The Taste of Your "Local" Franchise

This week we went out to a local festival called "The Taste of Champaign." And no- not the alcohol kind. Hubbie and I were pretty excited to try out some good food while getting out and enjoying the nice weather. We had a great time, there was a lot of entertainment, bands, pony rides etc. We mostly just stuck to the food aspect of the event. In the words of the organizers "25 restaurants will be in the park to tempt your taste buds with everything from mouth-watering desserts and ice cream to spicy BBQ. Try dishes from around the world or indulge in a local favorite." Sounds good, right? It was like Mecca for pregnant people- any craving you had could be filled and you could do it all in one spot. The one and only letdown of the evening was the restaurants that did not participate- namely the true local fare. The impression was given that this festival was geared towards tasting food from restaurants specific to our area and while I have nothing against Coldstone or Papa Johns, they hardly can be considered local treasures. After we had thoroughly stuffed ourselves, Rowan played on the playground while we attempted to digest. It was really a wonderful evening and definitely something we will go to again next year.

I did discover a new restaurant, despite the abundance of franchises, that is likely to become a new favorite. Zorbas served the most incredible gyros and have inspired me to change my own recipe. Also, I have discovered that I like hummus. HUMMUS! We go way back, hummus and I...

It all began when I first started work as a nanny. On my first day the mother told me that the boys can eat the hummus in the fridge for lunch. Not wanting to sound like a total hick, I nodded politely and refrained from asking "Is that a fungus of some kind?" Lunchtime came and I went in search of said hummus. There were a lot of containers with questionable (edible?) things inside, so I asked the little boy to help me by pulling the hummus out and putting it on the table. He pulled out a container with some kind of strangely cream paste and I proceeded to "paste" up their pitas. I retched several times putting it on and said a little prayer for these poor boys as I served them their lunch. After several bites, the boys told me this wasn't hummus. I guess I wasn't the only confused one. Even when we did find the correct jar, it really didn't look or smell much better and I forever vowed never to touch the stuff.

Well hopefully that is the only vow I will ever break. Steven recently received an award for teaching (they even created the award just for him!) and there was a banquet afterwards. I was so hungry and the only carb on the table were these pitas with this interesting dip. It was heavenly. I later realized what I had eaten, but the taste superseded all prior memories of the "paste." I confirmed this by trying hummus once again at this festival and now I have ingredients in my fridge to make some at home tomorrow. Don't worry, I don't plan to join a kibbutz and stop shaving, but I think Hippietown has rubbed off on me more than I'd like to admit.




This Coldstone place is pretty good!



I made Steven take pictures this time.




Look Mom, I'm flying! #1 ran up and down this ramp for a long time.




See video #7



The sign of a truly enjoyable evening- Rowan throwing a fit when he finds out we have to go home.

Too Much Information

Today I was getting us ready to go to a park with a water feature, so I put Rowan in in swimsuit and swim diaper thinking "There's only an hour before we have to go. I don't want to have to replace another diaper when we leave." Swim diapers seem to have this controversy behind them- "Are they effective? What's the point really?" I guess I have this naive consumer faith that products do what they claim to do, especially when they are expensive, which in my opinion swim diapers are. Not 30 minutes after putting Rowan in his new Nemo diaper I hear a squeal "I'm leaking, I'm LEAKING." Sure enough, Nemo was swimming and so was my carpet. Oh Huggies, you've failed me. So now I know that swim diapers have one function: To keep the number 2 in. I guess it would be difficult to create a diaper so airtight that it can keep liquids separate, but then I have to wonder "Why bother?" I can never look at the kiddie pool in the same way. Now it's just a cesspool of little kids' pee.

To Infinity and Beyond!

Setting: Daddy and Rowan drinking water

Rowan: What is this daddy?
Daddy: It's water.
Rowan: What kind of water?
Daddy: The kind that you drink.
Rowan: What kind of water that you drink?

Setting: Mommy and Rowan reading a book

Rowan: What is that mommy?
Mommy: It looks like a horse.
Rowan: What kind of horse?
Mommy: It's a brown horse.
Rowan: What kind of brown horse?
Mommy: It's a nice, brown horse.
Rowan: What kind of nice, brown horse?


Anyone else sensing a pattern? This constitutes a large majority of our conversations throughout the day. It would be pretty maddening if the kid wasn't so cute.

Here we go again...

No this isn't an inkblot test. I'm too lazy to try and scan these so I just took a picture of them instead, which apparently didn't result in a quality image. But you get the idea.

I can now dispel the rumors that I have a stomach tumor. It's rather embarassing when you have to wear maternity clothes before you are even out of the first trimester. You really do pop out earlier, the more pregnancies you have had.

So here we are, pregnancy #4 hoping that this one will cross the finish line. I'm trying to be excited and happy about this announcement, but a part of me is reserved. Which I suppose is healthy. After having a stillborn at 6 months, I really don't feel safe at any stage in the game and I think I probably won't be able to celebrate until I am holding this child in my arms. But we are happy all is well after a few scares. The funny thing is this baby's due date is one day from Rowan's birthday. Not that we don't have enough going on that week- our anniversary, this little thing called a holiday, and Rowan's birthday. I should start buying lottery tickets around then :).

Out of the Mouths of Babes

This past month I've heard so many funny things come out of Rowan's mouth and then I forget to write them down. Nothing political though. I should try to get him to say "Obama's overrated" but we'd probably be murdered in the street for that. Not that I'm a big fan of McCain- they both stink, but the hype over Barrack is a little over the top. I don't like politicans in general, but do people even know what this guy believes? He did a fist-bump with his wife and it's front page news??? C'mon, everyone knows that only Britney Spears beating a car with an umbrella constitutes what should be seen on Yahoo's Featured. Off my soapbox for now. It's a good thing I'm Canadian and can't vote- I don't get so invested in this ridiculousness. So on a brighter note, here's some recurring classics from Rowan:

Rowan: "W W dot dot com tractors!" Essentially fill in the blank for the last word. Apparently this is the format for all things desired on the Internet. Rowan also likes to check his email on our obsolete computer upstairs. I think his parents... well his mom anyways spends too much time on the computer.

Rowan: "Can we go to Old McDonald?" This is code for McDonalds- too bad Dad caught on. He never was a fan.

Rowan has also starting telling fibs. I really don't know how to approach this one because it kind of pointless to argue with him about it. Truth seems a little abstract still. Most of the time it's just funny- "I'm a girl and Mommy is a boy"

Thunder, Flash Flood and Torando Warnings.... Oh my!

Last night was some of the worst weather I've ever seen. Of course it had been raining hard all day, but things got interesting later on. It all started around 9:30pm when the tornado sirens went off. We turned on the TV and woke up our poor sleeping boy so we could all hide out in the bathroom. The sirens continued for a while so we got a couch cushion for Rowan to lay down on. I have a few complaints about where we live, but not many. After last night I have one more- no basement. If we had to stay in that bathroom for any extended amount of time I think I'd lose it. And I was lucky enough to have somewhere to sit even if it was the toilet- poor Steve got the floor. Camping out in a basement all night would have been so much better.

After the sirens stopped and the tornado warning was no longer in effect we decided to go to bed. We trudged upstairs, put Rowan in his bed and hoped if there was another siren we would wake up enough to hear it. I don't know if we could have heard it, even if we wanted to. Seriously it was as if there was a strobe light and a heavy metal band outside our window. I've never seen the sky so lit up; the thunder was shaking our walls. We couldn't sleep so we decided to go get some munchies downstairs. Rowan hadn't been making a peep so I figured he had miraculously fallen asleep. I peeked in before we went downstairs and Rowan was sitting up in his bed with the most petrified look I've ever seen. He was frozen with fear. Once he saw me he started to cry and point at his window which was flashing like there was a close encounter outside or something. Poor kid. We all went downstairs and pigged out on ice cream until the storm passed. By then we were so exhausted, we all crashed in our bed and put Rowan in his own room after he had fallen asleep. Then another storm came in, but luckily this time he stayed asleep. I turned on the TV and they were
announcing flash flood warnings. I think it's time to go back to Canada.

See video #8

Bipolar Weather

Yesterday was a beautiful day, so we decided to go to the pool. After sunscreen application, swimsuits, snack checks, sanity checks, and other essential preparations we headed off. Upon finding the door to the pool still bolted shut, we grumbled various things about our MIA lifeguard. Steven decided to "break in" since we were able to gain access through another door, so being the disgruntled pool goers we were, we went in. After all the pool was supposed to be open and we were in a section that wasn't going to be attended by a lifeguard anyways....right? Our rationalizations didn't go far. The water was freezing and I felt a little out in the open about our obvious B&E, especially since there was a group of women doing their new-age exercises nearby. I think I felt more embarrassed for them though. So we left. I later went to the office to give them a piece of my mind about the pool and our leaking fridge that they've "fixed" four times, only to discover that the pool opens a hour later than I thought. Oops. We still had a good time though. We filled up our boat pool in the backyard (it's nice when you can control the temperature of the water) and the kids had a blast.




Today is completely opposite. The roads and sidewalks are rivers- even the speed bumps are disappearing. Rowan insisted on getting out, but sadly even his rubber boots were no match for the floods we encountered. His pants were completely soaked. I had plans for kabobs on the grill tonight... I wonder if you can bake them. I'm tired of spring.