I have a ham bone in my freezer and I want to use it to make broth or beans or something. My mom is usually the person that I would go to for this kind of help, but she is on a cruise. What do I do? Just boil it? Ruthie? Julie? Carrie? Any help would be greatly appeciated.

This morning the kids and I were eating breakfast. I was having an apple and cottage cheese. I had washed the apple myself and cut it into wedges myself, and as I was about to eat the second to last piece Brenna said "Take off that sticker, Momma." I lowered my apple and said, "What?" She pointed to my apple and again said, "Take off that sticker Momma." I look at my fruit and sure enough I was about the eat the sticker that said "gala 4114" My word, I am thankful that I have a two year old around to keep me in check. When did she get so observent and articulate?

How about a good old update post? Good times.

Brenna runs. Everywhere. It is her preferred method of travel these days. We were getting in the car to go to church (a ten minute drive) the other day and she said, "No, Momma, I want to run to church." Unfortunately her coordination is not quite matched to her desire so her knees may be permanently skinned. She is tough though; she will come to me with bloody knees and ask for me to kiss them (ick.) and then go right back to running. Her toughness has a limit apparently because Brenna hates bugs and gets totally freaked out when one flies in her vicinity. Wait until she learns about the mosquitoes that summer will bring. Nasty little blood suckers that they are.

Brenna and I both seem to feel a passionate dislike for potty training and all that it entails. This is turning out to be a bad combo; one of us needs to have some positive feelings. Hopefully one us will come around before her first date.

Joseph continues to be nonplussed about life unless food is involved. His ribs are ticklish, so when Momma really wants to hear a laugh I can go for the ribs. Some blood work just showed that Joseph is anemic, so we are increasing our iron rich foods. I discovered in my reading that Vitamin C helps iron to be absorbed. So, lots of spinach and oranges for J.

Speaking of food, I recently became convicted that there were too many refined carbohydrates in our diet. I don’t even know if "refined carbohydrate" is an actual term, but it is all the stuff that doesn’t do our bodies any favors: white bread, white rice, sugar, etc. I found an interesting article here. I mean they are from Harvard, so they have got to be smart enough to be right, right?  So, we have gone whole grain. No one seems to be resisting too much. Although, Joseph was unusually crabby at dinner the other night, and I think that if he could talk he would have said, "Where in the heck is the bread?"
 

Joseph is mobile these days. He can’t seem to get motivated to get up on his hands and knees, so he just scoots across the floor on his belly, using his arms and toes, commando crawl style. The front of his clothes are telling an all too honest story about the cleanliness (or lack there of) of my floors. Hmm…sure hope that he learns to walk soon.

The school year is winding down at the Academy, so that means that we are headed out of town. We are spending most of June and all of July in Colorado for some seminary classes and a conference, and visiting many friends and family along the way. A midshipman that is graduating this year is staying in our place while we are gone. He is getting married the beginning of July, and he and his new bride will be staying here after the wedding for a few weeks before they head down to FL for flight school. I am so glad that our house gets to be their first little newlywed place to live. I hope that he carries her over the threshold.

Well, consider yourself updated. You could all see for yourself if you would just come visit.

 
My husband cooking dinner on the grill…..that certainly works for me, but that is nothing new to share, so I am hear to pass along my favorite grilling tips. (Because, you know the man does the actual cooking, but we are responsible for everything before and after.)

1. Hardwood Charcoal:  We are old-fashioned charcoal grill sort of people. It seems like everyone else uses propane, but you just don’t get that smoky flavor with gas. Anyhow, if either of you reading do use a charcoal grill. Harwood charcoal is great. It gets hot faster and burns cleaner. But, the taste is my primary motivation for this mention. Yummo, the flavor that it imparts to the food is super. You can find it at stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s (and I saw it once at Wal-mart) but my regular grocery store doesn’t carry it.
2. Extra meat:  Since you have the grilled fired up cook (or have your husband cook) some extra meat. Leftover grilled chicken and beef make super yummy sandwiches, wraps, pizza, quesadillas, you name it. Grilled chicken makes the best chicken salad ever. Just mix some diced up chicken with mayo and green onions. Mmm mmm.
3. No fail marinade for chicken: olive oil, lime juice (3 to 1 ratio for these two), cumin, pressed garlic, salt, and pepper.
4. Remind your husband at around 5:00p.m. that he agreed to grill for dinner that night even if you talked about it that morning. Funny, I don’t think that men think about food all day long.

Okay, that is all  I’ve got. Four grilling tips.

Before Saturday I would have said that flan is a total waste of a dessert, but this was okay. If the cup of coffee is good enough it might even be worth it.

Carbohydrates are causing my clothes to shrink. I think that I will banish from our home.

This spring and summer are going to be hard on Brenna’s knees. She skinned them at least 6 six times just this weekend.

When serving guacamole to a crowd of people it is impossible to make to much.

Spring weather is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

There is, however, a dark side to spring…..the tourists come out like ants on a lollipop and suck up all our parking.

It is very difficult to kill grass seed. We did our best and still it’s growing!

Grocery shopping at 10:00p.m. when you are very tired is still much better than shopping at 10:00a.m. with two young children.

When hitting the yard sales early on a Saturday morning you will generally not find the things that you have in mind you’d like to find. You will, however, find plenty of stuff that you don’t need and never even thought about buying and are inclined to haul it to your car anyhow.

We live around the corner from the United States Naval Academy. We also live around the corner, in the opposite direction, from St. John’s College. If you would, picture in your mind the average looking midshipmen, (midshipmen is what they call the cats that go to the Naval Academy) military haircut, preppy, your all around squared away military type college student. Now, picture what might the total opposite 18 – 22 year old look like? And that is what most Johnnies (yeah, they call St. John’s students Johnnies) look like. Word has it that they were the original hippies, and the campus culture hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years apparently. These will be important images to keep in mind to enjoy the story that I am about to tell to it’s fullest.

The year was 1980 (or somewhere in there) and the story goes like this. A midshipman and a Johnny were sitting in a bar and the midshipman boasted, as young men are want to do, that midshipmen could beat Johnnies at any sport of their choice. Johnny rose to the challenge and chose the sport of Croquet. That year was the first annual croquet match between the mids and the Johnnies.

Today was the day of the 25th annual Croquet match. The kids and I strolled over to check out the action. They play on a large expanse of grassy lawn on St. John’s campus, and the weather couldn’t have better, warm and sunny. Our first day of spring weather.

So, this would be a pretty fun tradition as it is, but what makes it all the better are the theatrics. A lot of people attend this event. People from the community, alumnus (mostly St. John’s), and students really come out, and they come out with a little theatrical flare. Most of the women dress as if they are going to a garden party in the 1920’s or 40’s. Lots of hats and gloves and dresses, even parasols. It’s like a scene out the Great Gadsby. Everyone picnics on blankets and some even bring out the china and champagne. I even saw one tent that had a chandelier! There was  live swing music, and even people swing dancing. The best, I think was the midshipman that I saw wearing knickers. Knickers! The mids who were playing wore super preppy looking croquet cardigans and the Johnnies wear all manner of funky attire. I think that this year they were going for a "born in the USA" look. They all looked like The Boss in rumpled jeans and t-shirts and bandannas. And, the Johnnies are the bosses of croquet apparently. USNA has only won 5 times in 25 years.

The whole Bible is about Jesus. Every word from Gensis to Revelation is really about Jesus. Every narrative, every character, every theme of the Bible if you follow it’s thread all the way through you will find Jesus. Case in point: David and Goliath.  It’s not a story about courage like we have always heard it preached. Israel had a giant that they couldn’t beat, so God provided a man to beat the giant and his victory was imputed to the whole nation. Just like Jesus, His victory over sin and death is imputed to us.

One of the many great things about this truth that I have been learning lately is that it puts a different spin on reading the OT.  It’s kinda like a game. Here are the rules: read the passage (chapter, book, etc) and figure out how it is really about Jesus. Right now, I am reading the book of Daniel. Anyone want to play along? I’d love to hear what y’all think as well as share insights of my own.

We had an eventful weekend, a variety of experinces:

Relief: C.W. came home. No more twitching.

Sad: Talked with a newly married couple at the wedding that we attended. She just graduated from the Academy last year and is now in flight school in Corpus Christi and he is a Marine stationed in North Carolina warming up to deploy in July. Out of the 6 months that they have been married they have spent 15 days actually living in the same place. It will be at least a year until they do. I know that they made choices that got them where they are, but I still felt very sad with them. Needless to say, they cut out of the wedding early.
 

Sassy: I wore a new black dress to that same wedding it was most certainly sassy feelin’ (and totally appropiate).

Grateful: The wedding again. One, I am married so I have someone to go to weddings with. Two, I am not a newlywed any more.  

Intruiging: We watched last week’s episode of LOST downloaded from itunes, and it was a great one. We got some answers this time. Any other folks hooked on Lost? What did you think? I still want to trust Juliet. I like her.

Frusturating: My washing machine is broken. Grrrrr. The laundry piles up enough as it is.

Aligned: I am reading a book about community and fellowship within the church. I met with a midshipmen (a female midshipman) on friday and we talked about fellowship with the church. The sermon Sunday morning was about community, meaning that is also what our small group talked about Sunday evening. Hmmm.

Impatient: Weather’s still cold. Come on! It’s April 15th already.
 

Satisfying: Lots of quality time with C.W.

Yummy: Food this weekend was especially yummy. Great food at the wedding, yummy taco salad at small group on Sunday. I made this pasta sauce for our weekly Midshipman dinner on Saturday. I think that I will post the recipe tomorrow because, oh my, it was tasty.

I am on day three of C.W. being out of town and my eye is twitching. I sometimes people use that phrase in a exaggerated way for comedic value, but that is not the case here. My eye is actually, physically twitching.  Because my new computer has this cool photo booth feature I decided to take a  picture of the eye in question. Seems like that’s a decision that might seem silly tomorrow, but today in the midst of the twitchiness is seems like the obvious thing to do. I really can’t be held accountable while I am in this state. Ahhhh, the other eye just started.

Brenna: "Where’s Mimi?"

Me: "Mimi lives in Texas."

Brenna: "Where is Granny?"

Me: "She is in Texas."

Brenna: "Where’s Uncle Bock" 

Me: "Texas."

Brenna: "Where’s Bittney?"

Me: "Texas." 

Brenna: "Where is Aunt Tarrie?"

Me: "Aunt Carrie lives in Texas too." 

Brenna: (looking and sounding perplexed) "Where is Benna?" 

Me: "Brenna, you live in Maryland."

Brenna: "Oh."

She is just a few brain cells shy of asking the question, "Why doesn’t Brenna live in Texas?" I have my answer all ready. "Go ask your Daddy."