Food memories

There are certain foods that carry vivid memories for me. I think the strongest of which is a fresh raspberry. No matter how many times I eat raspberries, the first bite transports me back to our summers in Raymond, and the raspberry bushes in Grandpa's backyard. I think if I ever live in the right climate, I will plant myself some raspberry bushes. It's nice to be transported to Grandpa's backyard every now and then, I recommend you take advantage of the season and have yourself a memory.

Born Again?

Has anyone else accidently typed the blog address thusly:
http://www.allthingscraigish.blogpsot.com ?
wild and crazy and wierd.

Garage Sale

I happened to be in Steve's garage on Sunday night, and my walls are glad I was. I spied a pencil drawing he had done of Great Grandpa Redd, just sitting on his shelf in his garage. I deemed this an unfit place for such a piece of art, and kindly offered to take it off his hands and give it a proper home. He agreed on the condition that I frame the picture and put it up in my home: my thoughts exactly! So I thought I'd show you all that I truly gave Lemuel a proper home, and thank Steve once again for the great art piece. In fact I'd be happy to hang up any more you want to give me!

Tag, You're It!

Okay, so this is a stretch to make these pics go with this entry, but I'm sure I can make it work! I realized Courtney tagged me on her blog with a few questions. Figure I can answer them here, but it needed some visuals, right?

Here's the questions/responses:

1. What is my favorite era of life? Now if you know me well, then you know I have a very hard time picking favorites! I just like everything. But I"ve narrowed this down to a list of 4 times. a. preschool. Shadow Rock really did rock! It was a time for feeling so alive and carefree and I devoured everything I was learning. I can remember running on the preschool playground, feeling like I could fly and laughing so easily. Yes, very carefree. b. Freshman year of college. This time was analogous to preschool in that I again felt very alive and carefree and laughed easily. Also devoured everything I was learning. c. Summer Internship in Virginia. That was just the awesomest summer of our lives. Cross country road trips, Virginia historical advantures, and the kids were manageable again (preschoolers) and d. Now We are having a lot of fun with all the kids here.

2. If you could change one choice you made in life, what would it be. I don't know if this was actually a choice, but I think it partly was. If I could avoid having the depths of post pardom depression after the girls/and Jake I would not make that "choice" again. But as with all things, I sure learned a lot from it. Like I don't want to learn my lessons that way ever again!

3. Who is the first person you talk to in the morning? Rich if he slept in. Jacob if he didn't.

4. What is my DVR set to record? Divine Design, Designer's Challenge, Landscapers Challenge and Planet Earth. Do you see any patterns there? I love those shows! My favorite is landscapers challenge. Its so inspiring to transform your out door surroundings from bland and blah to gorgeous and functional! It has not been recording lately. I miss it greatlyand have exercised less because there's no new episodes to watch when I run (hence no running!)

5. What is your favorite day of the year? Again with the favorites! I like to take my cues from George (Durrant, not Bush) and say "Today is the best day of my life, so far" I like that attitude. He said that at the beginning of each class period. But if I were hard pressed to pick one day, I'd have to go with Thanksgiving. There's less pressure than Christmas and its just all about family, my favorite thing in the world.

The pics are of Thanksgiving, preschoolers, and life after Sophie. Isn't that last one of the grandkids in their pj's fun? I think when I am an old lady (like in my 90's) and somebody tags me with that question, I will definitely say that seeing my own grandkids in their matching pjs was one of my life's highlights.

Here are 4 questions for you:
1. What is your favorite book?
2.If you could "rebuild your skills" in life where would you change your focus?
3.What's your favorite day of the year??
4. How about the best day of your life?
Happy Reflecting!

Another Day of Firsts

A continuation of Nancy's dialouge on sending your kids out into the cold, cruel world.
( in AZ, instead hot and miserable)
It does get easier to send little ones to school--because they're not so little anymore,
because you know how much they'll love it
and how when they don't love it they'll just grown and learn--
but really, they don't get any less beautiful Nancy.

Only more.
Each one a little miracle.
Not so little anymore, though.

I wish I could go with them, silently, invisible. The proverbial fly on the wall. (Can I order a cloak from Ms. Rowling?)

But we mothers wouldn't stay silent,
Oh, no.
We'd coax, correct, praise, defend, shout if necessary--anything but silent.
And then where would their voice be?
So we stay at home and feather the nest until they return at 3:00, both of us starving.
They want food. We want stories.
It's a fair trade.
Thoughts for Apple Slices.

All things Slippery and Slimy

We had a family camp-out with the Ewell's a couple weekends ago, and for the first* time I went fishing! Brian decided it would be best for me to use spinners, because that way I would be continually occupied. You'll be very happy to know that I caught two fish, and a frog! It is important to note that the frog was not caught with a fishing pole. We did keep the fish, but I did not eat them. My brother-in-law did.

Here's me with the little dude. Remember, these guys are supposed to be little, so really, the one's I caught were relatively big.

A close up so you can see it better.

Also important to note, nobody ate the frog.

But I did talk my nephew into touching it.

*Technically the first time I went fishing was the time we went deep sea fishing in Mexico, but I didn't so much fish, as get sea sick.

p.s. I got bangs.

A glimpse into my home life...

Sunday night we realized we were totally out of milk. Becky asked me if I could go to the store before work so the kids would be able to eat a decent breakfast before their first day of school. I told here that I would need a reminder -- preferably on my steering wheel -- or I would forget.

This is what I found the next morning.



I love my wife.

I'm feeling so proud...

of my sister!

Just Beachy!!!

We just had a great family reunion at Cannon Beach. We all had a great time. Some of you will remember similar jumping photos of Ben and his brothers when they were younger. It's become a family tradition. I especially like the photo of Truman playing in the sand. I think it really captures his emotion.

Did I mention...

You should all take a look at my own personal blog for an update on my adventures in Hollywood. Updated daily. Thanks.

Egypt & the Holy Land

So my sister-in-law, Aubery, Brett's wife, her Father is a religion professor at BYU-Idaho. He puts together tours of Egypt & the Holy Land. This year they're going over the Christmas break for 2 weeks. They leave December 22. It sounds like a great tour. It's $4,500 per person and that includes EVERYTHING for the 2 weeks. Just thought I'd pass it along. Maybe you could tell some of your friends parents that might be interested. I thought Mom and Dad might be interested since they don't have any little ones at home anymore. If they get enough people to go then Brett and Aubrey will be able to go along and help with the tour. Aubrey lived in the Jerusalem center when she was 8-10 years old. She knows Hebrew even. Marilyn and Todd are thinking of going and so are some of the aunts and uncles. Sounds like a good time. Go to the website and watch a video and get more of the details.

Pine on the Spur

Becky informed me that her mother-in-law would be out of town for a whole week, and that put their cabin in Pine up for grabs. So we jumped at the chance to take the kids for a last-minute/before school starts trip to the mountains. We had so much fun, and the weather was the perfect retreat from the heat! Mostly the kids played outside and roasted marshmallows on the never-ending fire (Elaine's sister was up there clearing the mountain behind the cabin, and burned the debris the whole time we were there).

Becky and I enjoyed ourselves relaxing, I with my book, and Becky worked on a very cute quilt. We had a good time reading, relaxing, sewing and eating. Becky had dubbed it the "sew and slim" retreat, I called it the "read and eat" week, I'm pretty sure there was no slimming going on. Although we did get some good mountain exercise in on our walks to the creek. We were so excited to find wild black berries growing near the creek, and had fun picking and eating them. That's as close to "living off the land" as I get.

It did rain quite a bit, but that only added to the good weather and ambiance. We took the kids one day in search of crystal treasure. Supposedly there is a place called diamond mountain (that sounds good, I'm really not sure what it was called) where there are lots of crystals in the dirt, but after a good rain they come to the surface easily. Well pretty much it was mostly desert, and rocks with a few dead animals here and there, but the kids had a great time, Jacob even found a few treasures. On Friday night Travis and Richard joined us, and I'll post more about that fun adventure on my own blog. So tune in to that, and thanks to Becky, and as Dallas said, "it was almost as much fun as Disneyland!"

Mmmm....Delicious!

This is for all you food lovers in the family (you know who you are!). I found this recipe on a blog I read regularly. She basically posts a recipe every day. This one called for jalapeno, and we just happened to have one we had grown in our garden, so I thought I'd try it out. Very tasty and easy! The marinade reminded me of that cilantro pesto Becky gets at Trader Joe's. We used chicken tenders instead of thighs, and that seemed to work just fine. When I read the recipe I thought it sounded kind of Thai, but it tasted very Indian once we made it. Enjoy!

P.S. I only used one jalapeno, and I de-seeded it, but if you prefer spicier, then go for it!

The Mona Rope Swing

Angela, Brian and I had some fun at Mona a couple weeks ago. I thought the video wasn't working right, but Angela informed me it was. Enjoy.