Group Photo Time

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. I had both my siblings here, so it was a convergence of all seven of my parents' grandchildren. After cake and presents, grandma requested a photo be taken of all the kids.

So I gathered them all on the couch, and told them we were taking a picture. This was the first take:

I don't know where the "Home Alone" kid came from. Or is it "The Scream" by Edvard Munch:

Either way, unacceptable, so we had to take another:

Yumi is the oldest of the grandchildren, I might add.

Zombie Attack!

THEY ARE AFTER US! Plus Mr. Burns, who wants to release the hounds, in the center.

C'mon, kids, give me a serious picture. Grandma wants a serious picture of all her grandchildren:

Grandma was in hysterics over this set of pictures. I was finally able to convince the kiddoes to put on a smiley face and make a nice photo for Grandma for her birthday. 5/7 looking at me isn't that bad. I'll take it.

How do YOU get this many children to behave for a group photo? (Not a rhetorical question!)

Adorable Family Alert

The other day my friend Pia asked if I could take some photos of her adorable little family. Well, it was more like a couple months ago that she asked and I added the "adorable" part to her family. She had a specific time in mind so we waited for the right timing, after a certain birthday. But we finally got together and got it done.

The happy couple of parents


The adorable insta-smile daughter

The precocious 2-year old who refused to look at me with my camera

And a special moment between the two

Were they not adorable? I have yet to process all the photos and make the CD for them but wanted to offer a sneak peek right here. Since I am still trying to figure out how to get the sharpest photos possible, I am anxious to see how these print up.

The Non-Pioneer way to Make French Toast

My Chinese Exchange Students, LiNa and Yi Jia are gone and now I have time to reflect on some of the things we have done, lessons learned, and meals I have made. While they were here, I made a hot breakfast almost every day. A lot of the days it was rice and eggs, but some days I made pancakes, sausage, and french toast.

While making the french toast, I remembered a blog I read by the Pioneer Woman. While clearly entertaining and a feast for the eyes, the things she does for the sake of "pioneering" seem way over the top for me. It may just be me though. So I decided to give you the lowdown on how I make french toast, which happened to be the same way my mom made french toast. With the exception of using a square bowl, that is. So you might say this is how my ancestor made french toast.

First, I start out with some Safeway fresh eggs. I usually buy the 18 pack, but you can pick up a pack of dozen if you prefer. Sometimes my hubs will do the shopping and purchase the brown eggs, or even sometimes the more expensive organic. My mom did not buy organic at the time because it was not available at the commissary, as far as I know.

I add a little milk to the eggs and whisk them up. My family prefers 2%. My mom always bought 2% so it's legit.

Here is where I add a little of me to the process. You see, I hate waste. Therefore, after I beat the eggs with the milk, I pour it into a square container. That way, when I dip the bread in the mixture I can get all the corners with all the egg mixture that is possible.

After dipping the bread into the mixture I place it on the preheated electric griddle. I love my griddle. If you don't have one for pancakes and french toast, I highly suggest you get one. I turn the heat all the way as high as it goes then bring it back a little bit. Don't want to burn the food.

All the bread gets laid out.



And one side starts to cook. When that side is done, I flip them over.

Mmmmm... looks like breakfast. So there is how I cook the french toast. I did it the way my mom did.

Wanna know how we ate it growing up? It might be an East-Coastie thing, but we would put butter on it, then sprinkle sugar on top. Not powdered sugar. No. It is the crunchy white sugar. It gets all mixed with the butter and is super yummy.

My kids like to drizzle it with syrup. Actually drown it is more like it. A friend once put peanut butter then syrup, which I have found to be quite tasty.

Try it; you'll like it.

The Tub

There is no chore I loathe more than cleaning the tub. I absolutely hate it. Here is a short list of things I would rather do than clean the tub.

Bungee jump
Wash the dog
Go to the dentist (I cheated on that one. I've never had a cavity so going to the dentist is fun. Kind of like entering-my-quilt-into-the-fair-fun.)
Cook for say, 12 people
Sleep in a room with 10 middle schoolers

Seriously. I abhor cleaning the tub. It makes my back hurt, I get all sweaty... In fact, today I put my AC on MegaCool so that when I got done I could just cool down quickly.

What was I thinking when I chose this 6ft tub? I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking "David would love this tub. We are not taking our old hot tub to our new house and so this is the next best thing." So basically, you might say this big tub is David's fault.

I had put it off long enough and finally worked myself up to cleaning that thing today. To ease the pain I thought I would show off my clean tub. Here ya go.

Notice the nice shiny sparkles! Oh how beautiful is a clean tub! Incidentally, I cleaned up to where my head reaches. *gasp!* I'll get the top next time. But isn't it clean and sparkly?! Just ignore the spots above 5 feet.

Here are my cleaning products. I actually only used one product. For some reason when I am at the store I think that different products might make the chore easier, or somehow more pleasant. I am wrong, friends. Nothing actually makes this chore pleasant. Even if someone were feeding me grapes while I scrubbed.

Here is something else that doesn't make it fun. Gloves. I am allergic to latex. But they don't make these long gloves in a latex-free option! Whyyyyy?!

On another note, I would like the glove companies to come out with cleaning gloves for your feet. When I clean my tub I GET IN THE TUB so that I don't hurt my back by LEANING OVER it. So my feet are getting these chemicals all over them and drying out my feet. And you know what happens when my feet are really dry? I can't sleep.

PC vs. Laptop

Grrr. I'm so frustrated! I buy lots of photography books, and I actually read them mostly cover-to-cover. I am constantly learning and improving (hopefully) my craft. However, in one book it had warned about computer screens and the importance of having a good monitor.

Well, I have been doing a lot of my photo processing on my laptop in the comfort of my bedroom and posting pictures like crazy. So, I get on the PC the first time in awhile and I'm seeing that a lot of my pictures look CRAPPY. I think they are overly contrasted and too dark. Also, I have been trying to cut down on storage issues and I haven't been keeping most of my pre-processed photos.

Lesson learned: save both original AND post-processed photo on hard drive. Can't believe I wasn't already doing that. Good thing I'm not a photo hoarder though. :)

Day 4: Water

I love taking photos of running water! When I have my tripod handy, however. Today I knelt down and braced myself on the bench to be steady enough for a longer exposure. This one was 1/3 second. Any longer and it did get some shake.

What a cloudy day; it never did clear up like the forecasters foretold. Go figure.

Day 3: The Number 3

I love baby duckies following after mama duck! There also happens to be a mummy chasing them. Hope the duckies don't get confused! Run baby ducks, Run!!!

Day 2: Something Red

A soon-to-be-iconic picture of a Netflix mailer. We all use them. What will happen to them when the price doubles later this fall? Hmmm...

Update:

saw these great baskets today at Pike's Market, and behold; they are red too.

We Have Exchange Students!

The Taylor family has taken on a new challenge. As indicated by the title of this post, we have indeed acquired two Chinese students who will be living with us for two weeks while they learn some English, go on field trips, and eat my cooking. More on that later.

LiNa and Alice (not her real name, but the name of her choosing), ages 14 and 12 respectively, arrived late Monday night and after a night at a hotel and an afternoon of frolicking in Olympia, we met them at a potluck at the church. They are polite and completely adorable. They don't eat much, however. I wonder if they will starve while here.

The first night when we came home, and after getting the grand tour of the house by my equally adorable children, we played some frisbee and badminton in the yard. Later, we introduced them to the game of Uno. That was fun trying to explain it. Sometimes it's easier to demonstrate a round first.

Last night we took them to the County Fair, where, at the insistence of my husband, viewed my quilt that is displayed and ribboned (with a blue ribbon!).

After that we took them to do all the fun rides.

Tonight we are laying low; I imagine they are still catching up from the travelling and full schedule to date. The kids taught them Hide And Seek. I think David is planning a before-bed trip to DQ for some ice cream. Tomorrow is a field trip to Seattle. We will join them and I hope to get lots of pictures.

Back to the food. (Mostly because I'm noticing this post getting quite boring, so I will move on.) So far I have made breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried spam, and pancakes (meh), Stir Fry Vegetables with Rice (a winner), breakfast of Rice, scrambled eggs with green onion (I think they liked it) and grapes (Alice was peeling the grapes, as I remember doing in Japan. However over there the skin of the grapes is thicker and comes off easily. Alice didn't have much luck peeling them this morning). I packed them a lunch of Japanese-style Rice Balls (they told me was delicious), oreos and more grapes. Tonight we had Lasagna. I notice Alice to be a little more on the picky side, but LiNa, not wanting to disappoint, will try most things. Cottage cheese was new to her! Now that I think about it, I should have my camera more at the ready for foodie pics.

Photo Challenge No. 2

My dear cousin Jeanette (more like cousin-in-law, but as far as I'm concerned, definitely my cousin) has challenged me to another round of photos for the month. I absolutely loved doing the last one and appreciated the opportunity to pick up my camera daily, so I decided I must do this. Not to mention, I am not one to decline a challenge, no matter how crazy or hairbrained, but that's another post for another day. Haha.


If you are curious about the previous challenge, I have that challenge posted on facebook. That was pre-blog. Now that I have an official blog with no clear direction or intent, I figured I can post the new challenge here. Maybe one day I will chronicle the first challenge in another post.


So here's Day 1: Pet


WAIT, before I show you anything, you must be forewarned that I do not have the most photogenic pet. In fact, Rosie hides from the camera. She thinks it will steal her soul or something. To get this shot, I had to lie on the floor and call her, call her, call her, with promises of snacks, walks, and the like. She knew I was waiting with the camera; call it her sixth sense or the fact that I was taking pictures of the car earlier (another post for another day). She is one smart pup. Hold on, if she was smart she would know the camera doesn't steal souls. Only likeness. I think. Cue Picture:

Day 1: Pet






Here she is: my Rosie. She's scared, contemplative, friendly, alert, and always hungry. We feed her, I swear. Daily, even.

Sadly, this is the best I could get of her today. Here's hoping for a good picture with Day 2, since it is not of a pet.