Day 129: The Audacity Of Soup

 It just won't stop raining, will it?

I declared that such a yucky day should call for soup or chili or something for dinner. It JUST so happened that the last recipe in this month's Chinese raddish kids kit is a pork dumpling soup, and it just so happens that we had leftover teriyaki pork from last night AND dumpling wrappers in the freezer. So while Calen did some chores around the house, I set Camden to kitchen work. 

One thing about pork filled dumplings: it's time consuming, tedious, and hard. But Camden was a very good sport and actually enjoyed doing it. 

The problem with this soup recipe, is that it's soup. I love soup, I think soup is great. But the boys? They think soup is an abomination to modern cuisine. How could we have the audacity to take something as delicious as pork dumplings and put them into soup?! I don't know what the actual issue they both have with soup, other than it's soup. Even when it comes to Ramen, which Camden loves and Calen mildly tolerates, there can hardly be any broth in it. 

Whatever. 

So, I scooped out the dumplings in the soup and plopped them on white rice, much to their actual delight. 

Side note: the soup was actually pretty gross, so I scooped the dumplings out and ate them stand-alone as well. But I'll never tell the kids that. 

Day 128: Mother's Day Indoors Adventure

 Sunday, May 14th

It's Mother's Day! 

Normally, the only thing in the world that I ask for on Mother's Day is some sort of adventure. That's hard around here in Kodiak, when you can't just hop in the car and go to Muir Woods, or Yosemite, or the beach (as we've done in years past when we lived in the lower 48). But, the best possible opportunity came up. There was a C130 flight headed to Valdez to the air show (the one I went to last year), and all four of us scored free seats! ON Mother's Day! I get my adventure!!

Until, a search and rescue case came in, the duty roster was changed, and the flight to Valdez was cancelled. 

Well, damn it. 

To boot, the weather was HORRIBLE here today. Cold, freezing rain, miserable. So we certainly aren't going anywhere outside. 

Fine, then, I'll have an adventure INSIDE in my OWN home. Be that way. 

The second best thing to do on Mother's Day, if an adventure can't be had, is to sit on the couch, for an entire day, and do nothing. So that's what I did. I did nothing. I played video games all day. I drank a ton of coffee. And I did nothing. And it was great. 

At dinner time, the boys made me an absolutely delicious meal, which was my one request. Calen made teriyaki pork buns, Cam made Chinese brown rice (with mushrooms), and I made potstickers. Amazing and fun to cook together. 

Since it's Sunday, it's family game night of course! We played a new game that Camden got for his birthday: Happy Little Dinosaurs. It's a HILARIOUS game, simple, and clever. All four of us thought it was a huge hit. Camden of course made sure we each had a toy Lego dinosaur to sit with us as our "game piece"

And finally, to cap off the day, we watched my favorite movie: Beauty and the Beast (live action). The only other movie that might tie with it being my favorite is Toy Story, but this is the one I wanted to watch today.

Honestly, even though it wasn't a "true" adventure, it was a fantastic family day, and really, I can't ask for more than that. 

Day 127: The Backstop

 Saturday, May 13th

You know what builds character?

Sleeping in a tent in the cold and rain all night, getting up early and prepping breakfast for your Boy Scout troop, and then immediately going to play a baseball game and be expected to perform. 

Raising men, over here. 

Calen, wet, tired and probably completely over being outside, came home for 30 minutes today, unloaded his camping gear, changed into his uniform, and headed back to the other side of town to be the catcher for his team in today's game. 

He. Rocked. It. 

Day 126: Campout!

 Friday, May 12th

It's another stupidly rainy day. I'm pretty sure the sun isn't going to shine like EVER in Kodiak this spring. 

But that isn't stopping these guys! Brad and the boys are off on another overnight Boy Scout campout. Rain be darned. 

This is perfect timing because I have a moveout job starting today and ending tomorrow, so I came home just long enough to say hey and goodluck and goodbye, and head back off to work. 

Have fun in the rain boys! 

Day 125: Rainy Walkoff

Thursday, May 11 

You guyssssss. It's been the busiest week due to moveout cleans. And it's just going to get worse as the summer goes on. 

But hey, it pays for Disney. 

I took a break from a job today to go watch Calen play in his baseball game. As per usual, gamedays this spring seem to be cold and rainy, but that doesn't stop anyone around here. 

If they postponed games for weather around here, we'd play three games in the course of a calendar year. 

Calen played 2nd base and outfield, reached first base on a dropped third strike, stole 2nd, 3rd AND home, and his team had a spectacular walkoff win. 

Day 124: Twister

 The boys completed their Weather unit study today. This included the Weather merit badge for Camden (Calen already had it) and some extensive studies on all sorts of weather, climate and how it ties all together. 

The reward for completing Weather is being allowed to watch another PG-13 movie on their record (and one of my personal favorites): Twister. 

A few things here. 

When Melissa answers her cell phone and Camden goes "Ummm, that's not a cell phone. That's a walkie-talkie phone." 

Listen. It was 1996. Be impressed she had a cell phone. 

Also I'm pretty sure the boys are going to go off and be storm chasers after this movie. 

Day 123: Lego Battles

 It's been a very rainy day. It's been a very rainy week. Month, year, whatever. It'll never stop raining for the rest of our lives. I swear. 

The boys have spent a lot of time watching Star Wars movies and consequently there has been about a four day long Star Wars battle upstairs in the playroom. 

I'm a huge an that they still do this at their age. 

Day 122: Laundry Day

 Monday, May 8th

It's a coming of age moment for Bam. 

I've warned him for years that when he turned twelve he would have to start doing his own laundry. That's when Calen started his laundry and it's only fair, right? 

I mean if I'm really honest it's just easier if I just do everyone's laundry. But I mean it's life skills, right?

So far Cam says that it's a lot easier than he thought it would be. 

The only other adventure we had today was our daily space RPG calendar, which is always a fun little ten minute daily adventure. We created a "house rule" in which we allow ourselves to reroll one poor roll per day (which always manages to be a 1, once per day I swear). 

Day 121: Medieval Faire

 When I was a Freshman in high school, I will never forget our year-long unit study in world history on Medieval times. It was probably my favorite unit study I ever did in school. Once or twice a week we would work on this study, and then the last day was this HUGE "Medieval Faire", where the entire football field of the freshman campus was taken over into a large Middle Ages village, with shops and even a "battle" with a catapault on the football field. 

It's been 24 years and I still remember it. 

I really wanted to do something equally extravagant, but of course there's only two students instead of 300, and I don't have a football field at my disposal. And honestly, I don't have the energy either. But we did our best. 

I had the boys create a "persona" of who they would be if they lived in the Middle Ages and build a tri-fold presentation board on it, complete with self-portrait, job description, house blueprint, shoebox diorama, and a full page story involving "them", AND, a full three course meal that would be appropriate to what was available in the Middle Ages. 

After showing their presentation to their audience (Dad), they got to work on their Medieval Feast! 

Middle Ages Feast:

1st Course: Apple Bread
2nd Course: Whole chicken with potatoes, carrots, and onions
3rd Course: Apple and raspberry cobbler

It was a LOT of work for these guys to cook up not one but three meals on their own, but luckily they had a Raddish Kids recipe for each dish, and they prepared each meal seamlessly. Camden peeled the vegetables and apples, Calen chopped, and they took turns with stirring and prepping. I was pretty proud. 

Their bounty

How Cam sets himself up to peel apples and potatoes

Please appreciate their Star Wars shirts as it's still Star Wars week

Stuffing chickens 

The dinner was delicious. And since it's Sunday Night Family Night, we piled our plates in their feast and played a family game - Castle Panic, of course!

And because it's still Star Wars week and we couldn't stop the tradition of the movie marathon, we stayed up late and watched Return of the Jedi (since we didn't get a chance to yesterday). 

Castles and Death Stars, you can't beat it. 

Day 120: Opening Day

 Calen already had his first game of the season, but the opening ceremonies hadn't quite kicked off yet. Until today!

Today was his last Opening Day ceremony of his Little League career. 

Man does time fly. 

He didn't have a game today, so this was short lived. All 250 Little Leaguers (from t-ball to Juniors) stood with their teams at the high school/Juniors field (Calen's field) and did the National Anthem, introduction to teams etc. Then the oldest and youngest player in the league runs the bases and that's it, Calen's team headed home while the other two Juniors teams battled it out. 

Later this evening, we were invited to a little day-late Cinco De Mayo celebration with some fellow 12U hockey parent friends. Calen wasn't too interested in hanging out with all of Camden's hockey buddies, so we allowed him to stay home while Brad, Cam and I headed to our friends house. It was a super fun night of amazing Mexican food (all homemade!), great conversation and some fun games too, while the kids played all sorts of roller hockey, baseketball, bike riding and video games. 

Super fun today, nice to do something totally different.