The New Driveway

Our old, crumbling asphalt driveway has been replaced with concrete and a few embellishments:  increased turning space to get around the corner of the house (and a pole so you don't hit the corner of the house), the side area was kept as flat as possible and sawcut joints used so this area can be used as a ball court, and the turnaround area in the front of the house has been enlarged (it will be even larger when we get the retaining wall built, and extend the driveway to the wall).  This is step 1 in our deck remodel project.  The retaining wall was suppose to be step1, but we're still waiting for a permit.

Stats:  ~5000 sq ft, 55 cy, 3000 psi concrete with Buckeye fibers. 9 finishers.

Edit: This is my first time posting a slideshow. I just noticed it lost quite a bit of resolution in the upload to YouTube. Will have to play around with the settings to see if it can be improved.

Edit 2:  Connie says that YouTube, for some reason, defaults to low res.  So you have to manually set to a higher resolution at the bottom of the screen, if you choose.  I'm going to see if there's a way to set a higher default resolution.

Gonna plank? No? Roll over instead!

"He did it."

"Who? Me??"

Ryan's been VERY BUSY lately (and looks to be that way for a while as he tackles home demolition/construction on his own), so the weekends are mostly just me and the kids. It's been a fine balance with time because part of my thing on the weekends are to plan and prepare food that the family will eat for the rest of the week. I am adamant that we eat fresh and healthy, so I need time to wash, chop, mince, marinade, mash, cook, etc and get dishes/homemade snacks/etc all ready for the coming week. Doing this is the key to having a balanced week of eating healthy and gains me the little extra time to allow for exercise. Even so, I'm still very behind in other tasks like replying back to emails, keeping in touch with friends/family, sending out Thank you cards for various gifts the kids have received, organizing bills/paperwork, organizing in general! as certain areas (kitchen, office, clothes, etc) are in disarray.

Speaking of disarray, this is what happens when I leave the kids on their own shenanigans while I go back and forth between checking/playing with them and getting weekend chores done.

Yup. Disarray seems to be a part that I haven't figured out how to manage yet.

All About the Cauliflower

It must be cauliflower season because they're in abundance and good prices in the stores. Ever since the cauliflower pizza, I've been experimenting with more cauliflower recipes since it is one of those foods that make great for substitutions.

We've made cauliflower pizza a few times now and while it's still a healthier pizza than the norm, it is still high cal from the tapioca "cheese". It is not a regular dish, but an occasional treat. Some more regular recipes of ours are the usual roasted cauliflower with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon, which is absolutely delicious. And my favorite cauliflower recipes so far is the cauliflower fried rice.

I like a generous amount of stuff in my fried rice - ginger, green onion, garlic, cilantro, peas & carrots, bok choy, extra eggs, and some type of sausage (usually traditional Chinese sausage and/or duck liver sausage which is lower in cal vs traditional). The best part of Cauliflower fried rice (aside from the fact that it tastes really good), is that a chow-down of two giant servings is still low in calories and full of nutritious veggies.

Here's a side by side of my cauliflower fried rice and Ryan's regular fried rice.

Apparently not only is cauliflower a good rice substitute, it's also a good mash potato substitute. I finally tried this recipe out a few nights ago. It is easy to make and texture-wise is very comparable to mash potatoes. Taste-wise, I can tell the difference. It tastes a lot lighter than regular mashed potatoes. Still yummy enough that making the substitute in no way makes me feel like I'm missing out on regular mashed potatoes.

Yeh for cauliflower! I never liked cauliflower til now that I've learned different ways to cook with it.

Part IV: Climbing @ Joshua Tree

Day 2 of climbing, we headed over to some close-to-the-road climbing spots near Jumbo Rocks. With two kids and minimal gear, the short skip and a hop to a climbing location was definitely ideal. A location with a little bit of shade made things perfect.


Thanks to Deb for getting the rare family photo of us.. AND with everyone looking in the right direction! Chances are this will be our holiday card photo for 2012!


The first location we settled at had a nice, flat area and with SHADE! The watermelon came as an additional bonus!

Watermelon is so much more delicious when we're out there in the dry heat of Joshua Tree. It's just a little messy. At this point, Emilia's already been rolling around in sand, dirt, etc. So what's a little more with watermelon juice?

Time to take Lily and Blankie for a walk. (Here's a photo of Emilia with Lily from the last time we were here.)

Okay, okay, here's some actual climbing. Ryan got a chance to climb a couple of climbs and both Emilia and Liam were cooperating enough that I could get some photos in.

Look! There's Ba-Ba!

It's like being at the movies.. munching on snacks and watching people climb. =)

We didn't do too much climbing, and while climbing was an objective, the best part was being able to go outdoors with the kids, spend some time hanging out with friends, and have something different than the everyday norm. It's nice to have a little get-away sometimes, even though it's still as much or even more effort than usual.

Just to give you an idea, for a 1 night, 2 day trip, this is how much stuff we needed to bring... and we do actually pack light compared to the average parents/family. We pretty much have a tent, 3 sleeping pads, 2 sleeping bags, extra baby blankets, 2 portable cribs/baby-tent, snacks/food, nursing stuff, kid entertainment stuff for the car ride, 2 baby backpack/carriers, multi-functional ground cover, 2 camping chairs, 2 small duffle bag of clothes for the entire family, diaper bag, and extra diapers/wipes.

One of the best parts of this trip was being able to see Emilia's personality in a different environment. She is curious and explorative. She loves being around the other kids, at the same time, she went off to do her own "things"... picking up random leaves, rocks, etc. And.. she is funny and goofy. She's my little goofball with attitude. She had so much fun and it was great to see her enjoying the time there.

(Notice the upside-down shades. That is totally her doing, even though I've told her it's upside-down.)

Here is a look back at our last JTree trip ... 2 years ago!.

And here's Emilia as we sign-off on another year of JTree camping/climbing fun.