My Nursery Leaders are Cooler than Yours

Your nursery leaders might be a grandparents in their 60s like ours, but are they stock car race drivers? Ours are! They and their son race stock cars. I'm especially impressed with sister Kahler because she is one of 7 women out of a field of about 80 contenders on the track. Her favorite moment was when she was driving on the WALL of the track, "I looked out my side window and all I could see was dirt! I had a choice to slow down and fall on my roof or go faster and hopefull right myself." She chose speed. That manuever made it onto the track video screen. She also does all her own auto mechanics and retrofiting. She says her husband and son are busy on their cars, so she figures she should do her own. Right now, she says, her car is in pieces, the only thing intact is the engine block. I have two things to say about these people: I totally admire them, and no wonder they are always smiling! Gotta love the South!

Meet me at the Fair

We attended the Delta Fair last weekend, and our first stop was the Farmer's Market where we learned a little about the life of bees! A young man with many tattoos showed us this observation frame you can see behind the boys. He told us a lot of fascinating things like how the new queen chirps when she emerges from her cell, bringing on a confrontation with the old queen wherein they battle it out, and whomever loses is ushered out by the worker bees. Also, the male drones are kicked out of the hive every autumn. Pretty amazing stuff about them bees.

Here's Trace. I need to take more pictures of this cute meister. He's growing up so fast!

The boys crawling on a ATV on display next to the hall where the beauty pageant was going on. An interesting slice of Southern life.

Speaking of interesting slices of culture. We got our first exposure to the roller derby. These ladies are not so intent on being beauties. I'm pretty sure the aim is intimidation by scariness. Yes, that is underwear over the top of the red and black leopard leggings--it really completes the outfit. Clint and I were pretty fascinated by this punkette subculture. It is actually a sport. As far as we could make it out: two skaters race around the track to complete a certain number of laps. Meanwhile there is a herd of skaters that they have to skate through who block them, shove them down or run interference for them, depending upon whose team they are on. Kind of like mud wrestling on wheels. Once we figured it out it was time to leave. I was relieved to hear Cole say, "This is boring!" If he thought the girls were hot, I'd have felt really guilty for corrupting my son.

Next we checked out the helicopter rides which were only $10--unbelievable!! But of course it was broken down. Bummer. I've never ridden in a helicopter and I feel so jipped.

Next was the Jousting Tournament. "Carnies on horses," quoth Clint. We had a great seat and it was fun. But it was also really hot. Because the crowd was lethargic and didn't cheer on the good guy enough, the bad guy won. Shucks.

This was the only ride of the day. It moved so slowly I'm pretty sure it had no Gs at all, but the boys thought it was a blast. I'm just glad they are up for rides now, and glad they are not in a hurry to be too old for kiddie things. I'd rather they take their sweet time growing up.

We left before they got thrown in a real one of these. I actually took the older 3 boys back 2 days later--glutton for punishment. I saw the helicopter flying and I wanted to give it one more try. But this time there were 42 people in front of us. I figured that was at least a 2 hour wait in the hot sun with four boys. It wasn't worth it. I know a helicopter pilot. I'll just have to have him get me a ride someday. It would probably be cheaper to rent a helicopter than to pay any more admissions to a fair!

Conflict-free Gourmet Cooking

My belly is so fat and happy because tonight I made Tortellini with Chicken and Gorgonzola Cream Sauce. How did the kids like it? I wouldn't know. They didn't get any. I have a whole handful of "Mikey's." The most traumatic night in their life to date was the night I made lasagna--horror of horrors! Since then we've come to a grumpy truce. They don't have to eat anything I cook, but they are to keep negative comments to themselves and they get to get their own dinner. Still I usually try to make my meals so that at least half the pasta or rice is plain, etc. and it's left me not able to cook many of the yummy recipes I'd like to. Today I had a brain-wave. It was fast Sunday and the boys had all gorged on leftover pizza after church. That meant I could cook whatever I wanted for just Clint and me to break our fast. So I set a nice table for two and we enjoyed some whine-free dining. So here's the dish:

Tortellini with Chicken & Gorgonzola Cream Sauce
prep time: 15 min.
cook time: 15 min.
Serves 6 (or 2, three times!)

2 packages 9 oz. cheese tortellini
1 T. olive oil
3 Chicken breasts cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 garlic clove minced (I always put in 4-6)
1 medium onion chopped
1 t. finely chopped sage leaves
2 cups fresh white mushrooms (or 1 can)
1/4 c. white wine
1 1/2 cups cream or half and half
1/4 t. salt
ground pepper to taste
1 cup. frozen peas
4 oz. crumbled gorgonzola cheese
finely chopped fresh parsely (optional)
1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Saute chicken, garlic, onion, sage and mushrooms 3 min. or till chicken is cooked. Add wine and cook 1 minute more. Stir in cream, salt and pepper and cook 5 more minutes.
3. Gently stir together, pasta, peas, chicken cream sauce, gorgonzola. Sprinkle parsley, if desired.
Each Serving: 714 calories (with whole cream)

Saved by the J.W.s

Joey, Katie and Luke had just gotten home on Saturday after a mountain bike ride (my first in a year. I went with the Joey, Clint and Aaron, a friend from the ward). Suddenly, Katie and I noticed Trace and Luke were AWOL, but we also noticed that Joey was absent so we figured they were probably together. We found the three of them half a block away. Joey was curious how far they'd go and they'd taken him for a walk. So we all walked back to our house together, chatting about our independent toddlers. When we got to our house I bent down and pulled a half-a-dozen weeds out of our driveway while Joey and Katie hopped in their cars to go home. As they pulled out I thought, Wow! that was fast, they must have put Trace inside before they left. But when I walked in the door Clint asked, "Where's Trace?" I booked it back outside and ran into the street and there were the J.W.s who tract our neighborhood every Saturday, carrying Trace toward me. They said he'd gotten around the corner and was marching down the center of the street like he owned it. I tried lamely to defend my parenting skills as I grabbed Trace, but they still gave me an earful of preaching, and it wasn't about religion.