Quick update on our trip

Unfortunately, bad packer that I am, I forgot some major stuff for this trip. The camera battery charger, the patch cord to upload photos from said camera, any warm and/or waterproof clothing items that would have been extremely helpful for this trip and my phone charger.
We are in the pacific northwest on an island off the coast. The weather is cold and rainy, totally unlike where we came from.
Luckily, the wifi works...very occasionally, but I get pockets of wifi opportunities here and there. I had to break down and buy disposable cameras (2 for 1 on sale though, score!). My phone is dead, nothing I can do about that. A hurried trip to Kmart (there are very few options here) got us a couple of extra sweaters that are already dirty (no laundry facilities!!!). We'll have to make a trip into town tomorrow to find some boots or shoes for Lola because hers got wrecked by all the hiking and beachcombing in the rain that we did today. They weren't in fabulous shape when we started, though. I was kicking myself for only bringing 2 pairs of shoes for her on this trip, but I had no idea the island was this rugged and every other pair of shoes she owns are sandals. We live in southern California after all, what the hell do we need with boots???

But, all that aside, we are having a FABULOUS trip! The reason for our pile of dirty clothes and the thrashed shoes is because we are getting out there on the shores of these islands and digging our hands and feet into mother earth. We are hiking, beachcombing, birdwatching, wildlife observing and history learning. On our beachcombing adventures today, we found clams, mussels, oysters, crabs, sea glass and hermit crabs. Even a bald eagle graced us with its presence! In the parks we found mama ducks leading their babies ducks in the lake, and learned about the Maiden of Deception Pass.
Robins, goldfinches and rabbits visit us frequently in the front yard and we watch boats, ships and barges drift past us all day long.
It's been an amazing trip so far and worth every penny.

I have some really great photos (I hope!) that I cannot wait to share.

Chickpea cookies.

Sound appealing? I assure you it's not nearly as appealing as it sounds. Last night I attempted to make "chicken" nuggets, using chickpeas. But since I didn't actually have any recipe (well, I did actually, I just didn't know it....long story!) and don't own a copy of Veganomicon, I decided to wing it. How hard could chickpea patties possibly be, after all?
Well, as it turns out, not that easy! I just started throwing stuff in the food processor and then adjusting/adding new ingredients until I got a somewhat desired consistency.
Chickpeas, spinach, carrots, olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour....it was going ok until I decided to add a couple of eggs (why? I don't know), then the batter was way too...wet. A cursory search in my cupboard revealed that I had no more chickpeas, but I did have a can of black beans. In they went.
The final result, even after adding a bunch more flour, was pretty runny, much like pancake batter. I spooned small amounts onto an oiled cookie sheet and baked. Out came my chickpea cookies. They are not terrible tasting...the kids ate them with ketchup. I had a few with hummus spread on top. Dan took one bite and that was it.
Little does he know that I am serving them again tonight, falafel style, with pita and yogurt sauce. A nice greek salad to round it out.

Ballet school dropout? Maybe.

I haven't blogged in ages, I know. Either there just hasn't been anything interesting happening around here lately, or I'm just really not motivated enough to be creative with the introspect.
Whatever. I did finally get inspired to blog today because I took Elise to her very first ever ballet class. I have done a toddler "parent & me" gym class with her once before this, but today's ballet class was her first 'non-me' class.
To backtrack slightly, the parent participation class that we had previously done, was a 9 week class...30 minutes, once a week for 9 weeks. It took Elise until about the 7th or 8th week to finally participate in a majority of the scattered activities. She had clear favorites, like the parachute, that she would participate in every time, but others she was less fond of...like the warm-up. Some she grew to like.
Anyway, since she opened much during the span of that 9 weeks, I thought she might be ready for something new, like this ballet class.
Well, she looked awfully cute, but she spent most of the 30 minutes outside the building, either pouting, crying or trying to talk me into taking her to the playground across the street instead.
It was frustrating because she was the only one there who refused to participate...it was the first class of the series so there were all these moms, dads and even grandparents there, taking pictures of their little princesses, all doing everything the teacher told them to do.
And then there WE were.
Elise running to the corner and me, on the floor, trying do all the little exercises to show her how FUN it all is!
She studied the class a little bit, sometimes even copying the hand movements they were doing to the tune of the song they were all singing. But mostly, she just climbed on and off the bench and then, at one point, Lola accidentally stepped on her hand and that made her cry. Loudly. I swooped her up and took her out of the room, not wanting to disrupt the class.
I don't know how I should've handled the situation. It definitely felt wrong to scold a 2 year for not participating in a ballet class that she clearly didn't want to do, but I must admit, it was embarrassing to have all those eyes on me... eyes that probably judged me, at least a little bit, for not having more "control" over my child. Or at least, this is my insecurity.
Instead, I just took her outside and tried to provoke her interest in the class by pointing out the things they were doing. We stayed for the whole class, most of time we were outside looking in the window. Whenever I would ask her if that looked like fun, she would agree with a big grin on her face. Then I'd try to get her to join the class and she'd meet my face with her stern expression and say "NO, mommy".

*sigh*. I don't know why this upset me so much today. I guess it's moments like these that I wonder what I'm doing and doubting if I'm doing anything right. Please let me know if you have experiences to share!

Making do...

Poor Lola. Pretty much her whole weekend was a bust. All the things she was excited about didn't actually come to fruition. On Friday night we were supposed to join some friends camping and we promised her we would do s'mores by the fire. We even went out together and bought the supplies. But Friday night provided us with a series of mishaps and our get-together didn't happen. To make matter worse, Lola would up with a high fever on Saturday morning, which means she did not get to attend a birthday party that she had really been looking forward to. We had even bought a new dress for it just the day before.

Since she was feeling a lot better by Sunday night, I thought the least we could is fire up our dinky little grill and roast some marshmellows. She was thrilled. We ended up making the gooeyest s'mores she'd ever seen. She was pretty happy after that.

Our little getaway gone awry.

We decided at the very last minute (read: 11pm on Thursday night) to get away for a night on Friday. Well, there's pros and cons to planning a trip last minute. It's fun to be spontaneous, the kids get a kick out of it and it's great to get away. The cons...well, I rushed around like crazy on Friday morning, not only to pack our stuff but also going away, even just overnight, means my garden and guinea pig get neglected for 2 days. So, I took care of the garden stuff...watered the plants and seeds, then turned and watered my compost bins. I gave Henry and big salad and new hay to tide him over but didn't have any new bedding to clean up his cage with so I had to make a quick run to the pet store. My MIL came over later that day to clean up his cage and play with him a while.
So, now we were organized and, after a quick stop at playgroup, we were on our way. Here's the other little "con" about spontaneous getaways...the potential for miscommunication. I really, truly thought that the plan was for me to pick Dan up from his business meeting. He really, truly thought that we were just going to meet later in the day at the hotel (not even close to where his meeting was). I cheerfully called him, after I took the girls dress/shoes shopping, to let him know we were only a few minutes away from picking him up. That's when we had our "oh" moment and realized how badly we had miscommunicated. Turns out, he had left the meeting long ago and had accompanied the friends that we were planning to meet to get their camper and stuff that they needed for the weekend.
So the girls and I just spent the day by ourselves. We did a bit more shopping and slowly made our way to the town where our hotel was. We got there around 5 and found out that Dan and our friend were stuck in L.A. traffic with no hopes of getting out of it anytime soon.
We ordered some room service and kicked back in the hotel room to wait for Dan. We tried the pool but it was too cold so we came back to our room to hang out.
Despite the fact that Lola slept in the car most of the way to the hotel (very unusual, she never naps anymore), she konked out at 8:30. Elise, who barely slept in the car, was bouncing off the walls and totally hyper well after 10 pm, then she finally fell asleep!
After a series of mishaps, Dan finally reached the hotel room but it was late and the kids were asleep, all we wanted to do was go to bed.
Lola woke up 13 hours later, bright pink and really hot. She stayed in bed all morning and wouldn't eat or drink anything. Poor thing is sick as a dog. I guess that explains all the extra sleep yesterday. We are home now and she is still laying down. At least she's chatting a bit now...she has been so quiet and lethargic all day. I don't think I've ever seen her quite like this. If you know Lola at all, you know how energetic and incessantly chatty she is. It's very weird to see her like this.
She is so considerate though...she has been looking forward to a birthday party for a friend, but told me a little while ago that she doesn't think she should go. She said she didn't want to make anyone else sick. That is pretty mature for a 5 year old. *sniff*

Birthday weekend

This weekend we celebrated Dan's birthday, which was on Sunday, and our friend's little boy's 2 year birthday at the park on Saturday. I like when Dan has a birthday because it means that for 3 months, until my birthday come along, we are the same age. Then my birthday hits and I'm back to being older than him again.
We went out to dinner on Saturday night with a couple of friends. Sunday, we had planned to drive up to Carlsbad to meet some other friends for lunch but it turned into a whole day adventure. We took the kids to the beach and never figured anyone would be going in the water, but next thing we know, the kids and all are soaked completely from the waist down. I normally have a huge box in my car full of extra clothes, sweaters, diapers and so on, but we took Dan's car, of course, so we had nothing. We had to stop in one of those little beachwear stores and get us some dry clothes.
We ended up having dinner at a Mexican restaurant that had these great firepits. Not to mention their yummy margaritas and nopales! Poor Lola...her underwear was still soaked so we laid them on the edge of the firepit and dried them right up!
It was a fun day and we were exhausted by evening when we started going home. The kids fell fast asleep and stayed asleep all night.

Knock knock!!