Family Climbing

These two are extremely close. They play together (and fight together) from the moment they wake up to the time they go to sleep, and when the other one is not around, they think of the other one. If Liam isn't around, Emilia will ask to bring back something for Liam. And Liam, if he doesn't see Emilia around, will ask where she is.

Kids playing around in the meditation/yoga area of the gym:

They play for hours on end fueling each other's creative imagination. Ryan thinks I'm over idealizing a siblings relationship, but seriously, I love the closeness they share! The fighting is nothing compared to all the mischievous laughter that comes out of them.

We spent 5+ hours at a local boulder/climbing gym with the kids on another family climbing session. It was the first time trying out bouldering with them. We had the luxury of time that day, and another plus was that Roger was visiting and climbing with us.

Roger climbing with kiddos running around:



Kids playing while Ryan climbs:

Liam climbing:

I wasn't sure how this session was going to go, but the kids loved it. They would climb a little, eat a lot of snacks, run around and play on their own, come back and climb, etc. Ryan and I would alternative checking on them to make sure they weren't causing too many problems, but all in all, 5+ hours! We were able to stay there for 5 hours with no temper tantrums, all of us getting some climbing in, socializing with Roger, and having play time.

Kids running around the gym..



Liam and Ryan playing with the rings in their own style. =)

Emilia's version of the rings (though swinging on the rings is not allowed):



The kids were very comfortable at the gym and the people there. They did get into some mischief. At one point when I checked on the kids, I found them besides the slack line, A guy was practicing a one-legged squat balance on the line and Liam went up to the side of climber, then proceeded to make funny faces at the guy, who was really trying hard to keep his balance. I couldn't help but laugh as I lectured Liam to move away. Obviously the climber lost his balance laughing and fell off.

By the end of the evening, Emilia was climbing like a pro. She would put on her climbing shoes and pick her own climb and go up and down without any of us prompting her.



Compare the above video with one of her first climbs of the session...



We may just be able to pull off incorporating regular family climbing sessions to our routine... hopefully!

Gobble Gobble 2014

This holiday of cooking started off with banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for breakfast...

Oh yes!

Take a look at them happy kids!

I pre-made the slower cooker pumpkin spiced apples a couple days ago, so dessert is ready to go for today. This is pre-cooked apples below. We (er.. I mean, I) started eating dessert a couple days ago, so no after photo.

I picked up my farm fresh turkey on Monday, and it was spatchcocked and brined on Tuesday. Today I gave the bird its last massage of holiday herbed butter. Spatchcocking was no easy task.. it was a fight between the bird and I for a while. There was a bit of cursing and bruised hands to get the bird into this "flat lay down" position. It will be well worth it though, with an estimated 1.5 hour cook time and a sure-proof way of cooking the meat evenly.

Since we have a friend coming over day after Turkey day, I also brined a 4lb ribeye roast.. you know, for variety. In total, I'll be cooking 19lbs of meat (14lb turkey + 4lb ribeye) in two days for 3 adults and 2 kiddies. Given the rule of thumb.. 1/2 pound meat per person, I have enough to feed 38 people... we're going to have lots of leftovers.

Backwards Prime Rib Recipe

Kids and I spent the early afternoon playing and running around in the yard. I know we live here, but they haven't done that in a while as Liam and I have been sick and indoors. Today, they got to run around and dig in the dirt. I managed to get in a slow 1 mile jog; it's been 3 weeks since my last run.

I started cooking the sides first prior to turkey time. Instead of traditional mash potatoes, I made roasted mashed garlic cauliflower (modified NomNom's cooking method from steam to roasting) with a little bit butter and lots of chives.

Another side dish was the Crispy Sweet Potato Roast, no additional sauce.

Sweet potato pre-cook.

Sweet potato Cooked.

Current favorite salad.. Trader Joes Harvest Blend Salad with pumpkin vinaigrette!

And last side dish, boiled french green beans mixed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon.

For the grand finale... the turkey1 I prepped it following NomNomPaleo's Butterflied Turkey recipe, but in reality, I cooked it following Alton Brown's recipe. That's because I learned last year, that we have a really really old oven with ventilation that goes into the house! So, it cannot sustain cooking anything in the 400s temperature without setting off the fire alarm.

Alton Brown's recipe has a lower cooking temp, 350F, versus NomNomPaleo, 450F. Both recipes still cooks with a relatively short time. It took me exactly 70 minutes today (30mins @425F to brown, and another 40mins at 350F to cook thoroughly) to reach breast temp ~150F, and thigh ~165F.

Here's the bird.. sunny side up, fresh out of the tanning salon.

And here is us with our simple family Thanksgiving this year!

The kids were not too fond of the turkey. The meat came out tender and flavorful, and I think that was the problem. The kids are not too familiar with the sage, thyme, and rosemary spices. The sweet potato and green beans were probably their favorite.

This year was keeping it simple, especially since it is just us four. We definitely miss seeing family, especially the kids get so excited to visit family or have visitors during the holidays. My family did kept me in the loop as they planned their usual potluck-style Thanksgiving, so it was great to hear of all the yummy dishes (Asian style of course!) - baby back ribs, braised tendons, sticky rice, steamed crab, etc.

Downside of not being with family.. no over-indulgence! Haha! The upside of being on our own for the holiday was that the cooking did not take all day since there were only a few dishes with easy recipes; It was just here and there through out the day with plenty of time to do other things - play with the kids, do some exercises, take photos, blog in detail... =P

Family V-Up practice


Oh, and lot of leftovers. Two containers to eat for the next week, and the rest of it goes into the freezer.

Now on to round 2 and 3 and 4, etc of turkey usage... turkey bone broth soup, turkey mac'n'cheese, turkey pho noodles...

Double Trouble

Sometimes when I get home, I find the trouble makers around somewhere. They are not quiet, so usually they are quite easy to find.

They greet me with their sweet smiles...

And then I usually find my husband looking something like this. =)

(Apparently the kiddies had piled and covered up Ryan with the pillows, guitar, and blocks prior to the photo. They made him into a daddy-mountain and proceeded to climb it.)

Here's another day...

And yet another...

Taking care of these two is not easy work!

Turkey Day Eats

I have been hemming and hawing over cooking a turkey; It is so much work and prep time... but on last minute impulse, ended up placing an order for a small Diestel Organic turkey. Regardless of what we do for Turkey day, it is nice to have turkey leftovers that we can enjoy for the week. Then we'll be turkeyed out til next year!

Last year I cooked my very first turkey following the recipe posted by NomNomPaleo, one of my favorite Paleo foodie bloggers. I might be biased, but it was definitely up there in taste. So, this year, I plan to do it again, NomNomPaleo's Butterflied (Spatchcocked) Bird.

(photo from NomNomPaleo's website)

And for a new recipe to try, I am looking forward to cooking one experimental dish.. and this is it --> Slow Cooker Pumpkin Spiced Apples. Planning on modifying the recipe by reducing the sugar and switching it from brown sugar to coconut sugar.

(photo from http://www.maebells.com/slow-cooker-pumpkin-spiced-apples/)

And that's it! Keeping it simple but hopefully high quality of fresh and healthy-ish!

Update : May need to add another dish to try too... this one --> Crispy Sweet Potato Roast

(image from smittenkitchen.com)

A Golfin' Team Outing

The lab at work was shut down due to some electrical re-wiring, so it meant a work group team building/outing event. There were suggestions of wind-surfing, rock climbing, paint balling.. but golf won out. I have never golfed before, so it was a good time to try it out.

In my work group, only the bossman golfs and the rest of us are newbies. He gave us a few tips to start with on the "swing form", and I always keep my PTs advice in the back of my mind "every movement should begin from the core". From there, we played 9 holes on an executive course with the regular size holes. Initially we wanted the big holes, but something about them not being available at that time.

So hitting the ball consistently is definitely harder than it looks and I can see how this aspect of golf requires skill... repetition to form consistent muscle memory. We had 2 golf carts to cart 4 of us around, though I wanted more of a workout so I would occasionally run. All in all, it was a fun game that is plenty social and relaxing. At times it felt a little slow, but then again, you have a bunch of engineers that take forever to do practice swings and attempt to analyze the projectile trajectory of their ball. I'm more of get into position and just hit the darn thing - think less but focus on a few key form factors, then swing.

Not bad.. ball going in the direction of the flag/hole!

Using the irons and hitting the ball in the general direction of the flag was my favorite part. The putting portion where you have to sink it into the hole was my least favorite part. It took the team ~2 hours to complete the 9 holes, and we played a modified game of the 3 newbies against the bossman. Bossman won.

Overall my impression of golf is that it is a fun, challenging, skilled, social game, though.. to me, not quite a sport. After 2 hours of play, I was not at all sore the next day. Physical exertion level was minimal. Anyhow, being out in the sun, relaxing is much better than all day in the lab!

Nemo

I just had to take these few snaps of the two together...

I had rented "Finding Nemo" for the kids to watch for the first time, but I had to cook dinner. They both get scared easily, so I warned them to hold each other during the scary parts since I wouldn't be there to hold them.

And how I found them was just way too cute!

My latest food obsession has been Korean style tofu stew/soup, which I make with these simple seasoning packets from the local Korean market.

I triple the amount of "stuff" that I put in it to make it pretty much a protein and veggie bowl. With two seasoning packets, I throw in a whole bunch of green onions, a pack of enoki mushrooms, a bag of bok choy which I shred, a block of cubed tofu (non-GMO), and crack 6 eggs into the broth.

This, in addition to other dinner items, can last 2-3 days worth of dinners for Ryan and I (not the kiddies since it is a little spicy and contains eggs.) I love it though! Perfect for the cooler weather now.

Family Climbing Time

Proud parent moment! Watching my kiddo scale the walls of the climbing gym on her own with no fear! She climbed 5x on the face of the kiddie wall with ease.



Then we moved her to the general wall which was a bit harder. E managed to make it half-way up before tiring out.



Liam did not want to climb, but both kids had fun being in the climbing gym. All in all, I think it was a good experience and exposure. The adults can't really climb yet when the kids are there, but hopefully we'll get to a point where the whole family can climb together.

Frozen

All the way from Erendale, Elsa made an appearance at one of Emilia's friend's birthday party. Notice how all the little kiddies can sing along to the song!



On a side note, there was a fitness challenge on Halloween... to do 10 burpees for each Elsa costume one saw. I knew better than to sign up for THAT challenge.

Emilia practicing patience while waiting for her turn to meet Elsa.

Elsa paints pretty pink snowflakes on Emilia's hand and face.

This is what Liam's doing instead of meeting Elsa.

School buddies.

The kiddos love birthday parties!