Making Chinese Food

This week is spring break for some school districts, so there was no MOPS this morning. One of the women in my MOPS group had participated in an outing last fall that she thought would be fun for our group to do this morning. Several of us were able to go and this is what we did...

We met at a Chinese resturant in Stanwood with children or in my case grandchildren. Each child was given a hand sewn apron to wear and to take home. One of the ladies that works there showed them how to make egg rolls and won tons with a cream cheese mixture in them. Saben knew right away after looking at the bowl of veggies for the egg rolls, that he didn't like them. I told him to make them for Grandma and Mommy, so then it was OK to go ahead and make some.

The lady showed them how to roll them up half way, then fold the edges in before rolling it the rest of the way. After it is rolled, you put some egg on your finger and put it on the egg roll to seal it. You do the same with the won tons and I think that was the most fun for them, (painting the edge of the wraps with egg).

After all the egg rolls and won tons were made, we all got to go into the kitchen and watch them be cooked. It was a pretty narrow kitchen and we were pretty close to the cooking areas. We were also shown how they make fried rice and chow mein, which used a very hot fire under a wok. Saben, Annika, and I were right across from the hot fire and when the cook showed us the fire, I could feel Saben's back, pressed tightly against my legs. Meanwhile, I was holding Annika and she decided that she didn't like the fire and started to cry, so the 3 of us left the kitchen area. We were served a ton of food, enough for the kids and all the adults, with lots of leftovers to take home also. Besides the egg rolls and won tons that we had made (I absolutely love the won tons with the cream cheese filling), we had the fried rice, chow mein and some orange chicken that they had cooked for us while we watched. It was very good!

While we ate, they called each child over to a separate table and a lady wrote their name in Chinese on a bookmark for them to take home. They also recieved these little boxes with fortune cookies and chopsticks to take home. I think Saben's bookmark is the second from the left and Annika's is next to his on the right. The cost of all this was $5 per child, no charge for the adults. What a deal for a fun morning!

Annika at the Party

There were lots of balloons at the party and Annika decided to try and sit on one.

This is Annika and Maverick, who is the youngest son of Kari's friend, Rachael, whom she has known since high school.

Annika grabbed the boots Saben got for his birthday and wore them the rest of the afternoon.

She liked stomping on the pump to try and launch the rockets, but didn't have anough power in her stomp to really get them going. She enjoyed the bubble machine and kept sticking her face right in front of the bubble machine so she ended up with bubbles in her hair and on her coat.

Saben's 4th Birthday

Yesterday, I got to attend the birthday party that Kari had for Saben's friends. There were several fun games, including "pin the tail on the donkey", a treasure hunt where she drew clues on paper and hid them around the yard, plus a game of...

"red light, green light". For some reason 4 year olds don't seem to get the concept, that when you say "red light", you are supposed to stop running. Actually some of the kids got it, so maybe the ones that kept going just didn't want to play it that way. They just needed to get some energy out and decided that continuing to run was a lot more fun than having to stop and stand still.

After eating cake and opening presents, during which, Saben got 2 rocket launchers where you step on a pump and they take off . We went back outside to try them out and they worked pretty good, they went high enough that the adults had to take turns retriving the rockets that made it to the other side of the fence.

Being Sarah's Daughter

In a book I read recently, the main character was being counseled by an older missionary woman. The main character didn't know what to do and was afraid that whatever she did could turn out wrong. She asked her whether she had ever been afraid and if she had trouble deciding what was the right thing to do. The older woman (a missionary to Guatemala) told her that, of course she had been afraid and that she used to worry about what to do. Then she learned to remind herself that she is Sarah's daughter and deciding what to do became easier, even though carrying out the decisions was still hard sometimes. She referred the main character to a passage in 1 Peter 3:6, the last part of the verse. I don't know what translation she used in the novel, but I liked what it said, "You are her (Sarah's) daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear." That ended up being the motto of the main character throughout the rest of the book and I thought it was a good motto. "Do what is right. Do not give way to fear." (The book was "Betrayed" by J. M. Windle)

Celebrating 3 Birthdays

This weekend was a busy one again. My MOPS group had a baby shower for the 3 pregnant women in our group from 12 until 2 on Saturday. 6 of us were able to make it, and had a nice lunch, played some baby shower type games, then presented a basket of baby items to the pregnant moms. I left the shower at 1:30 because my parents had arrived at our house while I was gone and Kari and family were due to arrive around 2.

Todd, Betsy, and Seth also joined us, so we had a houseful for awhile. We were getting together to celebrate, Kari, Saben and Kyle's birthdays. Annika enjoyed the presents too, even though they weren't for her, delivering them to her parents, then helping them open their gifts. Kari and Kyle are excited about the gift of free babysitting and a gift card to use during the free babysitting in the picture above.

Saben's main gift from us, was a child's computer, that we couldn't get to work. I was pretty disappointed that it wouldn't work, but Amazon has already shipped us a new one that will hopefully work better than the first one. Ken had done a lot of research on computers for kids and the one we bought was pretty highly recommended, so hopefully the first one not working was just a fluke.

During breakfast Sunday morning, we got a call from our niece Meera, saying that she was in Seattle and asked if we wanted to meet her and her fiancee Zach for lunch at the Alderwood Mall. We decided to do that, so after church we headed to the mall and met up with not only Meera and Zach, but Zach's parents and brother. We hadn't met them before, so it was nice to meet them and get to know them a little bit. We also got to see Meera's engagement ring that she had gotten on Christmas Eve, so that was fun.

This morning I took My Dad and Mom down to Seattle to see the eye surgeon that did Dad's cornea transplant a couple of years ago. He had some stigmatism in the same eye, so the Dr. in Wenatchee wanted the Seattle Dr. to look at it. Dad came out wearing a patch over his eye and Mom said the Dr. removed some things from his eye, so hopefully he'll be able to see better soon. All in all, a very busy few days!

Grandparents

My group in MOPS was scheduled to help with the Moppets this week. I was kind of disappointed at first to find that out, since I had missed the last 2 weeks because of our trip, and I knew that there wasn't going to be any MOPS for the next 2 weeks because of school spring break schedules. It ended up being a good day though, I got to work with 2 of the moms from my group in the gym, planning games, etc, for the kids gym time. We ended up having some good conversations and it was nice to get to know them better. I even had a feel good moment when we were talking about places to go with kids, I mentioned that we had taken Saben and Annika to the children's museum on Sunday, and that we had a Grandparents membership there. These 2 moms didn't know there was such a thing and one of the moms asked if I wanted to make her children my honorary grandchildren (what an honor to be asked that). I enjoy our grandkids so much, it always amazes me that there are some grandparents out there that don't pay much attention to their grandchildren. But from listening to the MOPS moms, I've learned that there are a lot of grandparents that are to busy with their own activities to make time for their grandkids. How sad! In my opinion, they are missing out on so much!

Rainy Day Activities

We finally got around to painting the upstairs guest room last Saturday. This is our winter project for this year. I had finally chosen a new comforter for the room after a lot of looking and purchased it a few weeks before Christmas. We had been waiting for a rainy weekend to work on the painting, and wouldn't you know it, several weekends in a row were actually sunny and warm enough to work outside, so it kept getting put off. Then we were gone for 2 weekends, and now spring is nipping at the door. I just knew there would be a rainy weekend coming along sometime, and sure enough last Saturday was it. Now, I need to look for decorative items to go with the new comforter and paint job. A woman's work is never done!

Then Sunday morning, Kari called and asked if we wanted to take the kids to the children's museum, so they could do some shopping. Another fun way to spend a rainy day! As always we had a great time watching Saben and Annika play at the museum.

Lithops

The final count of the Lithops is 15 clusters. Kari won with a count of 12. Tricky little things aren't they?

Happy Birthday, Kari!

Wow! The years have flown by, it doesn't seem that long ago that you were this little girl! Happy Birthday!

Welcoming Smile

Having a smiling face to welcome us home, made up for the cold and snow that also greeted us upon arrival in Seattle. Todd, Betsy and Seth picked us up at the airport, then we went out to dinner with them so we could do some catching up before heading home.

Seth fell asleep in my arms at the resturant, which gave us plenty of time to talk and eat. They are all doing great, and totally enjoying their new jobs of Daddy and Mommy.

Interesting Plants - Part 2

I thought this Ball Moss that was growing in the oak trees in Texas was a parasite, but it isn't. It actually isn't a moss, but is an air plant. Even though it attaches to the trees, it gets its nutrition from the air, so it is non-parasitic.

One of the first things I noticed when we got to Arizona was the wonderful fragrance of the trees starting to bloom. Tim & Mary Beth had a lemon and an orange tree in their backyard, that were starting to bloom and smelled great. We ate the oranges and drank lemonade that had been made from lemons on their tree, yum! On the bike ride we took the first night we were there, we discovered a wheelbarrow full of grapefruit with a sign on them that said 10 for a $1. We decided to buy 5 for 50 cents and enjoyed grapefruit each morning for breakfast while we were there, they were so much better than store bought ones and a lot cheaper also.

This is just a sample of one type of cactus that I was anxious to avoid running into or falling on! There were so many interesting cactus, some I had heard of, but a lot more than I hadn't heard of.

One last picture of the lovely wildflowers that were blooming while we were there.

Interesting Plants - Part 1

This is picture of some succulent plants called Lithops that are mixed in with rocks. How many can you see?

Flora, Fauna, and Glass - Arizona Part 4

Monday after lunch we headed to the Phoenix Zoo. I hadn't been to a zoo in a long time and enjoy going once in awhile. It seemed like a lower key thing to do compared to the hikes we had been on the last few days. I had forgotten how much walking you do. Even though it's on level ground, it was still a lot of walking. Many times when we go to the zoo, the animals are not active and all you get to see is them lying down sleeping. Many of the animals yesterday were actually moving around, which was fun, including this Galapagos turtle.
After the zoo we went to the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens, which not only had lots of desert plants, but also an exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass mixed in among the plants. The picture above has real yucca plants along with 3 glass yuccas. I am just showing a sampling of the many glass sculptures that were in the gardens.
Some of the sculptures were hanging down like chandeliers, while others were mixed in with plants that were similar in shape. They were all so gorgeous it was hard to limit myself to just 4 pictures on my blog.

We arrived before sundown and stayed until after dark. Mary Beth had gone to the exhibit earlier in the year and knew that we needed to see it before and after dark.

This is a picture of the same yucca garden after dark. It was amazing! What a great end to a wonderful visit to Arizona. I'm not looking forward to going back to the land of cold and snow this afternoon, but need to go back to rest from our vacation!

Arizona - Part 3

After the game, we decide we could use some exercise, (Kari, aren't you proud of us?)so we went to the "Papago Peaks". We walked over to these peaks and hiked up the draw through the saddle which is to the left of the highest peak in this picture. We thought we might watch the sunset from the "Papago" area, but there was still at least 30 minutes before sunset time and we were getting hungry.
On our way back to the car, we spotted this jack rabbit. It seemed a lot bigger than the rabbits I'm used to seeing. I can't believe all the different wildlife we are seeing on this trip!
On the way to where we were planning to have dinner we got to see the sunset and it was gorgeous. The place where we ate, was called "Organ Stop Pizza" It was a really fun place to eat. This guy plays the organ and entertains you while you eat. He plays all sorts of different songs, some of them are old "sing along" songs for the audience to participate in and others are just fun to listen to. The organ uses lots of different instruments to make the sounds he needs, and are all controlled from the organ in the picture above.

These are just a few of the instruments that he used and you can see the organ pipes through the window, which are glass panels that open and shut as needed to provide the right amount of sound for whatever song he is playing. There was a section on a different wall that had drums, a wall in the back that had trumpets, xylophones hanging from the ceiling, and lots of small shelves like the ones above with a variety of instruments. It was fascinating to watch! I don't know how you could remember what keys to play, but he did a great job. The organ sits up on a platform above the audience and when he would take a break, the organ would be lowered into the platform.

Arizona - Part 2 (Mariners Game)

We started out our day with a bike ride to a little resturant for breakfast. One of the things that is so nice about Mesa, AZ. is that there are bike lanes on most of the major roads, so you can ride your bike to alot of the places you want to go to. Then we headed to the Mariner game in Peoria. Unfortunately, we got a little lost, so we arrived with alot of others at about the start of the game. Ken had to stand in line to pick up our "will call" tickets. We got our tickets, dumped out the water from our water bottles so we could get in and thought we were all set. When we got up to the person who was checking tickets, we discovered that the machine, where Ken had picked up our tickets, had printed out only 3 tickets plus the receipt. So, Ken had to go back to the "will call" window to get his ticket. The rest of us went on in, had just gotten settled in our seats and were searching the program for Ken Griffey Jr.'s number (they didn't have their names on their shirts), when the crowd went nuts and we discovered he was going up to bat for the first time.
I looked over to home plate and saw his grin and knew that was him. He was walked his first time at bat, but was able to score a run, after one of the guys following him got a home run. This is him being congratulated after he came in.

We had wonderful seats! We were in the third row behind the Mariners dugout, and Griffey #24, stood right in front of us the whole time he was in the dugout. He kept turning around to look at the crowd, so we got a lot of good shots of him. He walked one more time, then got a single in the bottom of the 4th inning, and was done for the day. After they sent a pinch runner in for him, he left the field and we didn't see any more of him. This happened from time to time throughout the game, because they try to get a look at a lot of different guys to see what they can do. The Mariners won the game 11 to 7, which was a great ending to a fun day at the ballpark.

On To Arizona!

Thursday we flew from Texas to Arizona where we are spending 4 days with our friends, Tim and Mary Beth. The weather is much nicer here and we have been able to do some fun outside activities. Friday we took a long bike ride along the Salt River and into a park. In the park we happened upon a frisbee golf tournament that was fun to watch. While we were driving around that evening after dinner, we spied another frozen custard place, so we were able to introduce that treat to Tim and Mary Beth.

Today was another gorgeous day and we headed into the desert with a picnic lunch, lots of water, and our walking shoes. Arizona has had enough rain that the cactus were looking good and there were quite a few wild flowers blooming. We could tell that there would be more blooming in the weeks to come, but I was pleased with the ones we saw. There were yellow, red, white, and purple flowers, plus a lot of things were green, so it was quite beautiful.
We went on a 2 hour hike through the desert and got to see lots of lovely sights. Most of the wildlife (lizards, birds, etc. were too quick to get pictures of) but...

...we did get this picture of a coyote, that we happened to spot. It was good that we saw him and stopped to take a few pictures because we realized that we were headed the wrong way! We were ready to head back to the car, but had taken the wrong fork in the trail, and were headed the opposite direction from the car. The coyote saved us from a really long hike.

Trip to Texas - Part 3

Our last day in Texas was a more low key day. Ken's Mom had some chores for him to do before we left, so he got all those done, then we decided to do some more geo-caching in the area. We had more luck yesterday and located all 6 caches that we looked for, (a record for us) although sometimes it took a little time on our knees (praying or searching, you decide). The temperatures warmed up and it got up in the low 80's, so I did get sunburned yesterday after all. The treat for the day was after supper, when we went out for dessert to a little place that serves frozen custard. It is like soft ice cream, but creamier, smoother and richer. You can have a plain scoop of it, have a sundae or go for the gusto and have a treat similar to those you can get a Dairy Queen. Ken and I shared one that had hot fudge, caramel and pecans added to it. Yum!

Trip to Texas - Part 2

Today we experienced Texas ! We made a big loop from Georgetown into the "hill country" of Texas, experiencing some of the flora and fauna of the area. Our desination was the area of Texas where President Lyndon Johnson grew up. This longhorn was in the area of Pres. Johnson's boyhood home.
I'm not sure what Ken did, but for some reason the longhorn became unhappy with him and tried to stick his head through the fence. It was kind of scary to see those horns sticking through such a flimsy looking fence!
This is a picture of what the country out there looks like. Can you imagine trying to make a living in a place like this? Those early settlers had to be courageous, hard working people. Some of the signs talked about the women having to take care of things and keep the farm going while the men were on cattle drives. I was glad it wasn't me!
After lunch we went on to the LBJ Ranch, which is where he would stay while he was President and needed to get away from Wash. DC for a few days. This house was called the "Texas White House", because he spent so much time there and met with a lot of world leaders there also. The only room we got to see in the house was his office, but they are going to be opening up more rooms in the future. Lady Bird lived there until her death last year, so they are just starting to work on getting the other rooms ready to be seen by the public.

Right after we left the house we spotted an armadillo crossing the road. I had never seen a real armadillo in the wild, so that was pretty exciting!

Then we headed to a place in Llano, Texas for some Texas BBQ. This place was a place Ken had visited with his Mom on another trip and had enjoyed so much that he wanted to take me to it. They have the meat all cooked up and displayed like this. You walk up, tell them what you want and how much of it, then they slice it off for you and put it on the red tray in the picture below, no plate or anything, just a red tray.

Then you go inside the building where they weigh the meat and ask you if you want some side dishes. You have to buy the corn, coleslaw or potato salad, but the beans, BBQ sauce, bread and pickled jalapenos are free. There is silverware available, but no plates. You put your meat on a piece of butcher paper and start chowing down. It was great!

Trip to Texas - Part 1

We flew to Texas on Saturday to visit Ken's Mom in Georgetown, which is a little north of Austin. We were surprised to find that it wasn't much warmer in Texas than it was at home. So no suntan from here, maybe when we get to Phoenix! Sunday morning Ken's sister Wendy, her husband Dale and daughter Meagan were able to come by and spend the day. We had a lot of catching up to do since we hadn't seen them in a year and a half.
Monday, it was 40 degrees when we got up at about 8am. Brrr! It did warm up enough later in the morning, so that Ken and I went to short sleeves while we were out geo-caching. We found our first 2 caches right away, but the third one we looked for, took a lot of time. Ken is checking the coordinates since we weren't having any luck locating it.
Mom V. is trying to find the cache among the trees. The title of the cache was "Hanging Around", so we were assuming it was hanging from a tree, we just couldn't find the right tree. We finally gave up, went back to the house for lunch and a rest. Ken checked the info on the cache we couldn't find and found that someone had put in some slightly different coordinates for the same cache, so off we went again.
We finally found the cache hanging from a tree branch, but we were almost ready to give up before Ken spotted it. We looked for one more along the trail that had been placed by the same person and again had no luck and found different coordinates available if we decide to go look again.