Ok, I give in. Camping isn't so bad!

Now that I know I have your attention...we are home from camping! Dusty, Skyler, Alex, Georgia and I hit up Trillium Lake this week. We had a blast! The weather was ok. Actually, at night we froze, but we had so much fun during the day that we didn't care.

Alex "caught" a fish with a fishing pole fashioned out of a stick, fishing line and a sinker. A lady who was fishing next to us watched happily while Alex squealed "I GOT SOMETHING!" every time he pulled up a piece of seaweed. After awhile the lady pulled up a fish who was in shock from just recently being dumped in to the lake (the boys got to watch the lake being stocked with 4000 trout!), and decided to make good use of the fact that the little guy wasn't putting up a fight. She asked me to distract Alex, and while I did she slipped the fish onto his line. Alex is so proud of the fish that he caught! Ask him and he'll tell you all about it! Alex also really enjoyed bike riding. And marshmallows. He wasn't so thrilled about sleeping in a tent, but he had big brother to encourage him on that front.

Skyler is just a joy to watch fish. He rarely catches anything. I, personally, would be frustrated as heck. But his never ending enthusiasm is just contagious. It doesn't matter if he's been out there 3 hours and hasn't had a bite- who knows? In the next 5 minutes, he just may catch a trophy fish! He spent hours at the lake, just happy to be there. He enjoyed riding his bike until one of the pedals fell off, and says that sitting by the campfire is his favorite activity. When Alex had a hard time falling asleep because he was scared in the tent, we heard Skyler singing country songs to Alex until little brother was asleep. Skyler went with my on the 2 mile lake loop, and although we had to stop and rest more times than I can count, he really was a trooper.

Dusty, I think, could spend eternity standing in waist deep water with a fishing pole. He seems to really be enjoying his vacation, and we are so happy he is ours for the week!

I thought camping was fun! I pre-cooked all of our meals, so the only things required for cooking were a dutch oven and grill tools. Super easy to clean up, super easy to make! I'm still not thrilled about tent sleeping, but the air mattress we borrowed from Val and Bruce made it manageable. I loved sitting in a chair by the lake, watching all the boys fish. It was just perfect.

Georgia loves camping. Well...she actually likes anything her family is doing. She is not a fan of riding in a car. My goodness, I've never seen a dog shake so bad! But she made it, had a good time, and is now lounging about exhausted.

Next up is the Oregon Coast! We'll only be gone two days, but we are all excited!

Skyler

A heavenly salad. Yum!

Organics 2 You delivered me some amazing fresh veggies yesterday. In the delivery came 5 beets. I've never eaten beets before- but the main point of using Organics 2 You, for me, is to try new stuff!

So I looked it up on the Food Network. Apparently you can roast beets. Seemed simple enough! I roasted them, cooled them...then thought "now what?".

So I made up this little concoction. I wish you all could taste it through the blog. YUM!

After roasting the beets, I toasted some pine nuts. As it turns out, I have some random greenery that needed to be eaten, so my dinner tonight became a salad. After throwing some green onion and all the above mentioned ingredients in a bowl, I added gruyere cheese and cinnamon. I tossed in some pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil and the heavens parted.

I'm in love. This is my new favorite salad ever!

Big day today!

Today was so great!

Dusty and I took the kids to see Up at the Mt. Hood Theater. I LOVE that place. If that theater ever closes down, I don't know what I'll do. Who cares if most of the movies are a week away from being on DVD? It is comfy and inexpensive. Up was a great movie! The kids were entertained by the humor, and Dusty and I were both heartbroken and uplifted by the story. Both boys actually watched the whole thing! (No, that isn't a typo! They sat and watched the movie!)

After the movie, Skyler got to go have alone time with Grandma, Brian and Ashley. That is pretty much heaven for him! During this time, Dusty and I took Alex to his preschool orientation. Talk about an excited kiddo! He cannot wait to start school, and within five minutes had met friends, fallen in love with the toys, and showed off what a kid on a sugar high looks like.

Dusty and I have big plans for September 8th! We are going to wake up and enjoy a big family breakfast with the boys before helping them get all ready for their first day of school. Then we will drive Skyler to school, drive Alex to school...and then look at each other and scream "WOOOO-HOOOO!" as we drive off for a morning date.

One last thing- another recipe! Hope you all don't mind a little self promotion, but I made this last night and thought it was pretty spectacular myself (and so did Grandpa Mike, who flattered me by asking me to write up a recipe!).

Cheesy Pesto Chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 Tbsp. Pesto sauce

2 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)

2 oz. goat cheese (room temperature- if you don't have goat cheese, you can use parmesan or extra cream cheese)

1 egg

1 cup plain bread crumbs

1/4 cup ground flax (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix pesto and cheeses together in small bowl. In separate bowl, beat eggs- set aside. In a shallow bowl, pour bread crumbs (mix in flax if desired).

Cut pockets in the chicken breast and stuff with 1/4 of the cheese mixture. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken to taste. Dip chicken in egg, then roll in breadcrumbs. Set on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cranberry & Pine Nut Crusted Salmon

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a food processor, mix:

1/4 cup Craisins

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1 clove garlic

2 oz. gruyere cheese

salt & pepper to taste

Process until mix is fine and crumbly, dump into shallow bowl.

In another bowl, beat one egg. Add about 2 Tbsp. water.

Take 4 salmon thawed salmon fillets, dip in egg mixture, then in cranberry mixture.

Put filets in a baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle any remaining cranberry mixture onto the salmon. Bake for 20 minutes & enjoy!

This is the first recipe I ever came up with all by myself, and since Mom likes it I thought it was worth sharing!

And it's been 4 years!

Dusty and I celebrated our 4th anniversary last night!

Here is a run-down:

The night began with me getting stuck in my dress. Seriously. I had used a gift card I'd saved to buy a special dress just for my anniversary. I was so excited! It was perfect.

I put it on right before Dusty walked in from work and couldn't get it to zip. So I asked Dusty to try it when he walked in. He did. The zipper pull broke off. So he ran out to get pliers to zip it the rest of the way (at this point I'm wondering how I'll get it off at the end of the night, but we were late so there wasn't time to worry about it). He got it to a seam on the dress where the zipper's teeth were bent, where it got stuck. So we spend about 10 minutes trying to get this dress zipped despite the fact that the zipper is clearly not in good condition. Keep in mind that I'm in 4 inch heels, we're all dressed up and ready to go, and our reservation is in 30 minutes.

Finally we look at the clock and realize we have to go. I give up my hopes of wearing this perfect dress, and decide I'll wear the back up "little black dress" that I have in my closet. So I go to take the not-going-to-happen dress off. But the zipper now won't go DOWN, either. Again, Dusty tries to come to my rescue...to no avail. After trying for a good ten minutes, we got desperate. Dusty had to actually CUT the brand new dress off of me.

Who has to be cut out of their dress on their anniversary? Haha. Me, apparently.

Luckily El Gaucho bumped our reservation back a half hour and we had a fabulous night. Now...anyone know how to replace zippers in dresses?

I have become obsessed with food.

Really. It is absurd. I love to cook. I REALLY love to cook in the summer when I have fresh produce available and my mom is around to do dishes.

That's all.

Ok, I'm getting back on this blog thing!

I know I have taken quite the break from blogging. But I'm ready to hop back on the horse (figuratively, of course- I'd probably fall off a real one)!

We are coming to a close of our summer. Skyler is preparing for 1st grade, Alex is hardly able to contain his excitement about pre-school (picture this: "I am going to go to SCHOOOOOOOW with my BACKPACK just like SKYYYYYYYER!"). Dusty and I are about to celebrate our fourth anniversary and have been pretty pleased with life lately.

Skyler is on a gluten free diet which has been a bit of a challenge to adjust to, but has been a great thing for us! The whole family is paying more attention to what we put in our body, and there is no question that Skyler's ADD symptoms seem to have improved since removing gluten and processed foods. Every once in awhile Skyler will tell me "I want gluten", which makes me laugh because he really doesn't even have a clue what it is!

Skyler has also started martial arts classes. He loves it! He has been busy this summer golfing, fishing, riding his bike, cooking and building things.

Alex is just aching to be on a sports team- any team- and just does not understand why he isn't considered big enough to play for the Atlanta Braves. He spends his days jumping off of things that I'd personally never see fit to jump off of, playing his guitar (that he bought with a gift card so that he could "be a ROCKSTAR!"), running around in the back yard and reciting theme songs to various preschool cartoons.

Both boys took swim lessons this summer and LOVED it! They also enjoyed camping and cannot wait for one last trip to Trillium Lake before school begins. I'm still not sure wether it is the camping or the marshmallows that have them hooked...

I'll be writing more often now, but that is all I've got for today!