When you are finally able to breath, stop planning, and let your guard down a bit time becomes a blur. Whether I was making a new pancake recipe, making a simple ham sandwich or just playing with my kids it was nice to not have to think about going somewhere, doing something or anything else for that matter. Tuesday was great, a great opportunity to unwind, unpack the dirty clothes and just let the kids run around a bit. Okay maybe not that run around thing.
See Eva and Sean must not have been seeing what I was seeing. I walked in and saw two rather small dogs that were excited and loud and a bit over exuberant. Well one dog was like that, the other dog was small, loud and none to pleased his domain was invaded by these interlopers. The bigger young dog couldn't be more thrilled. Sean and Eva saw a small bear and a mountain lion who wanted nothing more than to eat the bones of two little children walking into their den. Or I have to assume that's what they saw because they screamed, ran and cried the second my dad's two rather small dogs came anywhere near them. The two dogs were relegated to sun porch or outside, and this was not what those two dogs wanted. But I really appreciate my Dad and Mary Jo's willingness to accommodate my very scared kids.
For dinner that night we were once again blessed with a lovely dinner of homemade ragu with venison sausage that the neighbor had hunted and made. Magnificent.
In the morning my wife awoke for her birthday to my boys climbing all over her. We headed out for the day running errands with my dad and stopping for lunch at Raising Cane's. Now while this lunch would normally fall out of my rule about fast food it was tasty. At raising Cane they make chicken strips and fries, that's it. My best description for SoCal/AZ/Nevada folks would be, it is the In-N-Out of chicken strips, they do them extremely well, hand battered and breaded fresh chicken fried and you can taste it. It was fantastic, I want to have them again before I leave they were so good.
We dropped Eva and Cristina off back at the house for a Jewelry party and my dad and I had a boys movie out. Hugo, while our best intention of a kids movie was the idea, a toddler movie it wasn't. My dad and I both sat completely engrossed by the beautifully paced, touching piece of cellulose that I genuinely enjoyed. While nothing in the film is inappropriate for very young children. The film is paced for an adult audience, or at least an older audience and I think would be fine for pre-teens, beyond that its just slow. All that said, my boys sat through the entire movie to the end, and for that I give them credit.
We returned and I got started on my wife's birthday dinner. Cristina requested a light salad, bread and her favorite; Potato Leek Soup. I made a mixed green salad with toasted pecans (from Mary Jo's 90 year old uncle's tree hand bagged by him), crisp granny smith apple slices, goat cheese, and topped with home made balsamic Dijon mustard vinaigrette. The bread was a home made rustic loaf with 10 cloves of garlic and rosemary I had started the day before. Cristina loved her dinner which made me very happy, though our kids were more than a bit unruly and her and I were rushed. Ultimately by 9 that night we were exhausted. Cristina had some cake pops for dessert and the kids gave her her homemade card.
The two days had been exactly what we were hoping for, an opportunity to have some family fun, eat some lovingly prepared food with family and just be. We left our visit here agenda free and while that may lead to some bored kids at time, thus far it has been working.
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