Projectile snot

Just when I think I've seen everything that could possibly come out of a child's nose, Alice concocts this amazing new mixture that is viscous enough to stay in her nose (making it difficult to breathe, speak, and eat) but fluid enough to fly out in huge globules with a sneeze. She's managed to soil a number of items from some distance this morning. I'm so...grossed out...but fascinated.

CSA share July 29

A delicious blend of sweet and savory, all excellent quality. This is the first week I felt I got my money's worth ($14 a week), but only because I received a double share...a friend is out of town and I get to eat her share. Below is a single share's worth:

4 cherry tomatoes

2 Walla Walla sweet onions

1 pint small red potatoes

2 sweet peppers (green bell and white bell)

1 pint blackberries

2 summer squash (good size, not too big)

1 branch of basil (18-24" long)

Taking home a double share of this crop was fun. Since we're not big pepper-eaters, I chopped and froze them for fajitas or chili later. Alice and I consumed the first pint...and a half...of blackberries on the way to pick up Bobby, so the rest are his, but I don't know why I say that because I don't think he's eaten ANY of them yet and it's been a whole 16 hours! The basil got wilty, so we're dehydrating it. The potatoes and squash will go into something for dinner tonight...something tasty, hopefully. We're not big onion-eaters, either, so I may freeze or dehydrate them for quick meals later.

Missing Heather Already

My sister Heather has only been gone for a couple hours, but I already miss her. She was my sister buddy growing up. We share a lot of common memories...well, the ones I remember at least. She remembers a good number of things I let slip a loooooooooong time ago, which makes conversations with her so fun and insightful. If you ever want to know what my childhood was like, ask Heather, not me.

Anyway, this visit was the first time Heather and I have been alone together as adults ("alone" meaning no other Poulson family around). I am absolutely amazed at this mature, confident, and beautiful woman that I never knew existed until now. Where have I been?! That's part of my sadness in seeing her go, I suppose. I was just starting to get to know her as an adult, as a friend: how clever, thoughtful, and observant she is, her convictions, her dreams, her capacity to love. I never saw them before now. Where did she find that graceful confidence that had her chatting and joking with my friends in a matter of minutes when it takes me years to feel that secure about anyone? What a woman. What a big sister.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week started out like a normal week, which lately has been very different for us.  But soon that changed.  On Thursday Susan’s sister showed up for a visit, and is leaving this afternoon.  It has been nice to have her around.  Alice even says her name, although in her own way.

Also this week a present showed up from Susan’s mother.  It is the baby doll that Alice fell in love with when we first went to visit them.  Susan already told you all about the baby but did not include any pictures. I don’t really have any pictures of Alice carrying around the doll here at home, so I have included some of the pictures from our trip.  I will leave the rest of the pictures from our trip for Susan to post on the blog.

CSA share July 22nd

A smattering of oddities this week...

2 cherry tomatoes (yes, just 2)

2 small heads of fresh garlic

2 Walla Walla sweet onions

1.5 cups small red potatoes

1/2 cup blackberries

1 large bunch of purslane (a succulent weed)

2 banana peppers

1 bell pepper

2 semi-tart apples

The blackberries and cherry tomatoes didn't last past dinner the first night. I'll be freezing the onions, peppers, and ground garlic. We ate the potatoes last night (steamed/roasted with herbs and olive oil). The purslane went straight into the garbage...sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to eat something I've been fighting so long, and I refuse to put it in the compost pile. Alice has been eating the apples fresh.

Pickled Beets and Oregano

Alice has never been a picky eater, but she surprised me this week.

I was eating some of my delicious pickled beets for lunch and Alice asked for a taste. Her first response was a "blech" face, but then she saw me continue to eat them. She tried it again and asked for more. And more. And more. We finished the rest of the jar together.

Bummer. I didn't pickle enough beets to last BOTH of us through the winter.

Later that day, Alice found her way into our spice closet and discovered a baggie of dehydrated oregano from our last CSA entry. She asked for a taste, so I gave her one. She asked for more. And more. And then she was done.

Where did this kid come from?

Baby-lovin' Baby

During our visit to Idaho and Utah, Alice revealed a certain affection for baby dolls. A few days after we got home, we received a package from Grandma Poulson containing a baby doll that Alice had enjoyed quite a bit during our visit. As soon as the box was open, she exclaimed "Baby!" and snuggled it close. She hasn't really stopped dragging it around ever since. He's been all over the house and even in the pool. If she suddenly remembers Baby in the middle of a meal, all eating is done and she's ready to go get him. We found a compromise, though, by putting Baby in his stroller facing Alice's booster seat. She can see him and talk to him while she finishes her dinner.

The other day, I told her it was time to get in the car to pick up Daddy and she ran away. She returned a few seconds later with her big baby in one arm and a bag in the other...an empty diaper bag. She comes up with this stuff all by herself. We were driving to the airport to pick up my sister and Alice was hugging Baby close, softly rubbing her lips on the top of Baby's head. She points out all his facial features, sucks on his hand, puts her own shoes on his feet, feeds him imaginary meals, and talks to him in that incomprehensible babble that sounds almost like English. Once, she even closed her eyes and felt his face while she sang a little song.

I'll have to sneak a picture of Alice and Baby. If she sees the camera, she hams it up and then wants to see what it looks like. Grandma taught her that trick, too :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary (On Monday)

This week was spent almost entirely in California.  I flew out Monday afternoon to San Francisco.  I spent the week in Sunnyvale getting some training and talking to some people that I will be working with.  On Friday I flew home, but there were problems.  There almost always are problems when you fly through O’Hare.  The plane we were booked on had mechanical problems before it left Chicago, so our flight was delayed several hours.  We got on the plane and then had to wait about an hour for the plane to be refueled. Apparently there were also high winds in Chicago earlier in the day so when the plane landed we had to wait about 45 min to go across the jet bridge.  Then we rushed to our next flight.  It really wasn’t our next flight, it was a flight to Champaign, but we were not booked on it, because our flight had left several hours earlier.  We managed to get on that flight just as the doors were closing.  We then sat on the tarmac for about another hour, as we creped one and a half times around the airport in line to take off.  I finally made it home at about 11 pm, only 4 hours late.  Needless to say Susan also did not have a very good day.  She was supposed to pick me up at the airport, and because of the combination of her not having a cell phone, and me with my cell phone off, because I was on a plane, she ended up spending a lot more time then she would have liked at the airport.  But now we are all home again.

Pickled Beet Success!

They worked! My home-grown and home-canned  pickled beets actually taste good!  Perhaps a little too vinegary, but very close to what I was looking for. I decided to crack one of the jars open today because I have another crop of beets in the garden ready for processing...I had to know if it was worth it :)

Hey Heidi, will you pleeeeeeeeeease post the recipe for your fantastic gingery fresh beet salad? That stuff's addicting.

No Travelogue Here

Well, Alice and I have returned to an empty house, in the strangely-nauseating humidity and heat of east-central Illinois, after enduring 12 hours of airports, rental cars, and freeways (on second thought, perhaps it's not the heat that's so nauseating*). Bobby is in CA this week for work and will return tomorrow evening.

Alice is ECSTATIC to be home. After all those hours of sitting and travel, we walk into the house, Alice squeals and runs to the fridge, begs me to open it, signing "eat" over and over (nevermind she's been eating all day) until I finally pull open the door. She pushes inside, sees a watermelon that Bobby purchased for us before he left on his trip (Sweet, sweet man. It's moments like these that make me feel truly loved) and literally freaks out! Squealing, dancing, hopping, pointing, signing, shaking her head, and slapping the floor, this crazy babe can barely contain her excitement while I slice and chop a bowl of ice-cold watermelon for the two of us. She eats about 2 cups of it and signs for more, but I offer some grapes (another gift from Bobby) and she squeals again. This won't make for pleasant diaper changes tomorrow, but the girl deserves a little joy after so many grueling hours strapped to her car seat.

I'd like to document our travel experiences, examine what I learned there, but perhaps this blog isn't the best place for that. Few people would enjoy so much detail, I think, and I really didn't take many pictures once Bobby returned home...I also spent much time at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I'm afraid if I start talking about that here, I won't ever stop. Suffice it to say, I found a Last Will and Testament from one of my ancestors and discovered a wife and child we never knew about along with entire families of descendants and all their vital statistics. The story of my family is unraveling at an accelerating pace! It's amazing what you can learn about your family history in just a few hours.

We are happy to be home safely, and we look forward to having Bobby back tomorrow.

*For those of you who may be wondering about possible layers of meaning in this comment, I am NOT pregnant.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

I think that this week can be almost completely summed up by this badly recorded excerpt from a song by my name sake, Bobby Vinton.

Susan and Alice have been out of town all this week.  I flew back on Monday so I could go to work, and Susan and Alice stayed with her parents.  Other then that this week as been very very dull.  I know it is kind of sad but I don't really have much of a life without them here.

Last week we were in Orem with Susan's parents, so I was a slacker and didn't write.  I think it may have a lot to do with the fact that I had just seen personally a lot of the people that read the blog and hence I did not feel an overwhelming need to write about it.  I probably should post some pictures, but I will save that until next week when Susan is back and we hopefully will have some more to add.

Memory Tag

This looked like fun. Participate if you like. Ignore it if you prefer.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Alice's First Trip to the Zoo

Today was Alice's first trip to the zoo.  It wasn't a large zoo, but it did have lots of animals.  We saw...

Birds...

Goats...
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Turtles...

And we had lots of fun with Lions and Tigers...

We even saw a Tiger make a funny face...

We even heard a the tiger roar, but we didn't catch it on camera.