Camping the right way

On Saturday we got home from a week of camping at the beautiful Ensign Ranch on the eastern face of the Cascades. We had a wonderful time and loved every minute of it! (Aside from the snow-in June!- and the port-a-potties). Here's a collection of pictures...or not. Blogger's having troubles today. So we'll have to do this w/o illustrations. Ensign Ranch is owned by the church and used for Girl's camp and ward/stake camp-outs and the like and thus is very clean (yeah!) and has incredibly nice and helpful senior missionary couples as staff who are willing to do just about anything you ask them and more. Except that I think they forget just when you asked them (they are oldish, after all) so some maintenance things that needed fixing around our cabin took a few days to be addressed. But they were awfully nice about it. We had a cabin that was just big enough for the 4 kids and 4 adults and for the first 4 days we were the only guests at the ranch which was really great. Of course, the first three day we had rather crumby weather, but we were still able to get outside and do some things. Some of the highlights included the horse rides for the kids which Sam LOVED and Grace came to love on our second visit to the stables. There was also a giant slip-n-slid which was SO MUCH FUN!!! Thursday was the first day with sun though the wind was very brisk and made things cold. Sam had to finally quit and sit in the sun wrapped up in his towel because he was shivering so bad. We did it again on Friday when it was a bit warmer and could stay longer. All the kids had the best of times and were sorry to have to leave. We were lucky that all the kids got along so well, especially Grace and her cousin Jayme, both of whom have rather forceful personalities and like being the center of attention and the one in charge. We had great food thanks to chef-in-chief Rob and only had to go the emergency room once when Alaina stuck a bead up her nose. Way up.
So now we're home and the laundry's almost done. Tomorrow is Grace's birthday and then on Wednesday the kids and I are off to Utah. I'm excited to be seeing my family. I'm also excited about coming home and not having any more vacations for a good long while.

Seriously losing my mind

I've been a 'single parent' since Wednesday night and I'm about to lose it! Rob is at Woodbadge this weekend (intensive scout leader training) and I'm sure he is having a great time and all but it is TIME FOR HIM TO BE HOME!! NOW! In the roughly 60 hours since he has been gone and I have yelled at my kids, yelled at my mom, spent way more money then I should, made a total of 0 real meals (I did make some fab pear muffins though) done absolutely nothing to prepare for our week long camping trip that starts tomorrow, stressed out because I have to do sharing time on Father's day and can't for the life of me find a good dad day thing for the kids to do, my jaw is all out of whack for some reason so I'm in a lot of discomfort, stressed out about the primary newsletter I can't seem to get together, cried because Grace cut her hair, a dress, and a skirt with scissors I left lying around, and bought over 20 boxes of cereal. That last one sounds insane but isn't really. A local grocery store has a day that they sell cereal at $1.79 a box, the good stuff too, not the store brand cardboard stuff. I figure we should be set on cereal for the next 7-9 months. Anyway. I can't wait for Rob to be home tonight. Even though when he is here he usually has to be closed away in the study working on his thesis (almost done!), just knowing he is around and I can talk to him whenever I want to brings me a sense of stability and steadiness that I am sorely lacking right now. 

Hopefully today will be alright. We have swimming lessons this morning and will go straight to the salon from there to get Grace's hair fixed. She didn't do too much damage; she'll just have to have bangs now. I probably should just try to fix it myself, but I really don't believe anything I did with scissors would help the situation. Then we'll get some shopping done and come home to start packing. Oh! That's another thing. I have to have our Father's Day celebration and Grace's birthday all planned and ready before we leave tomorrow because I wont have time when we get home next Saturday. We had cereal (Lucky Charms! the kids are in heaven) and muffins for breakfast, and I'm planning on McDonald's for lunch and Papa Murphy's for dinner. Not really a nutritionally sound day by any stretch of the imagination. 

Also, if anyone has any good ideas that Sam, Grace, and I can do at a family talent show while we're in Utah in a few weeks, please send them along.

Get yourself out of this pickle....

The other night I was doing some computer work when I heard the unmistakable sound of Grace dropping my (full) water bottle in the kitchen. This is how it landed:

Nice.

Quesadillas

These are fast and mighty tasty. I got the recipe from a friend in Logan...don't know where she got it. 

Pico de Gallo Quesadillas

serves 4

4 roma tomatoes

1 onion

1 jalapeno

1 tablespoon cilantro

lime

salt and pepper

1 green pepper

2 chicken breasts

3 garlic cloves

monterey jack cheese, shredded

tortillas

1. First make the pico de gallo by dicing up the tomatoes, half the onion, the jalapeno (seeded and ribs removed unless you like really spicy) and the cilantro. Mix it all together and squeeze the lime over it. Season with salt and pepper and let sit. ~ this is really just an outline. Adjust the amounts of the ingredients as you see fit. 

2. Slice the second half of the onion, the green pepper and the chicken into thin strips. 

3. Cook the chicken in a skillet over medium high heat till cooked through. Put in a bowl and keep warm. Return the skillet to the heat and add the onion and pepper. Cook till softened, about 5 minutes or so. Press the garlic through a garlic press and add to the vegetables and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add the chicken back to the pan and heat through. 

3. Add half of your pico de gallo to the chicken mixture (drain the pico if it is really juicy) and heat through. 

4. Fill your tortillas with the chicken mixture and sprinkle with cheese and cook in a hot skillet till the cheese is melted and the outside of the tortillas is brown and crusty. ~ I find it easiest to make half-moon quesadillas; putting the filling on one half of the tortilla and folding the other half over. This makes it a lot easier to flip. 

5. Serve with the extra pico de gallo and some sour cream as a garnish. 

West Side Story

Rob really wanted to spend mother's day with his mother so yesterday we drove over here to the west side of the state. Luckily it isn't too long of a drive; only 6 hours with a nice break half way at Vantage on the Columbia River. We always stop there and let Sam and Grace throw some rocks in the river which is an activity that they never seem to tire of. Also by the time we've been in the car 3 hours it's time to use the potty, and while the bathrooms at the boat launch are just about as foul smelling as any I've experienced, they happen to have the most amazing acoustics ever which Grace and I discovered with a rousing rendition of 'Book of Mormon Stories', which must have been heard from miles away. I'm not sure that I can't still hear the echos. What made our trip even more exciting yesterday was that we were driving our new-to-us minivan!!! Yes, we finally took to plunge and are the proud owners of a 2001 Toyota Sienna with a bit more miles on then I would have hoped but still quite capable of driving us wherever we need to go for the next however many years. It really is quite wonderful to have at least three times as much space as our little Suzuki Esteem, and in true Packer/Hansen fashion we made sure to pack at least 4 times as much stuff for this trip, which means that poor Sam was banished to the outer darkness of the back bench and had to endure his mother throwing snacks all around him but never quite to him. Actually, we had so much stuff because we brought Grace's crib and Sam's old toddler bed to store in Rob's mom's basement and that required moving out half the back bench and folding up Sam's regular seat. So we will have quite oodles of room on the trip back not to mention all the extra room in the apartment with two beds gone.
We had a great day today at the Locks with Rob's brother Rick watching all the boats and ships coming up and down and watching the salmon coming up the fish ladder. We found a great Fish and Chips place where I had a yummy Italian Grilled Cheese sandwich without a hint of fish on it and wound up the day at REI where we got sleeping bags and water shoes for the kids, spending a whopping 96 cents! Gotta love those dividends. The Seattle REI is the flagship store and is really a cool place. Of course, we think all REI's are cool places to go but this one is especially cool with an enormous climbing wall and a great big tree house for the kids to play in. Grace was so tired by the end of the day she was practically catatonic and hopefully the kids will sleep in a bit tomorrow. Rob and I hope to get to the temple tomorrow morning and then will spending the rest of the day preparing for Mother's Day which means Rob will be shopping for brunch foods and I will be getting a pedicure. Sometimes life is just right.