kind of bruin

Work sent me to AZ to attend a Roundabout Seminar, which was pretty good. One night I drove around Phenix, and tried to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s house, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale. Unfortunately, I made it at 5:58 while the place closed at 6:00. Oh well. Today (yesterday in EST) I drove up to Flagstaff after the conference ended. I made a slight detour through Sedona on the way and saw some red dirt and rocks. Tomorrow I head to the Grand Canyon and Friday I will fly home. Yepee.Link

With all of the grandparents and Aunt Chrissy down, we had some cake and presents for Ewan’s almost second birthday. He wanted the cake. We made him wait for the candles. Everyone sang. With all of the waiting, Ewan was pretty upset. He eventually calmed down and even wanted to blow out some extra candles, and eventually ripped into his presents.

Link

Before and After

Last weekend we, with some help from the parentals, replaced the carpet and linoleum from our living room and kitchen and replaced it with some wood looking flooring.  It was more hard to rip up the linoleum than any thing else. We got all the flooring down, except the trim on Saturday and Sunday, and have spent the past week bringing all the crap back in the rooms.

I made my Grandma Ramsdell’s Chicken Noodle Soup a couple of Sundays ago.  I got the recipe from my mom who learned how to make it from my dad’s mom.

Put the following in a pot to cook

• Chicken (couple of lbs dark and white meat on the bone with its skin),
• Celery (a stalk or four),
• Carrots (until the orange circles are not lost in the soup),
• Onion (1 medium sized diced),
• Organic MSG Free Chicken Broth (2 medium cardboard boxes when all told)
• Salt and Pepper To Taste

When chicken is cooked, pull it out of the soup. Discard bones, skin, and fat. Cube chicken meat. Add back to soup.

Make Noodles. (I made double the following.)

• 2 c. flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 1/4 to 1/2 c. water

1. Mix flour and salt
2. Make well in flour & add eggs into the well
3. Hand mix
4. Add water 1 tbs. at a time while still mixing until the mixture becomes a ball
   • Be careful to not too add too much water or it becomes soupy and you have to add more flour
5. Kneed Ball for 10 min.
6. Let Ball rest for 10 min.
7. Divide dough into 4 parts.
8. Roll out the dough into a thin circle and cut into noodles
9. Throw noodles in soup and boil until the noodles are done

Sue said the noodles were too long, but that is how they were supposed to be. Every one but Ewan liked it, but he is really picky now and won’t eat much besides grilled cheese and spaghetti.

1)2)3)

4)5)6)

1. Sue goes out to dinner with Janell and Sarah.
2. Retiree gets badge.
3. Thriving bundle of joy.
4. Ewan vs Salsa.
5. Aunt Maryann makes Christine a (very long) stocking to replace her puffy-painted one and more closer resemble her sisters (stockings).
6. Dad takes Ewan to the plant place so mom can work on the weekend for the glory and profit of McGH.

Link to set of above and more…