum always did, and one I've not done in years due to mostly living in apartments or renting space and not having the availability of a line.  However, there is no reason why I can't save ourselves a little electricity and quite honestly I love the smell of freshly hung laundry to boot.

Yet more fun...

It's good to find more friends it really is and even tho I've only really gotten to know them this well over the last few weeks I've had a blast, I'll miss it when everyone goes back to school.  However this summer has been one of the best seriously.  We spent the day again by the pool, the girls are feeling more and more comfy each time we go with spending time in the water which is a good thing.  Oh don't get me wrong they give us heart attacks as well but it's fun as well and the more I'm in the water with my girls the more comfortable I am as well, and Brittany is fantastic and I always have a spare pair of hands with one to watch over one while I have the other.  In fact I'm actually keeping a calendar at the moment so I can keep track of up coming events...this is something very new for us and quite a novelty.

So no new dinners of late just rehashes of past meals, partly to keep costs down and partly I'm starting to actually run out of bbq ideas if you can believe that one.  Tonight tho is a sorta mix between meals, going to just do some pulled chicken sandwiches, mostly because I had burgers on the list but found out last night I actually had no more meat in the freezer oops, so change of plan and use up what I did have available.

Lol and my husbands work schedule changes by the minute, tell me something new!