Merrit has been on a cooking jag lately. Omelettes, as usual. But also goodies from his kids' cookbook. He's usually attracted to the food items with faces, but he's also cooked inanimate dishes like Tuna Casserole. Here are some pictures of snakey sandwiches and pancake pals.
Cheese, sliced leftover pork tenderloin, red bell pepper slices,
mayo, and mustard. A stripe of ketchup for decoration.
And of course, olive eyes.
Love the red bell pepper tongue!
Merrit and I made these pancake pals. I made this face: a dollop of strawberry
jelly for the nose and banana slices with raisins for the eyes. So cute!
The one Merrit decorated is really cute and funny.
Something about the ear looks so expressive!
This one was a little off. Ollie, our little Picasso.
After spending 20 pence on a vending machine, we got a plastic ball filled
with mints....and a half hour of entertainment on the Metro ride home.
Merrit looks even funnier with that front tooth still out!!!
What's the difference between Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and England? Here's your answer. I was enlightened and, if this is something you're interested in, you will be, too.
And here's a fun blog post I just came across yesterday all about the history of the Union Jack (for the little-bit-of-this-and-a-little-bit-of-that approach, it actually looks pretty darn good) and how it influenced the creation of the American flag.
...is this pregnancy. Meet my niece, Page. When I first started dating her "Uncle Mikey" she was just six years old.
I thought she was the sweetest little kid, and she was. She even forgave me when I accidentally shut the car door on her hand as we were leaving to go to the park one day. And she seemed genuinely happy with a Christmas present I gave her once...a little black purse filled with colorful paperclips and various coins. (What was that about anyway? I can't imagine that it even seemed like a good idea at the time. Hello, choking hazard.)
She's told me that when Uncle Mikey and I broke up after our first year of college--she would have been about eight or so, I guess--she cried about it. [Sidenote: Mike, you should be ashamed of yourself, breaking both my heart and Page's heart at the same time!]
When Mike and I got back together a couple of years later, it was great to be back in Page's life. She was a tween then, and she and I spent "girl time" together...it was different, but cool. We had a tradition for a few years running of me taking her Christmas shopping at the mall. And when Mike and I married in 1996, of course she was my flower girl, though I kept telling her that if she grew taller than me before the wedding day, I'd have to kick her out of the wedding party. She was growing up, and our friendship changed. We talked about school, and mean girls, and books we liked, and eventually, boys.
Now she's out of school, she's married, she's expecting her first baby. And I'm not there to pat her baby bump and shop for nursery bedding and all the rest of it. This is what I'm missing most.
It's 9:08pm and I just took this picture out of my front window...
I woke up this morning at 5:00am to the calling of seagulls and noon-day sun. It's hard to roll over and go back to sleep when the day is obviously ready to begin. Is it the latitude that gives us these long, bright days? I don't know, but last night, it was still twilight at 10:30pm. Awesome.
The boys find it hard to go to sleep at their normal 7:30pm bedtimes, too, since it's so bright outside. (Don't worry, we don't cave! We say, "March your little behind BACK up those steps, mister, or you're going to be in BIG trouble." LOL.) I think Merrit fares okay, but Ollie is pooped by lunchtime. Today he was even more pooped than normal because we'd spent the whole morning swimming at the indoor pool near our house.
"If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."
- Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)
Quoting from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr....
"'We’re part of nature, and ultimately we’re predatory animals and we have a role in nature...and if we separate ourselves from that, we’re separating ourselves from our history, from the things that tie us together. We don’t want to live in a world where there are not recreational fishermen, where we’ve lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us—to ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops and ultimately connect us to God.' We shouldn’t be worshipping nature as God, he said, but nature is the way that God communicates to us most forcefully. 'God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art,' but nowhere 'with such texture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy, as through creation...And when we destroy large resources, or when we cut off our access by putting railroads along river banks, by polluting so that people can’t fish, or by making so many rules that people can’t get out on the water, it’s the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on Earth...Our children ought to be out there on the water...This is what connects us, this is what connects humanity, this is what we have in common. It’s not the Internet, it’s the oceans."
- Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)
"In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation'—a devaluing of the world and its creator."
- Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)
After a delicious Mother's Day breakfast, we took the train into Newcastle. It rained during the night and earlier this morning but by 10am, the skies were blue and the sun was shining brightly! It had turned out to be a gorgeous day!
In front of our house.
Ollie gets so excited when the train pulls up to the platform.
It takes about 20 minutes to get to Newcastle by Metro.
Merrit and I get a quick hug in. He was wishing me Happy Mother's
Day when Mike took this picture. Sweet thing.
The Salvation Army band was playing hymns in the city centre. This spot
is right by Grey's Monument (of Earl Grey Tea fame).
Walking to a restaurant that Mike wanted us to try.
Mike suggested that we eat lunch at this great, authentic Chinese restaurant; he's eaten there twice with folks from work and says it's nothing like the Chinese food we've had before. But...it was closed. Poo. So, we walked up the street a bit to an Italian restaurant instead called Portofino's. According to Mike's friend from work Carlo--who is from Rome, so he ought to know, right?--Portofino's is the best Italian food in Newcastle. It didn't disappoint; though it was a bit pricey. Mike said, "Hey! It's Mother's Day!" :-)
We all shared an order of insalata caprese (Roma tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper) as a starter. I had grilled balsamic salmon with roasted vegetables and salad. Oh my goodness, the salmon was so light and the texture so perfect, it almost had the mouth-feel of a dessert. (Do I sound just crazy? I know I'm a bit of a foodie, but it was soooo good.) The boys split an order of lasagna and Mike ordered (I forget what it was called) a pounded chicken filet, breaded and topped with ham, some cheese, and other stuff. I actually didn't really pay attention...I was in salmon heaven.
They all ate creme brulee for dessert, but I was "good" and only had one tiny bite when Mike wasn't looking.
We really should have inquired about this
building's history. It had such a neat interior.
Hm, I guess we'll just have to go back! :-)
Pictures from our walk to the Centre for Life Museum, our next destination...
The Centre for Life is a museum in the city centre. I'm a big fan of free museums, which seem to be the norm in the US but not here. I have found, though, that you can typically join for a yearly family membership for less than the cost of two visits and they'll let you decide after your first visit if you want to upgrade. I've said no to a museum and an aquarium because I felt like "we'd seen it all" in one visit and the value just didn't seem to be that great for the price. Anyway, what's your point? (as Mike would say). After our Mother's Day visit, we applied the day's admission price towards an annual membership, so we're sure to go back.
There was lots to see at the museum, but we spent all our time at the Wallace and Gromit exhibit, which was partly about the claymation behind the animated duo and partly about fantastic (and forgettable) inventions of our time. If you've seen any of the Wallace and Gromit movies/shorts, you know that they are always coming up with some new invention, some of which go horribly awry! :-)
Mike and I have been fans of W and G since 1997 or so, when our friend Bill Stevens gave Mike a VHS tape and said, "You've got to watch this!" It was really, really cool to see the miniature sets where the movies were filmed. You just really can't imagine the kind of time, patience, attention to detail, creativity, and effort that goes into animation done to this level of perfection. The dollhouse-like sets were unbelievable. Here are some close-ups:
Wallace trying to help Gromit and the runaway vacuum.
"It's okay, Gromit. Everything is under control."
I love this dog's expressiveness.
"Cracking toast, Gromit."
To give you a sense of scope, here's Ollie looking in at the dining room set.
We have this same refrigerator! (actually called a SMEG)
The little girl in me loved the dollhouse feeling of these sets. The little veggies
on the kitchen cart, the spoons in the ceramic pitcher, all the little details
in miniature!
The exhibit was very interactive. Here Ollie toyed around with (not really)
making his own music. I gave him a shot because I honestly thought, "Maybe
he is a little Mozart." But, naah, he just got tangled up in the headphone wires.
At this center, you could design your own wallpaper, too.
There's much more to see at the Centre for Life, including a planetarium, so I'm sure we'll be back! Thanks to my three awesome guys for such a grand day out.
