BIG and small

BIG

Introducing "Attila the Tongue"

Meet the newest member of our family, saved from a possible vehicular squashing by none other than Kevin, the inveterate critter catcher. He proudly arrived home Wednesday evening carrying his prize catch for the day. Although originally intended for dinner (Kevin is trying to find redemption from his unsuccessful elk hunt), it has been claimed by Ian as his new pet. The logic: "If Megan can have a pet hamster, I can have a pet bullfrog." End of discussion.

small

Grandpa Tsukamoto sent the children a new supply of Origami paper this week. While looking at some Origami pictures on Flickr, Megan found inspiration from this photo. She folded a small crane, looked back at the Flickr photo, and saw it wasn't small enough. So she persisted until she was satisfied that this third attempt was indeed smaller. Megan's crane is posing on Kevin's thumb.

Stay tuned for Megan's next Flickr-inspired photo project: "Attila the Tongue Meets Mr. Fly"

15-Year Anniversary Surprise

Everyone likes a surprise, right?

Well, have we got a BIG SURPRISE to announce!!!

No, we are NOT announcing a pregnancy--why would you get that idea? Aren't you content with our three nearly-perfect children?






Let's see...we'd better start with some background information...


On the 8th of August this year we celebrated our 15-year anniversary. We have never been very good at celebrating our anniversary, partly because for the first 6 years of our marriage we were usually out doing field work in August. One of our more successful anniversary celebrations was when we were trapping bears in the Book Cliffs and went for an evening 4-wheeler ride. Kevin caught a porcupine that night, which was very flattering. Another particularly romantic getaway was when April was 6 weeks pregnant (with Megan) in the hot Yuma desert--she felt like puking while we hiked around a desert nature preserve in >100-degree heat. Anyway, this year it fell on a Wednesday, and we hardly got to see each other between Kevin's work and meetings, so it was, once again, largely uneventful (Kevin's attempt to save the evening was to buy 15 candy bars on his way home from work--and that was about the extent of our celebrations).



However, Kevin was scheming of some way to truly celebrate 15 years together. Knowing April's frugal nature, he could hardly get away with planning an extravagant vacation that involved more than a trip to Salt Lake, but he came across an interesting opportunity on a wiki website that he was working on with his students.



Bottom line: For the second time in his life, Kevin has WON A TRIP TO AUSTRALIA!!! (Chris--can you help calculate the odds of such an occurrence??) In 2000 he won a drawing for a travel gift certificate and we took the family to Perth. However, this time he can only take one person, much to the dismay of his adorable offspring. And that person is his devoted wife and companion of 15 years.


For your amusement, here is Kevin's entry for the contest. Yes, it is legitimate (or so he claims--April will believe it when she boards the plane). You can see videos from past winning entries here as well as enter the newest contest yourself at aussieweek.com. It is "only" a week-long trip, and we have to promote the idea that you can go to Australia and have a really good time even if you only have a week to visit. Kevin's choice was to go to Brisbane but "due to availability" we "only" get to go to Sydney. So, we have to fly all the way to Sydney, stay in the hotels of their choosing, be a part of some fun activities every day, take pictures and video to share with others, and then fly all the way back home--all before Nov 30th. Sounds tough, doesn't it?



We will keep you posted when we know more specifics. We are aiming to leave in early November. In the meantime, there is a new contest for our readers to enter:


ENTER NOW TO WIN FREE PARENTING EXPERIENCE!

No purchase necessary to win. Simply write a short essay explaining why you would be the perfect person(s) to care for 3 nearly perfect children for ONE WHOLE WEEK. The winner will have the opportunity to: cook meals that will not be eaten, settle squabbles between siblings, shuttle children to and from piano and karate lessons, entertain, teach eager minds, change diapers or potty train (your choice), read stories, assist with pet care, wrestle, receive good-night hugs, and stay up late with a nocturnal three-year old. Successful applicants must be willing to submit to an extensive background check. In the case of a tie between applicants, the week of parenting experience will be divided among winners.

Plums & Grapes

What does one do with beautiful, ripe, plums?

EAT THEM!





DRY THEM INTO FRUIT LEATHER AND PRUNES!





JUICE THEM!





What does one do with baskets of white and purple Concord grapes?

MAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF YUMMY JUICE!

Autumn near Cache Valley

We didn't want to miss the beautiful autumn leaves this year, so we took a hike up Rattlesnake Trail on Tuesday afternoon. Ian's friend Andrew joined us. The children played some frisbee in the meadow near the beginning of the trail, while Erin and April picked leaves and ate some elderberries. Yuki went berserk running to her heart's content and examining all the interesting scents. We hope she didn't find anything too disgusting to ingest when she disappeared for several minutes and wouldn't respond to our calls.

And we had yet another possible sighting of the last child in the woods...

...Speaking of which, the annual Bioneers Conference is coming up October 19-21. Cheryl Charles will be speaking at the Logan Tabernacle at 7:00 p.m. Friday, October 19. This talk is free of charge and open to the public.

Another Internet Distraction

Creative Ways to Eat Zucchini

Does anyone ever lack zucchini during the fall harvest season? This year we decided to expand our repertoire from our standard zucchini bread and zucchini chowder, and we have tried out several different dishes. Most of these are thanks to The Classic Zucchini Cookbook, which I borrowed from the library. For these recipes, I always grated the zucchini instead of slicing or dicing because I found my children ate it better--they don't always like the texture of the larger slices.






The first recipe I tried out was Ground Beef and Zucchini Italian Casserole. I forgot to take a photo of the final product before we ate it all. I made this one night when we had a lot of interruptions (phone ringing, mouse customers stopping by, 2-year-old screaming, just to mention a few), and we didn't sit down to eat until 7:30 p.m. I think the reason the children loved it was because they were so hungry they didn't care what they ate.






We next present Summer Squash Enchiladas. I used less fresh peppers because I didn't want to make it too spicy for the children. However, both Kevin and I thought it could have used the full amount. We also thought it could have used more cheese. Child assessment: Erin ate only the tortillas and scraped away the insides. Ian picked out all the tomatoes, but he liked the enchiladas better than Megan. None of the children asked for seconds.

The Zucchini Quiche we ate last night received a much higher rating from Megan. I changed the recipe a bit to make it more palatable (and therefore more unhealthy), but it was a hit. I added some crumbled bacon, used colby-jack cheese, and only used 1 C. of milk. I further cheated by enlisting the help of Marie Callender in providing a premade pie crust which happened to be in our freezer. It also took 30 minutes longer to bake than the recipe said, so once again we ate a late dinner.











For our FHE treat, we ate Squice Cake, which we had already made before for Ian's cake contest, and we already knew it was delicious. We thank Janell for providing this lovely photo because we were too lazy (and full of zucchini products) to take our own.









I am not sure we successfully linked the recipes to this post, so let me know if other users can access them (although by this point in time you are all probably sick of zucchini, plus your plants have probably frozen).