Thanks, Jason

Our friend Jason came over on Sunday and cooked us an amazing Chinese food feast.Here is the menu, written in Chinese.
Here are the ingredients. It was totally cool to check out all different spices and sauces from china town.
Jason is slicing the lotus root. Awesome.
Veggies veggies veggies!
Ahhh, the master at wok, I mean work!
Everyone found it so interesting to watch Jason cook everything. Jason said he didn't mind the audience.
Looks good!
Wow! We had fried rice with shrimp and pork, sweet & sour pork ribs, lotus root, gai-lan with oyster sauce,beef in a black bean sauce, chicken with peanuts, green beans with pork & shrimp and also a dish with egg, mushrooms and cucumber.
Jason really did an amazing job, cooking all eight dishes for us to enjoy. It was all delicious. Thank you so much, Jason. It was such a fun night.

Happy Birthday, Gregory

Guess who is 35?
The children make the neatest cards. Greg is reading one of them here. I think Trinity made about 7 or 8 pictures for Daddy.
Oooh...I wonder what's inside?
Happy Birthday, Honey. Love you.

Birthday dinner

I wanted to make a nice dinner for Gregory on his birthday, so I used my French cookbook to find a great simple recipe. I made turkey escalopes with a tomato olive sauce.
Season turkey with salt & pepper. Cook in olive oil just until done, and keep warm in a low oven.
Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil, cook 2 garlic cloves for 1 minute, add pitted olives, cook 1 minute. Add chopped tomatoes, cook another minute. Mix in chopped fresh basil. Serve immediately.
Voila! I served the meal with steamed green beans, and Uncle Ben's rice. (o.k, maybe I cheated a little with the rice, but it's all good.)
Zanatta is a local winery - they have wonderful wines. This went very nicely with our dinner. Cheers!

Chestnut cake

Gregory brought some chestnut puree back from Italy , hoping I would make a chestnut cake with it. I have never even tasted a chestnut cake, so this was sort of fun. I found a recipe on line for a flourless chocolate chestnut cake, and decided to make it for Greg's birthday.
The recipe called for 4 eggs, chestnut puree, chocolate and sugar. I love flourless chocolate cakes, and with the chestnuts, it is even better.
Chocolate chestnut cake, served with chocolate sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Good morning Sunshine

Trinity is eating her cheerios for breakfast. She is dressed in her ballerina outfit, ready to start her day. Trinity likes to pretend that she goes to school like her big brother and sisters, except that Trinity's teacher is a ballerina, and 'Polly' (a dog) is also in her class.
Yes, she even wears this when we go shopping, and yes, she thinks this is normal.

popcorn for sale

Mary Margaret set up a popcorn stand in the house this morning.
It was only 25 cents for a bowl, plus one free refill! Here is Trinity purchasing some popcorn.
Yum.

Good times '79

Our neighbour 'Auntie Louie' came over for a little visit yesterday and gave us seven 'Good times '79' t-shirts. She is such a dear lady, and the kids and I just love her.
The girls and I were going to a birthday party/dance, and thought it would be fun if we all wore the super-cool shirts. The t-shirts were indeed a big hit. People were asking "what's with the t-shirts?"but I think they really wanted to ask "where can I get a 'good times'79' shirt?"
In 1979, I was the same age as Heather is now.
Yeah, Baby!

great grapes

Our grapes are awesome this year. They look so gorgeous, and they taste great, too.
This is our deck, looking towards the dining room.
The green grapes are not quite ripe yet.
The purple ones are amazing. Sometimes we cut some bunches and just have grapes for dessert, or I give them to the kids in their lunches.The raccoons in our neighbourhood also love our grapes. The other night, the raccoons ate all the purple grapes, and threw a whole bunch (no pun intended) of green grapes all over the deck. I guess they were not impressed that some of the grapes were sour. How rude.

sweets for the sweeties

Felicity & Eva bought some candies for all the kids last weekend. We almost never buy candy, so it was really fun. It was a nice day, so of course they had to eat outside. Plus there would a lot of room for the children to run around, once the sugar high kicks in.The candy was basically a little paint can with coloured sugar, and a paint brush made out of candy, that you lick and then dip it in the sugar. Trinity's tongue was blue for about two days.
I remember buying candy that came in a little garbage can, and the candies inside were shaped like fish bones and other bits of garbage. Popeye cigarettes were pretty cool, too.

fig

Gregory planted 3 fig trees this spring, and we have already enjoyed lots of fruit.One of the little trees.
Delicious.

Plum crazy

Trinity was helping me pick some of our plums.Plum crazy!s-t-r-etch ....
The paper bag is full of plums. Thanks for your help, Cin-Cin!

chillin' in the hot tub

Ya gotta love the hot tub!
Hey, Gracie!
Chillax!
Turn the jets on, girls.

Greg! Can I get you a beer?

SO CUTE

Trinity is SO CUTE! Yeah, that's right, cute enough for all capital letters.
She was having a tough morning. Her cereal (cheerios) was getting cold, and for some reason, that can be very upsetting for a 3 1/2 year old. So, after finishing her cheerios, she wanted her hair done. Ladies, you will understand, that if you are having a bad day, getting your hair done (or buying a new lipstick) will do wonders for your mood.
Trinity chose to have 5 ponytails, all with different colour elastics , to match the rainbow bow on her skirt (of course!) I got a bit carried away, and made the ponytails into little corkscrews.
Her shadow looks like the Statue of Liberty. ha.
Trinity was being sort of shy, maybe because we were all staring at her and saying "aawwww, you are SO CUTE, Trinity!" She is asking me to do her hair like this again.

way too good

Here's what was on the menu tonight.
I'm not sure what this is called, but I saw the show 'Take Home Chef' and he made this on the show. It is eggplant with mozzarella cheese and basil. The basil & cheese are in between two thin slices of eggplant, which you sort of batter, then fry in a bit of oil. It is very good. I had Mary make the basil aioli ( mayo, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper, and lime juice, as we had no lemon.) It was great with the eggplant. Thanks, Mary Margaret!Eggplant, basil, and mozzarella cheese appetizer served with fresh basil aioli.
Eva gives her approval.
Meanwhile, down at the Bar-B-Q, Gregory is grilling some lamb chops.
Looks good!
Lamb chops, Greek salad, and rice, cooked with vegetable broth and parsley. Served with a french wine from the Rhone Valley.
For dessert I made a white chocolate mousse tart with fresh blackberries on top. This is way too good!

cue the violin music

Here's a sad story:

There was a mama deer and her sweet little one, eating apples in our yard. *cuteness*
Of course , I want to take a photo for the blog, so I make sure the dog is inside, then I go outside on the balcony with Trinity to take a pic. Oops! All the other kids want to see, too, so everyone comes outside. Yes, even the dog! Prima chases the deer (as we usually tell her to do) out of our yard. No big deal except for the fact that I did not get a picture of the deer. Then Mary comes running in the house telling me that PRIMA GOT THE DEER!! At first I think she is pulling my leg -- she does that a lot!, but, it turns out that the young deer IS hurt, ( not by the dog, though). The deer is on the other side of the fence in the forest, struggling to get up. The kids were so upset. I called the vet, who gave me a number, that number gave me another number, that gave me another number. No -one was interested in the deer. By the time I got off the phone and went to the forest , the deer was no longer moving. I tried to be positive, and we were all hoping that the deer was just resting, and would get up again. It was very sad, as we could still see the mama deer, standing not too far away.The next day, I got a return call from the conservation officer, who was very nice and offered to take the deer away on his way home from work.
Is it weird that I took a picture of Greg and officer X? taking the dead deer away? BTW, the conservation officer said the deer had no injuries, but must have died from fright, or exhaustion.
Poor thing.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.