Grandma's week with the kids (guest post!)

While Wendy and Scott flew off to a trip to Italy, Grandma Ann had the honor and duty of keeping the activities of John and Amelia going back in Dallas. On school days Grandma dropped the children at school and then went on shopping trips for groceries and Easter supplies. Evenings included dinners with the children and a chance to catch up with them on what they did that day at school, followed by baths, shows and stories – keeping their daily routine right on track. John had mentioned to Wendy that Grandma might feed them foods they did not like but would be forced to eat anyway. At the end of Grandma’s time there, John and Amelia both related that Grandma did not feed them any “bad” foods.

There was lots of play time that included John and Amelia’s stuffed animals – at least 40 animals of all kinds. One evening, we retrieved cardboard boxes from the garage, which they then used to set up an animal shelter in Amelia’s bedroom. Plastic bowls from the kitchen were used for “food” and “water” for the creatures. Then they danced to CD’s for the animals’ entertainment.

The Friday before Easter, Amelia and John lined up their stuffed animals in the family room and breakfast nook in order to enter a “party zone” that was set up by John at the landing above the back stairs. He and Amelia then moved the animals one by one up the stairs, and John’s favorite puppy decided which animals were allowed to enter the party zone and which were excluded. It sounds similar to the chic clubs in New York or Los Angeles that provide entrance to the “in” crowd while leaving the regular folks waiting in a line with no entrance guarantee. The kids played for hours and had a great time together.

Saturday Grandma and the children visited the Dallas Arboretum for a picnic lunch and a walk around the grounds to view the Fairy Tale castles set up for spring. Not much cooperation from John and Amelia on being able to take outstanding pictures, but below are a few of them exploring the gardens.

John and Amelia were so excited to show Grandma the hidden castle nestled in a bamboo forest. We found it, and both children agreed to sit on the special chair in the middle of the forest.

John and Amelia surely missed Mom and Dad while they were in Italy. But Grandma enjoyed spending time with the grandchildren and planning activities to keep them busy and having fun.

Beautiful Venice

Scott and I spent last week in Italy and it was heavenly. I want to share some photos and write about a few of our adventures so that the memories stay etched deep in my mind for as long as possible.

We arrived in Rome on Sunday morning and immediately took the high-speed train north to Venice. We had planned to spend two days in Venice before returning to Rome for the work-related conference that I was attending there later in the week.

I haven't been to Italy in over 15 years, when I was there as a poor, backpacking college student and Scott had never been to Italy. Taking these factors into consideration and considering the fact that I am now so much older, had made hotel and transportation arrangements in advance, etc. made for a much smoother trip than the last time I spent time in Italy. I enjoyed our time in Italy so much more this time around for many reasons.

Above is the view of San Giorgio taken from San Marco square, taken around 9:00 in the morning before the gondoliers had prepared their gondolas for the day. Below is the view from the water bus we took after arriving in Venice by train, as the boat traveled around the Guidecca canal.On our first full day in Venice we traveled over to San Giorgio (church in the first picture above) to see the church, and more importantly, to climb the church tower for amazing views of Venice. The views from the belfry proved well worth the trip. Below is a photo of San Marco square (the main square in Venice), where you can faintly see the crowds of people packed into the square.
Another view from the San Giorgio belfry, looking down a different canal towards other areas of Venice. Notice how blue and crisp the sky is, with not a single visible cloud? This is what the weather was like for just about every single day last week while we were in Italy, and another reason why the trip was so wonderful.We traveled up and down the Grand canal via water bus several times because it was the easiest way to travel that routeefficiently. In particular I enjoyed the chance to observe the distinct architecture on the homes lining the canal. This one with gold mosaic tiles and beautiful windows caught my attention as the tiles shimmered in the sun.This is a water bus that was traveling in the opposite direction as the bus we were riding on. The only ways to get around Venice are to walk through the narrow streets lining the canals or to travel by water, where the water-related options consist of private gondola, private water taxi, and the water busses. The water busses operated just as busses would in any land-based city, were easy to use, and were perfect for getting a glimpse of Venice from the water. We had to wait until our last morning in Venice to get inside the basilica of San Marco due to very long lines and immense crowds. We finally planned well for a visit by going early that morning. Inside the church the mosaic marble and gold-tiled decor, huge marble statues, and lavish decorations were impressive. You can see some of the ornate detail on the church exterior.

Pigeons live in abundance in Venice, and if you have ever been there you know that tourists like to feed them. Scott thinks pigeons are disgusting so he wanted to kick them, but that is another story. After we exited the church of San Marco, we stumbled upon a group of Japanese tourists that thought it was loads of fun to pose with the pigeons.

And when I mean pose with the pigeons, I mean they scattered crumbs along their necks, hands, and arms in order to encourage the pigeons to climb all over their bodies. Ewww. We observed dozens of tourists from this large group with multiple pigeons on their bodies, scrambling for others in the tour group to take their photo. So Scott and I thought this was pretty gross, and instead of taking photos of the pigeons I took photos of the tourists taking photos of themselves with pigeons climbing all over. It was so gross in theory, but hilarious to watch.

One of my favorite things about Venice was walking through the narrow walkways lining the canals, crossing bridges to get to the next area every few hundred feet or so. Away from the main plazas, and especially earlier in the morning and later at night, Venice was quite peaceful.

This last photo is the canal just outside of our hotel. Gondolas were tethered to the poles there and the canal was a cute, narrow space that goldoliers used to shuttle tourists around Venice all day and night. It was completely wonderful to be greeted by this view every time we stepped outside of our hotel.

Easter

Scott and I returned from Italy Saturday evening so that we could celebrate Easter with my mom and the kids. More on Italy later, this is about Easter. Amelia and John are posing in their new spring church outfits below.

After attending the family Easter service at church Sunday morning, we returned home to find that the Easter bunny had left Easter baskets and eggs (for an egg hunt) for the children. Amelia and John scrambled all over the backyard to find the eggs. This lasted about 5 minutes as they were quick to discover where they were hidden.

After the hunt the kids went inside to examine the contents of the eggs. Amelia and John were happy that the Easter bunny was kind enough to fill their eggs with M&Ms, peanut butter eggs, life savers, and coins. And the Easter bunny was quite generous too - look at how many eggs Amelia can fit inside her arms!

One of my favorite parts of our simple Easter sunday at home was enjoying the lovely decorations that the children (and my mom) had placed all over the house. My mom kept the kids busy while Scott and I were away last week getting the house decorated for Easter. This is something that we have not traditionally done in the past, and it was apparent that the kids got a kick out of surprising us with all of the fancy decorations when we arrived home.

John made this "stained glass" cross in school last week, which looked perfect hanging on the door to the backyard.Candy-filled small plastic eggs, and a large craft egg (filled with tiny chicks) adorned the breakfast area light fixture. John made the large egg in school last week.

More small eggs were on the dining room light fixture, along with two Happy Easter signs prepared by Amelia.

Below is the dining room table set for dinner. The centerpiece is a basket filled with decorated hard-boiled eggs. Perhaps my favorite decorations of all were the Easter egg silverware holders that were fashioned out of felt. The kids took great pride in surprising Scott and I with the silverware holders, dictating who got which color and describing how they came up with the ideas for each egg's decoration.

Close ups of the silverware eggs (spoons peeking through) below. The green and purple eggs are smiling and winking, and I love the felt bunnies on the yellow and blue eggs. Cute!

Sunday evening we enjoyed a non-traditional Easter meal of grilled pork tenderloin, German spaetzle, sweet and tangy collard greens, and popovers. Delicious! It was delightful to have a simple home-cooked meal after being gone for a week, and even more special to spend the day hanging out around the house with my mom and the kids. The kids played well together all day, we took a nice walk around the neighborhood, and I got to spend time cooking in the kitchen with my mom. Perfect.

Paleo schmaleo

[Note: I carefully composed the first part of this blog entry in four neat paragraphs, but when I went to publish it the software blended them all together. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get my paragraphs back! I have tried to edit the text dozens of times, and each time it won't save into distinct paragraphs. So frustrating! If anyone has experience with formatting on blogger, I would love advice on this issue. For now, just pretend there are breaks in the narrative where they sould be.] Since January of this year, Scott has adopted the Paleo diet. For those of you not familiar with Paleo, the theme of the diet is "hunter/gatherer", a throwback to the cavemen of generations past. In other words, the diet is heavy on animal-based protein sources, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and not much else. Even within the vegetable category not everything is approved of (e.g., green vegetables are good but more starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes are to be used in limited quantities). Needless to say, I have found it challenging to nurture my creative cooking side under the restrictive guidelines of Paleo. There are just so many delicious recipes waiting to be tackeled out there in the universe that contain ingredients that the Paleo diet does not approve of. My philosophy towards healthy living is more about moderation and trying to avoid processed foods as much as possible. I love vegetables the most of all food categories, and with the exception of seafood I like the animal proteins the least. I have no problem with enjoying bread and better-for-you grains like brown rice and quinoa. Plus, I have a major sweet tooth, so ice cream and cakes are on my mind all.the.time. Eating in moderation and regular exercise work for me. However, to be supportive of Scott's endeavors I am trying to adapt. Due to Scott's work schedule and his social habits, the only time he eats with us as a family is on weekends. So on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings I am trying to plan meals that are as Paleo-esque as possible to meet both of our dietary needs. One of the better Paleo-friendly meals I have made lately is Pepper Steak with sauteed vegetables. The glaze on the meat and vegetables in this dish was excellent (ingredients below), and I can forsee adapting the glaze for use in other stir-fried dishes. First, saute sliced onion, bell pepper, and garlic in some olive oil over medium-high heat. The pretty colors of all of the vegetables in the pan below are quite attractive.

After the vegetables are tender, remove them from the pan and replace them with sliced flank steak. Season the steak with salt, pepper, freshly grated ginger (you can see the tiny pieces of yellow ginger in the photo below), garlic, and red pepper flakes. Saute the steak in a bit of olive oil until the inside of the meat is barely pink. When the meat is just about finished, remove it from the pan, and pour 2/3 cups soy sauce, 4 T. honey, and 4 T. red wine vinegar into the same pan to make the glaze. Add cornstarch to thicken the glaze if desired. Once the glaze is mixed well and to the desired consistency, return the vegetables and steak back to the pan and mix together so that the vegetables and steak are coated with the glaze. This dish was quite flavorful and hopefully much healthier than something similar you could order from an asian restaurant. I served the pepper steak with a side of broccoli. I steamed the broccoli for about 5 minutes to get it barely tender, then sauteed it with some fresh musrooms in sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, and topped with slivered almonds. Delicious, and makes living Paleo look good.

Life at a Florida RV Park

My parents have been living in Sarasota over the past few months while working for the Baltimore Orioles during spring training. They have been staying in their RV in a nearby RV park, which the kids and I had the chance to visit when we were in town a few weeks ago. While my parents' RV is big (by RV standards), the kids and I could not stay there so we stayed at a nearby hotel. But the kids and I were able to enjoy plenty of time in the RV park, which was quite an education in the multifaceted components of an RV campground. Who could have known that the features that make up an RV campground are so complex? Look at this idyllic photo, taken just inside the entrance to the park (this is not my parents' RV). Love the picnic tables, huge trees with the Spanish moss hanging from the limbs, sunshine peeking through the trees. This park was very peaceful and relazing, to say the least. Another very important feature for the RV park - an enormous pool! Amelia and John started salivating as soon as they laid eyes on this great pool facility. This is the main pool... ...and this is the HUGE water slide adjacent to the pool. Grandma and grandpop had left $$ for the kids to buy slide passes on our first day in Sarasota, and Amelia and John were in heaven. Up and down the slide they went, over and over. I had a blast watching them, and I was even happier that the pool area was nicely enclosed so that the kids could wander on their own without my having to follow them everywhere at all times. John loved sliding down the slide on his belly, feet first. (Love the zoom lens on my camera! Thanks, Scott!)

Amelia went down the slide on her back and belly, laughing and squealing each time with delight. This was probably her tenth time down the slide, yet the huge smile was still present.

Back to the huge pool. What struck me as most amazing about the large pool was that it was filled to the brim with adults. There were a few kids splashing here and there (grandchildren of the mostly retired population staying in the RV park, based on my assessment of the clientele there), but mainly there were adults in the pool. And they were all (seriously) using pool noodles to sit afloat in the water. You know those long, neon-colored pool noodles that you can buy at the dollar store or Target for a couple of bucks? Nearly every single adult was using a noodle to sit on/stay afloat while lounging in small conversational groups in the large pool. It's hard to describe, but it was bizarre how the adults were al bobbing peacefully in the water of this very large pool, barely moving a bit.

Amelia and John went between the large pool and the slide (and also to the children's splash area with fountains and a shallow pool) all afternoon long, for three hours before I pulled them out to go back to our hotel to rest. We had a great, sunshine-filled afternoon at the pool.

Other activities at the RV park included shuffleboard...

...and mini golf! When I was a kid growing up, my mom and dad (mainly my dad) took my sister and I mini-golfing in most of the locations where we vacationed. I have many fond memories of friendly competition between my sister, dad, and I as to who would win the mini golf game, and I am sure an ice cream cone or some such reward was at the end of our mini tournaments.

Surprisingly, Amelia and John have never been exposed to mini golf before. We just have not fit this fun activity into any of our family vacations to date. However, both kids were eager to try it, and this made the cute mini golf course at the RV park the perfect activity for our last morning in Sarasota.

I ended up with the lowest score for the group that morning, but Amelia, John, and my dad all got an awesome hole in one on one of the holes (I did not!). The kids were THRILLED with their hole in one and they kept talking about how they couldn't wait to try golfing again.

The last part about the RV park worth mentioning was the ambience and culture of the place. Beside the recreational facilities I have mentioned so far there were many others, including a fitness room, sauna, wood-working room, craft room, etc. The RV park contained hundreds of campsites, most of which are occupied by retirees from the north settling down in Florida for months during the winter. Many people seemed to use golf carts or bicycles to get around the property. My parents appeared to be on the younger end of the age spectrum of the residents.

In terms of decor, the thing that struck me as most odd were the plastic palm trees. To put this in some perspective, there were hundreds of real, beautiful palm trees all over the camprgound. So I couldn't help but wonder why the need for fake palm trees (see photo below)?

Well, it turns out that these fake palm trees are equipped with small decorative lights so that at night the trees are lit in a pretty way. Think of it as landscaping for the RV lawn. Or as like Christmas lights, lit up to be decorative as Christmas lights are on a house in December. And see that fence above - that is likely a dog cage. People are seriously somewhat crazy in that they travel with dogs (in a small RV that is in the hundreds of square feet size) and then have to take care of the dogs in this small space (hence, the outdoor playpen for dogs!). Also notice the golf cart parked next to this RV. A very common site within the park. I know the idea is to retire and travel and relax and make things simple - but phew! Who knew living in an RV could be so complicated?!?