The Ides of March

Many little things are happening this first Spring in the Springs. Here's an update with our goings-on.

I am still volunteering at the Office of Emergency Management (OEM). They are trusting me with more and more responsibilities. I got to participate "officially" in an exercise. Here's my name plate!!

  

My job was when persons needed something, but weren't sure who to ask the call/request went to me. I then researched who could fulfill the request and then hooked both persons together.

RFI means Request For Information.

This is what the room looked like. It's called a Sim Cell, or a White Cell. Each person represents a different agency. I would either holler back a request, or post it on a computer in front of everyone. Agencies represented were the Red Cross, Utilities, State OEM, etc. It was fun!

I'm still getting used to Costco sizes. I am trying desperately to divide the large packages into appropriate sizes, but don't always succeed. I called home from Parent-Teacher conferences and asked Jordan to get a package of ground beef out of the freezer and start some meatloaf. In my mind a package was a pound, or two. Nope, try 4. Jordan diligently followed my instructions and began mixing the meat and other ingredients.

4 lbs of meatloaf later - Jordan learned the joy of mixing cold beef. And I learned to have them report back the size of the package BEFORE commencing the recipe! Jordan wanted to show his hands and their awesome mess.

Gotta love meatloaf. Mix in leftover dumpling meat, leftover spaghetti sauce, old bread and viola! Meatloaf!

This was such a beautiful moment. I had to capture it. My boys. Reading. Together. Nevermind it's the latest video gaming magazine, promoting the new coolest game. They are together - reading!!

Dad takes reading to new extremes. Especially when he forgets his glasses.

He's not getting older per se. He's maturing!

Marcus has never been much of a reader, but really hit the books this past week to study for the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). His dedication worked as he scored an overall 90. High enough to qualify for any and EVERY job in the Navy!! Yes, the Navy! Marcus wants to go into the medical field and see the world. He went to the MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) today for his physical and will go back to get his medical job April 1st!!

We signed Benjamin up for soccer this Spring. After his first practice he saw some kids playing football. "Mom, can I play football instead of soccer? I really want to play an AMERICAN sport!" We were able to switch him and he was SUPER excited to begin play.

He started putting his pads into his pants as soon as a friend at work told him what they were for and where they went. This is in the car.

He never took his shoulder pads off once they fitted him! The next day was his first practice. He suited up an hour before practice and sang happyily whist doing the dishes, awaiting the time to pass!

We ended up practicing with the wrong team (his team had gone to another park) but his wrong coach was happy to let him play with his team, and said Ben would be Excellent when they taught him some special moves. He was learning fast! (Ben had only played flag football for a few weeks in KL before).

Today, the day of his second practice, he was already planning for the 5pm practice at 8:30am! He was quizzing me on football information, "Mom, how many guys are on a football team?" Sadly, I did not have the vital knowledge. We'll just have to do some research! We did go to Goodwill and got him some long-sleeve tops and long pants as we froze our booties off at the 1st practice! We walked to the park behind our house (where practice is) and had to trudge through mud and 6 inches of snow in places.

This will NOT be a hot practice football season like in KL! Our 2nd practice was cancelled due to another snowstorm! This is our back deck at 5pm. Poor Ben, he REALLY wanted to practice!

I also got some cool bread tubes at Goodwill. I've had some in my cupboards for about 15 years, without using them, but I was determined to use them now that I had 3 more - by golley! Jordan had previously separated some of my wheat flour to see if he could sort the bran out and make "white" flour. Then the kids had crushed candy canes for hot cocoa earlier in the week during our first snowstorm that dumped almost a foot of snow. So - we made bread with our "white" flour with candycane powder. It wasn't pretty. Apparently my bread more than doubles when it rises!

 The little mini-loaves on the right are my favorite. They have chocolate chips rolled into the dough. Yum!

One of our Spring Break activities this week was canning. I love being able to have food storage and sources for it  again! Earlier this week I went to the storehouse with Casey and bought cans, lids, oxygen packet and white wheat, oatmeal, black beans and other stuffs to can for our food storage. Casey and I learned how to can properly at the storehouse and brought our knowledge and goods home in preparation for the big snow.

(It had been about 10 years since I last canned and Casey had never canned before. We took a picture with our hairnets and gloves on but both decided that that picture would NEVER go public!)

Jordan, Marcus and Greg helped with the canning. It was cool!

Hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather!

I keeping checking on my 150 tulip bulbs everytime the snow melts and they are trying to bud! 

Happy Spring everyone!