What's Been Making "Tic" Lately

Yes. I'm back. Life is busy as usual. Busy, but good. The kids finished school and we hit the ground running. Abby went straight into her Girl Scout camp for a week, and this week Sam is at his Cub Scout day camp. Next week he has a five night (overnight) Webelos camp! During all of this, we are squeezing in swim practice for the neighborhood swim team. They walk to swim practice so it doesn't require too much from me. Sam still rides his bike to piano every Tuesday afternoon. I just can't believe I'm at this place. It felt like it would be forever before they could do stuff like this. They are growing and maturing and I love to watch it all happen before my eyes. I just don't want to miss anything.

Yesterday we spent the day at Six Flags and the kids really enjoyed it. At first, Ben and Mary had to adjust to the crowds. Mary didn't want to ride any rides except the train, carousel and the Old Time Cars, but she seemed content to just look at the sites and ride in the stroller. Ben enjoyed the Log Flume, but was too scared to be in the dark for the Scooby Doo ride (after all, he sleeps with his lamp light on!). Abby didn't want to do any roller coasters, but she liked the Log Flume and the Scooby Doo ride. Sam rode the wooden roller coaster, The Boss, with me and that was plenty for him for the day. The rest of his rides were calmer (mine train, Scooby Doo, etc.). He doesn't like rides that take you upside down. It's funny how we are all so different, with our own little fear buttons. Ben and Sam wanted to ride the Tony Hawk spin, but the line was too long. We'll do it another time when it's not so new and in demand.

We were a little surprised at how the day went off without a hitch. We enjoyed something as a family! Success!! I've posted some pictures, but you can see more if you click on the "flickr" pictures to the right of my entry. I've added a lot more new pictures, too.

On to other exciting news, last night I set my alarm at 1:40am. Why would I do such a thing?? To bid on a mini-disc recorder of course!! And I won! It is a Sony MZ-N707 and it came with everything, including 50 mini-discs (too many actually) and a stereo microphone for recording. I am so excited!! I got the bundle for $106 plus $15 in shipping. Now I can post more sound bytes from the homestead, record more music for my PTO slide show, add songs to the CD for Children's Liturgy, maybe record more of my own music, and simply use it as a player and one stop storage for all of my music (I don't have much...but this might encourage me to collect more).

What else...oh yah...one night last week I made another homemade pizza and I liked it so much, I have to share my ingredients. Pizza has to be one of my favorite foods. Mainly because, you can make it whatever you want. I like being creative with my toppings. Here is what I did...I made the dough in the bread maker and rolled out two pizza crusts. Then I rubbed them both with EV Olive Oil and sprinkled them with garlic, salt and grated Parmesan. I've always felt my dough could use more flavor. I then baked them at 475 for about 10 minutes. When they came out I made one for the kids with sauce and cheese and the other one was for us...which is the good part. I had a chicken already cooked and cut up that I wanted to use on the pizza and new that some sort of white, or oil sauce would go best. I found some artichoke pesto that I've been using on paninis and figured it would be a great base. I spread that on the pizza and mixed in a little olive oil to make it less pasty. I then topped it with chicken, roasted red pepper, onions, mushrooms, and pre-shredded "Italian Cheese" (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Asiago, Fontina and Romano). It was so yummy!! I will definitely do it again. I wrote it all down so I won't forget.

OK...time to go...Need to get some things done while Mary is sleeping.