The Produce Box

Today I received my first Produce Box delivery! This is a group which delivers locally grown fruits & vegetables from a farm in Dunn, NC. So, weekly throughout the growing season I'll get a box of fresh food! I'm doing this to ... 1) live more greenly by buying local, and 2) live more healthily by trying new things.

The outside of the delivery box ... I send this back each week with a check and they deliver it to my front porch full of veggies!

Today's box contained pecans, locally made whole grain bread, sweet potatoes, spring onions, a cabbage, hydroponic bibb lettuce and sweet basil and parsley in pots to grow at home.A picture of the sweet potatoes that were under the bread.

So, what did we have for dinner? I made a chicken casserole, and when I got back from the gym (and got some advice from my friend Laura), I made a carrot/onion/cabbage boil, seasoned with Salamida's Garlic Pinch and pepper. Ok, it was definately edible. I can't say I crave it, but then it is a vegetable. I did like it, and I will make it again. I only used 1/4 of the cabbage, so there's more to go this week! I did not know that cabbage could have such a fresh spicy smell. I did like trying a new veggie!! And a green leafy one at that! I also peeled and sliced one sweet potato and shook it in a baggie with olive oil and Salamida's Garlic Pinch and roasted it at 425 degrees for about 8 mins (in the new convection toaster oven). It made terrific sweet potato chips which Gary and I liked, but the boys did not. But, they tried them, and that's the first step.

Tomorrow, we go for the Bibb lettuce for lunch!

Cousins Visit

Andrea, my sister, and her kids came for the weekend to visit! They arrived Friday morning, and we went and picked up my kids from school at lunchtime. We all went to Chick-fil-a for chicken nuggets, then up to the Marbles Kid's Museum in Raleigh to play and see Monsters vs Aliens in IMAX 3-D. We stayed, and played some more. I made baked pasta and garlic bread for dinner Friday night.

Saturday we got up and played around the house. We were going to go gem mining, but the rainy weather was too much for the muddy gem mine. Instead, we went for NC BBQ at Bullocks and then on to the Durham Life Sciences Museum. That night, I made roasted chicken and 'grandma's noodles' for dinner.

Sunday we again played around the house then hit the park. We had tickets for the Savoyards' performance of The Gondoliers. Most of us liked it, some of us found it difficult to sit still through the show, and it was a long one! Three hours!! Pour Gilbert and Sullivan ... they wrote a LOT of songs for this show! Sunday night we had tacos.

Monday morning came way too soon and the boys went back to school and I took Andrea and kids to the airport to fly home. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them ... the boys really enjoy their cousins!

Ben and Lauren and Ashley building with Kapla blocks at the Life & Science Museum.

All the kids in the butterfly house at the Life & Science Museum.A butterfly ... Alek took 44 pictures of butterflies in the butterfly house. Just one for you.Lauren, Ashley, Ben in front, Alek and Lucas at the back ... driving the sailboats at the Wind exibit.

Ben in front of the Lemurs (over his left shoulder).

Carolina Crush Competition

It's been a long time since I've written, but things have been very busy here. First, my parents came to visit for a week and we had a lot of fun shopping, cooking and playing with the kids. Also, work has been VERY busy and tired me out on the computer so much that I've had no desire to be on in my free time!

But today was a fun and exciting day. Ben entered his second rock climbing competition. He competed in the Youth D league, which is for ages 10 and under. There were 11 boys in his division, and Ben one of the youngest, but not the shortest! He was far from the tallest, though, boys seem to grow a lot between 8 and 10.

The rules of this competition were different from the last one he competed in, so we had to learn the strategy. Here, you could take up to five tries on each route, and falling off didn't count against you. Also, each route had a point total, so your final score was the sum of the point totals of your five best completed routes. So, you didn't want to waste your energy on too easy routes, or spend your energy on routes too difficult for you.

I'm really proud of Ben. He came in 5th out of 11 (and he believes he won the competition ... goodness, we're really trying to work on his humility!!!!). The competition lasted 4 hours, and he climbed every bit of it. About 2 hours in, he'd had enough and was getting very frustrated because there were two routes he couldn't finish. We regrouped, took a break, got advice and encouragement from his coach, went back and finished an easier route and got his confidence back. Then he hit to two harder routes and stuck 'em out and made it to the top!! We were incredibly proud of him for overcoming his desire to give up and quit and his dedication to come back and keep trying.

He then went on to the next hardest wall, and made it part way up - that's how you want to end a competition. They always say 'fall off trying'!

Here are some pictures ...

Coach Jason and some of the Rock Stars climbing team - they all did really well! What can I say ... a picture of Ben climbing ...
Ben's reach and ability have really improved since he's joined the Rock Stars climbing team in January.

Ben receiving his 5th place ribbon. He also won some of the freebies ... a block of climbing chalk and a really nice chalk bag ... which he gave to me for my new rock climbing belt (since he already had one).

Yep, for my birthday I got my very own rock climbing belt. Keep in mind, I'm the belayer ... I get to hold the bottom end of the rope! But it's nice to have my own belt ... they are a little, ah, personal. You know what I mean if you've ever tried one!!

We're off to bed soon ...what a great day!

The next two hours ...

Happy Friday and welcome to the weekend! My Friday started off like every Friday - laundry day! So, for the last two hours I've been changing sheets ... and put my favorite summer quilt that my mom made on my bed. I've got the down comforter stowed to take the dry cleaner later today. I'm definately thinking that winter is past. Now for the next two hours I get to fold laundry ... once the bed it made, it's the staging area for laundry folding. Oh joy of joys what a great friday this is turning into ...

But the good new is (and I'm serious now) that the boys (all three of them) have learned to put away their OWN laundry! So now all I do is wash, dry, sort and fold it, and they take it from there.

Hope your weekend is terrific!

Snow on March 2nd

I can't believe it's March 2nd and we got 2-3 inches of snow last night. Obviously, the kids were home from school. They got to do a little extra work on their biography project, but they still have the report to write ... it's gonna be a long week. They played nicely together all day, and in the snow a few times. The dogs loved the snow too. Here are some pictures from early this morning. Out the front door, looking to the left into the natural area.
Looking toward the house from the street - you can see my footprints coming down the middle of the driveway (hee hee).

In the backyard, a view of the Lilac bush. There was robin in the bush, but you can't see him in the picture.

Chase chasing a squirrel out of the back yard. He hasn't caught one in a while.

No School Today

We got about 2 inches of wet mushy snow overnight, so there's no school today. I'm sure the snow will be gone soon after the sun comes up ... so probably won't even be good for sledding today. I'll try to get pics!

Fun Sunday

I made breakfast this morning ... I had this great omelet in Sedona at the Coffee Pot restaurant (which was a breakfast place offering 101 omelets, and was located right in front of the Coffee Pot rock) which I was trying to replicate and improve upon. So the picture below is my omelet: hash browns, red & green peppers, onion, asparagus, ham and cream cheese. It was fabulous. Served with greek yogurt, red grapes and homemade coffee latte. Here's a picture of Ben and Alek from this week ... they decided they wanted to dress up like twins ... the mark on Alek's cheek is from a temporary Carolina Hurricane's tattoo from 2 weeks previous ... I finally had to take alcohol to his cheek to remove it.

It's been really cold and rainy here all day, and we may get SNOW tonight. I hope not, I really want the kids to go to school! They already have to go to school for a snow makeup day on their first day of spring break ... they need them all. I'm hoping we can take a short trip away for part of that week. A new Great Wolf Lodge is opening up outside Charlotte, so it will be about the same distance as the one in Williamsburg, Va. But they are so much fun.

Didn't do much this weekend other than have breakfast out with friends on Saturday morning, did grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, etc. Pretty quiet overall. Hope yours was good!