Not to be outdone by free application nerd husband, I came across this site where you can send 2 free faxes a day from your computer. This comes in handy when you need to send a fax and you don’t have a machine handy, or, if you’re like me, you have a clunky printer, fax, copier all-in-one that’s something of a pain to fax from.
Jennifer’s Mexicali Casserole
“Hey Mom, what are we having for dinner?” Nevin asked.
“Jennifer’s Mexicali casserole.”
“Oh.” (Eyes rolling.)
So, here’s last night’s dinner creation. Despite the disappointment and eye rolling that came before it, everyone liked it.
Jennifer’s Mexicali Casserole
1 pound ground beef or turkey
1 t. cumin
1 t onion powder
6 – 8 10 inch tortillas cut into strips
2 cans diced tomatoes (use the ones with chillis in them if you like things hotter.)
1/2 cup salsa
1 12 oz can of refried beans
1/2 C sour cream
1 C shredded cheddar
Brown the ground meat, adding the onion powder and cumin as you are cooking (you could also use taco seasoning).
Drain meat and put aside.
Mix together tomatoes and salsa; put aside.
Mix together refried beans and sour cream.
Layer ingredients in a slightly greased 9 1/2 X 11 pan in the following order:
tomato mixture, tortilla strips, bean mixture, meat, 1/2 c. cheese – repeat.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. You may want to cover the pan with foil for the first 20 minutes and take it off for the last 10. I was out of foil, so I just baked it without and it turned out fine.
Serve w/dollop of sour cream, tortilla chips and dip, and fruit.
Makesabout 12 servings.
The First Day of School – aka the day I locked my keys in my van
Today is the first day of school. Charis, number 4 and our youngest, started Kindergarten this morning. I felt a little bit of tears welling up as I left her room, but mostly I was excited for her. She is very ready to go to school with the big kids.
After settling everyone in their various places around the school, I headed to the gym to sign up for volunteering for the year. I talked with a few parents I know, and then headed out to leave. Upon searching my purse, I couldn’t find my keys. I looked in the van, and they were hanging from the ignition. I guess all the excitement of getting all 4 kids and all their stuff out was too much for me to grab my keys before locking the door. Guess what, after nearly 20 minutes on hold, I found out that I hadn’t signed up for roadside assistance with my cell phone provider. (I have, btw, now 🙂 So a few more minutes and $35 later with the help of the car repair place that we should own stock in, I was able to depart the school parking lot.
Now, on to some photos:
I didn’t say all my posts would be original
Our Senior Pastor posted a list of funny things kids said about marriage on his blog. Yeah, he’s got lots of great stuff about theology and wonderful pictures that he has taken with his fancy camera, but this was cute and typical internet fodder.
These two were my favorites:
HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids…
— Derrick, age 8
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don’t want any more kids.
— Lori, age 8
Green Yogurt on the Ceiling
About two weeks ago, the boys asked to get yogurt tubes for a snack. I was downstairs working at my computer, so I told them to just get them from the fridge. A minute later, Nevin came running down saying he “spilled” yogurt. I said, “Well, clean it up.” I went upstairs a few moments later to inspect his work. It was then that I saw yogurt not just on the floor, but also on the sofa, the wall, and the curtains. I freaked out and started wiping and blotting and blotting and wiping, all the while fuming and ranting about how in the world did they do this.
It started with Calvin tapping Nevin on the head with his yogurt tube. Then, not to be outdone, Nevin “tapped” Calvin harder, and his yogurt tube exploded everywhere.
About an hour after I was “finished” cleaning up the mess and the yelling had stopped and apologies and disciplines were passed out all around, I sat on the sofa and looked up. That’s when I saw two splatters of green yogurt. One was coming out from the old fashioned crystal chandalier. The other was a short distance away from the first. I called the boys. The fuming commenced again. A few more minutes passed; I took a deep breath; I calmed down.
I don’t plan to leave the splatters of green yogurt on the ceiling, but I am still contemplating the best way to get it off.
So I’ve Changed the Name of My Blog
My blog has been Jenn’s Blog since I started it nearly 7 years ago. I have thought of changing it many times, but I could never come up with a good name. I might not have come up with a good name now, either, but at least it’s different.
I hope to be a little more regular at writing entries now, too. We’ll see.
Here’s to trying something new!
Before my Camera Broke
As promised, here are some more pics from the cruise:
This is the view from the road as we entered the LA Port
Inside our stateroom on the ship. Every night our stateroom attendant created a new towel character like Sebastian to welcome us to our room.
This was taken from our stateroom window near the coast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Inside Lumiere’s Restaurant, one of the 3 on board the Disney Magic.
This is Calvin in the atrium area outside Lumiere’s. Notice Mickey’s ears in the decor. Notice how my son is wearing a tie. Nice, huh?
This is on the night of “The Golden Mickeys.” I include this picture mainly because I have very few photos with Nevin in them for some reason.
Evangeline with Mickey. I have several of Evangeline with ______________.
The two who were left behind. This was taken a week before the cruise on my birthday with some of my gifts on the dresser in the background.
Here’s one more of “the gang” on my birthday.
There are more pics from the cruise on my camera phone, but I haven’t figured out how to send them to my computer yet. If I ever do, I’ll post them.
More later.
The One About the Cruise
Remember that post way back in March when I told you I won a Disney Cruise? We finally went last week, and we had a great time.
The we included: me, Calvin, Nevin, and Evangeline. Mark and Charis held down the fort at home for a few days and then took a quick trip to the big D to visit Grandmommy and Granddaddy. They also got to see the cousins (with the aunt and uncle, of course J).
The Food, the Food, the Food, the Food, the Food (Sing to the tune of “Hi, Ho, Hi Ho” from Snow White.)
Everything you have ever heard about food on cruises is true! There is a lot of it, and it is really good (for the most part). Every night we ate at the same time in one of the more “formal” restaurants. We had a server and an assistant server who followed our rotation with us from one place to the next, so by the time the week ended, we were all buds. At these meals, we were offered 4 courses—appetizer, soup or salad, main course, and dessert. Each restaurant had a theme and each night there was a theme. This was a Disney Cruise, so the themes were Disneyesque—Lumiere’s, Evangeline’s favorite with a Beauty and the Beast décor; Parot Cay, it had a Carribean flare and was the perfect setting for our “Pirates In the Caribbean” meal before the on-deck Pirate party; and Animator’s Palate, a bit more casual and a great place for our “Till We Meet Again” farewell dinner on the last night, complete with an international parade of the dining room crew to a hip, upbeat version of “It’s a Small World.”
The food in the restaurants was of great quality and really well prepared. I only had one pasta dish where I think the pasta was a little dry on the edges, and Evangeline had a pastry dessert for lunch one day with a pretty flavorless outside shell. Otherwise, it was all great. I loved trying different things, and our servers were excellent, funny, and friendly.
In addition to the three main restaurants, you could order room service at any time, and it was included in the package. There were also concession-type places with fast food on the deck with the pools. I called this “kid heaven.” Anyone could just walk up to any one of the counters at these places and order pizza, hot dogs, tacos, chicken strips, French fries, etc., and they didn’t even ask for your room number. There was a 24-hour ice-cream and beverage station on that deck, too. I tried to put some limits on these places for the kids, but it was pretty tough. Lastly, there was a casual restaurant on the same deck as the pool that had a breakfast and lunch buffet, and it was open in the evenings for a full-course dinner if you didn’t want to or weren’t able to make your dinner assignment. We ate several breakfasts there, one lunch, and one dinner. The view from this place, Top Siders, was beautiful. You could see the ocean going on forever from our table near the window. We especially enjoyed our dinner there when the sun was setting over the water while we ate.
The Fun
There were activities scheduled from 8:00 – 1:00 am every day. The kids were off doing something a lot of the time. Calvin spent most of his time in the 11 – 13 year-old hangout called Ocean Quest. It had a really cool simulator of the ship’s bridge where the kids could “steer the boat.” It also had Wii and all the most popular Wii games, including the favorite, Guitar Hero. He also played shuffle board, basketball, and a variety of other games with kids that hung out in this room.
Nevin and Evangeline were in another room called the Oceaneer’s Lab for 8 – 10 year-olds. The programs for this age group were a lot more structured, so my kids didn’t choose to spend as much time there as Calvin spent with his group. But they attended several craft and sports events, and they hung out there to watch movies on a big screen and play computer games from time to time. Their big favorite activity of the week was the big on-deck pool with the giant projector screen.
There were lots of family events, too. There were short broadway-like productions 4 of the 7 nights. They were really well-done, and we all enjoyed them. A popular activity was a game show called, “Who Wants to Be a Mouseketeer?” based on the Millionaire show. Another game something like Jeopardy was Mickey Mania. There were also several family dance parties, and family karaoke every night. Evangeline was the karaoke queen. I was the supportive mom, and now I will have the lyrics to every High School Musical (1 &2) floating around in my head for a very long time.
I only attended a few of the many adult events. A memorable one was a martini tasting that was both educational and fun. Mostly, I hung out with a book by the pool when the kids wanted to swim, and I hung out in our room or in some other comfortable spot on the ship with a book. I finished only 2 books and half of a third, but that’s pretty good for me.
The Ports
The ship sailed from LA to 3 ports in Mexico—Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. At first I planned not to get off the ship at all, but we ended up exploring and shopping at Puerto Vallarta for about a half a day. It was a fun outing and it was nice to get off the boat for a bit.
So, What Did I Think?
To quote a song from High School Musical 2— FABULOUS!
The ship was super clean, the crew of the ship was friendly and accommodating, and it was everything you would expect from Disney if you have ever been to Disney World or Disney Land. I would never have been able to go on a cruise like this on my own, so I was really grateful for the experience.
From the hand of the unprepared VBS teacher
So, it is VBS week. One would think the teachers would be all prepared by at least the Saturday night before the Monday start. But not me. I have spent some time today websurfing looking for ideas to help me with our class’s closing ceremony skit and also the lyrics to a song I only remember in part about the 10 spies. I think I have nailed down my skit plans, but I still haven’t located the song. However, in my travels on the worldwide web, I found what I think is a pretty easy little song with the names of the disciples. Perhaps you’ll think so, too.
Apostles (to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me”)
Jesus called them one by one, Peter, Andrew, James and John,
Next came Philip, Thomas too, Matthew and Bartholomew.
James the one they called the less, Simon, also Thaddeus,
The twelfth apostle Judas made, Jesus was by him betrayed.
Yes, Jesus called them, Yes, Jesus called them,
Yes, Jesus called them, The Bible tells me so.
Optional Additional Verse Submitted by Reader
Matthias then took Judas’ place
To preach to men of every race.
Paul three preaching trips did make
And went to Rome for Jesus’ sake.
It’s probably not useful to me for VBS this week, but I thought it was worth keeping track of. Now, back to VBS stuff and dinner, and laundry, and packing for vacation.
Improvements
Here’s what we did last weekend:
This became:
This:
The girls, Nevin, and I painted our mudroom white. Then Mark and I (mostly Mark) put down vinyl tile. We have now renamed the mudroom, “the sunroom.”
We know it isn’t perfect, but it is a vast improvement over what it was like out there. Now if we could go back to the weather of earlier this summer, we could actually sit out there. Oh well, it will be there as the summer turns into fall and cooler weather comes.
Here’s what our friend Ken helped Mark do this morning (well, Ken did most of it):
And here’s a photo with one of our hammy children:
I really should have a photo of the ugly old ceiling fan so you can appreciate the improvement, but just trust me, it was ugly. It was also too big and so wobbly that the lights haven’t worked for months. Of course, now the lights are bright enough that I will have to clean the kitchen floor more often. I’m willing to live with that.