Projects Started and Cupcakes!

I didn't think there'd be much to blog about this week so I took a picture of dinner on Tuesday (new recipe...) but here I am with lots of pictures from the week after all. :)
We'll go back to last weekend, when we had the curbing put in. That was a frustrating event (They rescheduled 3 times after Les took a day off work to be here for the original time!) and it's still not a completed project for a few reasons.
Here is the front yard after they cut out the grass getting it ready to put the curbing down. I only post this picture because it is the one that you can kind of see the neighbors curbing on. The dark gray concrete. Well we went with the same company and ordered the same curbing and stamping that she had done 1) because I really liked it and 2) since they were going to "meet up" on that front flower bed I thought it would look better if they matched. Now keep that color in mind when you see what's here...

We've got lots of dead spots in the back lawn so Les started shoveling out the grass in the one big spot so we could replace it with the rolls of sod that they removed for the curbing. Hopefully it'll take - so far it looks pretty good.

Here's the new curbing with the stamping... the stamping matches the neighbors quite well, but the terra cotta color that is visible now is a long way off from the dark gray! (Les is making sure they didn't bury the sprinkler head that is right in the corner there.) The company does have to come back in a few weeks and put the sealer on, I don't know how much that will change the color! Then we also need to remove the little bit of bark that is left in all the flower beds and put down weed blocker and rock. So it'll be a few weeks before this project is finished.

This lovely fire pit (I do mean that, I really love it) hasn't weathered very well and all the tiles are loose and falling out. I finally decided it just needed to get taken apart and the tiles reset. So I cleaned out all the tiles and put them in a bucket and then Les came through with a hammer and crowbar and pounded out the extra grout that was in the bottom of the metal tray. Now it is waiting to get finished. Went to home depot yesterday and wasn't even thinking about that project so didn't get what we needed to finish it up. Soon....

This is a new dish I tried - the supposed only subject matter for the blog this week... I'm not sure what it is (hamburger or meatloaf!) or how Salisbury Steak got its name other then it says it was invented by a Dr with the last name Salisbury, but you mix the hamburger up like you would if you are making a meatloaf, but then you divide it into patties like you would for hamburgers, so why isn't just called a hamburger steak!? Anyway - you make the patties and fry them until browned. Take them out and then put the potatoes in the pan with the carrots, onions, onion soup mix, some spices, tomato paste & water and cook that all up, put the steaks back on top and heat through. And the best part - the leftovers were yummy in my lunchbox. :) Next time though I think I will make extra potatoes - can't ever have too many of them.

Tiffani made cupcakes for her friend Kaitlyn's birthday in yearbook on Wednesday. She used store bought frosting and there wasn't quite enough for all the cupcakes so she spelled out her last name with almond bark to put in the other cupcakes. Love the purple color of the frosting!

This was just a really cool picture Tiff took of the "B", how it glows all around.

Tiffani missed her Exploratory Foods class on Monday because she had to take her AP Chemistry Exam. That means she had to do a make up dish at home. They made a Vege Stir-Fry that day so that's what she had to make at home last night.
All the veges ready to go (step 1 was to have all veges cut and ready to go) I'd say she passed that!
Stir frying it all.
The finished dish. It was really yummy. Though making the dish as the recipe was given to her didn't really make a meal - Les and I got a few tastes, but Tiffani ate the rest. Next time she will make a little bit more of it and we will make our favorite marinated chicken to go along with it.

Tiffani was also asked to make cupcakes for an 8 year old boy for his birthday and Dillon wanted a hunting/Cabela's themed cake. Well none of Tiffani's books that she usually gets ideas from had anything along those lines. So she came up with the idea to frost the cupcakes with "camouflage" frosting and then we'd put cut-out deer in some of the cupcakes. The first plan was to find a deer cookie cutter and make cookies like we did for the light bulbs on the Christmas cupcakes or to soften some chocolate and cut out chocolate deer. We didn't find a cutter, so we made chocolate deer from melted almond bark instead. That was easy enough, the tricky part was getting those deer into the cupcakes!
Completed herd of Chocolate Deer
Chocolate Deer
Tiffani frosting cupcakes with her camo frosting (chocolate and white (colored green) cream cheese frosting in the same bag.)
The completed herd of deer/cupcakes. Ended up piercing the cake with a knife so we could slide the legs into the cake. A few ended up in there whole (standing in the cake), but the rest broke at various points so they appear to be sitting on the ground instead and the front two turned into does rather quickly when their antlers broke off. We made 15 deer thinking we'd do half of the 24 cupcakes with deer in them, but with how fragile they were we ended up with only 9 whole ones, so used 8 in the cake which worked out as well, since Dillon was turning 8 - Only we had another fatality upon delivery so only ended up with 7 deer. (We'd left the one extra at home...) I think we need to keep our eyes open for a cookie cutter for the next hunting themed cake Tiffani is asked to make. And stay away from chocolate statues that have "toothpicks" to support itself!!! And Dillon liked his cupcakes so all is well! :)

Jr/Sr Prom

Saturday night was the Prom. We didn't want either of the girls driving down by BSU on a Saturday night so Les & I were Chauffeurs for the evening. The advantage to that was we got to eat at Ohana's for dinner since that is where Tiffani wanted to eat. :) Not sure if Les thinks that is an advantage or not since he ended up "working for his supper". They were really busy when we were there, every table ended up being full and Tiffani really wanted to go back and help Gma J by plating the food. I told her no way in the dress she was wearing and so Les jumped up to go help. Us girls ate our dinner and Les would come grab a bite now & then. When it was time to go & they were still busy Les stayed to help and I took the girls down to BSU - the Prom was in the Skybox. It was so crowded down there with a track meet going on and some other event in Taco Bell Arena - crazy! Anyway I dropped the girls off and went back to Ohana's. We stayed there for a bit and then went to Wal-Mart to kill some time before picking the girls up at 11. Here's some pictures from before Prom.



I just love her happiness!

Tiffani & Michala

Ordering dinner in Prom dresses at Ohana's :) I know it doesn't look busy in this picture; there were 2 families eating when we arrived, but they just kept coming!




Tiffani did "sneak" back there to tell Gma bye. :) And then Les stayed and got a quick lesson in making the Mac Salad.

Just had to share this video... Still have not figured out sound on the old camera, but the only thing you'd hear is all of us laughing. Simba was so cute! Les & I were watching something (Oh, wait - it was probably that game show Minute To Win It.) and Tiffani had just gotten home from youth group and walked in grabbed a handful of chips and stood there watching tv. As she is standing there eating chips Simba is watching her very carefully and would turn his head as she put another chip in her mouth. He was on his hind legs the entire time - at least 5 minutes before I got the camera up & running.

These last few weeks

As usual not much new to blog about, but here's a few pictures anyway! :)
I finally got myself a new camera - like the one we bought mom (except they didn't have any purple ones left!). I use the camera that Les got from Micron & there a few rare occasions that he's going somewhere and wants the camera and that leaves me without. So these next few shots are of the seemingly unwilling subjects that we took pictures of so we could mess around with the camera.
I think Tessa didn't stick around after this picture. She wasn't terribly impressed with the "red eye prevention" flash!

Clearly Simba wanted the attention on himself and not on the camera. "Please play with me."

He's just trying to get as close as possible.

This was a few days later - guarding the bathroom door while Tiffani was showering. He will not move from that spot until she opens the door.

Yummmm - Danish Apple Cheesecake I made for Easter Dinner.

Equally as yummy is Tiffani's home(school)made apple pie. The crust was wonderful! She did an awesome job on it for a 1st pie. I missed getting a picture of the whole pie, we were to anxious to dig into it!

I have done crosswalk at Crimson Point a few different times through out my 3 years there. My friend who has cancer (I made one of the pictures for her from a previous post) usually does the crosswalk though. When she had to quit work a sub took her spot. Well, the sub doesn't come in as early as we do so the crosswalk was going without someone out there early enough. So I volunteered to go out there again and started Friday morning. A few different people commented, jokingly, how I waited until Spring and it was nicer to go volunteer. Well the joke was on me!!! Woke up to snow STICKING to the ground, as in the grass is covered and it's still snowing! Ha!
This is what I stood in for 45 minutes yesterday morning. Now, I did go prepared since I knew I was going to be out there, but it was snowing big flakes and the wind was blowing. I was warm enough, except the snow was blowing & sticking to the back of my pants & coat. My backside was soaked when I got back inside. I hope winter is now over for the year and these last four weeks I can enjoy being out there in the morning! :)
Well, I can admit it was kind of pretty with the snow on the pink blossoms of the tree. But....it was the end of April.

Spring Break 2011

We kept ourselves busy for Spring Break this year. On Saturday Tiffani and I went to Aberdeen for a few days. Tiffani got some "puppy" loves from Hank since we left our dogs home with Les.
I love how Hank is hanging on to Tiffani in this picture. :)



Tiffani made bread bowls (from scratch) for the first time and potato soup (from Bear Creek) for dinner one night. It was so-o-o yummy!

Tiffani and I came home Tuesday night. On Thursday we left here at 8am and took Tessa out to Ron & Judy's. We weren't able to take Simba to our favorite "foster family" for him, so he came with us. We got to Lewiston mid afternoon and joined Brianna on campus. Kelley was giving a tour that afternoon so we were going to just hang out at the SUB and then eat dinner there. We couldn't take Simba inside so I sat outside - in the wind! - and read my book with Simba attached to me, while the rest went in and played pool and other stuff. So after 2 hours of that, they all came out and we went to the park until it was time for dinner (limited serving times). Simba stayed in the car while we ate.

Just a few of the "rapid fire" shots of the girls on the swing... If you could see all 34 pictures in a row, you would see the outside bars swaying in!!

Brianna was pretty insistent on getting Simba on the slide. I don't know if he liked it, but he didn't complain either.

Simba - It was still pretty windy!
After we ate dinner, we loaded Tiffani's stuff into Brianna's car and then went up to Colton. T, B & K stayed at the SUB before heading to the dorm. Friday Les and I went down to Lewiston, got Brianna's car and got the tires changed on it and then headed to the campus again. We met the girls there, Brianna was giving a tour and then they fed us lunch again. (They have to use the money on their cards or they loose it at the end of the semester.) Then we thought we'd go play mini golf so went to the dorms to park and then walked to Bumpers.

I know - an odd picture, but it gets me every time how Brianna & Tiffani walk in-step with each other without even thinking about it...

This is the concussion causing bounce house... If you don't know, just know that Brianna IS Les's daughter and you'll know enough! ;)

Inside the fun center. Too bad it wasn't Elmo, huh Brianna?

Well we didn't end up playing golf. The center had a huge roll up door that was open and looked out towards the River and we all decided that we should be outside enjoying the beautiful day instead of playing indoor mini golf.

Brianna's head is blocking the shot I was going for - it(the rivers joining) should have been framed between their heads!! Tiffani would have caught it that way, she's good at that! A little side tracked there - Anyway, the Clearwater River is on our right and the Snake is in front of us. The rivers meet there and it is called, in Nez Perce, Tsceminicum, which means "Meeting of the Waters".

This sculpture at the meeting of the rivers is in front of an outdoor Lewis and Clark Center. This east facing side shows the wildlife and legends of the Clearwater River and its tributaries. The front is a symbolic Earth Mother.

The west facing wall are those of the Snake River. The very top and left on the picture is a coyote, the central "Trickster" character of Native American legend.
The wall is much more interesting to look at in person. There's a lot to see!

As we were walking around campus Thursday night Les asked about the canoe that was there when we toured it before Brianna went there. No one seemed to know where it went. We found it at the Lewis and Clark Center. LCSC students made this dugout canoe in the 1970's.

We didn't see/hear the barge coming soon enough to actually see it go under the train draw bridge, but it was pretty neat to see it coming by.

Sisters :) We were standing on a dock when the barge went by so those big swells are from it. And silly me decides to take a picture while swaying back and forth!

Sisters - yep even Tiffani claims Kelley as a sister. :) They are a lot alike except for that whole height thing. :)

After posing for that picture they decided they wanted to take a flying leap off the 'box' they were standing on...
the beginningthe middlethe end...

We continued our walk around to the Snake River side of the greenbelt. The "blue bridge" that connects Idaho and Washington.

A cool canoe sculpture.

After our walk we went to the dorm for a bit and hung out in their basement, playing cribbage, ping pong and foosball. Then we went apartment hunting/viewing with Brianna & Kelley before getting dinner (at Panda Express - enough campus food) and then heading for our respective sleeping quarters. Saturday Brianna had to work, so we stayed up in Colton and all the girls came up later. They played Just Dance on the Wii & ate pizza (well we all did that!). Sunday, it was back to Lewiston for breakfast and then we headed back home again.

It was a great Spring Break. Though I do question the "Spring" part. It was so beautiful Friday - the car said 75 degrees at 6:00 that evening. But later that night (10ish maybe) we had thunder, lightening, loud pelting rain on the windows. And then Saturday afternoon/evening it hailed, snowed and then hailed again! Spring WILL come. I have faith!

Another Misc. Update! :)

This adorable, large bird is about to make us crazy! Especially at 6:45 in the morning when he's tap, tap, tapping on the living room window like a woodpecker!! Seriously!! This morning is started at 6:45, he flies at the window tapping it a few times then goes and lands on the post, waits a minute or so and then does it again. This continues for about 5-10 minutes and then he leaves for about 20 minutes and comes back and starts all over again! I'm not sure why he is not dead yet or his beak is not broken yet. This went on for about 3 hours this morning. Then Tiffani heard him tapping but he wasn't at the side window. I went looking this morning and he was sitting on the little table on the front porch flying into the front window!! So he's also the culprit who has been messing up our table and the poor frog statue that sits there. This bird needs a new home! I hope he finds one before we start getting raspberries - right there below the side window.
This picture was taken after hearing this for 2 mornings in a row. He doesn't look one bit dazed by all of it, does he?
You can't tell too much on this picture, but this is the window that he's been attacking. All the white spots that might look like its snowing, is the birds' markings on the window.

Onto more important things!!! :)

We have this cool divider in the back of the trailblazer that has hooks on it to hold grocery bags. Now that Tiffani is using the trailblazer and we take my pickup shopping, Les made a grocery "rack" for the pickup. Works quite well AND he improved it by making it double sided for those big shopping trips. :)

So in this picture Simba is just sitting waiting for the neighbor dog, but as I was standing at the sink doing dishes, Simba was running up and down the fence line. Every once in awhile he'd stop in the middle and act like he was getting ready to charge - his front paws would be pawing at the ground like a bull getting ready to charge. It was so funny to watch. So I ran upstairs and all I see is the neighbor dog laying in the sun in the patio!Maybe Simba was trying to get him to play, I don't know!

This has become Simba's favorite corner to be in when he's outside. I guess he had to claim one, Tessa sits at attention in the middle of the back yard waiting for the neighbor dog across the walkway to come out and they each jump at the fence trying to see each other. AND she's claimed the other side of the yard and runs races along the fence with that neighbor dog. (There's only 8 dogs between us and the neighbors around us!)

And now to leave you with a few of my favorite people: Brianna and some of the kiddos I work with. (Brianna has worked with them, too, and so came visiting while she was home for spring break.) Next year is going to be really hard... At least one of these guys gets to move with me!



Our spring break up in Lewiston coming next...