1st day of school

Well Monday August 30, 2010 we started back to school at Woodinville Montessori. I like montessori more and more especially as I'm talking with some of my friends and they are bolting around looking for deals on school supplies. With montessori we are spared that headache. However they do make up for it in the tuition.

Sofie starts kindergarten this year. Her teacher is Miki and she seems really great. She is a luncher this year which has been bittersweet for me as I will miss her and my one on one time but quite honestly I am not missing the 3 hour drive time back and forth, back and forth. Sofie loves helping the kids that are younger so she is in her element. The kindergartners are the oldest as there are some preschoolers and she is such a mother hen. She really hounds Sam about being more responsible every day in the car. Today it was about his toothpaste. I need to remind her every once and awhile that I'm the mom and she can be the mother (hen) to all those cute little preschoolers.

Sofie's favorite color is blue. Her favorite breakfast is danish pancakes. Her favorite dinner is tacos and her favorite dessert is ice cream.

She's gorgeous--bottom line.

Sam is in the 2nd grade. As I dropped him off the first day he couldn't dash faster to his classroom. He was very excited. The sad news is neither Hunter nor Adil is back. The good news is Nick is. He has the same teachers LeeAnn Brown and Alexis Plunkett.

Sam's favorite color is gold. His favorite breakfast is danish pancakes. His favorite dinner is spaghetti and his favorite dessert is frozen cookie dough melted in a ramekin for 15 seconds. He loves money and is willing to work hard to get it.

He's gorgeous--bottom line number 2.

Below is Gabrielle Murphy's bridal shower. I wanted to do it all in white but ended up having a little green as an accent. I served a sangria and cucumber, mint water for drinks and for the sweets I made single serving pavolova's (wish I had taken a picture--they were gone pretty fast) with a lemon cream--topped with blueberries and golden raspberries. Miniature french silk tarts, rice pudding topped with grilled peaches and I had Trophy make their coconut cupcakes--yum!

I served savory palmiers and marcona almonds to even out the sugar kick.

Dave set up lights everywhere. It's amazing what lights do for an evening.
I could only get green umbrella's (so had to go for that green accent) but they were fine--not great--but I wanted an umbrella you now for "shower". I know kind of corny.
OK so below are the grilled peaches. I am telling you these are amazing.

They don't look too appetizing in this picture but really added a nice summer depth to the rice pudding.

I think you may have my rice pudding recipe but here it is just in case. This is not low fat in anyway but I guess that's why it's so delicious.

1 quart milk

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 tsp salt

1 vanilla bean

1 cup sugar divided

3/4 cup rice, uncooked

1 egg yolk

1 1/2 cup cream whipped (optional--depending on your mood)

In a heavy saucepan, combine milk, cream, salt, vanilla bean, and 3/4 cup sugar. Bring to a boil. Stir well, add the rice and allow the mixture to simmer gently covered for 1 1/4 hour on a very low heat until the rice is soft. Remove from heat and cool slightly. (Sometimes I just end here and it is so good) however for a bit more richness---Stir in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the egg yolk. Allow to cool a bit more.

Preheat broiler (or use a torch) stir in all but 2 TBS of the whipped cream and pour mixture into a souffle dish. Make sure the mixture is cool, then spread the remaining whipped cream in a thin layer over the top. Place under the broiler until pudding lightly browned. Chill before serving. (I rarely do the broiler part because it is pretty fancy and time consuming and besides by this point I'm ready to dive in)

Grilled Peaches: (about 4 peaches--cut in half)

1 TBS butter

1 tsp lemon zest

2 TBS mint leaves cut into very small pieces

2 TBS brown sugar

Muddle the mint and the sugar together. I use a mortar and pestle. Heat all the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. This is where they say strain the sauce--I don't

Baste the peach halves with with the sauce and place them cut side down on the drill over me-low heat. Cook about 3 minutes and turn.

Spoon some of the sauce into each peach half lightly cover with a foil and heat for another 4-5 minutes until soft and warm.

These are the parting favors and the napkin ring. You can really find anything you want out there anymore. I think these rings were 4 for like $1.00. I did popcorn because the bride and groom love movies so I just made a kettle corn--actually Royleane totally helped me out here. She did 30 for me. I am so indebted to her! I actually am indebted to Cydney and Barbara, my kids and of course Dave. He's the miracle maker.

Last of the Ranch memories

In all my writings I have forgotten to put a picture in of our playhouse. So here it is. Dave had since put it away in the metal building--that is until LuLu can come over to play at Thanksgiving. Sofie wants curtains but I'm not sure that will happen knowing my sewing capabilities. She could, however give Aunt Cydney some extra loves.
This is the spot where we are planning to build. Yea!
Some last minute loves on the 4 wheeler. Sof was so cute she would just hold on so tight to Sam on that thing. He loved it. He was very protective of her.
A little promo pitch for Cory.

A little sulky today. She didn't like our hike up the mountain for a family picnic. The long grass scratched her legs.
We made this yummy bread.

Blueberry Loaf

1 C white flour
3/4 C 50/50 flour
2 Tbs Sugar
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg well beaten
3/4 C milk
1/4 C sugar
1/3 C vegetable oil
1 C fresh or frozen blueberries (drained)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare muffin tins (for 12 muffins) or loaf pan. Mix flours with sugar, bp, and salt in mixing bowl and make a well in the center. In a separate bowl combine egg, milk, sugar and oil. Add all at once to dry ingredients; stir until ingredients are moistened. Fold in berries. (if doing muffins fill tins til 3/4 full)
Bake for 25 minutes or until top is golden brown.
At the fair.
The 6 pack paid off.

How to win friends and influence people--NOT

Sofie--wow!

Sam--tortured Dave then couldn't take the consequences :-)

The beautiful rich and famous

We, the poe folk here in Star Valley Wyoming are a little jealous that we didn't get to head east for some sailing or even our annual beach week on the sunny shores of New Jersey but hey our 4 person heavy duty raft got us down the Salt River twice and we hope it may even last an additional year. We did pay a little extra this year.

While here we have had 2 new additions to our expanding family--yea!! Charming Charles Davis Markoff (better known as Charlie)

Our second beautiful addition is Lovely Lucy Lee's

Below Sotir and Aidan being pulled by 007 supermodel

Jason and Merissa

Miss LuLu and Sotir
Sarah and Lucy
Ryan, Sarah and Lovely Lucy post delivery

Lava Hot and Soda Springs

We met Merissa and her family the Wilson's at Lava Hot Springs. It was a great day. A little cool it seemed but not really. I think it seemed cool because the water was a bit warmer and so when you got out of the water the breeze stung a bit of coolness at first. We have forgotten our charge cable for our water camera so we haven't been able to take as many picture as we would like around the water(s). Above is Merissa with Sof and her niece Eliza.
Here is Sam with Makaylee (sp?) Merissa's niece. She's 9 and she and Sam had a blast. Sam in his ever suave social graces, trying to woo her I guess told her he wished he had brought her some gold. I guess he thinks he has to buy his friendships.
So after 14 years of coming/driving through Soda Springs ID we finally decided to stop at the hot springs geyser, mainly because Jason and Merissa "recommended" the restaurant which is right next to the attraction. The geyser erupts every hour on the hour due to a man made timer inserted. It was pretty cool as the onlookers could actually go up to the spouting geyser and touch it. (See Sam above) The bad news is the very hard water got onto the window shield of the truck and it is near impossible to get off and the food at the restaurant wasn't that good. We determined in the end their breakfasts would have been much better. But I think that's what Jason and Merissa recommended in the first place.

We are considering driving through Yellowstone park on the way home. It would add about 4 extra hours. I'm not sure I'm up for that mainly because we got to see a cool geyser and actually walk up to it and touch it. At Old Faithful the viewers are gated off about 200 feet. But I do love the Park so we'll see. Depends on the mental state of the entire family in the end.
Post eruption. Sofie timidly walking on the slightly slick travertine.
Too scared to touch by herself but wanted to feel the warmth of the hot springs
Below is a video of Sam and Jason jumping off the 2nd platform at Lava's pool. It is high. It may not look like it but it is scary. Thanks to Uncle Jason for stepping up for me as I was too scared to go myself. Next year Sam thinks platform 3!

pile, pretzels, piloting

Dave and I love to go for our runs together. This is usually the time the kids feed the horses. However we came home Thursday, a rather windy day, and we see Sam flying a kite. All by himself. I loved it. I don't know where he found the kite but I'm glad he did. Sofie was shivering on the porch. The bottom of the page shows a video of Sam flying.
Ron is residing the dance hall in town so he has hired some workers to take down all the old siding. They brought it to the ranch and had formed a huge burn pile. I got there late but below are the remnants. Of course we had to roast. Above Sofie got too cold outside so she's sitting in the pick up "allowing" others to roast her sugar.

Sunday night we decided to make some pretzels. Below are some of the "shapes" we all did. They were a little too sweet for Dave's liking but the rest of us liked them.
Below is a video of Sam flying a kite. In his underwear. He's far too busy to fully dress these days. School days are going to be rough.

Hand fish catcher with a pole

We saw this moth this morning. It's about the prettiest one I have ever seen. It's wing had been damaged so it couldn't really fly--so we thought. We left to go fishing at Murphy's lake and when we got home it was gone. Maybe a kitty got it or maybe it miraculously healed and was able to fly away. I hope the latter is true but I fear not.

We had a wonderful day. I love going to Murphy's lake and I couldn't believe it but Dave has never been. We took our raft to get to the middle but didn't really need it as we caught 7 (actually more but let some go as they were small) fish. Just enough for all of us to have about 2 for dinner. Delish! FYI Sam used a pole not his hand.
Dave and Sam trying out the casting for a bit. We actually go to the far side of the lake. You can't see it but on the right by Dave's head (on the far side of the lake) is a fantastic rope swing. Dave did it. Sam just would swing on it without dropping in to the rather chilly glacier lake. However, he did swim later. So go figure.
Look at this fish..it had this clear "tubing" come out of it's bum hole. Weird. I have never seen anything like it. What is it?
Just a pretty pic of Sofie Sue--at dinner actually. But I'm getting ahead of myself. She was a great sport today. She fished, didn't actually catch anything but got a lot of nibbles. She did a lot of errands and would help at a moments notice. We let her graze today and she got a nap yesterday. It's amazing what a little grazing and sleep will do for this peanut.
Here's our catches. I believe Sam (pole fish catcher) actually caught the most. He found the jackpot place where all the fish hide.
Preparing our fish to steam in aluminum foil on the fire. We were simple. Lemon, parsley and salt and pepper. Sooooo gooood.
Can't have a fresh trout without sheep herder potatoes. Oh my gosh even Sam liked them and he doesn't eat any white potato. He asked why we didn't make them with sweet potato. Hmmm

Finished product. Heavenly. It really was.

And of course, you can't start a fire without roasting a few marshmallows. Not with Pyro boy and his sister around anyways.
Good night sweet Valley. This was our evening sky. Red sky at night (Sharps) delight.

Banner Day(s)

Well we had some great past days. The most of the "bannernis" comes from Sofie and Sam. They both crossed some milestones yesterday. Sofie rode Sam's old green bike--YEA!!!! And Sam learned to tie his shoes--YEA!!! I mean he's only 7 :-) But it's great we're so happy for both accomplishments yesterday. Below are some videos of both. Please don't look at that ever expanding behind of mine :(.

Above is Dave and the kids at the Lincoln County fair. Yes, we filled ourselves up with ice cream dippin dots, cotton candy and funnel cakes. Nothing like some good ole processed, fried and artificially colored sugar to make the medicine go down. That is the 20 minute ride home from Afton with some very tired kids.

We're almost done with the playhouse. We have some touch up painting to do and Dave needs to put on the roof and the cedar siding. Sofie is sad that all the houses here have to look the same. Brown and green. We told her that's what makes grandpa happy and when grandpa is happy everyone is happy. She still needs more convincing. As far as the painting. I hate it. Especially painting ceilings. What a mess. Sofie, Sam and I still are covered in paint from hair to toe--literally. Sam has ruined two pair of shorts from painting. Why is it that boys think that all clothes are for anything, any activity, no matter how nice they may be?
We had to hold up on the painting a few days because we had some wacky weather. We actually had hail a couple days.
The wacky weather has really put a wrench in our running up the canyon as well. Two days ago Dave and I were running up the canyon and when we were near the top we saw a storm brewing. We knew we had to make it fast back down because our little playhouse was still outside without the roof yet and would have been ruined if we didn't get back and put it back in the metal building. Well me, being "grace" as I am, stumble on some rocks on the trail and do a mighty fall--ouch! Fortunately the endorphins kicked in and I was able to finish my run. The wound didn't even hurt either until last night--now I'm just a gimp.
Below are some pics of our night at the fair.

Sofie and Sam's bounty- won throwing darts at balloons and other ridiculously priced games they offer at county fairs. Dave and I noticed that the names the kids give their stuffed animals are not as creative as we would hope. Sofie's dog's name--barky. Sam's is blacky--changed to fire--for obvious reasons. No name for the pink monkey as of yet but I think he's been long forgotten. But look Sam won a gun! What a surprise. He did however fit in with every other boy redneck or not here. You should have (not) seen all the blow up camouflaged guns around.
Sam's video of tying a show and Sofie riding the bike!!