Our Anniversary

Saturday of Screen Free Week, Jeremy and I celebrated our anniversary. This year marked the point where I've been married to my husband longer than I have not. I love being married to him.

On May 9, National Babysitter's Day, we started out early- Jeremy made us omelettes beforehand- and started our drive to go birding up Nebo Loop. As we were driving up, having a really heartfelt conversation and crying a lot (this guy is my favorite), we found out the road was closed past a certain point. 

O.K. Plan B. We turned around, drove all the way back down, and headed to Powell Lake in Lehi, listening to music and singing along as we went.

We weren't sure we'd have time to go to Powell Lake that day so this change worked out. It was great- plenty of birds to see. I loved seeing the pelicans in the water and Forster's Terns flying around. 

Lots of birds.

We made a quick stop at Costco after that- we needed Hawaiian sweet rolls for our anniversary dinner with the kids.

Then since our original picnic spot was not available (up Nebo Loop), we went out to Provo Canyon and picnicked at Vivian Park and watched swallows fly around (and a kestrel chase them at one point).

More heartfelt talking and crying as we drove. We ended up at the Heber Fields and saw lots more birds.

It was a long day already so when we got home we took a nap then got up to finish making dinner. We were smart and made some things the day before and Jeremy cut up my pineapple before we left that morning.

We had our traditional anniversary dinner with the kids and Jeremy had his yearly one piece of pineapple.

Jet was very interested in getting pictures of Jeremy's reaction to eating the pineapple.

I've told people before and I'll continue to say it: My husband hates pineapple. He hates the taste and smell of it. Yet every year for our anniversary dinner, he cuts up a pineapple for me because I love pineapple. That is true love.  

Have I mentioned I love my husband? I'm happy to spend forever with him.

Catching Up June 2025 part something

Besides Eric Carle's Birthday, June 25 was also Strawberry Parfait Day.

I used real strawberries. Jr. decided to use strawberry flavored red vines. Close enough, right?

June 27 was International Pineapple Day and National Onion Day. We had pizza and yes, I am for sure a pineapple on pizza person. I also like onions on pizza.

  

Something On a Stick Day 2024

Something on a Stick Day, March 28. It is a popular thing to have corn dogs on this day. I didn't want corn dogs. What I decided I did want was chicken kabobs. I haven't made kabobs in a while. 

My sweet most wonderful husband took some time the day before cutting up vegetables for me and... a pineapple. He didn't cut up vegetables for me and a pineapple. He cut up vegetables and a pineapple for me. Sweet husband.

Jet decided to be sweet and a helper in the kitchen again, this time to eat pineapple as Dad cut it up.

Everybody got to choose what they wanted on their skewers from just chicken to the works (chicken, pineapple, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes). Yum. The chicken was cut up and marinated in Yoshida's gourmet sauce that morning. Jr. Jr. helped hand me veggies and fruit while assembling the kabobs so I didn't have to keep washing my hands when I wanted to touch them after touching the raw meat.
Thanks, Jr. Jr. We put the kabobs in a 350 degree oven for about half an hour (give or take) then turned on the broiler for a few minutes at the end.

Simple. Easy. Yummy.

We also had petite pickles on toothpicks. Something on a stick. The boys had fun with that.

And Jr. Jr. and Lucky used the excuse of Something on a Stick to make more cookie candy flowers like they did for Valentine's Day, except this time they had cherry juju hearts that Jeremy found that I couldn't find before Valentine's Day. Thanks, boys. And Jeremy.

The kids were playing a video game. I saw that there was a unicorn so this exchange happened.

Mom: Hey, it's a unicorn. Its horn is like a stick.

Jr.: It's a horse on a stick.

National Pizza Day 2022

What can I say about National Pizza Day on February 9? 

Of course we celebrated. It's a pizza holiday for crying out loud.

I planned to put pineapple on half of one of the two pizzas I made (I'm one of those people- I love pineapple on pizza). Jet had other ideas. He is my baking buddy after all. He missed out on making the dough this time so he wanted to help with the toppings. He grabbed pineapple and kind of flung it on the pizza. He's so fun. So it wasn't just on half the pizza, but that's okay. There was another whole pizza that didn't have any pineapple.

Jeremy suggested chips and pop to go with our pizza so that's what we did. It's fun finding reasons (and ways) to celebrate.

Quarantine!

And then we got sick. 

It's a good thing I didn't schedule anything for Fall Break after the Scarecrow Festival since I didn't feel up to doing anything for a few days and I stayed mostly in my room.

After Fall Break we all had to quarantine.

Here's Jeremy with his "Vaccinated" shirt. Notice it says "COVID-19" under the word, "vaccinated." He made sure to wear this shirt while he had Covid-19.

I got a video of Jeremy eating pineapple (he hates pineapple) because he lost his taste for about a day or two. He wondered what it would be like to lose that sense but after a day of it he was done with that experience and lucked out with it being such a short duration. He had no problem eating the pineapple. Normally he would be grimacing and wouldn't be able to handle it so we could definitely tell he'd lost his sense of taste and smell.

Jr. Jr.'s birthday was during our quarantine. Since we couldn't go shopping for items for his birthday dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted, we made do with what we had at home with the promise that we would do the dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted later. Jr. pointed out that meant he'd get two cakes, etc.

So Jr. Jr. picked ice cream out of our freezer that he wanted and a boxed cake from the pantry and I made frosting to go with it. The frosting was from thefoodnanny.com and it's my go-to chocolate frosting when I don't have store bought frosting because it's simple enough. I put sprinkles on the top.

We skipped the candles for obvious reasons but still sang, "Happy Birthday," to him and he still got to open cards and presents.

 

We didn't do a lot of celebrating other things during quarantine but we still got creative like we did with "quarantine" last year when everything shut down. There was also some cabin fever like with "quarantine" last year.

Six Sisters' Stuff put together a series of videos about if they actually listened to internet trolls. One comment they got was how some people hate casseroles so they should take their casseroles and go jump in a lake so one of the sisters took a casserole and jumped in a lake with it. Other people complained how they use cream of chicken soup too much, in practically every recipe, so one of the sisters showed herself making brownies and adding cream of chicken soup to it. Our family get a kick out of those videos so one day while Jr. was making brownies, he made this comment, "I didn't add any cream of chicken soup. Do you think it will be okay?" I love that kid. It was so funny, I put it on Instagram and Six Sisters' Stuff got a big kick out of it, too. I told you. Creativity.

October 24 was Mother-in-Law Day. I made a general announcement, "Happy Mother-in-Law Day." I don't know if my mother-in-law heard it or not.

We may or may not have celebrated Picasso's birthday on October 25 along with Greasy Food Day. We had spaghetti and meatballs with sweet mini peppers and some of us made the food into faces.

We did celebrate National Chocolate Day on October 28 by making chocolate frogs. We used green food coloring in white chocolate which is not actually chocolate but it's a generally accepted term so good enough. I'm sure there was some other chocolate eating in there as well. The boys did most of the work but I helped a bit and they turned out great.

 

October 29 was National Oatmeal Day. Guess what I had for breakfast?

So I guess we did some celebrating, mostly after I was feeling better.

While the kids were quarantining at home, they had school work they were able to work on. Some days were harder to get going than others, though, and everyone had to take turns with the computer which wasn't always easy when everyone decided they were ready to use it at the same time.

So that's how quarantine went. We were very fortunate not to get too sick. We can count our blessings for that.

Groundhog Day and Groundhog Day Observed

I realized something recently. January and February this year have the same dates on the same days of the week as back in 2014. It of course will change in March since there is an extra day in February this year. In the meantime, some of our celebrating in January and February of 2020 parallels that of 2014.
For example Groundhog Day. As in 2014 we celebrated Groundhog Day Observed the day before since February 2 was on a Sunday.
Jeremy made imitation groundhog burgers again. This time he made salmon burgers.

The boys watched the movie.
In 2014, Nichole brought home a groundhog puppet from school. In 2020, Lucky brought one home.

And like 2014, we have a new baby in the home. What a joy. (comparison- first picture Lucky, second picture, Jet)

One thing that is different is that this year the date was a palindrome date. 02-02-2020. Those types of things are always fun.
And since we did imitation groundhog burgers the day before, on the 2nd, I tried out a new recipe to go along with dinner- sweet and sour chicken. It was from a Relief Society cookbook I got years ago in our old ward. There are some recipes in there that are our favorites. And this sweet and sour chicken?- Craveworthy! At least for me. Mmmmmmmmmm. Jeremy can't stand pineapple. More for me! I love pineapple!