Buh-sketti

I think I am a pretty good cook. I think that is pretty common knowledge. I enjoy cooking. One of the main reasons I put my menu on my blog is because I do enjoy cooking, and I like to share the things I enjoy. However, I try not to be arrogant or braggy about my cooking. That being said, I am not going to try now. Last night we had spaghetti for dinner, (pictures later) and it was pretty good.

I made some garlic bread. I love making bread. I love eating bread. It consisted of probably 80% of my diet as a child from when I ate solid foods until 18. So I made the french bread first, let it rise, and stuff. Then I made a little paste for the garlic topping. We were going to eat at 6, Amy's parents and grandma were coming, but Amy was so hungry she wanted to move it up to 5.

So the bread came out of the oven real close to 5, and I cut it while it was still steaming, spread the paste on and threw it under the broiler real fast. The paste was melted into the bread before I got it in the oven. I took it out, and cut it, then sneaked a bite. Let me tell you, that garlic bread was so freaking good! Seriously, it was the best garlic bread, EVER! I knew it was going to be good, I like home made bread way better than store-bought any day of the week, even home made bread that is not that good, is still better than store bought. To be honest, I don't really like store-bought bread at all. And garlic bread made from home made bread is going to be good. But I did not expect it to be this good. I could sell this garlic bread for $20 a slice, it is that good, and people would come back to buy a loaf for $300.

I also have never seen garlic bread disappear that fast. I cut one loaf, put it on the table, then sat down. By the time I had my food served up, the whole loaf was gone, and so I got up and cut the other. By the time I sat down again, the other loaf had only a couple slices left. Garlic bread is always a favorite, but it doesn't go that fast, and there will be pieces left on plates, the girls will eat a bite, then leave it. Kate ate 2 slices! That is huge. Kate's usual meal is 3-4 bites and then she is done. I don't know how she has the energy she does, but she eats nothing. I have rarely seen her eat that much bread. I wish everyone reading this could have tasted it, it was so fantastic. Next time I see any of you, tell me to make it, you will not be disappointed. Man I am long winded.

The ride of my life

I was browsing on a friend's website when I came across this link to a newspaper article. Hopefully he will keep it up for a long, long time. I set up a permanent link to it on the side bar as well. What great times. If I can get some, I will post some pictures from it. No promises, though. Looking back on it, we sure did suck at raising money. We only raised $1,500 or so. I have a feeling I could do a lot better nowadays, but you live and you learn.

Pictures of the DL trip

I am having a hard time getting time to write about the trip, but it is coming. Here are some pictures to hold you over until then. I will pare them down a little later, but they are all there now.

Delivering the news

To give you a little history, in case you are not aware...

For family home evening in March, I wanted to have the girls make some goals and make some steps to accomplish their goals. I asked who would like to set a goal first, and Kate's hand shot up.

Kate: "I want to make a goal"
George: "OK, what is your goal"
Kate: "Go to Disneyland"
George: "OK, so to accomplish the goal, you need to set a time for it to be accomplished. When do you want to go."
Kate: "Right now."
George: "Well, we can't go right now, it is night time and it takes a long time to get there, it is far away."
Kate: "Tomorrow."
George: "We can't go tomorrow, it is too soon, besides, we will have to save up money, and get time off work. How about in 2 months?"
Kate: "OK."

So we set the date, and for Kate to accomplish her goal, she needed to be cooperative getting ready in the morning, and get up early, etc. We read the goals every night and every day, and it was very present in her mind. She did excellent, she got up right away, and got dressed and ready for school with no complaints at all.That is a really big accomplishment. Any time she started to give us grief, we reminded her about her goal, and she straightened right up. I was very impressed with her dedication to it.

Amy wanted to go a little earlier than the middle of May, and she wanted to surprise the girls. So we planned it out, and purchased the tickets in a package through Costco Travel, and planned the dates, but didn't tell the girls. We didn't tell many people, because we didn't want anything to accidentally slip out.

Sunday, the 22nd was the day we were going to drive down, so we went to the 9 am ward instead of out 1 pm ward.

AA funny story about that. We went there and Kate was asking about primary and stuff, and we said that we were at different ward. We asked her to see if she could see anyone she knew to prove to her that we were not at our regular ward.

So we look over and see Brother Bassett, who is in our ward at the 9 am ward! It was totally funny. We were wondering what on earth he was doing there. After Sacrament meeting, we asked him and he said he had a job interview that day, so he had to go to the earlier ward and we told him our plans. It was quite funny.

We went home and got the girls to change their clothes, and loaded everything in the car while they were doing that. Then we told them that we had to go to Mommy's work to get her phone charger since she left it there. We had to get a couple last minute items at Target before we left, so I took the girls there and Amy went to get her phone charger. We knew it would be really fun to tell the girls their surprise, so we got the video camera out and video taped it.

We told them that we were not going to Mommy's work anymore. Then we told them to guess where we were going. They guessed Auntie's apartment, then Home, then Grandma and Grandpa's house. Then I told them the place we were going had a castle, and they guessed Sunsplash, (A waterpark near us that has a castle). Then Sarah said, as if she didn't think this would really be it, "Disneyland?"

Then we said yes, and they said "Really!?!?" Kate: "I meeted my goal?" They were so happy and cheering and it was really cute. I am working on getting the video up on the blog, it is worth it. At the end, Kate crunches up her body in a little ball, and says "Ohhhh! This is so great!!" Words cannot do it justice, you will have to see it. They were both in shock and sat there with these cute little happy surprised expressions.

Last time we went to Disneyland, we stayed in this hotel called the Annabella right by the park. It is a pretty nice hotel and pretty reasonable. The girls loved it because there was a small room off to the side with a bed, mini-fridge, and TV. They loved that little room. For some reason, we had to take apple juice with us last time, and we kept it in the mini-fridge. So on the way down, Kate asked if we were going to the same Disneyland. We said yes, and then she asked if we brought apple juice. It was so funny. I totally forgot about that, but Kate remembers having apple juice when we went to Disneyland last year. We didn't talk too much about it, but she was really looking forward to that.

On the way down, we had the girls watch some DVDs. They were starting to get anxious when we were about halfway there. I told them they had to watch 3 more movies before we would be there. They had already watched 2. So during the movies, Kate would ask, "Is this number 3? Is this number 4? Only one more left and we will be at Disneyland?" She was excited. Sarah just sat and watched the movies and was in seventh heaven that she was going to Disneyland, and getting to watch movies. She was so good the whole way down. They both were.

I'll kill them all!

OK, another park story. This one is so good, it deserves its own post.

There happened to be lots of bugs at the park (see previous post). There were also lots of baby spiders. One baby spider crawled up on my leg. I was sitting in a little lawn/beach chair with my knee up and it crawled to the top of my knee. Then it raised its butt really high in the air, and let out a fart. Just kidding, it let out a string of silk, and was trying to fly away like spiders do. If you haven't ever seen it, it really is cool. We told the girls to come look at it. Kate said, "I will get it." We told her not to get it, to leave it alone, it was trying to fly away. Amy and I were focusing on it, when out of nowhere, I see one of Kate's new Crocs fly through the air and slam down on my knee, totally killing the spider.

Amy and I were totally surprised by this and just looked up at Kate in shock. She had a really serious look on her face and said in a deadpan, "I killed it."

George: "We didn't want you to kill it, we wanted it to fly away."

Amy: "It was just a baby spider like in Charlotte's Web."

George: "Yeah, there are a lot of baby spiders around here."

Sarah: "Spiders are good for us, if it weren't for spiders, bugs would destroy the planet."

Kate: "I'll kill them all."

Sarah: "There would be so many, they would eat every..."

Kate: "I'll kill 'em all!"

Sarah: "...thing up."

Then they ran off and played. Kate has no fear when it comes to bugs of any kind, but she also has no love for them, no love at all. She kills mercilessly and without remorse. She does not like bugs at all. If she sees a bug, and can get near it, she will stomp it out. So far, fortunately, she has only exhibited this tendency toward bugs. I hope it stays that way.