Quin was invited to a get together (possibly a dinner) at the American Legion here in town to speak a bit about her trip to the ALA Girls State week camp and what she did and meet the group that sponsored her to go. She is nervous, but I am sure she will do great and it will be really nice to have the chance to meet and thank in person the people who sponsored her. I just wish I could take the nervousness away from her.
Quin's presentation went just as well as I knew it would and she did a great job. 4 of the 5 kids that went to the State events (Boys State was first and the week after was Girls State) were there tonight and all of them were requested to speak a bit about what they learned, their favorite parts of the week and things like that. Of the 4 kids, one boy and Quin were the only ones to prepare at all and did the predominate majority of the speaking and answering questions. The two others gave short vague answers and left the heavy lifting up to Quin and the other boy. They both were approached by the members of the American Legion and American Legion Auxiliary and complimented on their speaking and preparation and poise. I was really surprised at the other girl who was there, though. I've heard her speak publicly at school stuff before and she is very good at it. Then again, everyone has an "off day" here and there and I think this might have been one of hers.
Quin found that she enjoyed getting to tell everyone about the trip and when she did get nervous she looked over at me and I would smile and nod to encourage her and she said that it helped her get back on track. Many people came up to her after the presentation to ask more questions and thank her for speaking and that made her feel good, too.
I'm happy that she enjoyed herself and gained a bit of confidence from this experience.
Russ and I had to go to the store tonight to get some stuff for eating over the weekend. We have no ingredients to make anything and used up the leftovers for dinner tonight. So we stop on our way home and I mentioned how nice it is to be able to throw stuff in the crock pot and just leave it to cook for the day while we're at work, but that I wished it was bigger so that we had leftovers those nights since it would be nice to have something to take for lunch the next day. We decide to go look at crock pots to see what they have. Mine is only a 4 or 5 quart size and it holds just enough to feed us, but not have leftovers. As we are looking at all of the options - and there are a ton of choices from low tech to advanced enough to launch a satellite into space from the control on the pot - I glance at the bottom shelf and see an 8 quart crock pot. Looking at the prices of some of them, I was a bit sad because they were more than we could afford on an impulse buy. Then I found the tag for the one I was looking at: $30.00. Not the 80 or more that most of the other big ones cost. I was sure that couldn't be right, but we decided to try and see what it rang up and would decide then. It rang up for $30.00. So I am now the super excited owner of a huge 8 quart crock pot and will now be able to have leftovers for lunch the next day!
I got stuff to make in it for tomorrow and Sunday just so I can try it out and play with it.
We tried a new recipe in my new crockpot today. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as great as I was hoping, either. It was just 3 ingredients and super simple, just chicken breasts (or in our case thighs since we prefer those), a packet of powdered ranch dressing mix, and one stick of butter cut in slices and spread over the chicken and powder then cooked for 6 to 8 hours (or until the chicken is at least 160 degrees). Some of the previous recipes I've tried have definitely been better. Tomorrow we are making chicken marsala in the crockpot and hoping it will be awesome. The pictures on the recipe looked pretty amazing. Fingers crossed.
The chicken marsala turned out much better. It smelled so good in the house today and I was hoping it tasted as good as it smelled. It was every bit as good as it smelled! I need to try to find these recipes on a web site and link them and if I can't find them, just type them out myself. I'm loving playing with the crock pot recipes - and I generally hate cooking - and the ones I've tried have been super simple, but taste amazing.
On a whinier note (sort of), Quin has her first day of school tomorrow. Normally I would be fine with it, but this is her last first day of high school. There will be other first days when she goes to college, but this one feels bittersweet. Her last first day of being a kid. I'm trying to savor every memory and hope that I don't get too overly emotional about it all.
The last first day was standard fare for Quin and I managed not to get too emotional about it - at least not in front of her. She was pretty excited that they got to go outside to watch the eclipse. The school had mentioned on their website and Facebook page that they would be taking the kids out, but once they went out, Quin discovered that they only had about 40 or so pairs of eclipse glasses for almost 100 kids. They had to share and take turns with them. Quin was really grateful for her Grandpa today. A couple of weeks ago he got a pack of 3 eclipse glasses for each of us. Russ had jury duty today, so wasn't able to use his, but I took mine to work and got to watch it and Quin took hers to school and was lucky she did since she had the option of sharing them with her friends and taking a few kids out of the scramble for the others from the school.
Overall, it was an otherwise pretty standard first day.
Glencairn, I may have to borrow that crock pot chicken marsala recipe! We eat a lot of chicken and it gets real old, real fast. The kids are even sick of BBQ'd & grilled chicken. Maybe it's worth it's own recipe thread in the food forum, other folks might appreciate something a little different to throw together, too.
After almost 3 years of living here, we finally made it out to Lake Michigan for a day. We went to Holland (city in MI, not the country, lol) and explored around there (Spyder's smitten, very nice area) and then explored the beach area there at Holland State Park. My calves are still screaming, it's been a WHILE since I trudged through sand for an afternoon. I finally saw a critter I've only seen pictures of -- a black squirrel. Little dude was very fast, I couldn't get a picture of him frolicking around a yard in the lakeside neighborhood we walked through no matter how hard I tried. They're really cool to look at, pictures don't do them justice -- that one was jet black.
Then there was a classic cars show we took the kids to. Spyder & Little Kid drooled over all the oldies, turns out Little Kid is a HUGE fan of the aesthetics of classic roadsters, the Fords in particular. "Ooooh, can I have this one when I turn 16??" LOL, probably not kiddo, but I wouldn't put it past your old man to get a beat up one for you to restore like that.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nyiah, I will have to pull the recipes out that we've tried and make threads for them. That is a good idea, and I'm really grateful that someone did that so that Quin was able to discover them in the first place (she LOVES looking at recipes she wants us to try.) so that I had something to experiment with.
We have a black squirrel (maybe two?) in the town next to ours and we see it frequently when we go through the town. It is so neat looking. I haven't ever been quick enough to get a picture, either, but it is very cute.
I've been to various parks to go dune climbing in both Indiana and Michigan and it was fun, but lots of work and I was always achy afterwards for a day or two. But, it was worth it and never stopped me from going on the next dune climbing outing. I'm glad you guys got to go and had a good time!
Russ just went to a car show with his dad today. It sounds like they had a great time. Quin's boss at the vet clinic, Dr. Z, is super into classic cars and helps host our little (but growing) car show here in our town. He just recently got a new classic car. I don't remember what kind Quin said it is, but I saw it the other day when we went by the vet clinic. Whatever it is, it is beautiful!
Quin got her first car tonight! My parents got it for her (though that is a secret because they aren't looking to buy cars for any of the other grandkids, Quin's was a reward for how hard she has been working in school and maintaining such high grades since the day she started kindergarten). They got her a 1995 bright red convertible Mustang. Tomorrow we will get it added to the insurance and get the title transferred over - that will be in Russ and my name - She will be expected to use some of her paycheck money to pay for her gas for it, but Russ drove it home from northern Wisconsin today and said it gets ridiculously good gas mileage, so that is good. When Russ called the insurance company to get rates we were surprised to find that adding it to the policy will only add about $30.00 per month. I can swing that with my paycheck, so yay for that!
She is so insanely excited. She has wanted a Mustang since she knew what cars were (and that they had horses on them), we figured that would change as she got older and if it didn't, she would have to buy it herself. This one came about as a happy coincidence. Someone up near our family's cabin in WI had it for sale for a pretty reasonable price and it doesn't have much at all that needs to be fixed. The previous owner was older and passed away and their kids had just been storing it and decided it was time to part with the car.
For me, it will be really nice not having to share just one vehicle and juggle work schedules and be able to have Quin run some errands for me while I am at work.
Glencairn,That's so awesome! I still remember how it felt when I got my first car- I think that's one of life's high points that sticks with you forever! I think Quin might need a tether to keep here on the planet; it looks like she's about as close to Cloud 9 as you can get!
Nugget, LOL! You might be right about the tether. She was so excited she was almost floating. Russ got all of the title and registration and insurance stuff dealt with today, so she got to bring it home tonight after she got off work. She stopped on the way to show her cousin (they are about 15 months apart in age and good friends) and then her boyfriend, Dillin's, mom wanted to see it so she stopped to show his parents, then finally home.
I talked to the school to change the parking permit info since they only had my car on file and they said that it's fine that she doesn't have the permanent plates yet, they don't have a problem with her driving it to school, just give them a call when the plates come in so they have the plate number on file, but in the meantime have fun driving it to school and showing it to her friends. The lady in the office is wonderful and she was excited for Quin.
Russ ordered personalized plates for her and you can check on the Secretary of State's web site to see if a particular personalized plate is available and it said that the one he wanted to get for her is, so he ordered it. They said that there is no guarantee that you will definitely get the one you ordered (though I'm not sure I understand why she wouldn't since they said it was available and isn't anything bad), so now we cross our fingers and hope she does get the one we ordered. With her bright red hair and her constant jokes about being a ginger who has no soul we decided to order "Gingr 20" for her. We wanted to get either 00 or 18, being her birth year and her graduation year, but those were both taken, and 20 was suggested as the next closest that was available, so we said sure, the number isn't the "important" part anyway.
And Quin is already losing her car. Just for the day, though, and only so I can take it to work with me where I will be meeting with the windshield people who are coming out to replace the cracked windshield sooner than I expected. It will be driveable after a few hours it sounds like so she will be getting it back tomorrow evening. Then she loses it again on Tuesday for an overnight stay with the mechanic who is transferring the A/C from an old system that is no longer used in cars to the kind that is currently used so that she will have a working air conditioner.
Quin is sad to be losing her car so much in the next few days, but is excited that things we thought would take longer to get fixed are happening sooner.
Now we have the cracked windshield replaced with a brand new one!
We are going up to the renaissance faire one last time for the season tomorrow. It is closing weekend and they will run through Monday this weekend, but tomorrow works best for us since Quin will be going over to grandma and grandpa's house on Sunday to spend the night and then we will go over Monday for dinner and to caravan home with Quin. This weekend starts the going non-stop every weekend for the next two months for marching band season. It is always exhausting, but lots of fun. By the time it is winding down, I will be a zombie and ready for it all to be over, but also want to savor every moment because it is Quin's last year for band and her last marching season.
The kids brought home a wild cottontail baby they found in the street (saved it from being roadkill) Long story short, we were hoping the keep the cuddly little guy, but it's illegal in MI to keep them (yet, one can own an elk in captivity o.O) We released him today in the back yard after consulting with a wildlife rehab center. He set up shop under the deck in the vegetative Garden of Eden growing under there, and I don't think he's going to go too far from there, he really likes the humans' company. I guess you can say they had their first authentic (but brief) rehabilitation jaunt, they learned quite a bit about cottontails (everything from how they live to what they eat) They were so good at the "what they eat" part that we now know everything in the yard a wild rabbit CAN eat (and it's what he ate, because we gathered it for him when he was indoors) If he sticks around for the long-term, which I'm thinking he might do, everything I've read about wild rabbits coming back to their human helpers is positive -- he'll remember us and act accordingly, likely even sitting with/on us voluntarily.
Spyder's backed himself into a corner, though -- he promised the kids a legal cuddly buddy in lieu of Thumper here, so now we're on the hook for guinea pigs. In all honesty, they're no more work than a domestic rabbit is, and we were quite prepared to care for a wild one long-term, so it shouldn't be a problem.
The kids also won a contest this week! It was just a small art contest at a local restaurant, the prize being a meal on them and I think their drawings going on the wall in the place. They're pretty thrilled, they've never won anything before :)
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
First, congrats to the kiddos! That is awesome and I bet they are excited and proud.
Second, How cool that they rescued a bunny and learned all about them and their food needs and care. It's too bad that they had to let it go, but it will be so neat if it sticks around and remembers you and how you helped it and will stay friendly towards you. A guinea pig isn't a bad substitute, either. I had some over the years when I was growing up and they are wonderful pets. Some were shy and some outgoing and cuddly, but they each had a distinct personality and I have such good memories of them. I hope that you find the perfect one!