Category Archives: outdoors

Fruits of our Labor

Last year my gardening attempts mostly failed.  I had some flowers take off, but many of my endeavors did not pay off, and I blame some of that on too little time and too many plants to care for.  This year I decided to just skip planting an actual garden and we’re focusing more on updating our general landscaping a bit.  I let the kids pick some flowers for the front and to put in pots (I grabbed mint and marigolds as I always do), and thankfully, they are all thriving!  We came back from vacation to find major growth and our first strawberry!

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It’s been really fun checking on the flowers with both kids, but especially Enzo because he seems to “get it.”  He loves to look for more strawberries and the squash he picked out is going nuts, and I think I’ll need a bigger pot.  Watching the kids eat their first strawberry off the vine has me excited to grow food next year.

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With luck it’ll also make them more likely to try the different fruits and veggies that they’ve helped plant and grow.  This year we just got busy and I decided to make time for other things.  Perhaps next year we’ll actually fix up the raised beds and add some chicken wire to keep out pests.

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Just your local crazy cat lady…

This summer really needs to slow down so we can have time to fully enjoy it.  As it is I feel like we have a million things I want to do and weekends are filling up.  There’s also the bug problem too. On our walk the other day I noticed a lot more mosquitoes out and about and while they didn’t seem to bother the kiddos, I had several bites within a few minutes and had to pick up the pace.  Time to bust out the various bug repellants and hope we can use our yard this summer since we weren’t able to last year.  I think Uzi will also be glad if we’re out in the yard more often.

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We’ve only taken Uzi out on a leash a couple of times so far, but he seems to enjoy it.  He’ll enjoy it even more now that we planted a few things outside.  Not surprisingly, some of our dog loving neighbors have pointed and laughed a bit, but it doesn’t bother me.  It gets Uzi some fresh air and lets him roll around in the grass.  I’d love to let him roam free, but we live way too close to a busy road and there are way too many loose dogs in the neighborhood and too few cat people.

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Unfortunately Uzi will just have to enjoy being outside on a leash and watching birds from inside the house.  There’s a bird feeder right outside my office window and I know there are birds out when I can see his butt twitching behind the curtain and can hear him start to chatter.  Ha ha.  No bird would be safe if I let him out.  Keep the dream alive, Uzi!  Maybe one day you’ll get out of the house unattended and wreak havoc on our bird community.

Ziggy Fluff

I almost said there’s nothing worse than being sick on a weekend, but that’s not true.  We could have gotten sick while on vacation, which would be much worse.  Now we just have to hope everyone makes a full recovery before we leave so we can completely enjoy our time away.  And as much as the cats love us, I have a feeling they’re looking to some quiet time as well, and lots of undivided attention since their best buddy Dave is coming to stay with them.

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Surprisingly, though, Ziggy really is mellowing and is very slowly becoming more bold.  She actually went outside on the deck and rolled around in front of the door; then the other night she walked all the way to the other side!  This may not seem like much, but we’ve lived here two years and she’s been too afraid to hang out on the deck because it’s not secluded enough for her liking.  Okay, it also doesn’t help that we’re surrounded by dog lovers either. 😉

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More importantly, though, while she still prefers the kids to keep their distance, there have been a few moments where she has stayed in the same room as them and even sniffed them and allowed them to briefly touch her before scampering off.  Both kids are pretty cautious with her, probably because they don’t know if they should be scared of her too.  In the meantime, the fact that all of us can sleep on the same bed is pretty impressive… crowded, but at least there are 2 happy cats and 2 happy kids, and 2 very tired parents. Ha!

Kaiserhoff Ribs

When I was pregnant with Enzo, Josh and I booked a last minute room at a B&B in New Ulm, Minnesota for New Year’s Eve.  It’s a cute little town with a brewery and some nice little shops and very friendly locals.  For dinner we ate at Veigel’s Kaiserhoff – we had heard the ribs were good, and nothing sounded better to me.  They were awesome.  However, it’s a bit of a drive to go to often, so we rarely do.  When we heard we were going to be getting some nice weather a couple of weeks ago, we knew we had to grill and picked up some ribs and I went to Google where I was pleased to discover THE recipe! We now had a game plan.

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I love grilled veggies, and one of my favorite easy sides is tossing whatever veggies we have on hand into a foil packet to throw on the grill.  That night I did lots of sweet potatoes and used plenty of olive oil and Parmesan cheese and seasoning.  We’ve never actually done ribs before, and while I know the restaurant baked their ribs, we knew we wanted to take advantage of the nice weather.

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First, you should be sure to have a beverage, and time, because you need to boil your ribs for 1-2 hours.  I’ll post a link to the recipe, but I’m going to type what we personally did.

Kaiserhoff Ribs

Mix together 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1/4 c. soy sauce (low sodium), 1/4 c. Worcester sauce (or if you find yourself low on Worcester sauce, like we did, you can just top off what you’ve got with a nice serving of bourbon), 1 tsp garlic salt, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and minced onion.

Place your ribs 2-3 lbs in a large pot. Add above ingredients and then top off with enough water to cover the ribs.  Boil for an hour to an hour and a half until the ribs have sufficiently browned.

In a small bowl combine 3/4 c. Ketchup, 2/3 c. Miracle Whip, 1 1/2 tbsp Red Hot Frank Sauce, 2-3 drops of Tabasco.

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If you’re like us you can grill your ribs once they’re done in the pot.   Josh grilled them over medium heat, flipping them about every 5 minutes for around 20 minutes total.  He spread a little sauce just about every flip.  If, however, you prefer to bake your ribs, give yourself another hour to bake them at 350 degrees.

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I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own sexy beast of a man to do your grilling in his pajamas, though. Step back, Ladies. He’s all mine. 😉

California Dreamin’ Part 1

Despite being gone for 5 nights we really didn’t take all that many photos during our trip, so I’ve got a jumble of photos from both of our phones and cameras and pictures were taken by both Josh and I and a couple of other random people.  Off we go!

The trip got off to an interesting start.  We left the house surprisingly on time and were all happily on our way when about halfway there Enzo started making whimpering sounds, so I turned around and asked if he was okay only to have him say that his tummy hurt.  Just as I was about to ask him something else, he vomited. Quite a bit.  Of course I had just cleaned out the car and had absolutely nothing on hand to help him out and we now had to find a gas station as fast as possible to clean him up.  I had a few wipes, but that wasn’t going to do it.  I also only had a short sleeve shirt as backup for him because we were headed to California and usually I don’t have to worry about backup clothes for him.  Did I also mention that he had thrown up on the only hoodie/jacket we had brought with us? Also, the gas station we stopped at?  No paper towels in the bathroom.  We finally got him cleaned up as much as possible and changed (I gave him my hoodie) and did our best to clean up his car seat with Subway napkins.  He seemed okay, so off we went.

About 5-10 minutes later, he started crying again.  I turned around and in a panic looked for anything that he could throw up in… I grabbed his winter hat.  It might have worked had he not tried to block his mouth with his hand and had he not projectile vomited everywhere.  I really started to panic now.  Was he sick?  Were we going to miss our flight? If he was sick were we going to be awful parents and make him get on a plane?  We stopped again and this time I had to get into the luggage in the trunk.  We did the best we could to yet again clean everything up and continued on our way once Enzo happily got back in the car. He no longer looked pasty and seemed to be in good spirits. We got to the airport, got to cut in line at security, made it in time to use the bathroom and then hopped on our flight. (This may be my wordiest post yet!)

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The kids really did great on the flight.  Enzo looked out the window now and then, but really just though it was awesome to watch a movie on his little DVD player with his own headphones.  Also, they thought the beverage service and pretzels and cookies were kind of fabulous. I brought plenty of snacks and activities to keep them busy, but even though Phoebe was bored she wasn’t fussy – just squirmy, and then about halfway through the flight she settled down for a nap.

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My mom and step-dad met us at the airport and then it was a matter of getting our rental minivan, getting the kids (and adults food) and then getting settled in our rental condo, which was within walking distance of the grandparents’ condo. 😉  We stayed close to home the day we arrived and the next day as well.  Did some driving/exploring and picked up some necessities for the kiddos.  The weather was amazing!  Beyond amazing!

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Enzo really wanted to be adventurous and keep walking, but was still pretty nervous about how high up we were and felt more comfortable being held. I was a tad nervous as well… heights are not my favorite. Ha ha.

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Phoebe was asleep in the car, so our family portrait is incomplete. You know what they say, though… never wake a sleeping baby.

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She did wake up in time to go see some sea lions, and more importantly (to her) lots of pelicans and seagulls.

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Short sleeves in February?  Yeah, that might be enough to make me move. Part 2 next week!  We went whale watching and we pretty much confirmed that Enzo is a Highly Sensitive Child. That is a whole different post, though.