1-18-10 - Last Morning & Going Home

So this was the last morning of our trip. We had to be at the airport by 1pm to get the boys so we just had cereal for breakfast.

For all you health nuts out there I normally do not buy sugary cereal except on fun trips when we aren't watching what we eat anyway...

Once again Megan was being the perfect child for the photo and Madeleine was trying her hardest to just get me mad or to look like the biggest dork alive... pick one...

After eating breakfast, getting the car loaded up and the unit cleaned up we set Megan's facebook account up then it was time to go check out and get the boys from the airport. We stopped at a hotel near the airport so I could send out some leads to the sales people and Hunter called me 10 minutes early to tell me they were already waitng on the airport drive.

We went and picked them up and headed to take Megan to her house. Once there I used my friends computer to send out leads again and while I was doing that all the kids broke out the Wii game so we ended up staying a couple hours playing some games. I'm sure my kids had fun because they didn't want to leave but it was a school night after being gone for days so there was stuff to get done at home. It was a fun afternoon and I enjoyed it.

 

Eric hasn't learned to submit to my photo taking yet... it's only a matter of time :-)

When we got home I found out that the people who were watching my house scrubbed it down while we were gone go I was in total bliss going to sleep that evening... thinking I should go away more often so I can come home to a nice clean house.

The kids and I got some teriyaki chicken for dinner on the way home since I didn't know what groceries would be available to cook once we got there. The kids were starving and ate on the drive and I didn't eat until I got home so only one meal counts today which was breakfast with the girls.

~Jamie

Does the Woman Have a Single Bad Recipe?

I have a friend, JoAnne, who I've gotten quite a few recipes from. Every single one so far has been in the "Totally Evil" or "Beyond Great" categories. I promise you poor souls who had my under-cooked "JoAnne's Evil Potatoes" for Thanksgiving that one day I'll make them again the way they should be and you will see.

My mom cooks really good too but when I eat one of JoAnne's recipes it makes me wish I was one of her kids growing up.

Here's the newest one she passed on last week and I made it on Saturday during my "girls weekend" trip to Lake Coeur d'Alene with my daughter Madeleine & my friends daughter, Megan.

I'm calling it:

"JoAnne's To Die for Macaroni N' Cheese"

1. Start by cooking 1 pound of elbow macaroni until "el dente", drain & set aside.

2. Cut the crust off of white bread and line a very large baking dish (I ended up needing one large 9x13 pan and another 8x8 pan to fit it all)

 

3. Melt 8 Tablespoons of butter in Microwave then brush all over the bread. (YES this is one entire cube of butter.)  

4. Take the crusts & spread on a cookie sheet & put into a 200 degree oven until nice & dry. I deviated from JoAnne's recipe here and sprinked the crusts with a bit of Garlic Powder (Because incase you guys don't know it yet I happen to think there is no such thing as too much garlic in anything.) 

 

5. Put 5 1/2 cups of WHOLE milk into your pot and don't try to make it with skim milk. You just got done brushing all the bread with one cube of butter. Don't you think skim milk is pointless by now? (Also, make the pot a large one)

 

6. On a lower heat setting warm the milk a bit then slowly add 1/2 cup flour as you whisk to prevent lumping (you can also use another thickening agent like corn starch etc). 

7. Add 1/4 tsp White Pepper (you can use regular black pepper if you don't have white), 1/4 tsp Cayanne Pepper & 1/4 tsp Nutmeg

 

8. To the milk, flour, spice mixture you add 4 1/2 cups of White Cheddar (I used Tilamook Vintage White). Now I didn't want to shred it all so here was my conversion... 8 oz to a cup... so basically I just cubed up an entire two pound block of it and put it into the pot. I could be totally off but it turned out great anyway.

9. Add 1 cup Swiss & 1 Cup Romano

10. Keep stirring over low to medium heat until the cheese is melted & everything is mixed creamy together.

 

(Still lumpy.. keep stirring so it won't scorch)

11. When it's all mixed and creamy mix in your elbow macaroni.

12. Pour the mixture into the white bread lined baking dish (or dishes).

 

13. Crumble up your dried out bread crusts to make coarse bread crumbs.

 

14. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the macaroni mixture

 

15. Put pans into a 350 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes until bubbly & browned on top.

 

Sorry, I forgot to snap a picture right when it came out of the oven but here's part of one dish after we ate some for dinner.

 

If anyone makes this dish please post a comment on how it went for you and if you liked it. I'd love to hear from you!

~Jamie

1/17/10 - Day 3 Part 2 - Lake Coeur d'Alene Trip

Earlier in the afternoon when I got back from the store I made some cookies so Megan and I played Uno for quite a while, ate a few of the cookies and then around 5:30 I woke Madeleine up. Since no one was hungry for dinner yet the girls once again headed off to the pool and when they go back we ate dinner. We had left over Mac N' Cheese & veggies.

As the weekend went on Megan got better about just submitting to my picture taking.

Madeline on the other hand became more and more of a PIA about it.

Probably because she knew it was pissing me off.

After dinner the girls hung out and I went to take a nap but was so tired I honestly went to sleep. It was after 7:30 pm so I didn't feel bad about it.

Since this was our 2nd meal of the day together it gets to be a make-up meal.

~Jamie

1/17/10 - Day 3 Part 1 - Lake Coeur d'Alene Trip

So I woke up early early in the morning then went back to bed and woke up a 2nd time around 9am when my sister Kelly called me. She thought the boys were flying out this day and was rushing to wake them up. Once she was on the correct path I got up and made the girls a nice breakfast of Pancakes with real maple syrup, eggs & bacon.

Once it was ready I woke them up around 11am or so to start their day... We set the table and sat down to eat...

After breakfast was done and we threw the dishes into the dishwasher the girls requested Visine for their eyes since the chlorine was getting to them. I headed off to the market and while out I detoured through the salon... got my eyebrows done and had the lady chop off about 2 inches on my hair. I picked up the Visine, a Uno card game and headed back to the resort.

When I got back the girls were once again at the pool so I sent a text message to Megan's phone to let them know I was back. Soon they arrived at the unit where they got the eye drops and we sat down to play Uno.

Madeleine was being in an out of sorts mood so I sent her off to take a nap.. she fell asleep within minutes and I proceeded to get my ass kicked by a 12 year old who outscored me shamelessly.

 

Since this was the first meal of the day it gets marked as a success...

~Jamie

1/16/10 Day 2 Part 2 - Lake Coeur d'Alene Trip

After we ate the girls hung out and swam some more while I made the Macaroni & Cheese for dinner. After I got done we watched a movie together.

I had a new mission for the weekend... to turn my friend's daughter into a chick-flick junkie. The poor girl's almost 13 and had never seen "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days". As far as I'm concerned that has to be some form of child abuse right there. When I was out at the store I  picked up a rental of this and a few other good chick-flicks to watch with her over the course of the weekend. Poor girl lives in a household with too much tetosterone anyway so she needs some ammo to counter act it :-) 

By the way she liked the movie...

After it was over the girls decided they were tired and went to take a nap. I woke them up about 7pm, we set the table and ate dinner. That Mac N' Cheese was REALLY good...

After dinner the girls went swimming again then we watched the movie "My Sister's Keeper" which I had read the book but not seen yet. Although it is a Drama I wouldn't classify this movie as the standard chick flick like 50 First Dates, the Notebook, Return to Me or How to Lose a Guy 10 Days. It wasn't totally like the book but was still a very good movie... a tear jerker in the end that's for sure.

Because this is our 2nd meal together for the day I get to count this one as a Make-Up meal.. yeah!
~Jamie

1/16/10 - Day 2 Part 1 - Lake Coeur D'Alene Trip

So on this morning I woke up early and headed out to the market to do some grocery shopping that we didn't have time for the day before. The girls were still fast asleep from staying up so late the night before.

Albertson's had Dungeness Crab on sale cheaper than hamburger so I picked up some to have later today along with ingredients to make "JoAnne's To Die for Macaroni & Cheese" that I posted the recipe for.

By the time I got back the girls had already been to the pool and back so they unloaded the vehicle and I asked Megan if she wanted Crab or the Mac N Cheese for lunch. She chose Crab so we set the table, melted the butter, sat down and gave Megan her first lesson on how to properly break into a Crab.

She struggled a bit so I ended up doing a bunch for her but she did do some by herself and was sufficiently full by the time we got done so she didn't starve trying to break into her meal.

Still trying to hide some...

Also at one point the girls had started to put together a few gingerbread houses I picked up after Christmas... Madeleine's was having trauma while we were eating.

Another successful meal for the books... So far a very fun trip...

~Jamie

Falling Off The Proverbial Wagon Before It Left The Station and Other Perusings...

There's a common quote out there that states "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." We'll, I'd like to know who's the ass that thought it up and what's the meaning behind it?

Basically, I don't agree. I don't think having good intentions and failing at them is going to have anyone go to hell or that anyone is bad because of them. They are "in the game" of life, at least in thought, even if they are frozen in action. There are a lot of people out there that don't even have the thought of being "in the game," let alone actually "be in it" in action.

My twin sister, Roxanne, failed on her New Years Resolution and summed it up pretty good in her post here - Roxanne's Road Rules: The Road To Hell

Now onto my life and my "falling off the wagon" with this goal of mine. I've had a heck of the past two to three weeks. Somewhere around my birthday until the past week or so I've found myself battling off some low level depression. Being highly experienced in this area, the good thing is that I now recognize when it's trying to creep into my life and take it's nasty hold on my brain. When I see it coming there are things I do to fight it off. I normally get a little bit of Seasonal Depression the winter anyway because the lack of sunlight. This year was a bit different so it was taking everything I had to just get out of bed in the morning and get my butt working at my job. The thought of planning meals, cooking & rounding up children to eat at the table was a bit out of the realm of being high on the priority list during this time.

Another thing happened around the 3rd of January and it freaked me out (for more about this day see - Went for a Drive to a Beautiful Place). Since I'm normally a fairly practical person it was just a shock to me since I did NOT see it coming at all. I'm not going to share what it is fully right now but one thing I realized even more is that I'm a "to do-er."

There is a "to do" for most everything in life. If you hate someone the thing "to-do" is forgiveness, you still don't have to like the person but by "doing" forgiveness it moves the person into a whole different space in your life. Kind of a neutral space; you don't like them, you don't hate them and they are just "there." If you are struggling with money issues the thing "to do" is create a budget & live by it or generate more income etc. Most everything in this world has a "to do" attached to it.

My biggest problem with what happened is that there is absolutely NOT a single "to do" to make it go away, or manage it, or anything like that (I mostly wanted it to go the hell away.) Technically, only thing "to do" is to "be with it" and just let it "be there" which I frankly don't like either. I'm such a control freak it basically depressed me even more. I didn't (and still don't) want to "be with it" so as soon as I could go to bed in the evening I did. I also kept hoping that with any Grace from God I could sleep more than normal so I wouldn't have to be awake with thoughts running through my head either.

Anyway, about now on into the future. I haven't totally failed with my goal. I did manage a few meals and I'll be updating my blog with everything over the next few days. I'm going to use the "success" tag to keep count of the ones that "count" anyway. I'll explain more on the tag numbers later. I was able to get in a "make up meal" today so that feels good.

Sorry this wasn't more humerous or anything. I just wanted to get it out there, "get back on the wagon", and put one more piece of my life back "in integrity."

Thank you all who asked if I was actually going to do this or not. The answer is yes! I realize that even if I get in 30+ meals this year it will be more than we did last year so even if I don't hit 365 in total, it will be a success regardless.

Take Care,
~Jamie

1/15/10 - Start of Trip to Lake Coeur d'Alene

So after waking up in the hotel and running to Wal-Mart where Hunter proceeded to give me MAJOR grief about what I thought he should get for a shirt we packed up and dumped the boys at the airport. I watched them go thru security then Madeleine and I made our escape.

We went to the mall and found the girls bathing suits at Sears then proceeded to the salon where I get my nails done because I was in badly need of a fill. I think they turned out decent.

By the time my nails got done we didn't have time to do a few more things I had planned because stuff always takes longer than you expect so we headed out to pick up Megan from her house.

We got to her house just moments before she got off the school bus so I used the opportunity to tap into my friends internet to send a bank wire & do a little bit of work. Then we loaded up and headed south.

Our first stop was dinner at Red Lobster because I had a gift card for there and I was in the mood for Seafood. Madeleine had the Shrimp-Trio, Megan had Lobster Nachos and I had a side of Snow Crab Legs added to Maddie's order. We all had salads & of course, their cheese/herb biscuits... Yum...

Megan also tasted crab for the very first time. She's had a lot of other kinds of seafood but had never had crab before. She liked it...

  

Our next stop was a quick pit stop at K-mart for ice tea & munchies then we hit the road and go to the resort where we checked into our unit. We got a really great one in a close proximity to the pool unlike the last time we stayed there and the kids had to walk a LONG way in negative degree weather. Although, it wasn't as cold this time it was nice that I could see them walking from the balcony.

My Room

 

My Bathroom

Standing in LR toward Kitchen

Kitchen

From Kitchen toward LR

 

Girl's Bathroom

Megan's Room

Maddie's Room

View from Balcony (Building in the Center after the Grass is the Pool House)

After we got settled in, of course the girls went down to the pool for a swim, then the girls got into new jammies I got them and we all piled on my bed to watch the movie "50 First Dates". Maddie was also painting Megan's toe nails at the same time. I was showing Maddie how to put toilet paper between Megan's toes so they wouldn't get messed up and we got to find out that Megan is even more tickelish than I am... it was funny I wouldn't even be touching her and she'd be giggling like I was.

By the end of the weekend Megan found out is was a waste of time to try to hide my picture taking and she just gave in but since this was the first night she was still trying to avoid the camera.

Still trying to hide but it didn't work... I actually think this is a cute picture.

Everyone's multi-tasking, Maddie doing nails & watching movie, Megan Texting on her cell, getting her toes done & watching movie, I was taking photos & watching movie. Us girls are one talented bunch :-)

No one said that this was going to be Maddie's profession :-)

I made it about 1/2 way into the movie before I fell asleep (Par for the course with me... normally I'm out before the credits are over with). The girls left my room and stayed up doing who-knows-what until well after 2:30 according to their report the next morning.

Anyway, that's our first day of the trip and gets logged as successful since I had dinner with the only two children who were with me at the time.

~Jamie