Mix Family

Our friends had a couple extra tickets to the premiere of Warren Miller's "Dynasty". It was a good time! I'll stick to skate skiing and let Cannon dream about doing this kind of stuff...

I'm in week 5 of my recovery from surgery and feeling well. The 2 biggest issues in this recovery are 1) not exercising and 2) having Cannon here 24/7. I'm a different woman, and not for the better, when I can't exercise. I don't do it to get skinny because I've never been skinny. I do it to stay sane! Speaking of sanity, having Cannon here all the time is so weird. He travels a lot as it is. So having him here, here is pretty surreal. Not at the office. At home. As I speak, he's on a 3 hour conference call. We can't seem to get away from each other. Everywhere I go, there he is. And every time he tries to start a project, I've got something I need help with. We are used to being independent and operating in our respective microcosms. So me being needy and him being needed all the time is totally uncomfortable for both of us!! But we love each other and so we are managing well. Except for the times we are nagging and yipping at each other! Ha, ha!

Caleb is just darling and sweet as always. Since his tonsil/adenoid surgery, he is talking and learning to vocalize new words and phrases each day. What a relief. It could have been a speech impediment, it could have been a hearing problem. Fortunately, it was enlarged tonsils. Besides being darling, he is a holy terror in the house. I say "holy" because he's innocent enough but I say "terror" because he knows enough to wreak havoc on anything not bolted down. The worst is when I catch him or walk up on him when he's holding something he shouldn't, like a stack of recordable CD's, a box full of nails, a tube of unsquoze (is that a word?) toothpaste, my face powder, a bag of pasta--you get the idea...I try not to scare him or sound too upset because what he'll do is (with lightening speed), throw said items up in the air, as hard as he can, successfully scattering or smearing the stuff everywhere and then he runs as fast as he can.

His favorite phrase right now is "Are you okay?" and "Are you alright?" He mostly says it to himself when he purposely throw himself off his toy car, or off the couch, or the swinging rings.

Still no snow here--amazing! Lots of gray days and plenty of rain but no ice or snow.

Hopefully I can get pictures to upload soon so that you can see his halibut costume that I've made. Yep, that's right...he's going to be a baby halibut. Talk about the cutest catch ever!

Yesterday Cannon had the day off and had helped carve up a moose for the widows in our church. He was sent home with a little rib meat. Rib meat is good for hamburger or sausage. If you've never had moose breakfast sausage, you haven't lived. Lived in Alaska, that is. Moose is so lean that fat has to be added to it so the suet (pork fat) is on the left in a bag, the moose meat is getting cut into pieces...

...and then he fed it into the meat grinder. After grinding it into sausage, we seasoned it with maple breakfast sausage seasoning. We bagged it in little 1 lb bags, tied 'em and froze 'em. This morning we cooked some up and it was really good! Very mild with just a hint of maple. Went great with our pancakes! Just another day in the life of an Alaskan.

*Sidestory*: Last week we went to McDonalds and after taking a bite of my hamburger I asked Cannon if he would taste it because the meat tasted funny to me, like it was bad. He took a bite and then said "Honey, it's beef, that's what tastes funny. You're too used to moose meat!" It was funny and true. We got a good laugh out of it.

These next 2 photos are totally random but very cute. Caleb loves to put on and march around in his Xtra Tuff boots. And he loves to snoop around in the fridge for treats...

Speaking of lying around, I spend a lot of time in this chair. I've had to really watch myself around Caleb. It is difficult not to pick him up and when he gives me a hug, I've got this neck brace in the way. The other day he was pretty fed up with it and pretty tired. He ended up crawling onto my lap and falling asleep. He hasn't fallen asleep in my lap for ages and it was the next best thing to picking him up or holding him. (By the way, I was finishing up "The Zookeeper's Wife". Great book!)

So what does one do when one can't do much? At the Grand Opening of Target last night we found the capsules that grow animals. So this morning we plopped 3 different animals pills into the water...

...and watched them grow...

...pretty cool. Except it only took like 5 minutes, so what to do the rest of the day? It's been foggy and overcast all day. Fortunately there are still colored leaves on the trees. Much too soon there will be no color and all will be white, gray and black....mostly white.

Since I'm officially an awesome mama, I decided that I would teach my 2.5 yr old son to make creme' brule'.  He has picked it up nicely except the torching at the finality is still left to a grown up.  He loves to experiment with the reactions of different flavors in a childs pallet.  the savory creme and the butter when melted over a low sooty flame and then mixed with a fine cacao' of about 71%  He loves the reaction of the baking soda an lecithin as it emulsifies and creates strategies of subtle amalgamation on your taste buds.