Merry Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas in the Park

We were able to attend the Holiday Festival in the park behind our house. It was Ok, not as good as Halloween or 4th of July, but we went and it was a good way to spend Saturday night. We brought Toby along thinking it would be good but he always gets very excited around people and was barking and running around too much. Next time we'll bring Sparky or Hunter if we only bring one dog. They are better behaved around people.

The official lighting of the Christmas tree.

Here's a closer view with Santa and some random people. The line was too long to see Santa and Ethan was getting cranky so we didn't see Santa here.

 There were fireworks for the tree lighting ceremony

 Here is Santa on stage with the Mayor

 

There were several performances with Christmas concerts



Here we are. It was actually warmer in early December than late October during the last festival. You can see that I was holding Toby because he was very anxious. 

Toys for Tots 2017

This year I participated in the Toys for Tots toy donation drive again.

Logistically, it went better because we are getting into a routine at work and have the boxes, flyers, and contacts at hand so we can start any time. It was definitely easier to organize this year since we had everything set up from last year.

The bad news is that donations were down this year, not just from us but across south Florida. We appreciated all of the help and donations we received this year but we definitely had less than last year. It is not from lack of giving this year but, my theory, is that people have been giving so much this year to a variety of charities, the donations were spread across multiple charities. Many people this year have donated to the hurricane victims of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. I know that I have seen donation drives to support Puerto Rico on a regular basis since the fall. There was a competing toy drive just for Puerto Rico this year with many children even giving up their toys for those on the island. I work with many Puerto Ricans and I know they have been sending a lot back to Puerto Rico on a regular basis.

With that said, we still had a good turn out and hopefully we'll make many children happy this Christmas.

Baby Bullet

I'm doing a lot of baby things now because Ethan consumes much of my time. One of the things I planned on doing for him was making his food so that he does not have to eat baby food from the store that is months old. I was intimidated at first because I didn't know how to make baby food, but once I looked into it, I was surprised a how easy it is. Making baby food is much easier than my food and I don't have to season any of it which is what I tend to have problems with when cooking.

I have been making his food for about two months now. He started on just one fruit or vegetable per feeding but now I am mixing them up. I'm even giving him some meat now. The doctor said there was new information released this year that basically said six month-old children can eat almost anything that adults eat. I just can't feed him spicy food, fish, or honey.

We decided to get the Baby Bullet (same company as Magic Bullet blender) because it came with a blender specifically designed for baby food, but most of all because it came with all of the accessories that we need. I like the accessories the Baby Bullet comes with because it was a great starter kit. You could go cheaper if you know what you are doing but I wasn't prepared to buy everything piecemeal.

Recently Ethan has been eating a fruit or vegetable mix and a mix with meat daily (like a chicken soup meal). Here is what I've been doing:

Prepping each meal isn't much work but it can get tedious to prepare little amounts at at time, also wasteful because I buy adult portions but Ethan can't eat that much. I prepare the food and then freeze it. Most people on Youtube or whatever prefer to make the baby food and then freeze it. I find that after I freeze baby food it thins out too much and becomes like water. Instead, I prefer to put portions in a bag and take it out to cook later. Above is a sample of chicken, sweet potato, and apples. Since the peas were already frozen, I kept those separate in case I wanted to add a different vegetable instead.

 Here it is cooking. I am boiling the chicken and steaming the apples, peas, and sweet potatoes. 

 Once it is cooked and soft, I blend it up in the baby bullet. I use the water from the boiled chicken. If I'm making fruit or vegetable, I'll use the boiled water from the pot or his purified infant water.

 This is his food all put away in the refrigerator. The fruit is on top and the chicken soup mix is on the bottom. 

These are the baby food containers that come with the baby bullet kit. Yes, they are adorable. I had made some prunes the day before so during this cycle he was eating prunes and chicken soup. 

*No, I do not have pictures of the mess he made of the prunes when he got a hold of the baby jar full of prune puree.

Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays: parades, football, and food.

We weren't planning on a traditional family get-together but of course now that this was Ethan's first Thanksgiving, things ended up planning themselves and we hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the whole family.

I would say it was a success. Everyone got to enjoy each other's company, there was lots of good food and none of the nightmare family feuds that happen every now and then with many families during the holidays.

I ended up doing most of the cooking. My mother-in-law made some dishes on her own and there were a few that I got some help with.

I actually started cooking the night before Thanksgiving. I knew the pies would take long and I needed the oven so I started them first. I made two pumpkin pies and two apple pies. Cooking everything from scratch was just too much so I cheated and used pumpkin pie filling and pre-made crusts.

 Here is the beginning of the pumpkin pies before I started. 

Here are the pies cooking. 

 ...and finally here are the pumpkin pies cooling off later that night.

 The start to the apple pie filling. I peeled and cut about two dozen apples. Then I let them soak in water so they didn't turn brown. 

 I had help making the apple pie filling. I then put the pies together and refrigerated them overnight. Here they are first thing in the morning. I put them in the oven before breakfast so that they could cook before I had to put the turkey in the oven. 

Here are the apple pies after they cooked.  

Well, breakfast has to come before Thanksgiving dinner. My sister helped make breakfast (more like I helped her). We made lots of blueberry waffles and eggs for everyone. 

 (Notice the new sink? Earlier that week my father and I installed a new sink. It's single basin so we have twice the room in the same size sink! I hate double basin sinks!!!)

There is the turkey sitting in the broiling tray. You can also see the bowl of spices on the counter I mixed up ready to put on the turkey. 

 At this point, the turkey is in the oven, and much of the food is cooking or already made. I've also changed clothes (nothing fancy). I'm toasting the garlic for the asparagus side dish.

 Now, I'm taking the asparagus out of the steamer. I was so busy cooking, I forgot to get pictures of me cooking the dinner so I put on an apron and got some pictures of me cooking the easiest part of the meal: the steamed asparagus in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese.

 Here is most of the final spread. We had to extend the dinner table to fit everyone and I even forgot to get new chairs so everyone could fit. We used disposable holiday plates and cups for fun. I'll try to name all of the dishes from bottom to top:

Baked sweet potato

Mashed potato on top of mashed potato, beets and peppers topped with olives and radishes

Steamed asparagus

Radish salad

Buttermilk biscuts

Stuffing cooked in the bird

Baked turkey

Not to brag, but this was the best turkey I've ever had :)

Finally, here is little Ethan wearing his "1st Turkey Day 2017" bib in his Thanksgiving day outfit. He couldn't eat the same food as the rest of us but he sat at the table and I made him a special meal (see my next blog post!) I then made him some nice sweet potato the next day. 

A Walk in the Park

It is finally fall and not 90 degrees all day! Now when I come home from work, it is comfortable enough to go for walks in the park and not have to change clothes afterward. I can walk comfortably without sweating and the dogs don't get overheated. Ethan can also go without getting too hot.

We will go on a walk outside behind the house on the walking trail. The only people out there are on the move walking, running, biking, or roller blading so there are no crowds to navigate. The dogs are more manageable after a walk too. It is also good for Ethan to get outside and see new things.

Ethan is all set for his walk.

I have my hands full! There is another dog in this picture too. Hunter is old now and we have a cheap dog stroller we put him in. He likes to get outside but likes to sniff more than walk. Hunter was actually laying down in the stroller for the picture. It is pretty difficult to get me, three dogs, and Ethan to pose for a picture :)

Halloween 2017

Halloween is one of our favorite times of the year. Ethan is not old enough to go out trick-or-treating so we did what we could and went to the Fall Festival in the park next door. The festival was scheduled for two days, Friday night and Saturday. We went on Friday night. We were afraid Ethan may not like it and tried to make him take a nap before we left but he just wouldn't go to sleep. At 5:00 pm, we just left for the park and that is when he fell asleep. I guess he liked the stroller ride.

There were lots and lots of kids there and it wasn't too hot or cold. The World Series was also on that night so some of the adults and teenagers may have stayed home for that. The village hired an AC DC cover band to perform that night and they played for about two hours. We had dinner there and walked around with Ethan and even bumped into a few neighbors with their children and pets.

We wanted to go again on Saturday and were looking forward to going out again, seeing the performances and the costume contests. It ended up raining at 10:00 am and didn't stop until the next day so we didn't go and they had to call off the main day of the festival. We just ended up at the Chinese buffet instead :(

It was still nice to get out on Friday night. Here are some pictures.

Ethan with his holiday card from Grandma.

He dressed up as a pumpkin for his first Halloween.

He's sitting on my shoulders

Even under his costume, he's orange

There was a long concert by an AC DC cover band. This is when the first started.

Ethan posed next to a pirate ship display. It was getting cool so we put on his new monster jacket.

Hurricane Irma - September 2017

Another year, another hurricane. Hurricane Matthew was a good preparation for us. Hurricane Irma definitely had a greater impact on us. We ended up getting hurricane category 1 winds and were on the strong side of the storm, unlike Hurricane Matthew, we only got tropical storm force winds and were on the weak side of the storm.

Fortunately our house made it out fine. We didn't get flooded and didn't even lose a shingle from the roof. We only lost power for two hours because we are on a priority grid, close to a fire station, police station, and town hall.

We did get some wind and damage, here are the pictures:

 

Five days before Irma was to come, I was able to get to Home Depot when they opened at 6:00 am. It was packed. This was the line to check out at 6:15 am.

 

This is what I purchased. I bought a new gas can, two cases of water, and one window unit air conditioner. The gas can was rationed to 1 per customer and the water was rationed to 2 cases per customer. I got the air conditioner because I was afraid the electricity would be out after the storm and needed to keep Ethan cool.

 

I also tested out my generator two days prior to the storm for the first time. I started to panic when I realized the generator needed oil out of the box and I didn't have any. I went to the convenience store down the street and was able to get three quarts before curfew. I got the generator working fine.

 

The day before the storm, we went shopping for groceries one last time. There was very little to buy.

 

I had a few shutters that I bought after Hurricane Matthew but never prepared. They were several inches too tall so I had to cut them. I cut the plastic shutters easily with a Dremel Saw Max circular saw. I couldn't cut through the aluminum shutters without breaking all of my blades. I had to go to the store and buy diamond tipped blades. I was able to finish cutting the shutters and actually melted a lot of the aluminum while cutting.

 

It was very hot outside and I ended up getting sunburned with all of the preparation for the hurricane.

 

 

 

Here's a before picture. Notice the lush tree in the background.

 

I took my gate off so it wouldn't blow away. I also parked my truck between the house and the shed.

 

Here is the photo with no gate and my truck parked in the yard.

 

The house is all shuttered up. Where it looks like we are missing shutters, those are where the clear plastic shutters are. I wanted to be able to see out windows with the shutters on.

 

Sparky is helping.

 

Toby is wondering what we are doing. I even had to remove the turtle fence from the yard and we put the turtle in the garage. Sparky decided to jump into the turtle pond for some reason and we had to wash him. I'm glad we normally have a fence for the turtle.

 

I took this picture when during a lull in the storm. The hurricane broke a neighbor's tree at the base and the tree is upside down in the front yard. The worst was still to come.

 

 

After the storm I could see trees down everywhere. You can see some down in the background. At this time, I could hear chainsaws in the neighborhood. There were a lot of trees down in the roads and driveways for many people.

Here you can see all of the leaves that ended up in my pool. I don't even have trees in my yard.

 

Damage to my fence.

 

 

What happened to the tree? Look at how much of the leaves blew away and the branches got twisted around.

 

This was a lot of work. I lost three consecutive fence panels here.

 

This is from the three fence panels down. The wind snapped several 4x4 fence posts.

 

More damage to my fence.

 

Here is a clearer picture of the upside down tree across the street.

 

 

We were fortunate. I had a lot of work to do cleaning up and fixing the fence. The pool took a while to clean. I'm glad it's over. I hope we don't have to do it again next year.