Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had a great St. Patrick's Day this past Thursday. It started off nice and early. Julia had woken up before the alarms went off, busted into our room, and tried to give Rebecca and I pinches. Luckily I wore my green pajama shirt so I was safe, but Rebecca didn't have any green on so she got a sore awakening. Julia proceeded to run around the house and got Christian with pinches when he was changing. Unfortunately, he took off all of his green from his pajamas before putting something green on for his school clothes. In that half second while he was just in his underwear Julia got him. Maybe he will be better prepared next year. Then she ran upstairs and woke up Agnes and Elliott and got some pinches in on them. They didn't know what was going on, so there were a few tears shed.

After we got all of the pinching out and everyone had their green on we had time for a St. Patrick's Day breakfast before heading off to school. Breakfast included Scotch Eggs, green milk, and green butter on toast. Although Scotch Eggs kept on showing up when we were searching for Irish food ideas, it sounds like they don't have an Irish history. You would think they might have a Scottish history from the name, but I guess they didn't originate in Scotland either. Based on a number of sources online I guess a department store in London claims to have invented them in the 1700s. But most of the sources online say that they actually come from an Indian or African dish. Wherever they come from, it may be a new St. Patrick's Day breakfast tradition for our family.

Julia, Ethan, and Christian did a lot of fun activities for St. Patrick's Day at school. For dinner we decided to break with our corned beef and cabbage tradition since the kids only ever complain about that. Instead we had reuben sandwiches and french fries. Rebecca had made a bunch of fancy peppermint chocolate popcorn for dessert and in our black pot she made it look like a post of gold. Julia and Christian grabbed it and hid it right before dinner and left a few notes from Goldie the Leprechaun giving clues where it was at. Rebecca and I sometimes do scavenger hunts for the kids, but we hadn't thought of it for the 'pot of gold' so it was neat to see those two take that fun tradition on.

Later that night we went to a 'Walk with Christ' event that was being put on by one of the stakes in Pocatello. One of the church buildings was set up where we walked through it and saw actors portraying different scenes from the life of Christ. It was really well done and some of the acting was excellent. It was enjoyable and spiritual, but when we got back to the car we found out that it took 2 full hours to go through! We rushed to home and put the kids to bed after that.

Agnes in a Toddler Bed

We have been switching around beds here and there as we purchase more and more mattresses. We are still short one queen mattress and a box mattress for a twin bed. This last week received two extra long 10 inch memory foam twin mattresses that we had ordered for the daybeds in our playroom. They are great and exactly what we were hoping for for that spot. So that left us with an extra twin mattress that we could now put in Agnes' room. Eventually we will want a trundle twin over twin bed in there, but for now we have a toddler bed and a twin bed. Elliott was excited to take the twin bed (he will probably stay in there until Caleb goes back to school), so we gave Agnes the choice of staying in the crib or taking the toddler bed. She didn't hesitate. Most of our kids have moved into a toddler bed well before this point out of necessity to give up the crib, but Agnes hasn't had that pressure.

The first two nights have gone great and we haven't had to close the door yet. She knows that as long as she stays in bed she gets to have to door open. Hopefully she will keep this up!

Christian Turns 6

Christian had his 6th birthday on Friday. He is such a neat kid, we are so lucky to have him in our family. Leading up to his birthday he talked about it a lot, just that it was coming up and some of the things he was hoping to do on it. He had talked about doing his first friend party, but decided to just do celebrations as a family.

He doesn't have school on Friday, so we were able to celebrate all day long. For breakfast he chose coco-puffs. I think our kids like that one best because not only do they get the yummy cereal, but they get the chocolate milk after it is all gone. They all had a few bowls, except for Julia, so maybe she is growing out of the sweet cereal. After Julia and Ethan went off to school, Rebecca took Christian (and Elliott and Agnes) out to explore the ravine in our backyard. They love it out there and it is so nice to just have open play areas so close by. Our neighbors did warn us about coyotes though so we have a rule that the kids have to at least stay in pairs. Then they came back in and did some drawings and then Rebecca took Christian and Elliott to McDonald's for lunch and some more playing. When they came back it wasn't long until the older kids got home and Christian got to open his presents. He said several times throughout the day that it had been the longest day of his life waiting for them to come home. Then we played with the presents until dinner time. Any guesses what he picked? Lasagna - his all time favorite. Rebecca made this amazing churro cake for dessert. It had a layer of cake, then a layer of ice-cream, then a layer of churros, then cake, ice-cream, churros, then cake, chocolate frosting, and churros on top. We didn't have any churros, but we did have some leftover homemade donuts that Christian had brought to school (Rebecca had asked if he wanted to bring cupcakes and he said no, but said he would do it if he could bring donuts). So Rebecca just added some cinnamon and sugar to those donuts and they tasted a lot like churros in the cake. Then he picked Spy Kids 2 for a movie that night.

Sorry, I couldn't decide which pictures were best, so I am adding them all

The next day we continued the celebrations. He got to go out shopping to spend some of his birthday money and he picked up a sword from the store. We also went on a big walk into the hills that are behind our house and that was a lot of fun. I will have to bring the camera next time for pictures. Then we came home and did a pinata. The kids loved that and they all got at least one good wack in before it broke. I only got hit once holding the pinata by Elliott.

Some about our 6 year old Christian: He still loves legos. He tries to play with them at least once per day if he can. He also loves pretending he is different people. He likes to be Luke a lot, but has been into being a knight a lot lately too. He loves drawing and does the very elaborate pictures that tell a whole story. And he is a really good actor. We do scripture charades for part of family home evening every week. When it is his turn he loves acting out every detail of a story. He plays multiple characters, yelling switch whenever he changes roles. And he does the best facial expressions with it. He also loves reading and is doing amazing in school.

ISU Communiversity

Every now and then ISU host different events for the community. A few weeks into the Spring semester each year they do an event called Communiversity. I had to volunteer there for an hour at a psychology booth, so Rebecca brought the kids and met me up there. They were actually there for the full three hours, but I only got to hang out with them for one hour.

At the event they had lots of different booths from all of the different departments. Those definitely were not the highlight of the event though. They also had free hot dogs and chips, bounce mazes, hover boards (not real ones like on Back to the Future), free bowling and pool, free t-shirts, and different kinds of indoor sports challenges. Their favorite was a money grabbing room/booth. It was this small phone booth size enclosure that they got to enter. Rebecca sent two kids in at a time. Then the money and other prize papers (you could get a small candy for each paper) would fly around and the kids could grab as much as they could. Rebecca thinks because we had two kids in it kind of stopped the airflow because the kids were grabbing a ton. At the end of Ethan's turn he had an arm full of $1 bills. The lady running it made him put it down though and try again. He ended up with just $4 the second time around. Julia was in there with Elliott. She kept on grabbing the money and then handing it to Elliott to hold. But then Elliott was so excited about everything floating that he would throw it back in the air. Julia, Elliott, and Christian all ended up with $2. There were maybe 500 plus kids there, so I don't know how they had enough money to run that booth, but our kids sure loved it.

The kids said thank you several times for taking them to it. We are looking forward to the next activity at ISU. It is fun living in a college town where we can do a lot of these things.

Bengal Basketball

We got free tickets for an ISU basketball game on Thursday night. I ended up taking the boys while Rebecca stayed home with the girls. It was a lot of fun. It was our first time going in to the Holt arena. When we entered the boy's mouths dropped with amazement at how big it was. Our seats were close to the floor, but they were behind one of the hoops. We still had a pretty good view though.

Ethan really got into the game. He cheered and clapped every time ISU made a shot and every time the opponents missed their shots. Luckily ISU was winning by a lot so Ethan was really excited. Christian wasn't too into the game. He watched some, but he ended up liking to watch the cheerleaders instead. He was pretty impressed with the back flips they were doing. He even stood up at times and did his own moves along with them. Elliott was off and on. He just liked being there with all the people around.

The game started at 7pm so we ended up leaving at half time. I am thinking we might have to buy some season tickets in future years and make it a regular family activity.

Fat Tire Bike

The winter here in Pocatello hasn't been too bad. We have had a snow cover since the end of December, but for the most part the temperature has been staying in the upper 20s. With the snow on the ground though I was really nervous about riding my new road bike to work. So Rebecca really encouraged me to get a new fat tire bike. I did feel guilty buying two expensive bikes in such a short period of time (expensive for me since previously I had either gotten my bikes for cheap of Craigslist or from Walmart), but I needed something to get to work.

Here is the one I ended up getting - still trying to come up with a name if you have any ideas.

I had the choice between black and orange and Rebecca pointed out to me that since I was going to be riding this during the winter when it might be darker out in the mornings and evenings, I would stand out more if I went with the orange option. It has been great so far. I have had no slipping at all even when the roads are slippery and for its size, I think it is still a pretty light bike. I have been getting some great workouts riding home from work everyday, but for some reason my body doesn't seem to recognize that yet. It does have 29" wheels so I think that helps with the hill some.

Trip to DC

I have been really bad at getting pictures to go with my posts lately, so sorry about that.

This past weekend I have been in DC for a board meeting for an organization that I belong too. This was a pretty quick trip, I left Friday morning and am sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home now. Most of my time for this trip was spent in the meeting, but I did have time to make it to a couple nice restaurants - I get an $85 meal per diem that I lose if I don't use it up. In the past I have always just eaten in Chinatown and I usually only spent about $20 of my $85. However, last time I was here I ended up going to a great restaurant on my last night and spending the whole thing just on dinner. I decided to do the same thing this time.

I found this list online (http://www.washingtonian.com/projects/dining/100-very-best-restaurants/2015/) of the 100 best restaurants in DC. I discovered that the place I went to last time was ranked #82 (DGBG). Before coming, I was really debating whether I should just eat there again because I liked it so much or if I should try some place new higher on the list. So the first two places on this list cost either $250 or $175 per meal and you didn't get to pick what you ate, just whatever the chef made that night. The next place looked really promising and within my per diem price range, but it was hard to tell and their menu didn't have very many options. The next few places after that were either Asian or Italian and although I like both, I never feel like the restaurants are all that much better than what Rebecca and I can make at home.

I ended up going to #12 Del Campo a South American steak place. It was pretty nice. The restaurant was fancy, but it was louder inside, the tables were a little more squished together, and I didn't get a nice window seat like last time. They started with some warm grilled flat bread that I dipped in oil and their smoked sea salt. I was definitely wanting more of that! I contemplated a dry-aged 18 ounce rib eye, but ended up going with the 12 ounce rolled wagyu skirt steak that is pictured below. They served it with a big piece of the bone on top spit in half and told me that I should eat the marrow. I did eat it, but that seemed kind of weird. It was white and kind of a pudding/jello texture, but it didn't have much flavor to it. The stake itself was really good. It was very tender, especially the middle pieces. But in the end I didn't think it was seasoned as flavorful as the steak that I had at the #82 restaurant last time. I did get some steak fries on the side that were like jojo's and really good. The bill ended up being $79.


The next night the dinner was planned as a group event by the organization. It was at the #83 restaurant on the list, Johnny's Half Shell. Since it was a group dinner thing we only got two different entree options for the meal. It started with some really good bread that I wished I could share with Rebecca. It was crusty on the outside and then really soft a chewing in the middle. I think I had five or six slices because they just kept bringing it out. The salad that they served had beats in it and it wasn't very good at all. Rather than dressing they served it with a soft cheese on top and the cheese was really good. For the main dish I had the Crabmeat Imperial. Below is a picture of it that I found online. I wish I new how to describe it better, but basically it was Maryland crab that was shredded and mixed in a really delicious cheesy cream sauce. I was wishing that I had a double portion on it. Then there was a piece of lemon pie for dessert. I think the total for the full meal was a bit cheaper (maybe about $50), but I think I preferred it to the #12 restaurant too.




I feel really spoiled getting to eat at these fancy restaurants for free once or twice a year.