Several years ago we started giving each year a food. One year it was the year of the pork chop. The year after that was the year of the shrimp. And we would eat that food on New Years' day to commemorate the start of that year.
Last year was the year of the sushi.
Now, we didn't take the kids out for raw fish. We usually eat our sushi in the form of rolls with crazy spicy sauces or the basic California roll. Or Wilson had fried rice and tried a roll. Either way, it was the Year of the Sushi.
So the Year of the Sushi was a fun year. We started off January with some work around the house with some custom window treatments. We had 14 inches of snow in February. We celebrated Wilson and Reagan's birthdays at home, and then took them to Great Wolf Lodge which is an indoor waterpark. I finished some of the stops on the burger tour, and Jolene started home cooking delicious pies, chicken pot pies, and other delicious meals that led us to our vegetarian summer. Which was great!
We also bought mountain bikes and went biking in Texas and Missouri. We went on vacation to Six Flags and I rode rollercoasters with a concussion (we found out later that I had a little bit of head trauma from my biking accident).
We had the Davidsons and Crouches here for Thanksgiving, and ended the year with a great Christmas. And Reagan used her Christmas money to get her ears pierced at the end of the year.
So, I downloaded the pictures from Jolene and my iPhones and uploaded them here. You can see a look of our year through our mobile photos!
This year I decided to add a special feature to the Christmas Card... I added a QR tag to the back of the card. If you knew what that was, and scanned it with your cell phone or webcam it brought you here! This is the video of how we made the Christmas Card... the photo shoot of the kids to get that perfect shot for the front of the card.
Here's the video!
For the last month I've watched friends on Facebook list things that they are thankful for, and last week we celebrated Thanksgiving at our house again this year. A year ago we decided to stay home for the holidays and do Thanksgiving at home. Jolene cooked a turkey breast, side items, and an apple pie. The four of us sat around the table and Thanksgiving together and enjoyed the meal.
This year was a little different. We decided to stay home again this year, but we opened up the invitation to our parents.
And they said yes. All of them.
So this year, we had a much bigger table. We cooked two turkey breasts, and more side items. Jolene made two pies, an apple pie and a chocolate pecan pie. The food was amazing, and I sat there at the head of the table looking at my family: my parents, my in-laws, my children and my wife. It was there when I realized how special that moment was.
When we got married, I knew that we were joining families. Even though all of Jolene's family lives in Missouri and mine is in Texas we were one big family. We've gone up to Missouri and spent time with her parents, grandparents, etc. for summer vacations. We've been down to Victoria and San Antonio, going to the waterpark in New Braunfels with my family.
And here we were, sitting at one table together - two families joined together because of alphabetical order and a group project in an Old Testament Interpretation class.
We had a blast last week with our family. We had Thanksgiving lunch, the ladies played games while us men watched the Cowboys almost win a football game. That night we played games together, and on Friday we all went together to the Christmas tree farm and cut down our Christmas tree. Afterwards we went to Babe's Chicken House in Burleson and ate until we could hardly move.
I am so thankful for my family. I am so blessed to spend time with the most amazing parents, in-laws, children and wife for the rest of my life.
The idea of "The Vegetarian Experiement" was to prepare only vegetarian meals in our home for the summer. From Memorial Day to Labor Day we would have a vegetarian house. We are a few weeks away from the end of the Vegetarian Experiment. We did really well. We ate some really great things. We also learned that trying out a recipe created by non-vegetarians for vegetarians is ALWAYS going to be a disaster. It's like the meat eaters come up with the nastiest idea and say "Heh Heh, wish you could whip up a burger right about now, huh?"
The kids did well. Chris did well. Of course, I knew Chris would do well because the Vegetarian Experiement covered only those meals cooked in the house and Chris works. He gets to leave the house and find his way to meat. Everyone here, in all honesty, was a very good sport. We have new family favorite recipes that we will always use.
But I've noticed something strange occuring the closer we get to Labor Day. The kids turn on Food Network. They watch Paula Deen attentively, mouths watering. My children covet her food. Will went as far to suggest between Labor Day and Christmas we should cook only Paula Deen recipes. I told him I didn't think that was going to happen. His response? "Man cannot live by quinoa alone." Veggies have increased the speed of his brain and his mouth.
I'll be honest. Writing is HARD when you're a stay home mom. I didn't think it would be. I figured I could crank out about 3 or 4 really wonderful pieces of literary blog awesomeness every day. Truth is it was easier to write every day when I had a job. For starters I got "breaks". Those breaks included walking over to the cafeteria and getting a very large Diet Coke and hitting the vending machine for a B-7 - a Butterfinger. It was heavenly, and not so healthy, but it kept a smile on my face. So while eating a candy bar and drinking a Diet Coke I could write about the one or two funny things the kids did between the hours of 5:30 pm and 6:30 am.