The Ever-Anticipated Update

Hi everyone,

We had a very exciting week. After swimming lessons on Monday, Camryn got the week off to a rousing start by barfing in Safeway while we were shopping for groceries. Luckily we had just started shopping so we were able to make a quick exit after cleaning it up with the complimentary sanitize-your-cart-handle wipes. We took Camryn to the doctor on Tuesday to make sure she was staying hydrated, but she was and they said it was basically a wait-it-out kind of thing. So Camryn (and I) had a less-than-exciting week of mostly staying indoors and trying to stay away from people. By Thursday she was feeling better and was back to preschool (where she painted a very nice picture of a tree).

Jared, luckily, did not get whatever Camryn had. He had his school pictures taken on Wednesday.

He continues to experiment in the kitchen. The other day while I was upstairs, he made himself a bowl of cinnamon sugar and when I came down (and was a trifle suspicious that some cinnamon-snitching had taken place) he had a great cover up: "Mom, I made this bowl of cinnamon sugar for you to eat and put in the cinnamon jar" (this was said with brown lips and face). However, I was very impressed when he reproduced the feat of making a bowl of cinnamon sugar completely by himself with no help (this involved climbing the counters to get down the sugar). On Tuesday and Wednesday since we were stuck at home all day, I used the afternoons to experiment in the kitchen. I concocted chicken with herb butter, tri-color fettucine, cinnamon-sugar acorn squash and broiled herb tomatoes on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we made home-made applesauce in the microwave along with pot roast. Jared and Camryn enjoyed making the homemade applesauce, but when it came to eating it, they preferred the Tree-Top variety we get from Costco (their loss!).

On Thursday, I was still in the "I would rather cook than clean" mode, so I decided that I wanted to try to invent something with our pot-roast leftovers since we had lots and I didn't really feel like a meal of now-mushy carrots and potatoes. So I (and I have to say, I am so proud of myself over this) invented a recipe with our leftovers and it was amazing. In a frying pan I mixed up the leftover potatoes, carrots and roast with the leftover gravy (thinned down with a little milk) and added some thyme, basil and oregano. I topped it with biscuits and baked it to make a roast beef pie. Combined with a side of acorn squash topped with cinnamon-brown sugar-walnuts, it was a great meal. It was quite comical how excited and thrilled I was about my invention- I even called my mom- but hey- simple pleasures.

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But that was about as exciting as my week got. And apparently all of my culinary adventures must have sapped my energy because by the time Saturday came around, I (gasp) did not feel like working on the yard. At all. And Dave didn't either. I guess the yard mania must have passed.

Dave got transferred to a new project at work this week. He was kind of disappointed because he really liked his old project, but he's building a gizmo to take measurements that involves a record player from goodwill and a plate spinner/lazy susan thing from Bed Bath and Beyond, and I think that's just way cool. Oh to be an engineer! They get all the fun. =]

We hope you all are doing well. Love ya, miss ya.

Karen, Dave, Jared and Camryn

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I've noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older children always tell you the next stage is worse. -Dave Barry