Hendricks

I had the most delicious Gin and Tonic of my life last weekend when we were camping. I enjoyed it so much, I had to take this picture. Turns out, it was made with Hendrick's gin. Slightly above my normal price point. I went to Liquor Mart and asked, "If I normally think gin is yucky, but I loved this, what can I get that is almost as good?" The answer was, "Just look for this on sale. You are going to be disappointed with everything else."

But since it was mere hours before the season premiere of Mad Men, I didn't have time to wait for a sale. And it was a special occasion...

I made my gin and tonic and then realize the upstairs TV no longer had AMC. So I tried to switch out the cable box from the basement with unfortunate results. Long story short, I poured my G&T into a jelly jar, screwed on the lid and biked to a friends house to watch Mad Men.

I felt like my Grandma, who always brought a pre-mixed martini to our house in a Lawry's spice jar. Turning into my Grandma is a good thing. Totally worth the price of that bottle of gin.

Buffalo Creek

Last weekend we camped at Buffalo Creek, in the group site, with a ton of other people. You can't tell from this view though, can you?


Close up of nap time:

And here is Jack with his twin from daycare. The school sends pictures of the kids each week, and sometimes it is hard to tell who is who.

Colorado Trail

We dropped Dave off at Waterton Canyon on Friday afternoon so he could start the Colorado trail. He met us at Buffalo Creek on Friday night and we camped Friday and Saturday. Dave took Saturday to rehydrate and rest because Friday was brutally hot. That was good news for me because it meant I had all day to mountain bike with the ladies. I had more fun biking than I can ever remember. I can't really remember what it was like to mountain bike before I had kids, so maybe that was fun too - but since then I have always like the idea of biking, and I have done it, but I always felt like it was something I sort of had to do, and had to be back by a certain time, and I always sort of suffered through it. I don't know if was the lack of a deadline for my return so Dave could have his turn, or the weather, or the awesomeness of the trail, or the good company, or the fact that maybe the Wii Active 30 day challenge got my legs in shape, or a combination of all of the above, but it was awesome.

Sunday, I met Grandmom and Grandad on I-70 and dropped the kids off with them and they headed to Breckenridge to meet Dave for Sunday night dinner.

Lucy and I headed home for some girl time. More on that tomorrow!

Follow Dave's progress here.

The Awesome Geologic Features of Yellowstone

Have you been? Seriously, you need to go. I'm talking to you mom.

From Yellowstone

From Yellowstone

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The Target/Walmart ad of Yellowstone

As usual, I forgot some essential camping item, in this case it was a sweatshirt for Luke, so we had to stop somewhere and purchase a sweatshirt. We stopped at Walmart. Luke was really excited to be wearing all clothes from only two stores: Target and Walmart. I guess when he has on clothes from Savers, it just isn't the same? Anywho, I suggested we do a photo shoot.

From Yellowstone

From Yellowstone

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The Food Of Yellowstone

One our long ago trip to Yellowstone, all the adults took turns making meals.
I made fajitas, served with guacamole, wine, and a side of ibuprofen. Actually the ibu was just for Luke and his potentially dead tooth, a story that I will post about just as soon as I can look back on it and laugh.

From Yellowstone

Grandad made a pizza with with guac, chicken, chedder and salsa. On the grill. We have a friendly pizza making rivalry between the two of us.

From Yellowstone

Grandad has to get creative after he insisted that I not continue to buy wine with screw top lids.

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Which inspired all sorts of resourcefulness:

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After our awesome hike, Grandmom made chili dogs.

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Pancakes are usually my specialty, but Dave developed quite the knack this summer:

From Yellowstone

From Yellowstone

The Mushrooms of Yellowstone

Luke and Grandmom and I went to a Ranger talk about "The Predators of Yellowstone" the night before we took a 3 mile hike (one way) into the wilderness of Yellowstone. Have I mentioned my Bearaphobia? I also have a touch of Wolfophobia. But I tried not to let the extreme phobia get to me. The ranger said that a pack of wolves will circle and circle a group of deer and then all at once attack the same deer. (Side note - the deer are usually old and decrepit. Wolves cull the herd and prevent overpopulation.) Anywho, they attack the same deer all at once, almost as if they have the ability to read each other's minds. Yes. I know what you are thinking, because I was thinking it too!!! Just like the Twilight Werewolves, right? So when I got to bed that night, I was not just worried about bears and wolves, but werewolves and vampires. Actual thought process:

OMG - Bears. Wolves. Vampires. Werewolves. But the vampires just attack animals, not people. Argh, that's fiction! I am sure they prefer people. Shh. What was that? Did you hear something?

The next morning, we drove out to a place far away from the crowds and hiked 3 miles to a lake to do some fishing. I got sort of obsessed about the mushrooms we saw on the way in. I'll never forget that Biology of Fungi class that I took, back in the day.

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From Yellowstone

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Luke and Dave did some fishing on the way there.

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Jack took a little nap.

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We had a great day, and we made it all the way back without getting eaten by a bear. This may have been due to Luke's bear bell, purchased for the low low price of $3.99. I wanted to buy the v. expensive bear spray, but Dave got the bell instead. I used that to justify an extra $27.00 in purchases from the gift shop. And really, using a bell to alert a bear to our presence and give him/her time to get out of our path is much better than trying to scare a bear away with pepper spray that shoots out 30 yards or whatever. Luke thought it was weird that 100% of the people we saw on the path said to him, "Oh good! I bet we won't see any bears today!"

I set the timer on my camera for a group shot when we made it back to the trail head, and when it went off, we found out that it made a barking sound. Also, that it takes more than one shot. I like the second one better.

From Yellowstone

I Do Not Like Hard Boiled Eggs

"Hard boiled eggs seem like the perfect food, and every time I go on a diet I try to make myself like them. But I just don't like them. I try, but yuck. It's the yolk, I just can't stand it."

I said something along those lines once, on a drive from Reno to Lake Tahoe, while my friend Jill was videotaping the scenery. When she played back the video, I was horrified. It was like a terribly boring time capsule from 5 minutes ago.

I had that in mind when I was recording the boys hiding from the "tiger" in their "house" at our campsite in Yellowstone. So I said, "I am about to run the video camera, don't say anything boring." Long story short, you won't miss anything if you keep the volume down for this one. Love you, family! :)

The Long Awaited Pedicure Photo Essay

As promised, I am working through the items on my list of things to blog about, starting with what people will probably find least interesting: my Yellowstone Vacation Pedicure. I decided to try something new this summer, bee-you. It turns out that I am a little addicted to the color, because I just had to get it redone this weekend. Funny story, after my pedicure, I was sitting at the little counter with the uv lights drying my little piggies and reading a book. And then I heard this:

"HelllOOOOOO!"

And it was a very impatient hello.

I looked up, slowly, over the top of my glasses. And I slowly tried to figure out if I knew the man who was impatiently saying hello to me. The bearded man, who looked like he had just finished a run, and was maybe going to go home and mow the lawn, or scold his kids. I didn't know him, so I didn't say anything. He was sort of leaning over and looking at me with a bit of hostility. I was really enjoying my book, though, and I was not thrilled that he had torn me away.

Then he said, "Do you WORK HERE?"

Still looking over the top of my glasses I said, "No." And then I continued reading. And that was it. No apology, no embarrassment. He just got his nails done and then stormed out to his subaru and drove off.

Anyway - on to my pedicure photo essay.

Here we are just a few days into our trip, and the polish appears to already be a bit chipped, like our windshield. We were following the RV from Cody to Yellowstone, and we had been in the car for a very short time when Jack started saying, "Down Mommy. Down. Mommy, Down!"

I was pretending I didn't understand him, because we had been in the car for less than an hour and there was no way he was getting down. It turns out I didn't have to pretend that hard at all because I actually didn't understand what he meant. Until he elaborated. "Mommy! FOOT DOWN!"

When we were at Old Faithful, we spent a bunch of time entertaining ourselves at the picnic area while Dave worked. That is the subject of another post, but one of the things I did to pass the time was to take a picture of my foot.

Then on the way out of the park, we stopped at one last geologic feature, and I took a picture of my foot over a bacterial mat.

Possibly coming soon... Pictures of geologic features that do not feature one of my feet.

And We Are Back

I am going through the pictures and I think I am going to organize them into the following categories for blog posts:

1.) Wildlife
2.) Mushrooms and Wildflowers
3.) Jack getting dirty and dirtier
4.) Food
5.) How my pedicure faired
6.) Other
7.) Luke's ad campaign for Target/Walmart
8.) Core Mountain Sports

Possibly not in that order.

AND - school starts on Thursday, so I'll have to post about that too. I have plenty of material, I just need to get back into the blogging routine. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of work for the next year or so, so hopefully I can squeeze a bunch of blog posts in too!

Where in the World is MetaMegan?

MetaMegan is camping/vacationing and sort of checking work email and sort of checking personal email. But I'd prefer not to be doing either...

So as I try to limit my computer time, please feel free to check out MetaDave, as he is a blogging fiend this vacation.

Comment Contest Winnder Announced!

Last year I had a cute picture of all the comments before we drew a name out of the hat. But this year that was impossible as I am 90% unpacked from our trip last week and 10% packed for the trip we are taking this afternoon. Long story short, the camera is missing, and even if I had it, I couldn't take a picture of the process because my name picker, Luke, is for some unknown reason, not wearing any clothes.

But without further ado...

Family of Weebles! You are the winner! I wasn't too surprised because I think they had the most comments over all. I will be purchasing a souvenir for you in Yellowstone next week and I'll mail it when we get back!

Congratulations!

In other news I had planned to have a bunch of new posts appear while we are out of town, but that looks unlikely at this point. However, I have agreed to be on call, and if I find myself working with a geyser in the background, I'll be sure to share that.

Hopefully I will be more of a consistent blogger soon. Did I mention I'll be sleeping in the van with my family for the next 8 days? I should come back with some good material.

Silver Medal Dutch Oven Rainer Cherry Crumble

Another year, another camping dessert competition, another silver medal. Well, the judging was a lot less formal this year, so this is pretty much self awarded. I suppose I could have fought for a tie for first, but MB's strawberry shortcake was realllllly good. Dave and I made the Rainer Cherry Crumble from the June Cooking Light, and it was also really good. We borrowed MB's cherry pitter and Luke pitted cherries, almost faster than Jack was eating them. Then we pawned Jack off on MB, so we could finish pitting cherries and actually end up with enough for the crumble. Actually, instead of angling for first place, I should be sharing my second place with MB, since she helped so much.

The picture makes the Silver Medal Cherry Crumble look sort of disgusting, I blame my phone, since I was still camera-less at the time.


Fortunately, other people brought cameras, so we have these pictures of the boys:

File Under TMI

I'm thinking of starting a new category of blog posts that I will label TMI. Maybe not, depending on how this one is received... But I have exciting news! Jack peed on a tree this weekend while we were camping! He saw Luke do it, and then several times over the course of the weekend he said, "Potty. Tree. Pee." After it stopped seeming like a fluke, and started seeming like he was peeing after he said that (we could tell from the far away look in his eye) we started to try to rip off his diaper and give him an opportunity to pee on a tree. And he did it once! I think this is major news on the potty training front. It is a very, very exciting development.

Happy Birthday Dave!

Dave took Luke and Jack camping on Thursday, and the plan was for me to meet them after work on Friday. Well, first the campsite was closed, then they could only get one night at another campsite, then they got 2 more nights in another spot, so they had to pack up and move, and then it rained and then the wind blew the rain shelter/tarp into bits. Then I got there and convinced them to go home. Good thing, since Jack threw up all day yesterday.

While Dave stayed home with the sickie, I took The One Who Can Not Keep A Secret birthday present shopping. I asked The One Who Can Not Keep A Secret what he wanted to get his dad for his birthday and he said, "A wii game, or a remote control car, or light saber, maybe..." I asked him exactly whose birthday we were shopping for and he said, "I KEEP ASKING DADDDY WHAT HE WANTS AND HE KEEPS TELLING ME I DON'T HAVE TO BUY HIM ANYTHING!" Sheesh, Ok. SO TOWCKAS and I went to Best Buy because I have been meaning to go there for the last 14 months since the light on the refridgerator starting telling me to replace the filter. I figured we could get a filter and shop for games for the wii. Long story short, we got Wii Little League, and thus began the longest 17 hours of secret keeping that TOWCKAS has had to endure since last year. Oh wait, last year he only had to keep the secret as he helped me carry the present down the hallway. So over the course of those 17 hours there were lots of,
"I can't wait until tomorrow."
"You want to open your present in the morning, right?"
"I can't wait to play with your present tomorrow Daddy." Etc.

Then, last night during dinner, Dave said, "After dinner, do you want to play Mario Cart Wii or play baseball in the front yard?"

TOWCKAS's response? "Wii Baseball!!!!"

Fortunately Dave was walking out of the room, so when we was out of earshot I said, "Sssshhhhh! Or you don't get to pick out any more presents!"

TOWCKAS's response? "What!? I said, we should play baseball!"

Dave likes a pink cake with chocolate icing, so this year, instead of the pink (strawberry? cherry?) cake from the box, I made a triple layer strawberry cake with chocolate ganache icing. It was really good. The batter seemed really pink from the strawberries, but I guess I should have added food coloring too. Mmm. So good. It calls for 8 egg whites, and I used a trick I learned from the cupcake class, where you separate the yolk from the white one at a time in a little bowl and then dump the recently seperated egg into the bowl with the rest, so you don't waste a lot of eggs by getting yolk in the main egg bowl on the 7th or 8th egg. However, I forgot to add in the last egg white , so I imagine that this cake would have turned out 1/8 again as tall if I hadn't made that mistake.

Smore Baking

Last week on our way to camp at Buffalo Creek, I said, "I wonder if I should make my own graham crackers from scratch and then make my own marshmallows and then maybe pre-melt the chocolate onto the graham crackers and have a gourmet camping dessert. Does that sound really good, or like the dumbest thing you have every heard?"

See, I had just read a recipe for graham crackers that sounded like fun to try. And I have always loved Martha's idea of premelting the chocolate. Hmmm. Maybe, I thought, I'll go for the happy medium and just pre-melt the chocolate on some grocery store crackers and call it good. But happy mediums are not my specialty. I can't find the middle ground between making marshmallows from scratch on one end and eating oreos for breakfast because I forgot to pack anything else. And then Franz had to go on and on about how he was going to bake a key lime pie for the next camping trip that would be nothing short of legendary, and my old competitive baking instincts kicked in. When we got home from camping on Sunday night, there was this marshmallow recipe just staring up at me and I knew what had to be done. And it was fun. Messy, but fun. The graham crackers were a real hassle, and to my disappointment they are delicious. If they had just been sort of blah I would never feel the urge to make them again.

So, now that the hail has stopped, Iwe need to pack the car for this weekend. Right now I have pulled pork in the crock pot and spaghetti sauce on the stove, and I had planned to bake bread at the campsite until I found out that we were out of yeast. I predict our next trip will involve a hot dog wrapped in a piece of bread. Unless I find that happy medium.

What a Pleasure (Fruita Times Two)

We camped at Highline Lake State Park this weekend again, and it was fantastic. We have a new favorite campsite, and according to two little old ladies, we are a great group of families who are a pleasure to observe. Children frolicked, bikes were ridden, food eaten, drinks dranken (wait, that doesn't sound right, but it does sound familiar), what could be better? Well, I guess I could have brought the memory card for my camera, but you can't have everything.

And the days of the camp host appearing with an unholstered firearm and threats of "keep it down or be kicked out" seem to be over. This camp host just wanted to talk about the thirty feral cats she has adopted from the park. (Found homes for 20, kept 10.) Okaaaaaaay. And she just threw out a, "It's technically 3.2 alcohol in the park only, so go ahead and put that tequila in your cooler where I can't see it." Sigh, I guess we still got a tiny lecture, but only because she was lingering to answer any cat questions that might come up. Who knew what kind of response I'd get from, "wild cats? I've never heard of such a thing!"

Oh, and Jack slept 5 out of the last 7 nights from 8am to 6am. Saturday in the van, he was awake from 6am to 7:30, when the effort involved in repeatedly poking me in the eye finally tuckered him out, and we both got to sleep for another whopping half hour. Sunday, I learned my lesson and after I fed Jack at 6am I said, "I am leaving to go to the bathroom, please get Jack back to sleep before I get back." Dave only had to be head-butted twice and poked in the eye less than five times, before he had Jack in a sleeper hold. And we all slept peacefully until 8. Especially Luke who was having a sleep-over with Scarlett in her eurovan.

Good times.

Two Face Vs The Six Million Dollar Man

*** Alternate Post Title: Does your face hurt? ***
*** Alternate Post Subtitle: It's killing me! Wacka wacka Wacka ***

So Dave started off as Harvey Dent, progressed to Two Face, and is practically Col. Steve Austin less than a week later. And by that I mean his massive head/face wound seems to be almost healed. The face wound that was only visible if you looked at him from one side. Get it, two-face? And the fast healing part is like the 6 million dollar man. In case this doesn't make sense, it's because I am mildly delirious.

I told Dave to call his parents before I posted about his injury, and he did, but he just left a voice mail. A voice mail that probably said, "hey call me." Not, "we don't know exactly what happened but Megan found me on my back, passed out, snoring, and bleeding from three parts of the left side if my face. Rob tried to do mouth to mouth, which, based on the snoring was probably unnecessary, but Rob really wanted me to live, and possibly always wanted to kiss me. Megan panicked at first and then pulled it together to get me some ice, wrap me in a blanket and then put more wood on the fire. She also managed the four children in such a way that they view the whole experience as interesting and funny and not something that will scar them for life. We were camping and it was dark and we didn't seek immediate medical attention for those reasons. I still haven't been to the doctor because Megan hasn't scheduled me an appt because I haven't updated my google calendar so she doesn't know when I am free. I am almost totally healed now except for the chunk missing from my nose. Call me back when you get a chance, love ya!"

So new information has come to light that indicates maybe Dave was just a little under the weather and that is what caused him to faint. Here is what makes me think that: The green boogers coming out of both my children's noses, my sinus infection and general yucky feeling, and the fact that we were up all night with a feverish Jack. Luke leaning over the toilet and saying he was going to throw up on the first day of school may or may not support this theory. Anyway, I am a zombie today, but Dave is recovering nicely from his injury!

My Son, My Son, The Younger One

Poor Jack, in all this excitement and stress about kindergarten, there has been nary a post about Jack and his many accomplishments.

He now eats crackers:



That's really such a short lived milestone because after one, you realize how disgusting they are.

He pulls up to standing, and as you can see, has three teeth on top:



He looks cute is his fall wardrobe:



But he hates last year's winter wardrobe because he's like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, combined with a turtle on it's back:



And the biggest news is this: He said Dada. Dave was playing peekaboo with him through the car window while we waited for our carry out pizza at the start of our camping trip (we camp in style) and when Dave disappeared Jack said, "Dada!" and looked for him out the window.

And at dinner tonight he made something that vaguely resembled the sign for "more". He hasn't been too keen on learning the signs because he has found that screaming at the top of his lungs is an easier and very effective way to get more food.

One More Post About Camping

I never finished my camping post, but I didn't need to because it was summed up so well here. But I did want to share one funny story. The first night of camping, Jack was on day 5 of sleeping all the way or mostly through the night. I was a little worried about setbacks, but our sleeping arrangements worked out perfectly to keep the stretch going. Luke slept upstairs and the rest of us slept downstairs, but Dave slept in between Jack and I, which prevented me from sleep feeding him. I am sure I would have assumed that Jack was hungry when he started crying at 3 am, when in fact he was just cold. Dave and Jack just snuggled up and we all went back to sleep. But why was he cold? Well, I guess at some point earlier in the night he was hot, so he took off his pajamas. He woke up dressed like this:


And this is how I found his pjs in the morning:



I have a Baby Houdini on my hands.

Everyone slept so well that Luke even had a sleep over on Saturday night:







Good morning everyone!