Kal takes the cake!

Our dear little Kal is already one! We cannot believe it. We celebrated his birthday a couple weeks early with family while we were still in Utah. His actual birthday is September 11. Below are the photos and short videos of his experience with his first birthday cake. He started a little slow, but got some help and was then armed with a spoon (poor cake). Squishing the frosting seemed to be the most enjoyable part of the experience for him. You can tell he is just such a mellow kid. We sure love our sweet boy!

After watching what happened to the cake, you may understand why we opted to eat these instead.

All of us, anyway, except the brave Grannie Tannie!

"Hey, Mom . . .

. . .that tree is naked. It should be wearing leaves."

(Just out of the bath. I went in the next room to get his clothes and could hear talk of a pretty dress to go to the temple.) When she saw me come in, she said, "I'm just keeping Kalby warm so he doesn't get cold."

Later, giggling, "Hey, Mom, he's a grill!"
"Are you sure? I think he's a boy."
"Nope. He has a pretty dress on; he's a grill."

Liquid Death

Our White Water Rafting experience on the Pacuare River in Costa Rica.
Photos by DeAnne (for the most part)
Captions by Batman (the opinions expressed are not necessesarily those of the creator of this blog . . . except the ones about how hott Brandon is)

The Pacuare river was beautiful, even during the muddy, rainy season! The rest of the year the water is clear. I did write letters to Brandon, Jocelyn and Kal just in case I didn't make it. I was a little nervous . . .but I had an excellent time and look forward to white water rafting again! Pura Vida!!

On with the experience:

So these are the muddy, anaconda filled waters of Costa Rica. I don't know what crazy person came up with the idea to jump in some overfilled plastic boat which is basically the water riding equivalent of an ejector seat. But, here we are on this beautiful river during the rainy season. Pura Vida!!




Just look at this magnificent, moss-covered deathtrap just waiting to capture any sucker dumb enough to get close. And if we look to the left, we see a suckerus humanus ready to test it out. Pura Vida!!


Here we have the Stud/Dud pairing. Fortunately, both were geeked up in dorky looking helmets and almost useless lifevests just so that there was more equality in the world. Pura Vida!!



Here is a girl who was always trying to make a move on me during the trip. Even when my wife was sitting across the boat. I guess it must have been the way that the plastic kept pulling my boardshorts up so high that the Olympic divers in Beijing were starting to get jealous. I had to let her down easy. She was a pretty good row partner, though, despite what our drill instructor a.k.a. guide thought about our pairing. Pura Vida!!





Here is some guy hitting shamelessly on my wife. Again, I blame the shorts which are altogether distracting. Mom was also showing a little bit of nervousness as we began. Honestly, she'd already been through the zipline. How hard could this be? Pura Vida!!



And there is the Loser boat, guided by Cristian, the Latin version of Dave Erickson (he's not in the picture, but if you'd seen him and had any clue who Dave is, then you might actually know what I'm talking about). We did our best to ditch them, but they just kept following. Oh well, I guess we could be nice. Pura Vida!!



Don't let it's beauty fool you. Many a virgin we sacrificed over this waterfall in hopes that the tribe would be more fertile. I think they should have kept the virgins and tried harder. P.S. if you actually believe what I'm saying here, well time for another CT. Pura Vida!!



Here we have a man overboard. He was actually so good looking, that everyone in the boat jumped out to save him. They used the excuse "this pretty canyon is the only place safe enough to get out and swim," but I knew better. Pura Vida!!



Apparently, they had a hard time figuring out which side of the boat I was on. Pura Vida!!



Here's Chris, close to our boat. His boat was actually no where in sight at the time. We just left him. Pura Vida!!



How many pictures of these guys do we need? Pura Vida!!



Again, here is half of the Stud/Dud team. We also left him since he was too busy flexing his muscles to get in the boat. Pura Vida!!



And here is DeAnne, sporting one of the lovely bandanas we all had on her wrist. Little did she know that pretty soon, she would be red, white and blue. Good thing the Olympics were going on. Pura Vida!!!!



Well, we survived. Despite the intense aching in our shoulders and the severe burns everyone of us received to our lower thighs, we really had an awesome time. The river has class III and IV rapids. The only thing bigger is class V, so not bad for a bunch of beginners. Too bad we don't have a picture of our drill instructor/guide. I could have used it for motivation for the rest of my life. . . to stay out of the military. Pura Vida!!



This is what we call Collateral Damage. We had to shave DeAnne bald after this. There were some awkward questions about her health, but we made it through. PURA VIDA!!!!!!!!!

Simple "Pizza Bread" Recipe

When we drove out here from Utah, the Relief Society president, Cathy Loertscher, had a yummy meal waiting in our kitchen. It was so delicious, it had to be hard. So, I asked her how she made it. It is so simple and yummy we have eaten it twice now!

First you make bread dough (or thaw Rhodes dough--any bread dough would work, maybe even wheat bread). Here is the recipe I used:

1 1/4 cups + 1 tsp lukewarm water 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt 3 1/2 cups bread flour (I use Gold Medal Better for Bread)
3 Tbsp sugar 6 tsp instant yeast

Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl in the order listed. Kneed for 15 minutes. Put in warm place and let rise 15-20 minutes.

or

Put all ingredients in the order listed into bread maker on dough setting.

Let the fun begin!

Divide dough into 2 parts. Sprinkle the table with flour and spread out the first half and load on cheese and pizza toppings (no sauce). We just did pepperoni and cheddar cheese cubes. You could really do anything you want here. Then you spread out the other half of the dough and lay it over the top, like a sandwich.

Next, take a butchers knife and chop the "sandwich" into squares. Pile it on top of itself and chop again.


Then you place in well greased 9"x13" pan.


Let rise for an additional 10-12 minutes. Then you place in COLD oven and set temperature to 375 degrees. Set the timer to 25 minutes. It will finish rising as the oven preheats. When the timer goes off, it should be done. The top should be browned. Make sure it is not doughy.


We serve it with ranch dressing, garlic butter dipping sauce, or marinara sauce. It is quite yummy and a very kid friendly meal. It goes great with salad or raw fruits/veggies.


Here are some photos of us enjoying the experience!




Try this easy recipe and let us know how you liked it!

Look Who's Walking!

So, Kal took his first real steps today. I was washing some grapes for lunch and herd a noise behind me. I turn around to see Kal walking! He took 3 steps across our little kitchen to grab my leg. He squealed with delight, excited about what he had just done! He is the kind of kid that waits until he is ready, then he tries and tries until he gets it. Well, he got it! Way to go, Kal!

Here is a short video of Kal showing off for Daddy. Here are some of Kal's first steps. Enjoy!

The Move: Chapter 1

Boxes are so much fun! We hope you have as much fun looking at our mess as we had making it!

"Buggy" Day

The library in Kirksville had a Summer reading program. The theme was "Catch the Reading Bug." Very appropriate for all the Midwest bugs (see below). There were "buggy" activities to do at home and at the library. We had so much fun! It all ended with a Renaissance fair, with bugs tied into it (sounds weird, but it was very fun!). Here are some photos! We miss you Quincy and Mrs. B!

Ants on a Log . . . YUMMY!

We made all kinds of bugs out of play dough. Jocelyn loved rolling it into balls.

Fun with bugs . . .
Centipede
Micro Deer Tick (in my thigh!!)
Spider eating a moth (yum!)
Daddy Long Legs (about 2.5 inches long!)
Moth (the size of my palm)
Beetle (here it is after I detached it from the back of my neck)

Other things we did at the library:

NASA had a representative come. She had special paper airplanes and helicopters and showed us some moon rocks.

Quincy
Jocelyn

We also learned how to do some baby yoga.

Here we are making bird feeders.
Here was our "picnic" of donuts, rice crispy treats and juice for our final story time.
Jocelyn and Mrs. B


And finally . . .
the Renaissance Fair
Princess Jocelyn
Getting a tatoo
Walking in a "spider web"

Ahhh, such a pretty boy.

Thank you, Mrs. B! We miss you!