Williamsburg Visit

This weekend we went to Williamsburg, VA. We left town Friday after Chris got off of work as I was granted the day off from work about three Thursday afternoon. We made it and then got up early on Saturday and went to the Mariner's Museum. It was a lot of fun to see the different ships and such. After our trip to the Mariner's Museum we went to the Williamsburg Winery. We had a fun winery tour which A managed to sleep through. She had a very good nap and the tour guide was rather impressed that she slept so well. We ended up using the winery to get several good photos of the munchkin for her 2 year pictures. :) Hopefully soon we will have those to distribute to everyone, but it will take our friend a while to process them a bit I imagine.

Sunday we went to Jamestown. We went before it got super hot. The original settlement was interesting and then we got to both explore the cargo ships that brought the people over from England as well as listen/watch an artillery demonstration. Since the original fort was there we also got to play in it. I got to be a pikeman in a pike block and the A got to be a musketeer in training. She was young and needed a lot of help, but she wanted to do it. We had gone into the armory and an actor was asking little kids if they wanted to be a musketeer, all the boys (who were 7-10) plus A (who just turned 2) wanted to do it. She then didn't want to give the wooden musket back. Our friend got several pictures so hopefully one or two came out acceptably.

This morning we went to the VA Aquarium in Virginia Beach. It was about an hour drive from Williamsburg, but helped break up the trip a little for us. We got to see all sorts of animals and A loved the fish. She also talked all day about wanting to see the otters. She really likes otters apparently, but they are fun animals so I get the attraction. Here are some pictures from our short venture:

walking in

watching some fish

in the aquarium tube

trying to pet the rays

figuring out the lighting scheme our friends devised

Otter swimming in the sun

"How old are you?" "TWO!"

Yesterday was A's second birthday! We had afternoon snack with her class at school and it was a lot of fun. Her friend came back to school just for the party and the class as a whole had a blast! We did frozen yogurt sundaes with blackberries, raspberries, bananas and m&ms. Overall it was a lot of fun and both Chris and I got to go. Here are a picture of A with her daddy at school:

He was a HUGE hit and she had to grant permission for people to sit on his lap. They asked her. We are kind of concerned/amused by this type of development. I've noticed when I drop her off that the kids in her class always say hello to her and bring her a stuffed puppy that she apparently loves. It is like the offering they bring her when I set her down in the classroom. We're hoping it is because she is sooooo sweet (which everyone says she is) and not because she is a tyrant. We find it curious that she has her 2 year old friends "trained" (for lack of a better word) to do this though.

She also has known it is her birthday so it has been a lot of fun. If you ask her whose birthday it is she says, "ME!" and then when you ask her how old she is she answers, "Two!" I have it on video, but will have to get it some other time. 

We did cake for her last night and opened her presents. She got a lot of Dr. Seuss books, enough that I'm deeming this her Dr. Seuss birthday. She loves them though and wants to read each one of the every day. She also got new shoes, which she refuses to take off really. She is definitely going to be a shoe girl, so we are in trouble. She also got a lot of good clothes. We are clearly blessed. Here are a couple of pictures of her cupcake from last night:

 

Today we had several of her church friends over for more cake and ice cream. We were originally going to go to the park, but we got our weekend downpour about the time we were starting to party so it ended up being at our place. We had six kids with parents in our place and it was fun. We did some fingerpainting (a wonderful grandparent sent her all the colors imaginable for fingerpaints), some toy playing and some tricycle riding. They sort of interacted with each other, and it was fun with the three boys (all brothers) that were here. Here are some pictures of the party today: 

Monday Morning

Last weekend was Mother's Day and we had a lot of fun. I made a peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip scones. They were tasty and fairly easy to make. The recipe is originally found here. Of course I made a few modifications, but they turned out rather well and everyone liked them. They are so good that when we go places for vacations I'm contemplating making some before hand so that I can eat them while on vacation.

Yield: 12 scones
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour --  2/3 C Sorghum, 1/3 C Arrowroot, 1/3 C Oat, 2/3 C Rice
1 cup traditional rolled oats
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
¾ cup buttermilk -- Sour Cream
1 egg, separated
½ cup chunky peanut butter --Its peanut butter, just make sure it is room temperature and will mix well
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Raw sugar, for sprinkling -- Cinnamon Sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In a large bowl  Mixer, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the butter and mix until it looks like corn meal or pie crust before you add water.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk sour cream and the egg yolk -- I used a 2 C measuring cup and simply used it to mix the stuff together.
4. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour the buttermilk mixture into the center of the well, then add the peanut butter. Using a rubber spatula, very gently fold the mixture together until it starts to come together. Add the chocolate chips and gently knead with your hands (in the bowl) until just incorporated.  Pour the sour cream/egg mixture into the mixer and mix on low until just mixed. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula. Be careful not to overmix the dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto the parchment-lined baking sheet and pat it into a round disk about 8 inches in diameter. Whisk the egg white, then brush the top of the dough with the egg white, and sprinkle with the additional sugar.
6. Cut the dough into wedges (do not separate them -- I separated mine and they lost a bit of their shape) and bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the scones are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then re-slice and separate them. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, or serve slightly warm. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

After Sunday comes Monday though, and we had a Monday. No sooner had I walked into work and turned on my computer did I get a call from my manager to go to A's day school. I didn't get a reason or anything, just to go. I did and A was jumping (with a chair involved somehow) and managed to put one tooth through her lip completely and a second one almost all the way through. All of the teeth looked fine and she was bleeding a little. I was against taking her to the emergency room because clearly she wasn't in pain or anything really, it was just oozing a bit. I felt strong-armed but did it anyway. I took her to urgent care as a compromise and it took three hours. Ugh. However, they ended up glueing her lip back and off we went. The worst part was numbing the lip, but that was over quickly. Here are a couple of pictures from our first Urgent Care trip:

Oozing blood and such

After we were going back to school, she was hungry and tired and not sure what to think about the lip. The white spot is the numb area.

Orchids

We made what has become our monthly trip to Biltmore this weekend. The Sehorns from OK were in town so it made a nice destination since the weather on the mountain was, well, let's just say less than ideal. We'll also say that I'm concerned about the budding plants in my garden as they may get a bit of frost bite. Not exactly May weather here from what I understand. We managed to tour the entire house which was a lot of fun and went a lot quicker without the gazillion people there. Since it is in the middle of the "Biltmore Blooms" festival we expected it to be crowded, but it really wasn't crowded at all. We say a ton of orchids in the winter solarium in the house and then also in the conservatory. Here are some of the pictures from the conservatory.

A also managed to use a public toilet for the first time. This isn't big news, but is exciting because it was our huge hurdle to getting her completely potty trained. She wouldn't go on a public toilet that didn't have her seat to save her life. So much so that both Chris and I have contemplated making a portable, disposable small seat that would fit kind of like seat covers do, but would have enough support that a small child could sit on it and use the toilet.

Chris has some great pictures because his grandma gave A a sucker the size of her face. Grandma originally wanted to get A a sucker that had a diameter larger than A's torso, but we talked her down to the small one. A knew exactly what to do with it, and since it was mainly sugar it just started falling a part. We will have to finish it sometime when we can hose A off with the garden hose. Though right now we can simply stick her outside and she'll get a good dose of water. We have some localized flooding and thankfully our basement isn't yet. We have had lights flicker, it is mainly just rain, rain, and more rain, no thunder or anything crazy.

Anyway, it has been a fun exhausting weekend here. I hope everything is going well where you are.

Unrecognized USB device

For a long time A has liked plugging things into the computer and daily waits for us to let her do it herself. She is big into doing things herself these days. The first time she plugged something into Chris' computer she put one end of the cable in her mouth and became, "an unrecognized USB device" according to the computer. Now she is typing! She also has the remnants of our frozen yogurt trip on her face. :)

This past Friday A's school had a Family Fun Day. I got to go and slide on a big blow up slide with her. She apparently helped her friend get over being scared to go through the bouncy castle. The teacher keeps commenting on how little A is, but fearless. We are aware of the fearlessness, we kind of wish she'd at least develop a healthy fear of gravity. She managed to roll out of her bed this week actually.

Yes, I'm rather tired, but wanted to put something up for you to see. Our weeks have been good, we had a lot of sun this past week, and it will be mirrored with a lot of rain this coming week. The mountains are finally starting to turn green up here.

Laughing at a 2 year old

A has been a pill since about 20 minutes outside of town on the way home tonight. She has been yelling, screaming, basically being a 2 year old since then. She normally gets better when we get home, but that didn't work. She wanted to be "held" and didn't like the fact that she was in a car seat. She keeps going on and on about something, but won't tell us or show us. Currently she is working on thrashing about on the floor.

Chris just asked her, "What crawled into your diaper?"
She responded with, "Me."

You can't beat comedic timing like that.

Kitchen Experiments -- Key Lime Meringue

So we had some key limes to use. A lot of key limes in fact. Enough key limes that when juiced made over 1/3 C of juice. So what to do with key lime juice became the question. I  decided to make a key lime meringue. I essentially took an Alton Brown lemon meringue pie (found here) and modified it a bit. The biggest modification was substituting key lime juice for the lemon juice. I noted the modifications with italics. (Yes, I believe I can modify something that even the great Alton Brown puts down as a recipe.)

Ingredients
Lemon Filling:

4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water 

1 1/3 cups sugar -- I used half regular sugar, half vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup key lime juice + a splash of lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon finely grated key lime zest

1/2 TBS vanilla
1 (9-inch) pre-baked pie shell -- I used a basic pie crust recipe that had no foods I couldn't eat
1 recipe Meringue, recipe follows

Directions

 

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk egg yolks in medium size mixing bowl and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine water, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine. Turn heat on medium and, stirring frequently, bring mixture to a boil. Slowly add in the cornstarch at this point. Boil for 1 minute, or until clear. Remove from heat and gradually, 1 whisk-full at a time, add hot mixture to egg yolks and stir until you have added at least half of the mixture.

Return egg mixture to saucepan, turn heat down to low and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 more minute. Remove from heat and gently stir in butter, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest until well combined. Pour mixture into pie shell and top with meringue while filling is still hot. Make sure meringue completely covers filling and that it goes right up to the edge of the crust. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until meringue is golden. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Make sure pie is cooled completely before slicing. Refrigerate before slicing to ensure it is cool through.

 

Meringue

4 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar I didn't add any since I didn't have any
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and then gradually add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Use to top key lime filling.

 

The meringue is nothing special but the vanilla sugar makes it taste a bit calmer with the tartness of the key limes. Beware this much key lime is eye popping tart.

Chris really likes it and I really like it. It would work well with the lemon filling as well. I think I would make the same modifications to the lemon pie (vanilla and such) as I did to the key lime pie. Chris thinks it is better than lemon meringue, though that may be what happens next week as we have a bunch of lemons that need to be used soon. :) I will probably make some lemon poppyseed muffins and then a lemon meringue pie. 

 

This was my second attempt at a meringue ever and my first attempt at a meringue at altitude. It didn't rise as much as I would have liked, but we will see if it gets better with the lemon meringue. I knew I couldn't do it last week because of all the rain, so it was nice to get the drier weather the past couple of days.

 

We originally thought of making a traditional key lime pie, but since cheesecakes at altitude are practically impossible we opted to try something completely new. As with most of our kitchen experiments it turned out well. Even scrapping the pan for the filling was tasty stuff. 

 

Okay, after writing this I suppose I need to go get a piece of pie.