OH and Thanksgiving too!!

We drove to Washington to surprise my family. My Dad was really glad to see us, I don't think he stopped smiling for two hours after we got there! Mom knew because it was accidentally leaked to her, but it turned out ok, she was able to plan for a few more mouths to feed. On Tuesday morning our other sister that "wasn't" coming to Thanksgiving flew in to surprise every one too. We had so much fun!! Damen's cousins, otherwise known as "the boys" of course had a ball playing together. We ate turkey on Wednesday because Lori had to head home on Thursday. On Thanksgiving Day Dustin went with my sisters to play in the Turkey bowl, he came back breathing and barely limping so it wasn't too bad. Later that day Christi and Kari and I went for a drive and ended up at Dougan Falls. We hiked around, took pictures, and laughed a lot, it was great. Friday night I got to hang out with some old friends, catch up and see Jodi's husband's band. It was all very entertaining.
The drive was long and boring, next time I'll be prepared with some sewing, but it was worth a week with my friends, sisters, parents, grandparents, nephews, and brother-in-laws too!

View of Mt. Hood and the Columbia River.

The BOYS! Robert, Damen, Zack, Nick, Kaden.







It was raining during our adventure up to the falls, but we didn't care, we're true northwesterners! Well, sort of:)

Sea World again

We spent the day after I got back from Vegas with Dustin's mom, Marda and sister Terra and her little 1 year old cutie, Benjamin at Sea World. We had a great time until we went to see Shamu. Who knew that in November they'd still send the whales to splash the audience with such ferocity?? (I know there is a warning sign, it says "Splash Zone", but really in November?) We were soaked and Damen was terrified, he cried through the rest of the show, out to the stroller, and most of the way to the car. Poor kid, he'll never look at whales the same way again.


Dustin and Benjamin

Marda with Benjamin in the shark tunnel.

Soaking wet after the whale attack!

Terra with Benjamin, whales in the background.

Poor Damen, still sad, still wet!

Vegas

We went to Vegas a few weeks ago with our good friends, Ben and Tiffany. We stayed in a resort off the strip, but close enough to the action. We saw some amazing shows, ate delicious food, relaxed in the hot tub, and were involved in a "domestic"(prostitute) dispute. It was great!!
We saw the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil show, it was FANTASTIC!!

We also saw the body exhibit, a magic show,the mentalist show with Gerry McCambridge, and strolled down Fremont street. Tiffany won $90 and I scored about $10 on the slots, not big spenders here, we only gambled with $1-5 at a time. We ate at Samba, a Brazilian steakhouse with all you can eat meats, it was SO GOOD.
The domestic dispute went like this: "john" was staying in the room across from ours and he and his "lady friend"(who he was paying) got into it one night, the police and security were called and they were escorted out of the building.
All in all, it was a very entertaining week in vegas!

BACK

Yes, we made it 38 hours in the car and nobody died or peed on himself(he knows I'm talking about him). We surprised my parents for Thanksgiving, it was a great fun family filled week! A few weeks ago we also went to Vegas for a quick vacation with some friends and Dustin's mom and sister stayed here with Damen. We have been BUSY and I'll post all kinds of pictures and stories and stuff like that at a later time and date. Right now I've got to unwind from the endless hours in the car by watching everything we've DVR'd for the past week. Don't worry we'll be back again!

Recipes

I've been Gluten free for over three months now and it's hard to find things that are edible, experimenting isn't always successful, but these two worked great and since this stuff is SO fantastic I figured I should share it with the rest of the blogging world! For starters, where it says "flour" I used my all purpose flour mix of:
3 parts white rice flour
3 parts corn starch
2 parts soy flour
1 part masa harina(yellow corn flour boiled w/lime)in the mexican food isle.

Corn Bread (compliments of my friend Melissa)

1 c. Cornmeal
1 c. flour
1/4 c.sugar
1 Tlb baking powder
1 tsp salt

mix dry ing. together then add:

1 c. milk
1/3 c. oil
1 egg slightly beaten

Bake in an 8x8 pan at 400 for 20-25 min. Serve with yummy soup or chili or whatever, it's delicious!!

Ok, so this next one I made up the other night out of a creative need to have battered anything and coconut. ALL batters contain flour and that means everything deliciously fried too, I've missed it. Sorry the measurements are mostly aproximations.

Bread and Coconut battered chicken fingers:

2 thawed chicken breasts cut into strips.

2 Tbl mayonnaise
2 Tbl or more/ honey
2 Tbl vegetable oil
Mix these and place in shallow dish.

2 pieces of Tapioca( or regular) bread toasted.
1 c. coconut

Put the toast in the blender/chopper with or without the coconut and blend until fine crumbs form. Put the crumbs and coconut in a shallow dish. Dip the chicken strips in the mayonnaise mix then into the crumb mix, covering it well. Place on well oiled baking sheet and bake at 375 for 30 min.

I also made a garnish dip with crushed pineapple and Wingers freaking amazing sauce and more coconut. Served with rice.

YUM!

Halloween of course!

Damen did a lot of dressing up this year. On Wednesday we went to a party where he dressed in his bat costume, it is cute and very cozy. That same night we went "trunk or treating" at the church and it was a good thing he had that cozy costume, the rest of us were freezing! On Halloween Lori and I took Damen to the Living Desert for the morning. They had all this carnival stuff going on, plus the regular zoo stuff we got to do. His favorite place was the massive train exhibit, of which I have no pictures, but he ran up and down the side of it following those trains for a good half hour! Since it was supposed to be close to 90 in the desert I made Damen a pirate costume out of some stuff we already had. We had a really good time, best $10.00 I've spent lately! That night it was back into the bat costume and away to the neighborhood we went! Dustin was really sick so he stayed home to man the front door until we got back. Damen got a bucketload of candy and had fun too. Don't worry we confiscated and ate all of the peanut filled candies on Saturday night, it's the kind of sacrifice we have to make for our son:) Happy Haunting!

Riding a warthog

Banging the African drums

Feeding the giraffe.

What a cute bat! He told everyone he was Batman.

All the loot!

Pumpkins!

We went to the pumpkin patch, twice! We went Monday night for family night, then had so much fun I went back with my friend Bonnie and her kids during the day. There was a corn maze, train/tractor pull, pig races, petting zoo, and lots of pumpkins! We really had a good time. The next Monday night we carved our pumpkins. Damen wanted nothing to do with it. Ok, that's not entirely true, he did want to hold the knife and occasionally poke his pumpkin, but I ended up carving, scraping, and cleaning the whole thing. I suppose that's what I should have expected. Dustin carved the big one and did a great scary face. It only took him twice as long as it took me, not because the pumpkin was bigger, but because he's a crazy perfectionist that has to get it JUST right. It's a genetic thing. Here are the pictures to prove that the above paragraph is true and accurate:)


Lori and Damen making cute pumpkin faces!


Damen, Chelsea and Abbey, these are the best pictures I could get, really!



See the knife in his hands? Spooky!



Ahhh, the finished product. They lasted about two days on our front porch, between the heat during the day and the close to freezing temps at night they didn't stand a chance. It was great fun though!