We Wish you Were here!

Chris tried his hand at gardening this year. He did it mostly all by himself. He picked what to plant, planted it, and has tended it faithfully. We have had some buggy problems but the tomatoes are doing especially WONDERFUL! We have been enjoying them in many ways!

Tonight we went from this:

To this:

And served it like this!

We wish you were here to share it with us!

Wild for Harry!

Katie started the craze way back when she was in 2nd grade. She came home with this book,"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I had heard that the books were banned in some Utah schools (true or not I don't know) and told her I wanted to read it before she did to make sure it was appropriate. The rest is history.

Most of the family is addicted!


So we did go to the midnight opening of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." Christopher made us the cute little house pins (you can't see Tori's and mine, but we are Ravenclaw) and put together our student outfits. We made ourselves wands. (Olivander was NOT available) Tori's friend Evan Cucuk came with us and he did it up big time!

Brett and I were the OLDEST people dressed up that we saw at the theater. What can we say?

There is something magical (pun intended) about a midnight showing. I guess it is the other geeks doing the same thing you are! The energy and excitement is unsurpassed.

Our review? The best one yet. (Being HUGE fans of the books, we are kinda critical of the movies. You other fans know how that goes. Not that we don't own every movie mind you!) Dumbledore actually made us love him in this movie and we haven't been a big fan of Michael Gambon's portrayal. We have lots of other opinions, but do you really want to read my novel?

I'll just say. We had so much fun! It was great! I love that my family is willing to be weird! They are wonderful! Harry Potter is something that we love sharing together!

What's For Dinner?

ASIAN BEEF

This was so yummy I just had to blog it! I modified a recipe that originated from "Cooking Light" and then went to " A Year of Slow Cooking" (excellent site. crockpot365.blogspot.com) and then came to me. Here's my version!

4 lb Boneless Beef Roast (mine was a little smaller)

1/2 cup Soy Sauce (I used reduced sodium)

1/2 7oz bottle Hoisin Sauce

6 tb Ketchup

4 tb Honey

3t minced dry Garlic

1 tb Ginger (I used the already in the jar stuff)

1 Serano Pepper (I seeded 1/2 of it, and left in half the seeds.)

Plop it all in your crockpot!

Mine was done in 5 hours on High. Then I shredded it and put it on warm with the lid off to thicken the sauce. Ate it about an hour later. That step may not be necessary as the sauce really was so good and thinner would probably have been OK. But I would want to have it shredded and sitting in the sauce for a bit anyway.

I served it over shredded cabbage which gave it a nice light summery feel! Our only side was cantaloupe chunks. It turned out to be a great summer time meal. No starchy carb. Egg rolls? Rice obviously. But we really enjoyed it just this way because it is H-O-T here right now!

Wicked Wendy

So here I am practicing again! This is a picture of me and my friend Mary Lynn. We went to see "Wicked" in San Francisco this past April! We had a wonderful week together. And I actually have a photo to practice posting pictures with!

Wandering In

So.....Kaite talked me into starting a blog! The problem is that right now I don't have any pictures or anything to say! Stay tuned..... It's SURE to get better!