Friday, September 26, 2008

Texas State Fair

The State Fair. We have only been once since we moved to Texas. It is pretty expensive, but the kids get a free ticket at school. I think it's a trick because the kids have a free ticket, which gets the paying parents there.

In addition to the corn dogs, turkey drumsticks, funnel cakes, and other common fair food, each year they have a contest to come up with new fried foods. In the past it has been: twinkies, snickers, Coca-Cola, cookie dough, etc. This article was in the paper telling about the winners for this year. CAUTION: Just reading this might clog your arteries!!

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CHICKEN-FRIED BACON-- Really, are you going to go to the fair and not try it? It is what it is: a wide slice of bacon, breaded and fried, with a side of ranch (yes!) or honey mustard. It won the best-taste award. Bonus points for being easy to share, which is good because something bad might happen if you eat a whole order

FRIED BANANA SPLIT--Oh, man. Tell your compadres it's too messy to share, then eat the whole thing yourself. The fried element here is balls of banana and honey peanut butter, all buried under caramel and chocolate syrups, peanuts and more. It was named most creative.

TEXAS FRIED JELLY BELLYS --Imagine, if you can or want to, fluffy balls of funnel cake batter hiding a scoop of Jelly Bellys. Each ball contains a different flavor. Buy an order for the kids – they're not too messy and are easy to share.

FERNIE'S ALL-AMERICAN FRIED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH-- Panko coating adds crunch to this basic grilled cheese. Tomato soup stands in as dip. It's good but lacks the outrageousness factor.

DEEP FRIED S'MORES --The original is stunning in its simplicity. Battered and fried, it becomes transcendent, the flavors melding into a fabulous, gooey whole. Don't burn your tongue.

FIRE & ICE --The buzz here is the topper of whipped cream frozen in liquid nitrogen. But do you really want hard chunks of smoking whipped cream on top of your dessert? The fried pineapple ring is a yummy base for strawberries, syrup and the curious banana-flavored cream.

FRIED CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES --These are more like chocolate-filled donuts. The filling is made with dark chocolate, which seems oddly sophisticated in this setting.

CHOCOLATE-COVERED STRAWBERRY WAFFLE BALLS --Big strawberries, dipped in chocolate, battered and fried? I could eat a lot of these – given a plate and fork. But they're served on a tiny stick. Mine went spinning after each bite. Proceed with cautious abandon.
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If you want to know all the food that's available, here's a link to a list of even more, including "Crispy Fried Cantaloupe Pie" http://www.bigtex.com/foodlocator/

It was fun the year we went, but we will not be attending the fair this year. My bank account and arteries have already thanked me.

Camping Boys

Jonah had 5th grade camp this week. Joe "got" to go chaperone. They were gone for 3 days and 2 nights. They had fun. This is after 3 days of camping, walking, canoeing, walking, archery, campfires, playing, walking, sleeping on cots, and walking. Jonah didn't like the walking, and the funniest part was Jonah had Scouts on the day they got home. Do you know what their activity was? They went on a 3 mile 'hike.' ( not many places to hike in Texas so they walked from the church to a nearby park and back) Jonah slept very well that night! Jonah took some pictures with a disposable camera-I need to get them developed and see what fun things he took pictures of.
My hubby after 3 days of not shaving :)

Sunday, September 21, 2008

True Texan??

Balloons

There was a balloon festival near our house this weekend. We were able to see them from our house and saved tons of money.
This picture is taken from upstairs. The kids were really excited and running from room to room and shouting out how many balloons they could see.
There were quite a number of them up in a big cluster.
On Friday the wind was blowing in our favor and all the balloons started heading our way. On Saturday and Sunday none of them even came close so we were glad we got to see them on Friday!
This was taken from our kitchen window Friday night as we ate dinner.
This safari balloon landed just across the street in a vacant lot. A friend that lives in our neighborhood called and said that there were 2 landing close to her house.

This one was heading our way.

This was also taken from our kitchen window.

It continued over the side of the house was flying right over our backyard.

It was close enough to get a closeup of the people inside.


This one is a pirate one.

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Moon

This is what I saw this morning when I woke up and looked out the window.The moon was so bright. The picture doesn't show the brightness and beauty of it, but it was a great thing to wake up to.

Hurricane Ike

Ike veered to the East so we didn't get the severe weather that some did,
but we got a lot of rain and wind.
Singing in the Rain. The boys had fun playing out in the rain

Almost Twins! :)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

First day of Preschool

Jaren started preschool yesterday. He will go 2 afternoons a week at the high school for their Child Development class. He has been so excited to go. He can be very shy though, and I was worried that he wouldn't want me to leave. We got ready, packed his snack and juice in a lunch box, got his backpack and away we went.
I was preparing myself for drama and crying and pulling a clinging child off of me. We went in and he found his cubby, hung up his backpack, and reached up to hug me. I picked him up and hugged and kissed him, and set him down. He said goodbye to Jaxon and walked right in...without looking back. I just stood there thinking, "That's it??" I got a little teary. I stood there not knowing what to do. After a while, I thought, "OK" and Jaxon and I left. I guess I should be happy that he went with out the drama.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Tour

A family from our ward invited us to go with their family on a tour of McDonalds. It was a lot of fun, and very interesting. I thought it would be a short tour, but ended up being a little over an hour. The tour guide was a corporate guy that was so good with kids. He was enthusiastic and lots of fun.

Raiding the pantry.

We learned that McD's sells the most coke, potatoes and apples in the world. The coke and cooking oil are "deposited" into big tanks in the building like a gas truck would fill up a petrol station; weekly. In the fride and freezer, we discovered frozen square eggs, margarine in detergent-style jugs, and mayonnaise in caulking tubes. ???

After leaving the -10 degree freezer, the glasses fogged up

The best part was at the end when we all got a free ice cream cone or sundae!