I Love Birding Challenges

Besides the annual reading challenge I'm doing, it is another year for a birding challenge through Utah County Birders. Books and birds. Aren't they great? And yes, I will sometimes listen to an audiobook while I'm looking at birds.

Jeremy and Nichole (who are also doing the birding challenge), got out one evening for some bonding birding time to the Provo River Delta and saw a barn owl among a few other birds.

Jeremy and I decided to go the next week for a morning birding adventure to see if we could find the owl.

We got there nice and early. You know I love mornings in nature. It was cold, we didn't see the barn owl, but we saw so many other birds. It was worth it.

And somehow I turned the exposure way down on the birding camera so all the bird pictures we took are dark. Sigh.

Oh well. We still enjoyed seeing them... together.

 

I love bonding time! 

 

That day, January 17, was Popeye Day and Hot Heads Chili Day so we had spinach salad and chili on cornbread (I added hot sauce on top of my chili).

The next day, January 18, was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had foods with honey: Honey garlic chicken, salad with honey mustard dressing.

It was also Thesaurus Day so we had fun figuring out different way of saying things. Lucky wanted to make Kool-aid. I corrected him and told him it was "Colored Flavored Sugar Water." He needed to put crystalized sweetener in it (aka sugar). The funny thing is the honey I used for dinner was crystalized (crystalized sweetener) so I had to heat it up in order to use it. Heh Heh Heh. 

More Celebrating in January

January 16 was Fig Newton Day. We ate fig newtons. Do you remember the commercial way back that said, "It's not a cookie. It's a newton"? I looked at the packaging for fig newtons and it calls them cookies. Ha.

It was also Appreciate a Dragon Day. Dad did some writing about dragons.

January 17 was Museum Selfie Day. Jeremy had some stuff to do at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point so he made sure to celebrate the holiday while there.

It was also Popeye Day. I sang Popeye cartoon theme music over and over to the kids while we ate Popeye spinach.

It was also Hot Heads Chili Day. Let me tell you how I did some shelf cooking those two days, following "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1.

I was thinking of making some spicy chili on Hot Heads Chili Day and the day before I was going to make lasagna soup with garlic bruschetta. Well, Jr. wasn't feeling the greatest that first day and said Ogre Stew sounded good to him. Ogre Stew is kind of like a white bean chili and it was a bit spicy so we had it for Hot Heads Chili Day Observed. 

The garlic bruschetta was supposed to use fresh tomatoes but we were out so I took a can of diced tomatoes, added the other ingredients, and cooked them up to make a sauce. Then I took my homemade baguettes (The Food Nanny recipe), cut them in rounds, and made them into garlic bread to put the sauce on top. It worked.

So the next day I made the lasagna soup to go with spinach salad. I also made cornbread muffins which were suggested in the book but I used a recipe I always use instead of the one from the book. That's another thing about shelf cooking. If I have a tried and true recipe why look for something else?

 

Lucky very nicely took pictures then edited them to make me green like spinach.

Some January Fun... That Hasn't Already Been Mentioned

Sometimes you just have to dance to the music. In this case it was music from Singin' in the Rain. In fact, I think it was the song, "Singin' in the Rain."  

January 15 was National Bagel Day. Breakfast sandwiches for dinner? Yes, please.

 

Live long and prosper.

 

January 16 was Appreciate a Dragon Day. Nichole wore her new dragon-themed shirt and her new dragon earrings and as is tradition, she sketched a dragon.

She and the boys also played "toss" with the dragon that she made in elementary school. 

January 17 was Popeye Day. We had food with spinach for dinner including Popeye brand spinach.

 

One way to get exercise in during the Winter. Roll the ball down the hall and chase it.

January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had honey roasted carrots with our dinner. I also made granola that day but used maple syrup instead of honey because I wasn't thinking and we had syrup we needed to use up.

 

Sometimes in life, you just have to stop and play with monster trucks. Did you know that because they're "monster" trucks, they roar?

 

And this...

Appreciate a Dragon Day 2021

For Appreciate a Dragon Day on Saturday, January 16, Nichole decided to have her dragon help out with things at home while Jeremy and I ran errands and tried to fix the car. It should have been as simple as replacing the battery but instead it took a lot of prayers and the next door neighbor who came over to see what we had been working on for hours and used his knowledge to fix the last bit for us. Thank you, neighbor. You were a huge blessing.

The kids worked on cleaning and homework (with the dragon) and watched some dragon-themed movies.

Earlier in the day, Jet and I took Jeremy to pick up his prize for reaching Gold for the UCB birding challenge for 2020. I got to chat with one of the birders from a distance while Jeremy was getting his certificate and binoculars harness. The Thursday before we had a Zoom Meeting with the club to talk about birding in 2020. It was so nice to see those birders and I was able to have all the kids there since we watched from home (and Jr. Jr. and Lucky danced around at home).

January 16 was also National Fig Newton Day but as things were so crazy, we forgot to eat our fig bars so we celebrated Fig Newton Day (Observed) the next day by eating them after our spinach lasagna that we had to celebrate Popeye's Birthday on Sunday, January 17.

Popeye's Birthday with No Pictures

Sorry, guys.  No pictures for this one. 
January 17 is Popeye's birthday so I watched one Popeye cartoon short online.
For dinner we had pizza with olives so... Olive Oil, right?
There you go.  Celebrating.

January Catch Up

So you want to know what we did in January that I didn't blog about (which was most of the month)?  O.K.  Let's catch up.

We celebrated:
January 7 was Old Rock Day.  A birding friend (yes, there was still a lot of birding) gave us an old rock- stigmaria.  It's a fossilized root.  Did I mention our birding friend is also a paleontologist?

January 8 was Elvis’ Birthday.  We didn’t have any Elvis movies to watch or songs to listen to.  We watched “The Court Jester” for Family Home Evening.  “Long live the king.”  That movie also had Angela Lansbury in it who played Elvis’ mother in a few of his movies.

January 10 was Peculiar People Day.  We celebrate by existing.
January 16 was Appreciate a Dragon Day.  Lucky watched "How to Train Your Dragon."  Nichole wore a dragon necklace.
January 17 was Popeye's birthday.  We had chicken salad with spinach in it.
January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day.  Lucky and I played with “My Friends, Tigger and Pooh” figurines.  Later, Lucky put together a Winnie-the-Pooh puzzle.  We had a honey themed dinner- honey glazed ham, rolls with butter and honey, salad with honey mustard dressing.  Yumm.

January 19 was Brew a Potion Day.  It was also National Popcorn Day.  We watched “Hocus Pocus” while eating popcorn.

January 20 was Cheese (Lover’s) Day.  I think we had something cheesy for dinner.
January 21 was Squirrel Appreciation Day.  We didn’t celebrate that day but Jeremy got some good squirrel pictures a couple days later.

January 23 was Pie Day.  I made impossible cheeseburger pie for dinner and an apple pie for dessert.  We used our new Pi plate.

January 24 was National Compliment Day.  I tried to be nice to my kids all day.
January 25 was a Room of One’s Own Day.  I did spend some time in my room that day reading and watching a movie, but I wasn’t able to spend as much time as would have been nice since Jeremy was working.  Oh well.  I wasn’t going to tell him not to work just so I could celebrate by being lazy.  Also the DVD player I was using to watch my movie kept goofing up so it wasn't as relaxing because of it.  Oh well again.
January 28 was National Kazoo Day.  Jr. shared his talent.

January 29 was National Corn Chip Day.  We had chili and corn chips.  January 29 was also National Puzzle Day.  The kids watched me play some Monkey Island.

January 31 was Backwards Day.  We had dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.  The boys were very happy because they also had dessert before their morning meal.  They didn’t think about wearing their clothes backwards this year.  Oh well.  Jr. did walk backwards when coming to meet me after school.

We did other things:

Jr. Jr. got an award for a school project he did.

 Jeremy and Lucky went to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point one day.

Lucky and I had a teddy bear picnic.  It was too cold to have it outdoors so we picnicked in the back of the van while Daddy was out birding (told you there was birding).

Jeremy and I went on a date to a dinner with other birders.

We dragged the kids out birding with us a few times. 

We also enjoyed a nice drive around the lake one evening.

We met some new birds- blue jay, Northern pygmy owl, and Pacific wren.  There were some others as well.

We found a friend outside the church building on the way to church one morning.  A red-naped sapsucker. 

It was still there when we got out of church and when we went back for choir practice.  When we got out of choir practice it was still there so I was taking pictures when another birder came up behind me with her camera.  She found out from Jeremy about the sapsucker and it was a new life bird for her.
Over the next few days several other birders came to see the sapsucker.
 
And that was January.