National Dog Day 2022

Wow. A lot of people were celebrating National Dog Day on August 26. I saw several pictures of people's dogs online. Way to celebrate, people.

Since I don't have a dog, I celebrated by eating them... dogs... hot dogs... in squid pup form.

It is a very unattractive picture because I tore my piece of french bread into pieces and put jam on all the pieces and they kind of took over the plate. But I don't care. I celebrated National Dog Day. Yumm.

My Son

Jr.: I'm cooking up a pot of macaroni and cheese on the stove. Will you let me know when it's done?

Banana Splits!

August 25 was National Banana Split Day.

I love it when after school snack is figured out for me already. Well, I mean, I did have to know it was coming up and I did have to buy bananas and Jeremy bought ice cream, so we planned ahead. But still, I didn't have to think, "Now what can my kids have when they get home from school?"

Now if I can only convince them that vegetables dipped in Ranch are an acceptable after school snack, that would open up more possibilities.

Snail Savers

August 24 was National Waffle Day. I was so busy that day. Shopping day! Not fun shopping, though. Grocery shopping. Plus kids had activities that evening so I wasn't able to make waffles in time. It ended up being kind of fend for yourself for dinner. Sigh. 

It rained, though (the day after Gene Kelly's birthday), which cooled things off because earlier it was pretty hot.

It rained enough that the snails came out. Snails are faster than you think. I told my family that I apologized in advance to the snails who were behind the van that I might squish them. When Jr. and Jr. Jr. heard that, they went on a rescue mission to move them out of the way.

By the time I had dropped them off and picked up Lucky from his activity, there were snails right in the path of the van in the driveway. Sigh. I told you snails are fast. I ended up parking back a bit in the driveway so I wouldn't crush any.

We like snails.

P.S. We ended up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before bed. It was one of those days.

Excuses for New Recipes

I love excuses for trying new recipes. And things that I wouldn't just try on my own without the excuse. For example, August 23 was Cuban Sandwich Day. I'd never heard of a Cuban sandwich before. So I looked it up and figured out how to make it. 

Normally it would use Cuban bread, but I don't know how to make that so I made French bread to use.

I cut a loaf into 7 pieces for each of us to have one. The pieces were cut so there would be the top crust and bottom crust if that makes sense. Even if it doesn't makes sense, that's how I cut them. Tee Hee.

Each sandwich had variations of the following fillings (some of us had it all, and some don't like certain things on their sandwiches): mustard, shredded pork, ham, swiss cheese, and pickles. I put the sandwiches in our sandwich maker, which wasn't too easy because of the thickness of the fillings and the French bread but they turned out fun and yummy.

So that was our version of a Cuban sandwich. I rounded out my plate with some corn and yet another new recipe, Mexican Rice, from shelfcooking.com

You know I love finding reasons to celebrate. We'll have to celebrate this again next year. 

P.S. August 23 is also Gene Kelly's birthday so there was some dancing around and singing happening.

Be an Angel Day 2022

August 22 is Be an Angel Day. Jr. and I went to a music store to get more rosin for his cello. One of the employees was an angel and got us each a cold water bottle because it was a hot day.

We had our traditional alfredo sauce on angel hair pasta.

It was also Pecan Torte Day. We didn't have that but we had Butter Pecan Crunch ice cream.

Not So Impromptu Date

We needed to get the windshield on our van replaced so Jeremy and I planned to go birding while it was getting done. Last time we went to get vehicle maintenance done we had a spontaneous date. This one was planned.

It was a beautiful morning. There was some rain so we had to hide the camera from time to time but we enjoyed ourselves.

West Mountain was looking pretty in the morning light. 

I thought it would be fun to get a picture of the two of us with it in the background. My phone didn't want to cooperate so I turned it around but then couldn't line it up because I couldn't see us. Who remembers taking selfies with cameras back when they weren't even called selfies and you just took what you could get because there was no screen showing what the camera was seeing? I also remember doing that with film cameras so we didn't even see how they turned out until the pictures were developed.

Speaking of cameras, I realized I could turn the screen around on our camera camera but I got the angle wrong so I didn't even get West Mountain in the picture, just the Saratoga Springs area across the lake. Ha.

Neverthless we did enjoy ourselves, even if there were a lot of mosquitoes out. That made for happy warblers, though, for us to watch.

At one point, I started getting all excited and checked my picture of my calendar on my phone. I was able to let Jeremy know we were celebrating because that day, August 20, was World Mosquito Day. I wondered what was so good about mosquitoes and Jeremy let me know they are pollinators. Oh. Well, there are pollinators I prefer, like honey bees. It was World Honey Bee Day as well. Interestingly, I don't think we got any mosquito bites even though we left the bug spray in the car. Heh.

Since we were by the lake, there were plenty of pelicans flying around. I love pelicans. At one point we watched a snowy egret land and managed to get a picture of the egret, a great blue heron, and some pelicans all in the same picture. That was fun.

Once the van was done, I dropped Jeremy off to pick it up then headed home to pick Nichole up to go to a Relief Society/Young Women combined activity. We had brunch and got to make some little flower arrangements to take home.

I didn't get a picture but later that day to celebrate World Honey Bee Day, we had honey glazed carrots with our dinner. 

It was a busy day.

Supporting a Friend

Remember this kid? International award winning pianist, Derek Banks. Not such a kid anymore. I first started talking about him on my blog back in 2014 when he was a young man and playing the piano in front of the balloon Starry Night. I last mentioned going to see him play in 2019 while he was getting ready for an International Competition in Japan. Guess what. He got third place in that competition. Woohoo.

Now he's studying music at the Manhattan School of Music but was home for the Summer and put on a concert recently. I went to show support and represent our family as Jeremy had a show that night and wasn't able to go. He would have if he could.

Derek is doing amazing things and it is so nice to be able to see where his talent (and hard work) is taking him. Keep up the good work.

I Don't Wanna

I don't want to blog. I do but I don't. Sigh.

So here's a picture of Jr. Jr.

Can you tell it's him?

Oh, I guess I can also say that August 18 was National Fajita Day.

 

 

August 19 was National Potato Day. I wanted to get a video of Jet saying, "Happy National Potato Day." I told him, "Say, 'Happy National Potato Day,'" then started recording. He obliged and said, "Say Happy National Potato Day." So cute. 

Later he was singing, "Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, National Potato Day. Happy Birthday to you." I LOVE MY FAMILY!

First Days of School

I had both Nemo and CoComelon going in my head for the first days of school. Jr. went a day before everyone else again.

I got a picture of Jr. as he was about to the leave the van before going to where the cheerleaders and student council were cheering the students on about being back at school.

I also got a picture of him after school.

Jr. Jr. and Lucky got to meet their teachers that evening (I got pictures).

 

The boys helped decide what we'd have for the last dinner before the first day of school (for everyone). Yumm.

 

The next day I got a picture of all my students at once before school. Yay, me.

After school I got a picture of Jet who wanted to be like his siblings. So cute.

National Relaxation Day 2022

August 15 was National Relaxation Day. I just took the day and did nothing. Just relaxed.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. If only.

Actually the day started at midnight when Jet would not go to sleep and he only wanted Jr. so Jr. took care of him late into the night while I slept because I couldn't stay awake. Apparently he and Jr. both finally fell asleep in the living room, Jr. on the couch, Jet on the floor. Jet eventually ended up back in our room because he decided at 4 something in the morning that he was done with the living room. He did fall asleep again (not surprising based on how late he was up). I didn't know how much I was going to be able to help Jeremy at 5 when he got up to get ready for work. A little bit later, though, he asked me if Nichole was planning to go to her "Senior Sunrise" activity that was on the calendar. I realized my phone didn't ding at me because we had reset things recently on my phone so the notifications weren't on. I'm so glad Jeremy said something because I wasn't looking at my calendar. I got Nichole up so she could quickly get ready and we got her there just a few minutes late. There were still kids arriving after I dropped her off.

I went home and did help Jeremy finish getting ready. Then a little while after he left, I went to get Nichole. 

We got the boys up then we actually did relax while watching a movie. Everyone was still tired after the movie. Some of them fell asleep. I was going to go back to sleep myself then I realized I had to contact the high school about something important. So I left a voicemail then got to work on other things that needed to be done. Never got that extra sleep. Just kept working on things.

I threw some food together for us to eat before I took all the kids to the high school open house to meet the two oldest's teachers. That wore Jet out. He discovered the dance room where there was a big open space and music playing and just went in there and danced and danced and danced. Then when we got to the orchestra room, he had a blast twirling around with his brothers in that big open space. He fell asleep on the short drive home.

The kids played video games while Jr. made dinner. And since Jet had such a late nap, he kept me up most of that night. 

So relaxing?

Celebrating Someone Else's Anniversary

You know I love my brother, Paco. He's awesome. We like to be like Paco.

I also love Paco's wife. She and I used to go for walks together and just chat about all sorts of things. I learned a lot from her.

This year we decided to celebrate their anniversary, not with them since they live in a different state, but I wished my brother a happy anniversary (I hope he passed the message on to his wife), and we celebrated ourselves.

Nichole and I went for a short walk. I wanted to go on a longer walk later (like my sister-in-law and I used to do) but ran out of time.

The kids were excited about the idea of having a "Confuso" again (our version of it) so that's what we ate. 

 

We drank Tang to go along with it because Tang was kind of my brother's drink years ago.

We didn't have any cans of lemonade to shake up like we did when we celebrated Paco's birthday last year, so we danced around with the Tang container.

A Week of Celebrating

Monday, August 8, was Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night. We didn't but look what we harvested later.

 

Tuesday, August 9, was Book Lover's Day. There was a lot of book reading in our home. Go figure.

Wednesday, August 10, was National S'mores Day. Jr. Jr. had a special chocolate bar he wanted to use on his s'more so he did. The rest of us had milk chocolate or dark chocolate.

Thursday, August 11, was Sons and Daughters Day. I took my sons and daughter to the UCB potluck. Jeremy joined us a bit later but it was again nice to be around our friends, the birders.

The kids have had enough experience now with a number of these people, they aren't all strangers. I love it. Plus there was another toddler birder running around the kids had fun playing with.

 

Friday, August 12, was Middle Child's Day. Once again Jr. Jr. picked what we'd have for dinner besides julienne fries which I was going to make anyway because it was Julienne Fries Day. He was okay with that.

We also wanted to see the meteor shower like we saw last year. It was cloudy and there was a really bright moon and it was late so some of us stayed home and some of us went anyway. We only saw a few shooting stars because of the clouds and moon. A couple kids fell asleep on the drive and slept through it but they didn't miss much. Jeremy and I did have a little bonding time with our exact middle child and that was so nice.

This is the three of us... in shadow form. Notice if you can my bunny ears, thanks to my husband, not my middle child... this time.

The next morning, my sister heard a big boom that shook her house. It was decided later that it was a meteor entering Earth's atmosphere and causing a sonic boom.

 

For our at home potluck on Sunday, August 14, I fried up that zucchini from our garden.

Before, After, and After After

 

And this is the rest of what we ate:

Lucky wanted to learn how to make chicken Caesar salad wraps so I taught him for this. He did a good job, he just needed some help with rolling them up.

Nichole made a cheeseball that looked like a lizard on a rock because August 14 was World Lizard Day.