Date With Mom

 

Today, Daniel redeemed his "Date with Mom" coupon to go out to dinner at a restaurant of his choice. For Christmas I gave the boys an album filled with coupons to do different things with me during the year. Since Tim is at a U2 Conference in Cleveland and Michael is at Magic Mountain with a friend, Daniel thought it would be a great time to use one of his choices. I had to veto his first choice of Chuck E. Cheese, but his second choice was more acceptable.

Daniel likes Sweet Tomatoes even though he is a picky eater. He almost made it through the salad buffet with only croutons on his plate, but I told him he had to choose a vegetable. He plopped down some shredded carrots.

Next, he got a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a baked potato with some jello cubes on the side for variety.

Then he ended with dessert: soft serve and caramel sauce.

Sitting in the restaurant, I had to put on my MBA cap and make a few observations. Expectedly, with food prices and economy, the pickings in the salad bar have been slimmed down over the last couple of years. There were many employees visible, but most were not really doing anything productive. They looked like they were busy, walking around the floor and talking amongst themselves, but the counters were spilled and messy and the food was not being refilled very fast. We were there before the dinner crowd, so this is somewhat alarming. The condition of the restaurant is disappointing as well. The wall dividers are pretty disgusting and overall, it just looks like it needs a good cleaning.

With prime location and high traffic area, management is able to overlook these shortcomings and still squeak out a profit. If I was an investor, I would look for a tighter ship and higher standards. I guess in a sense I'm an investor; I just choose to invest elsewhere for dining. Unless, of course, my son wants to have a date with me there.

 

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Buck Rock Lookout

Buck Rock Lookout

We took a trip to the Buck Rock lookout this weekend. It’s a fire lookout in the high Sierra that offers a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains. The lookout has a person in residence full-time during fire season and is open to the public. Here is a recap of our trip.

To get to Buck Rock Lookout, take Hwy 180 east from Fresno into Kings Canyon National Park. Turn right at the “Y” onto Generals Hwy. After about 10 minutes, you will pass the Quail Flat/Hume Lake turnoff, then you will pass the Kings Canyon Lookout on the left, the Buena Vista trailhead on the right (good hike by the way), the Big Baldy trailhead on the right, and finally the Big Meadows turnoff on the left.

After almost 3 miles, turn left at the Horse Camp Campground. This is a 2.5 mile dirt road that is one-lane and full of ruts and rocks.

At the Lookout parking area, there is a picnic table in the shade so be sure to pack some goodies. There is also a picnic table at the bottom of the Lookout, but it is in full sun.

This is what happens when you bring along a bag of chips to a high elevation.

The trail to the lookout is very easy and I would guess no more than a ¼ mile.

There is a vault toilet (fancy word for pit toilet or outhouse) at the bottom of the stairs. I would venture to say it is the nicest outhouse in the whole Sierra Nevadas.

After climbing up some smaller rock steps, you will climb 172 steps to the top. The stairs are narrow and steep, but extremely sturdy and stable. There are handrails on each side so you don’t lose your footing.

At the top, there is a small room with windows all around. It has a bed, small oven, refrigerator, wood stove, and desk. Outside the room, you can walk around all the sides.

The drive from Hume Lake took just under an hour and here is the view from the back road.

Our boys enjoyed it at 9 and 13 years old. There was a family with a little girl that appeared to be 4 or 5, and that was almost too young for climbing the stairs. For more information, visit www.buckrock.org.

A Special Valentine

 "To my awsome family"

"From your youngest child"

Can you figure it out? 

"Mike" is listening to his iPod.

"Dad" is not happily plunging the toilet, as it might appear.

He is actually filling up the spa!

"Mom" is holding a hair dryer.

"Dan" is playing the Wii.

Hot Wheels and Ebates

For a fun look at how Daniel sorts the Hot Wheels cars at church, see Jessica's blog. She loves to find things that come in every color, so when I saw the cars lined up according to color, she is the first person I thought of.

Do you need to make an online purchase? If so, do not proceed until you go through ebates.com. Sign up for free (with a $5 bonus) and start earning little rebates each time you make a purchase online. Most stores you would ever need are available (with the exception of Amazon). They mail you a check about every 3 months. When I signed up a couple of years ago, there was a $10 Target gift card bonus and they mailed it within a week. Different stores have different rebates and they have different incentives from certain retailers. I have ordered from Dell, Expedia, Ebay, Restaurant.com, Old Navy, Sephora and more! Just ordinary online shopping has earned me about $100 in free money each year. Follow "my" link below and sign up! It's free!

Tracy's Ebates Link to Sign Up

The hard part is remembering to ALWAYS go through ebates.

Track Meet

Today Michael had an in-house track meet where just the one school competes before going area-wide. He ran the 100m, 200m, 400m, and Long Jump. I think my arms and legs would fall right off if I had to sprint 100 meters. The top three in each category get to go on to the area-wide meet with all the Clovis West feeder schools. Michael will find out next week if he goes on; they have to place all the heats first.

During the meet, they have several events going simultaneously, but none of them are in any hurry to start the next race. It's a lot of standing or sitting around interrupted by short spurts of speed. Music is blared out of the sound system while an occasional voice announces, "5th grade boys 200 meter, report to the starting line."

The Toothpick Shudder Story

Tonight Daniel found a toothpick lying on the counter. He picked it up and turned it around a few times before tossing it across the room on the floor. I said, “Go pick it up. Never leave a toothpick on the floor.” He asked why not. I replied, “Don’t you remember the story about Nana and the toothpick?”

A few summers ago, Nana stepped on a toothpick. It was at the cabin. The cabin has barf-colored indoor/outdoor carpet that hides a lot of things, namely toothpicks. The toothpick broke on impact and neither Nana nor Papa could tell if part of it lodged in the wound. They went to the Hume infirmary. Then they went down the hill to urgent care. Then they went to the ER because urgent care could not do surgical type injuries. After numbing the foot and digging around for a toothpick fragment, they stitched the wound and prescribed pain meds. After all that excitement, they needed a vacation, so they went back up to the cabin.

I was telling Daniel this story and I got to the part about Nana having to go to the hospital and numbing her foot with a needle, when he quickly covered his ears and shuddered horrendously. Full-body, face-scrunching shudder. “No! Don’t tell me anymore!”

I don’t think he will throw toothpicks on the floor anymore.

The Good 'Ol Days

Last night we ate dinner with my parents and grandparents. My grandpa was a boy when he emigrated to the U.S. from Russia. We sometimes get him to talk about his World War II days or even further back to when he first moved to America and only spoke Low German. But most frequently, the conversation will revolve around the local Mennonite Brethren church. They like to compare the church my family attends with the church they attend since both are of the same M.B. denomination. It’s never in a competitive spirit (my church is better than yours), but more of a quantitative comparison. They want to know the ages of members, the race of members, how many families attend, how many children go to Sunday school, what songs do we sing, how many organists there are.

They talk about the days when their church used to be made up mostly of “our people” (Mennonite Brethren defined as being Germans from Russia or their descendants). They lament the smaller choir and lack of organists and pianists. They mourn their friends who once overflowed the Sunday school classroom. They miss the special music at youth night and Sunday evening services. They are hesitant that you can really learn the Bible sitting in the living room of someone’s house (unless it’s the youth group). They don’t understand why people now walk in and out during the church service; people didn’t do that before.

Of course I don’t debate with them. I never do. This is their faith; in a world that has changed so radically they want to wear their faith like a favorite sweater. It really has nothing to do with fear of change as some may think. It’s more that they’ve embraced so much change already, their faith is the steadfast rock they turn to. Life’s complications can be endured as long as there is a pulpit and an organ on Sunday mornings.

The church my family attends is hard to quantify. Just taking attendance on a Sunday morning reaps questions. Does it count if people come in for the last 20 minutes? Last 10 minutes? What if they tried to make it but the bus was late? Does it count if they are “here” but not sitting in the pew? We frequently hear the phrase “I’m a member of your church” from strangers. We know they have not taken the membership class and been officially received into membership, but their children come to the sports club or tutoring club. What if you only come on Wednesday nights, but you come every week. Does that count for anything? What if (gasp) you worship on Saturday nights so you can have Sunday free? I’ll take it one further: what if you attend every meeting put on by the church at your apartment complex, but you’ve never actually set foot on the church campus?

What is church? By defining church, are you being exclusive when you think you are being inclusive? What influences shape a church compared to the direction leadership wants it to go? What about defining the legal aspects of being a “religious institution” 501(c)(3) and yet living in a world that separates church from state? I think it is going to be harder and harder to define “church” in our society, but the followers of Christ will continually turn to the Bible (Acts) for foundational guidance. Forgive my rambling thoughts, but this doesn’t even address the biblical issue of resting on the Sabbath. Can you go to the Saturday night service so you can sleep in on Sunday morning? Does that count?

Dear God, I am requesting a ponytail like I Dream of Jeannie...

...because it's going to take a lot of magic to clean my living room!

Do not be anxious about anything (like dust and Legos), but in everything...

...by prayer and petition, present your requests to God. (Did you see that one little request up there at the top?)

And the PEACE of God, which transcends all understanding (and 6 & 10 year old boys), will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

The boys like riding the schoolbus to and from school every day. At our bus stop, there are around 10 to 15 students that ride the bus. The bus driver this year likes to bring treats for the kids on Fridays like Tootsie Pops. Today he brought donuts for the kids on the way TO school (hello sugar!). Daniel took a maple bar, which is his favorite (mine too). When he got home at noon, he told me that he had a donut he wanted to eat (I thought he got one on the way home, but I didn't see it anywhere). So I told him to wash his hands first.

Me: "Where was your donut?"

D: "In my backpack."

Me: "Did you put it in your lunch box?"

D: "No, it's too hard to explain."

Me: "Did you wrap it in something?"

D: "No, I just put it in my backpack." (Imagine me with a frozen smile.)

Me: "What else is in your backpack?"

D: "Oh, just my folder." (Whew!)

Fortunately his backpack is fairly new, so there's nothing too ugly at the bottom yet. His backpack got a nice wipe-down today.

Taco Tuesday
Every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday at the Neufeld house. We LOVE tacos! Most of the time it is ground beef tacos, but we also do chicken tacos, fish tacos, and tonight we had carnitas tacos. Yum! Here is what I did:

Yesterday we had slow-cooker pulled pork barbecue sandwiches. When you get a pork shoulder roast on sale, it is quite economical.

Put a big pork shoulder roast (or pork butt roast, great name BTW) in a slow cooker.
Quarter one onion and put in pot.
Add 5 or 6 peeled garlic cloves.
Add 1 cup beef stock (or make with boullion cube).
Season with salt/pepper.
Cook on low for 8 hours. Shred with fork and serve on your favorite bun with favorite barbecue sauce. Melts in your mouth! This goes well with coleslaw, too.

For carnitas, take remaining meat and save for the next day. Strain liquid from slow-cooker and save. The next day: Place shredded pork in a baking pan and pour 1/2 cup milk over. (I know, sounds weird). Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Stir/scrape meat off pan and pour 1/2 cup of reserved meat broth over. Every 15 minutes, repeat the scrape/pour process until meat is crispy to your liking. Season to taste and serve in tacos! Muy bien!

My Stubborn Son
Last night I made soup for dinner. It was good soup if I do say so myself, as did Tim and Michael. Daniel is our picky eater and wasn't interested in the soup. He is probably better described as a stubborn eater rather than a picky eater. It's all in the motivation. We usually have to hold off giving him a 2nd serving of things like bread or pilaf or corn (his favorites) until he finishes the "real" food first. So last night he wanted another biscuit with honey and we told him to eat more soup first. Actually, we have to tell him in more specific terms, like "eat 5 more bites first." And he usually tries to bargain his way down: "how about 4 more bites?" So we play this game just about every day ("if you don't eat 5 bites, then it's going to be 6"). He knows that if he doesn't eat his dinner, we will save it and heat it up for him when he wants a snack later. He even acts like a martyr when he finally eats his dinner (at 8:00): "Fine, I'll EAT it... (sigh)." So back to the soup. Last night, he had about half his soup left. By half of it left, I mean like 5 green beans and 2 bites of ham. We don't give him very much because we know what he does. And we also don't force our kids to lick their plates clean. But we do make them eat enough to get nourishment. Have you seen our skinny kids? They COULD use a little meat on their bones. But I digress. So Daniel really doesn't want to eat any more soup. I know he is not full; I know he is not sick; I know he is being stubborn. So we clean up dinner and leave him sitting at the table. He knows he can quickly gobble up a handful of bites and be done with it, but he doesn't. After an hour (!!) I heat up his soup again and he takes 2 bites of ham. He still doesn't want to finish it. So Michael starts practicing his guitar and I pick up a book to read. Daniel just sits at the table.
Me: "Daniel, all you have to do is eat those green beans and you can be excused."
Daniel: "How about just one green bean?"
Me: "No, all the green beans, and if you can eat more than one bean in a bite, it will be just 4 bites."
Daniel: "But there is a tomato in my bowl."
Me: "You don't have to eat the tomato."
Daniel: "How about one bite?"
Me: "If you can eat all the green beans in one bite, then that's fine."
Daniel: "Oh, all right."
So after TWO hours, he finished his soup. We even had fresh brownies waiting for him, but that wasn't a good enough motivation. How can this kid be so stubborn that he would choose to sit at the table for 2 hours rather than just go "gulp, gulp, gulp" and be excused??