Jungle Jims

While I was in Salt Lake City, I truly appreciated all the great indoor activities there are for children. One night I met up with Joyelle and her two boys, Mr. A and Mr. X so we could catch up on old times (she is my ex-husband’s little sister, and therefore I have known her since she was a pre-teen). We went to Jungle Jim’s Playland for rides and games.

Joy and I got together for fun a few more times, once to go up to Layton to see my littlest ex-sister-in-law Sunshine (now a mom of three adorable girls and a tall boy!). Another day we went to Ikea, where the boys played in Smaland. The Boogedy wasn’t potty trained last time we went, so this was his first visit to the fun part of Ikea. The weather was rainy and cold, and Mr. A said “Sara, why do you always have on the same clothes?!” I replied that I was only expecting to be in town for 12 days, but now I would be there for a month and I only brought one pair of warm pants and one jacket, which got worn almost every day. Who expected bitter cold and rain in May? I should have. I used to live there, I know better. All my skirts and shorts sat unused in my suitcase for almost the whole stay.

Jungle Jim’s was a really easy place to entertain my kid, so we went back once more with my nephew Jake. Here he is, facing a desperate losing battle against the Boogedy.

 

Sugar Skulls and Homesickness

My son received the most wonderful package in the mail yesterday! Three homemade sugar skulls made by his Auntie Noemi in Salt Lake City, along with lots of tubes of brightly colored frosting and foil strips.

(Mosca thought this package smelled delicious). The Boogedy could barely wait for his dad to get home from running an errand to work on “frostume” his sugar skulls! We set out some paper on the kitchen floor.

He frosted the top, added feathers and foil, then some glue for good measure, then more foil and feathers, then more “frostume”.

Then, he turned the whole thing over and started squeezing frosting into the bowl of the skull! Zach and I were a little more reserved.

I almost cried with homesickness, as I remembered doing this activity each year with Zach’s brothers and sisters and their kids (many of whom are teenagers now). I imagined how much fun the Boogedy would be having with his cousins, running up and down the stairs and scaring the crap out of me that he’d fall off the parts with no railings. And there would be Mexican hot chocolate, too!

Thank you so much, Noemi…I miss my family! I can’t imagine a better October present.

Airboating in the Everglades

I hadn’t really considered how LOUD the airboat would be. Deafening even with cotton balls in the ears. No conversation possible.

There were beautiful banana trees in the “River of Grass”

And the most gorgeous, gigantic grasshopper. I wanted to keep him for a pet!

Afterwards we ate fried frog legs and gator tail bites. Undelicious.

Outdoorsy

A visit to Camp Helen, a Florida State Park near our home.

This is a dune lake, separated from the gulf by ephemeral dunes…you can see the gulf as the horizon. The sign in the lower right talks all about respecting the alligators who live here. I admit to being a little ‘on edge’ for the remainder of this walk.

The Boogedy wanted to see the ‘sparkle water’.

And Zach wanted to put up his feet in his new Five Finger shoes.

The Boogedy is always looking for spiderwebs. Guess how many he found on this rocking chair.

extreme closeup of a sidewalk frog:

and a seafoamish, mossy-licheny thing growing in clump colonies:

Friends and Family come to visit

Cleaning our room for a visit from family! Must vacuum up each feather individually.

taking a night walk to the beach with Alexis, James, and Cinza

beach with big waves and possessed boys

Lunch at the Pizza Bar in Seaside. Halfway into our meal, the heavens opened and rain started beating in from the south, ricocheting off the tables nearest the dune and spraying us lightly. We opted to stay outside, rather than move indoors.

dessert of cupcakes from an airstream trailer restaurant. We agreed that they were dry, with too much frosting. We ate them anyway.

James builds glasses for himself and Julian

Pescado en Papillote

Our neighbor gave us two freshly caught fish last night (already gutted and scaled). She called them “carpas” in Spanish, pointed generally south, and indicated they’d gone fishing that day in Provo. The big one probably was a carp, but the little one was a catfish. We invited family over to help cook and eat them.

I recommended filleting them and frying or sauteing. Working with the cold dead things with their still-bulging eyes gave me a bit of the oogies, so the eventual plan to make them “en papillote”–paper wrapped, was an easy, tidy solution. We seasoned them with olive oil, salt, and pepper; wrapped them in newspaper with lemon slices and crushed garlic cloves; tied them up with cotton quilting scraps; soaked the paper; and grilled them over our firepit.

We also threw some potatoes into the coals.

I made my new favorite lemon cake, but failed to adjust cooking time for a round cake pan vs. a loaf pan, so ended up with a dark brown rind. In the end, everything was a bit charred, and rather bland.

The Boogedy was just happy to see his Aunties and Uncle.

Easter Recap

Forgot to post these pics earlier…

On Easter Sunday I got up and made a lemon cake with cream cheese frosting, coconut flakes, whopper eggs, and some kind of gross edible easter grass. This was more sugary and less “whole food” than I usually do (especially considering I used box mixes), but the end result sure was pretty!

I went early to my sister’s house to play Liar’s Dice (Perudo) with my niece and nephews. I did some trash-talking about how I was going to kick some butt and take no prisoners, etc. But I wasn’t there for the warm up rounds and my family is merciless:

I lost all my dice and was completely out of the game on my second turn.

So, I gave up and put the Boogedy down for a nap, fell asleep myself, and didn’t wake up until the lasagna came out of the oven and the garlic bread needed cutting. A yummy meal!

I will have to whollop those nephews at dice another time. mwah ha ha. One can’t be a dice-shark without a humiliating loss to make your naivete more believable!

Snakes and Frogs Birthday

The Boogedy’s 2nd birthday was actually in February, but the house was in shambles under construction, so we opted to wait and hold the party once the house was decent again. It was part birthday, part grand re-opening of the house party. The theme was snakes and frogs, inspired by this great hat I made for the Boogedy and a cute froggy invitation we sent to everyone.

Here is the awesome coral snake I made using two chocolate bundt cakes and cream cheese frosting. This was ideal for our family, most of whom do not care much for frosting. The dark sections are unfrosted. This snake is enjoying his frog dinner.

We played a great balloon stomping game where everyone tied a small balloon to their ankle and took off their shoes. Then, they tried to pop everyone else’s balloon while keeping their own balloon safe. The last person to remain unpopped is the winner. This was really fun, but the little kids in attendance were a bit overwhelmed.

Then, we played pin the fly on the frog, using a frog face modeled on the invitation we’d sent out and using hand-drawn flies.

We had visited the wine store the day before and picked out wines based on their labels (the wine specialists on-site do not approve of picking wine by our criteria). Here were some of the possibilities:

We couldn’t find any with snakes on the label! Lots of bicycles and kangaroos. Lots of estates and abstract color blocks. Lots of hoofed animals. But no snakes. So we went with the Nathanson Creek because they had white and red wines for a good price.

We put out some decorations:

And I made a baked potato bar with lots and lots of toppings. About halfway through the evening, Zach lit a bonfire in the backyard firepit and sent someone to the store for s’mores fixins. The weather was just right for sitting outside at night, just nippy enough to appreciate a fire.

It was the nicest (and biggest) party we’ve ever held, and the Boogedy received so many adorable presents. Thanks everybody!!