Recycle Me

A humble family of four sits down for dinner. During a lull in conversation, the littlest one gets up and grabs a water bottle from the fridge. He sits back at the table and takes a few swigs. Let's see what happens next...

Daddy: "Where did you guys get this water bottle?"

Mommy: (says nothing, shrugs her shoulders)

Jordan: "I think Carter found it in the road, washed it out and then filled it up with water."

Daddy: "...Is that what happened?"

Carter: "Well....umm....maybe?"

When I Grow Up

When I was a kid, anytime I said what I wanted to be someone would say something like "you'll never be that so pick something else." So I listened to them and kept changing. Here's the flow throughout my life: astronaut, baseball player, computer programmer, actor, teacher, MBA (though I was never sure what industry), Oracle DBA, actuary.

The reason I mention this is because Jordan and Carter are both keenly interested in what they want to be. And I hope no one ever tells them what they can or can't be. We'll just encourage them as much as possible in whatever interests they have.

Carter has always been interested in cooking. Anytime we're making something 'real' - meaning it actually requires the stove or oven - Carter is there standing on his step stool begging to help. So it was no surprise when he told us "I want to be a chef!". Not a cook, not a foodie, not a sous-chef, he wants to be THE chef. We asked him what he wanted to cook and he said "fancy dinners". I can't wait until he starts cooking for us.

The Naked Chef displays his work

This morning, Jordan was drawing a new book. He said to us "After I decide to stop being a farmer, I want to be an Arthur!" He means an author. A few hours later, he gave us his new book "The Monster Goes to the Moon", shown below.

It's best viewed in fullscreen.
The Monster Goes to the Moon

Wow. This book is amazing! I'm not sure which part I found most impressive: the front cover and back cover have details of the moon, the monster is cute and drawn the same throughout the book, the thought bubbles of the moon, or the bubbling around the dream sequence. We'll have to work on grammar and story development a bit, but I was darn impressed with this book.

Keep it up, boys.

National Fondue Month!*

In a nation where every cause has its own month and every hobby has its own day, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that the sacred art of all things melty, fondue, has two national days: National Cheese Fondue Day (April 11) and National Chocolate Fondue Day (February 5).

However, two days out of the year just doesn't cut it, in my humble opinion. Fondue deserves an entire month. I hereby decree August to forever be known as National Fondue Month! I may not have the authority of congress to ratify such a statement, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so what I say goes.

Cyn and I recently picked up a cheapo fondue cookbook on a whim while at our local Pick 'n Save. We usually have fondue about 6 times a year, enough to warrant owning a Cuisinart electric fondue set and have our favorite recipes down by heart. But that's the problem with our fondue nights - we use the same three recipes over and over again. The intent of the new cookbook was to add a little variety to our pot and get the creative juices flowing a bit.

In order to use such a stunning array of recipes in a short time-span, we decided to have a fondue night every weekend in August. We even had an intro week in July and we'll probably have an outro week in September. Not only do we have a higher chance of getting friends to come over in August (you've gotta share fondue), but it's also the month of our seventh anniversary! Plenty to celebrate!

So, please join us in celebrating National Fondue month.

We're trying out meat, cheese, and dessert fondues, along with lots of sauces, but here's a glimpse at the cheese fondues we've had so far and where we're going next:


Brie with caramelized red onions fondue (in a white grape juice base). This is the recipe that preceded our trip to the ER. But man, was it delicious. Brie was an excellent cheese for fondue; it blended well, mellow to the taste with a biting aftertaste, and the thyme paired delightfully.


This cheese and bacon recipe also had onions and mushrooms in Monterey Jack (milk base). This recipe was very close to our typical recipe of bacon and green onions in white Cheddar and Mozzarella with a white Cheddar soup base. Both are excellent. You just can't go wrong with thick-sliced apple wood smoked bacon.

The Monterey Jack wasn't an ideal cheese for fondue - it never fully blended with the base - but it was uniquely fun. It was more like pulling fresh hot curds out of the pot and trying to swallow them whole. An oddly pleasant mouth feel.


Here is this weekend's future fondue: Israeli fondue. Edam cheese with avocados and crème fraîche. A Californian's dream fondue; I'm so excited! I've got the Edam in the fridge and the crème fraîche cultures setting as we speak. Now we just need to find a couple willing to try something new... most of our normal invitees are out of town or previously engaged.


Like I said, we are experimenting with the full gamut of fondues - not just cheese. The dessert varieties have kind of flopped on us though, because we already have the perfect chocolate fondue recipe. It's actually more of a ganache and doesn't require a fondue pot to make or serve it. I'm not sure we'll ever top it. I'm including the recipe below so you can all do your patriotic duty by celebrating National Fondue Month with us.

This (simplified) recipe comes from the bible of sweets baking, "The Secrets of Baking" (which every kitchen should have) by the impeccable Sherry Yard.

Fudge Fondue

1. Chop 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (about 60% cacao) and place in heatproof bowl appropriate for fondue use. (Baker's brand semisweet works really well)
2. Bring 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 cup whole milk to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour over chopped chocolate.
3. Let sit for one minute to melt chocolate, and stir slowly to blend.
4. When fondue reaches 98 degrees (eating temperature) add 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped orange zest. Stir to incorporate.
5. Enjoy with small pieces of apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, marshmallows, angel food cake, and any other delectable thing you have on hand.

Edit: Despite what the by-line says, this was written by Bushchicken. I've really got to stop doing this.

Three is a lonely number

On Wednesday, July 22nd, I drove Cynthia up to the Dells for Girls' Camp. Cynthia was staying until Saturday afternoon which gave me plenty of time to play with the boys. The drive was a little longer than anticipated - I finally got home at 1 am.

Waking up the next morning was pretty rough. Jordan and Carter were able to get sufficient sleep on the drive, so they were up at the crack of dawn trying to wake me up. Jordan's persistence paid off, and I groggily ripped myself from the inviting sheets. For the rest of the day, everything felt too bright for my tired eyes.

We went fishing at Mill Pond and didn't catch a thing...again. We have a really bad habit of doing that. Maybe we need some private lessons or something.

Then we went swimming at North Junior high. It's a much nicer pool than I anticipated, but since we were confined to the shallow end, we mostly just played water basketball for the better part of two hours. I had to take a nap after all the swimming, but that was also short-lived as Jordan woke me up AGAIN! So we finished the rest of the night by watching manly movies...like SpongeBob and Bob the Builder.

On Friday, we caught the pizza tour at Palermo's. That was lots of fun - I recommend it. For $5, we got an hour tour of the factory, a slice of their delicious fresh pizza for all three of us and a ball of dough so we could make more pizza! We're all pizza-ed out, but it was lots of fun. They also gave us a little kitchen ruler with notches for pulling out oven racks; Carter has been happily manning the oven ever since.

As much fun as it was to spend some alone time with the boys, we all really, really missed Cynthia. I had to explain to Carter umpteen times what day and time Mommy was coming home. On Saturday morning, we had a ward member leave a message on our answering machine while the three of us were at the store. The message was basically asking what time the campers would come back. Carter heard it and knew it was about camp and therefore, about his Mommy. He got visibly angry, threw his hand up in the air and shouted "that bad lady has Mommy and won't give her back!!!" Sorry Jill, you're on Carter's naughty list.

We happily welcomed Cyn home with a bouquet of purple flowers, a clean house, and a day's worth of completed laundry.

Bucket, Shark, and Bill

This is our bucket. Rather, it was our bucket. It has been forever banished from our household...

Two weekends ago was another crazy Saturday. I stayed up until 2 am Friday night shopping and baking for a fondue party for 6 adults to be held Saturday night. Then I had to wake up very early on Saturday morning for a swap-the-kids temple trip with Tyce and Faith.

Our car, as I've posted, hasn't been in great shape lately. The radiator kept doing its best impression of Old Faithful, so there was antifreeze all over our garage floor and I had to continually fill the radiator. And that's what I was doing that Saturday morning. I mixed the antifreeze in the red bucket and filled the radiator. That way we'd be able to make the trip to Chicago without overheating.

However, I had some fluid left. So I hid the bucket and made the kids promise they wouldn't touch it. After all, antifreeze is liquid death.

I fully intended to put the remainder of the antifreeze in the radiator when we got home...but I forgot to with the dinner preparations I had to take care of.

Fast forwarding past dinner (which was delicious), we started playing a few rounds of Coloretto. Carter decided to show the pantry (our garage) to his two friends. We didn't think about them for a few minutes. Somewhere between 2 - 10 minutes. And when someone went to check on them...

they were covered in antifreeze and were talking about drinking it.

I've never thrown a party before that ended in the emergency room.

We called poison control to be safe and they made us take all three kids (one from each family present at the party) to the emergency room. We were there three hours waiting for results of the blood test. Carter was a trooper and despite being scared of the hospital bed, didn't even cry when his blood was being drawn. That's even more amazing given that the tech who drew blood sounded like he'd never spoken with a child before. "Ok, we're gonna stick this huge needle in your arm and pull out a buncha blood. But don't be scared, because it will only hurt like the dickens for a few minutes! I'll get a nurse to force your arm still during the excruciating pain. Ready, buddy?"

We weren't worried about the whole mess because the kids seemed fine and we really didn't think that they drank any antifreeze. The results confirmed that all three children were fine. The other two couples are on medicaid so I'm glad that they didn't have to lose their life savings over a fondue dinner. We had to pay, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected.

One of the two couples was at our house for the first time that night - no word yet on if they'll come back...

The car is now fixed ($260 for a water pump), I threw that bucket away so it wouldn't remind me of the incident, and Carter has mostly stayed out of trouble since; that may be a record.

Carter was given a shark beanie baby at the hospital by one of the nurses. Given that the $360 bill was pulled from our HSA today, I now consider that shark to be the most expensive toy we own. I'm looking for an appropriate name to give to that stupid shark; something expensive and possibly sinister sounding. Comment if you've got any good ones.

Hard to post

It's been 15 days since my last post. Many serious things have popped up in that time and I've found it hard to post about anything - I'd rather post about things of a light and happy nature. I've also been trying to figure out my new responsibilities at work and somehow fit in time to study for my next exam.

However, I've come to realize that this blog is the best history I have of what is going on with our family. It's my large plates - if you know what I mean. Blogging also gives me a venue to let others into my life, keep track of you all better, and I find it very rewarding to hear your comments on this site. I'm also in serious need of a distraction right now - and no one is around to play Crokinole with!


So, it's time to get back to into posting.

Why is that on my hard drive again?

I download some pretty random stuff. These following pics were retrieved from my work laptop and show just how big of a nerd (or is it geek, Tyce?) I truly am.

Oh, I get it... Escher's "Relativity" but with Legos...clever.

An xkcd comic. Honestly, if you don't read xkcd, you should. Be careful, though. The site has the following warning:

this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Any comic with that warning is ok in my book.

You might want to click the image to get the full glory. No idea where this came from.

Wow. That's some impressive origami. It looks like a perfect 1960's shirt and tie! If it were real and in a store, I'd consider buying it. That is, before Cyn would tell me 'no'.

So, I know enough about guitar (and music) to know that's Willie's gee-tar, but why do I have it? I'd be hard-pressed to name five Willie Nelson songs.

Almost good enough to be an xkcd comic. The fundamental theorem of Batman. More than once I've also been completely clueless on an exam and felt like doodling something like this. Instead, I made up a math joke and wrote it down. Pathetic, I know.

If you guessed that this was a computer image of a fractal extrapolated to the physical world, you're wrong. Nice guess though.

If you guessed that it was an untouched photo of broccoli, you were right. Here's proof.

A Nintendo poster? I don't even own a Wii! Why do I have this? Still, interesting how far iconic games have come in my lifetime.

Lastly, this image is a magic eye. No, really...I'm serious. It's a magic eye. An autostereogram, to be more correct. All that's required to make an autostereogram are heterogenous horizontal lines of evenly spaced images, so you can make one just out of words. Bonus points to the first person who can read and post what the message says.

Edit: Just minutes after posting this, our blog got hits from India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Singapore, and Australia all in less than 2 minutes. Should that scare me?

MORE maintenance costs

You may remember a whiny post back in May in which I expressed my frustrations over the broken things in my life. Mainly, the car and the computer. Some things never change.

The check engine light went on AGAIN last night in our car. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the third EGR valve in as many months is bad. I'll get the code checked out today. Worse, the radiator is no longer retaining fluid. If I could actually find a good mechanic to just tell me (without guessing) if it's the cap, water pump, thermostat, etc, I could easily fix it myself. The non-functional power windows are also ticking me off in the summer heat.

And the "new" hard drive that Seagate sent me? It failed. That's two broken Seagate hard drives in 6 months. At this pace, I'll get 19 replacement drives during the 5-year warranty. Promise me that you, dear reader, will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVAR purchase a Seagate hard drive. Ever.

My motorcycle is not treating me well either. I need to change the oil, but the drainage bolt is stripped. As of yet, no real progress in trying to extract the bolt.

/whine

At least I have an assistant-fixer-upper who works for cookies.

The Boys' Commentary on Fireworks

Actual quotes from the Menomonee Falls fireworks display:

Carter - "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! That means 'wow', boys!"

Jordan - "They're as bright as Jesus!"

7-4-09

The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.

Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning - how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference - the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.

-David McCullough, 1776

I love the 4th of July. My favorite holiday; it has an almost-sacred feeling about it. The above quote is the final summary of 1776; it's an amazing read and I recommend making the time for it. David McCullough doesn't beat around the bush in stating that only divine providence could have allowed some ragtag rebels to gain their independence.


To celebrate, we camped out with Faith/Tyce in Sussex on Thursday, watched the Menomonee Falls parade and fireworks with the Van Blarcums on Friday, and had a wonderful barbecue and fireworks in Cedarburg with the Thompsons on Saturday. What a weekend! Here are a few pictures of our campout on Friday.

One of our independence day traditions is a buttermilk pancake breakfast. We never make 'instant' pancakes - always from scratch. This year, we had the added complexity of making it while camping. Then Jordan took it up a notch by demanding a smiley-face pancake. Due to our camping limitations, this is the best we could do...but it sure did turn out cute.

Either Tyce is jealous of my pancake making skills or he's showing his wrath at my BYU sweatshirt. Could be both, actually. ;)

As our family tent broke during the Father and Sons', we had to borrow these tents from Tyce. With its bright pink color and....symmetry...it gained the nickname "Camp Barbie". Carter did not do well sleeping in a tent without his Mom and Dad. I was still trying to get him to sleep at 2:30, much to the comic relief of Faith/Tyce.