Category Archives: family

Wheels on His Feet

Another new year and in a month or two, we’ll be in another new location. “But didn’t you just move to Tulsa?” My friends ask. “Yes, but David has wheels on his feet,” I reply. 

And it’s true. We move more than anyone I know. Mostly I’m okay with it. Each new spot is someplace to explore. New restaurants, new things to do. Sometimes I’m lucky enough and there’s a Kroger to shop in. 

sanjose

This time we’re moving to San Jose, CA. California is a state I’ve visited but never in a million years thought I’d live in. 

We went to San Francisco for our 20th wedding anniversary to watch Metallica in concert with the San Francisco Symphony. We took the boys out of school and it was an awesome trip. I’ve always wanted to go back to San Francisco with David alone and stay at the Fairmont Hotel and do adult things. Like shop and eat at good restaurants. 

Shortly after that trip, I took Geoff out to Malibu to attend a baseball camp at Pepperdine University. We stayed in a surfer motel and I really loved it there. I noticed that the Pacific Ocean looks very different from the Atlantic Ocean and we ate breakfast every morning outside on a deck over the water. I could have been happy living there.

As it turns out, David’s new project is in the San Jose area and I’m pretty sure I will like it there, too. When he told me we were going to be going there, I started looking at the different areas to see where I thought I’d feel more comfortable living. I told him I’d move if he let me live in a high rise and got me a bike. He was okay with that.

So after looking  around on Google, I decided that the downtown area of San Jose is where I want to be. They have, what looks like, a thriving downtown organization. There are places to eat, shop and be entertained. On Google Earth I have walked to the library from each of the places we’re considering living. The library is super important to me and it looks like they have a nice one.

My friends who are aware of my raw veganism have suggested that it will probably be easier to live as a raw vegan in California than in Oklahoma. I think I’d agree with that even though I have no direct knowledge yet. I’m really looking forward to checking out my new home and seeing what all it has to offer. The fact that it’s neither as cold or hot as Oklahoma is appealing, too. 

When David took this job, he was to be based out of our home here in Tulsa. And I haven’t seen him since. He’s always gone so the main attraction of the move is to finally be able to live, like really live, with my husband. I miss him terribly.

The hard part will be having to give up my frequent visits with the Glambaby. I’ve been hanging out with her for twice a week for a while now. I know it helps Nikki out but my time with her is the high point of my weeks. She’s so much fun, so inquisitive, so smart. I love having a running conversation with her. And run it does. She doesn’t slow down too much. I love hearing her pick up new vocabulary and ideas. I love sharing songs and toys with her that I loved when I was a kid. Facetime just isn’t going to come close to what we have now. But, at least we’ll have facetime. I keep thinking how awesome it would have been for my mom to have facetime, or even email, when the boys were small and we were living all over the world. 

glambaby

Since we don’t plan to sell our house straight away, I figured i’ll be back frequently to have my hair done and get my glambaby fix. I also hope they’ll come visit us so we can show her California. 

I think living in the Pacific time zone is going to be difficult. I’ve never done that before and I watch David when he’s there and it seems like he puts in more hours at work just so he can be awake when the East and Central time zone people are awake. We are early to bed kind of folks. I wonder if we’ll want to go to sleep at 7 p.m. every night since it will be 9 p.m. central time?

Thanks to twitter and facebook I have friends that live in the Bay Area so I will already know people when I get there. Also, my aunt Nani lives north of Sacramento. I’m looking forward to hanging out with her at least once a month. We haven’t seen her since we went to the Metallica concert. Her daughter, my cousin, Maile, lives in NV but not too far away so I’m looking forward to seeing her again, too.

It will be different and I’m not looking forward to all aspects of the move but over the years, because he has wheels on his feet, I’ve definitely learned to bloom where I’m planted. I think my blog will become more exciting as I explore and learn about my new location, too, so you have that to look forward to. 🙂 

It’s a Dirty Life

I love this photo.

balls in bubbles

I took it yesterday after I loaded the pitching machine softballs into the soapy water to clean them. It looked so happy and it made me smile.

You see, on July 30 our new business, Athletic Mission Performance Center, burned. And there hasn’t been a lot to smile about since then. Geoff had just finished training Nikki and me. We were all talking about our plans for the rest of the day. Nikki went back to the ladies room and that’s when she discovered the fire.

It was scary but I think we handled it well. Nikki called 911 and Geoff and I moved quickly to get the HitTrax unhooked and moved to the farthest office in the building, away from the fire. I figured that we could save them if they didn’t get water damage when the fire department tried to put out the fire.

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After we had the expensive equipment moved we got out of the building. I saw two guys running towards us. I’m not even sure where they came from. They were pointing to the corner of the building. I don’t think they knew we knew it was on fire. I said we were just moving equipment and getting out. They said, “What can we move?”

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10 fire trucks came. It was pouring down rain. Our neighbors to the north told us we could hang out under their overhang. He continued to offer us anything we needed: a chair, water, the bathroom. I wanted to watch from outside, though. When he came out and asked if we wanted to see the fire from the back of the building, we took him up on it. We wove our way through their building and out their back door.

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Holy smokes! I think I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing that.

After the fire was put out we went back into the building. Although the fire damage itself was confined to the bathroom area where the vent fan had caught on fire, the fire was fueled by oil soaked insulation producing the thick black smoke that left tons of soot all over everything.

soot

The restoration company, Blackmon Mooring, was there to help us pick up the pieces. They are amazing. They are kind, compassionate, understanding and smart. They told us that the soot would eat into metal if it wasn’t taken care of immediately.

rusted pitching machine

And things sat there. We waited on the landlord, the insurance adjusters, and inspectors.

Our insurance company finally gave us the go ahead to move our things and we got to it yesterday. We needed to get all of the soot off of our things that we would be moving to the new location and so, balls in bubbles.

When I was paying rugby in Bahrain, they weren’t able to grow a grass pitch for us to play on so they made it out of sand. But, to keep the sand from blowing away, they mixed it up with oil. After every practice and game, we were covered with oil. They told me I would need to shower with dish soap to get it off. Dish soap? But it worked!

That’s why I chose to use Palmolive dish soap to clean our belongings in the Center. Not only does it cut the grease and clean surfaces easily, it’s not toxic or harsh. It was a perfect choice. As I showered last night, I wished I had brought some up to the bathroom because soap just doesn’t work as well. 🙂

We made a lot of progress yesterday. It’s sad to be taking the baseball cages down when we’ve only just put them up. 

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David wins the “Dirtiest of All” award.

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Today, our goal is to get the turf off the floor. It’s going to be another hot and dirty day but I love how our family works together. We help each other out, joke to lighten the mood and we’ve grown closer through this. 

We may be down but we are definitely not out. We will be back soon and better than before. I am so thankful to Blackmon Mooring (especially Kelsey, Trent, and Armando) for their help and guidance, our neighbors who rushed to help us the day of the fire, our clients for hanging in there with us while we get back up and running, and David, Geoff and Nikki for being pretty much the most awesome people in the world. 🙂

 

Rock Show!

Monday we took the glambaby to see her first rock show – Sugar Free All Stars!

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I’ve been twitter friends with @SFAS for a long time and got to see them the first time a couple of years ago when the glambaby was only a couple of months old. I couldn’t wait for her to be old enough to go to the show and when I found out they were playing at the Hardesty Library this week, I was beyond excited.

The Sugar Free All Stars are music, dancing and flat out fun! 

Before the show started, the glambaby wanted to be on the stage. Well of course she did. 😉 When they finally started playing, she was very interested.

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And very interested in watching the other little kids dancing and jumping around. But when they had us marching, she only tapped her toe. It was like she had gotten shy. 

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Eventually, I picked her up and danced around with her until it seemed like she had fallen asleep at which point I handed her off to Pop Pop. But he said she wasn’t sleeping.

She put her sunglasses on and was observing. It was a really funny reaction but he said she enjoyed the show.

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Now that we’ve been once, I hope that when we go the next time, she’ll just get into it like the other kids. And me. 🙂

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If you get a chance to see the Sugar Free All Stars do not let it pass! You must go and have a blast. Like a big explosion. 🙂

Easter Cake Success!

A couple of years ago, I pinned a cake to my Easter board at Pinterest:

Easter Cake Inspiration

Look at the comment. 🙂 So I decided this was going to be that day and gathered what I needed. It was really easy. 

I made the chocolate layer cake in 6 inch pans because we really didn’t need that much cake and it makes it just her size. Then I made buttercream frosting and tinted it purple. Put that together, attached the Peeps all around, sprinkled Easter M&Ms on top and Voila!  My cake:

Easter Cake

I was really happy with the way it turned out and hoped the glambaby would love it, too.

We had it for brunch today and she loved it!

Glambaby Easter Cake

She wanted the Peeps off of it. She decided earlier that she likes Peeps since they are marshmallows which she loves. She then proceeded to eat the ears off of every bunny Peep she got a hold of. She liked the M&Ms that were on top of it, too. Honestly, I’m not sure if she even ate the cake part of it but I knew the way it looked made her happy and that was enough for me. 🙂

Success! 

Sumo Mandarin

Today, after we picked up the glambaby, we stopped by the grocery store to get a couple of things. While we were in one aisle we saw a picture of a peach and she thought it was an apple. So I thought we should go over to the fruit to see if we could find a peach to show her the difference.

There were no peaches but there were these:

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Sumo Mandarin Oranges.

They are kind of ugly but the glambaby was attracted to it. We looked at all of the oranges and she decided she wanted to take this one home with us.

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We opened it up at lunch and I ws a little worried about it because one section tore and it looked like it could be dry and tasteless.

But it wasn’t! I twas delicious and sweet. It was kind of pricey and it was definitely ugly but it was a nice treat.

IMG_5916Have you ever eaten a fruit that surprised you in its taste?

 

The Zoo!

Yesterday we took Geoff, Nikki and the Glambaby to the Tulsa Zoo!

zoo

We’ve lived here, more or less, for around 11 years and have never been to the zoo. At Woodland Hills Mall there is a big advertisement for the Zoo and every time we walk past it, the Glambaby has to stop and look at it and talk about it. We’ve been waiting for it to be warm enough to go.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! It was around 64 degrees and sunny. There were very few people there so it was comfortable all the way around.

The Glambaby really wanted to see an elephant and a monkey. And she got her wish.

elephant

The monkeys got crazy!

We rode the train around to the other size of the zoo.

train

We ate lunch at the McCaw Landing Grille inside the zoo and had some very tasty burgers!

We then visited the slides. The glambaby, supreme slide lover, saw them as we went to lunch and we promised her we’d slide when we were finished eating. We played on the playground for quite a while until she got so sleepy it was time to go.

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We didn’t get to the giraffes or the carousel (which looks amazing!) or the petting zoo. I hope we’ll get a chance to go back soon.  We had so much fun! 🙂

Rolled Fondant Cake

Yesterday was the Glambaby’s birthday and today is Boo Boo the Wonderdog’s birthday. I decided I was going to try my hand at rolled fondant frosting. It’s #60 on my goals list and I’ve always wanted to try it.

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I’m left handed and it’s really hard for me to decorate with buttercream because all of the tools, tips, etc. are made for right handed people and it just doesn’t work. But fondant always seemed like roll and place and I figured it would be easier to do.

I used the Marshmallow Fondant recipe at All Recipes to make my own fondant. I don’t konw what your fondant eating experience has been but mine has been Blech! Nasty. The reviews for this recipe were good for taste and ease. They were also very enlightening. I read through them all so I would have the best chance of success. There’s also a video to watch to gain more courage.

I knew I could do it, I was ready!

I chose this cake for inspiration.

I made two layers of brownie in five inch pans so it’s a pretty tiny cake but it’s all we need. I put peanut butter cups into the brownie before I baked it. For filling, I melted chocolate chips.

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Then I rolled out the fondant. It was easy! I used cornstarch to keep it from sticking.

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I then place it over the cake.

I took a small amount of the fondant and worked some red food color paste into it. The palms of my hands are still red. 🙂

hand

I then cut out the little hearts, painted their backs with water and stuck them to the cake.

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I know there are fondant cake making secrets I must still learn. How to keep my hands from being dyed when coloring the fondant, how to make it smooth.

But for the most part, I’m pretty darned excited with my first effort at rolled fondant. Doing what I did seemed pretty easy and I would definitely try it again. 🙂

Banana Bacon Cookies

When we returned home from Florida, this was waiting for us:

dead_bananas

Dead bananas.

I thought about making banana bread but put it off. Monday night, during #foodiechats, someone started talking about bacon. I wondered what my grandma’s banana cookie recipe would taste like if I put bacon in the mix.

This morning, I dug out the well loved, well used recipe of my grandma’s.

recipe

I cooked up about 6 pieces of chopped bacon.

And baked. They look like they normally do.

cookies

Except these.

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When I went to get the third pan, I found this pan I’d never used and the cookies came out in cute little rounds instead of spreading on the flat cookie sheet.

Do they taste good? Yes! These are good cookies any way you make them. With the bacon, unless you get a bite of bacon, you don’t taste it. The banana taste is predominant. But when you get a piece of bacon, yum! Delish! 🙂

Playing The Beatles

This morning, I woke up to a text from my BCF (best cousin forever), Cindy:

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That brought back memories to me, too. Although I honestly don’t remember even having a butcher block at our house on Princeton.

My dad used to travel as a salesman. One of my earliest memories is of my sister Julie and I standing at the top of the stairwell looking down to see him because we heard him coming home.

And dad showed us this:

harddaysnight

And we were SO excited! A new Beatles album had just been released and our daddy brought it home!

A Hard Days Night was released on August 11, 1964 so I wasn’t even four years old yet but I remember that. I also remember watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I would have been three years old when that happened. Prior to this morning and checking dates, I thought my earliest memory was when President Kennedy was shot but The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show preceded the shooting of the president!

My parents were huge music fans and the Beatles were always playing when we were in the house. I know all the words to every Beatles song because I learned them pretty much like I learned English.

My sisters and Cindy and I used to play The Beatles. I was Paul, Cindy was George, Julie was John and, because she was younger than us, Becky had to be Ringo.

These are good memories. I didn’t watch the tribute to the Beatles that was on TV last night like seemingly everyone else I know did. But when I hear any Beatles song, I’m usually blasted back to those times playing the Beatles with my girls. 🙂

Donuts!

Donuts are just one of those foods. You know. They’re not good for you but they taste SO good. Especially with chocolate milk. Also not good for you.

We decided to take the Glambaby for a donut this a.m. to a place call OK Country Donuts. They make donuts into shapes and Nikki had gotten some baseball donuts from them for Geoff for his birthday.

When we got there, the fun donuts were on the bottom shelf of the case, just at the Glambaby’s level. They had pigs and snakes. Well, how do you decide between them? Both so fun?

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You don’t.

You get them both. And enjoy them both.

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We love donuts!

What food does it for you? 🙂