So one of my favorite movies of all time is Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks. His character winds up stranded on a desert island, having to fend for himself against the elements, an abscessed tooth and hunger. A few days after his arrival, he has his first big success story and builds a bonfire, boyscout-style:

Earlier this evening I totally related, and was thumping my chest boasting:

I HAVE MADE BUTTER!

And not just any old butter… cinnamon honey butter.

My shiny new KitchenAid mixer arrived yesterday, and this butter was the second thing I made with it.

Behold, the mixer

So of course you’re wondering what was the FIRST thing? Well, I’ll get back to that in a little bit. Meanwhile, allow me to continue to boast on my baking prowess. I made THESE bad boys this past weekend. First time trying, instant success. Man, I’m good.

I HAVE MADE MACARONS!

So, yeah, feeling pretty good about myself in the kitchen. Well, Tom Hanks felt pretty good about himself on that island for awhile, too, but before long he finds himself huddling in a piecemeal shelter that is easily blown away by the tropical storms which frequent the island, and he retreats to a cave up a cliff, while suffering terribly from his bad tooth (which he eventually “removes” by using an ice skate that washed ashore…).

Now what happened to me wasn’t nearly as dramatic, but it certainly took me down a peg.

So, what was the first thing I made with the mixer? A cake! Easy, right? Well, normally. Ivy and I wanted to make these cute little bows show in the middle of the cake in a different color, but the sugar cookie dough I was going to use for that was waaay too soft. So we rolled it into balls, and put that in the batter, hoping to come up with kind of a polkadot or ladybug look (pink sugar cookies, chocolate cake), like this:

That was the plan.

Well… the cake Ivy chose was a dark chocolate fudgy batter. The mixer did AWESOME… it was almost brownie-like. Very thick… and, fudgy, as advertised. So into the oven it went with balls of colorful pink dough inside. Looked great, and I took it out on time. Set it to cool on the rack and… WHOOSH. Went from a lovely chocolate cake to a hideous chocolate crater.

OK, not so great, LOL. I wasn’t sure how to break it to Ivy because she was so excited when the mixer came that we went out to the grocery store at 9:30 last night to get the ingredients, and the first thing she said when we got home after work today was “Let’s make the cake!”

So I carved out a crescent (can’t call it a slice, since that’s not the shape it was holding), and handed it to her. Her eyes got big, and she said “All right!” and dug in. A few minutes later, she gave me a big thumbs up.

This is the best cake evah!

Thank goodness for almost-5-year-olds. They often see what we can’t 🙂

So, not a success by my standards, but man oh man, a very tasty failure! I’m looking forward to more of the same.

Here’s just a few events that happened so far this year here and there and everywhere:

Holly’s place of employment comes with a full-service cafeteria cooking up delicious food everyday. So once in awhile we stop by and have lunch with her. One particular day Wolfgang Puck was in the kitchen whipping up some chicken tortilla soup! Jane, Ivy, and myself met up with Holly on that day and really piled on the food. 🙂

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Ray Canatella decided to take a couple of days off and came over from Louisiana to hang out with us. We took advantage of the nice weather and headed down to Kemah boardwalk. Carnival rides sometimes make me sick, so I put Ray to the task of riding some rides with Ivy. It sort of made him feel a little sick too! We recovered by chilling out for awhile and then having lunch at Saltgrass. 🙂

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Pink!

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve made my own cards. Birthday cards, greeting cards, advent cards… cards for no reason. It’s just fun!

This past week I got me a Silhouette Cameo and boy is it awesome! I decided to go for broke and try a pretty intricate little “cuttable” straight out of the box – a little Moroccan tea light lantern. It came out great:

Emboldened with those results, I decided to make a Mother’s Day card for my Mom. I dug through fonts and images to get ideas, and settled on a Steampunk theme, since she seems to be enamored with that. The end product was the result of hours of crash-course learning how to use many features of the Silhouette. Not everything worked right immediately, but a lot of it did, which is testament to how well the device works.

So, here’s my first all-digital from-scratch card. Welcome to the 21st century 🙂

Lots of family gathered at Mom’s house for Easter. Great weather, good food, egg-hunting games, and plenty of chit-chat. The usual.

Holly and I are pretty good at hosting family get-togethers, even though this time around it was more happenstance. I was simply talking with my niece Jennifer on Facebook about taking a vacation during spring break. One conversation led to another and before long we were booking the same cruise on March 3rd to Jamaica with spouses and kids. Word spread fast and soon Holly invited Jane Sommer and George and Loann Kjeldseth to climb on board. Shirley Dutton, my mom, also jumped at the opportunity and signed up as well. Also my sister Glenda and her husband Lloyd signed on for the cruise. So, all in all, 13 people made their way to Houston, then Galveston, and on to Jamaica!

Everyone arrived in Houston a day or two before the Cruise. We enjoyed some activities before heading to Galveston such as a night at the Rodeo, and a visit to Lakewood Church. We also gathered for our first big feast at Spaghetti Warehouse. This would be the first day of eating lots of food – 7 more to go! We immediately continued the theme by stopping at Tel-Wink Grill our way to Gavleston on Sunday morning.

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On Board Ship

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The weather was great all weekend, and our timing seemed to be perfect on everything! We arrived at the ship after the rush and didn’t have to wait in a line to board at all. Everyone got on board, settled in, and ready to sail the high seas. Jamaica here we come!

There’s plenty to do on a Carnival ship, or you can do pretty much nothing at all. The first two days were on the sea and filled with lots of parties, food, shopping, shows, hot tubs, waterslides, and quite of bit of getting lost as we tried to figure out how to get around on the ship.

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Jamaica

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Fist stop, Jamaica! We got off the ship and split into two groups – Jane, George, and Loann went on a Plantation tour, while the rest of us headed to Sunset Beach Resort for a day of snorkling, paddle boats, water slides, and loads of food and free drinks. I even went parasailing with my mother! Can you believe that?! Mom said she wanted to try it, so I agreed to join her. She wasn’t afraid at all! Up we went to about 500 feet and enjoyed a great view of the bay and the isle of Jamaica. Awesome! I never dreamed I’d one day be 500 feet in the air over Montego Bay under a parachute with my mother!

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Grand Cayman Island

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The next day we arrived at Grand Cayman Island and broke off into 3 packs – Jenn and her bunch went for a drive around the Island, while Holly and Ivy went on a Pirate ship excursion, and the senior citizens went to a Turtle Farm and an submersible boat for some undersea viewing. I actually lost Mom at one point! I was going to go with the senior citizens on their tour, but somehow got seperated from the pack. They were whisked away by the tour bus before I could catch up. But I knew that mom was in good hands with George, Jane, and Loann, so I just wandered around in town for awhile. Holly returned from her adventure a bit seasick. So we chilled out over a margarita at Margaritaville. At one point, some lady thought I was giving Ivy a drink of my margarita and gave me a voodoo stink eye. So I got a picture of Ivy at the bar and then later being passed out and carried out of the bar.

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Cozumel

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It turns out Cozumel has tons of stuff to do. Not everyone wanted to do the same thing, so we went 4 different directions this day with some going on a Swim-with-Dolphins excursion, others on a trip to the Mayan Ruins of Tulum, and others shopping on the Island, and myself to an underground River Cave expedition. Once again, the weather was fabulous with blues skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s.

While at Cozumel, I broke from the pack and went on my own excursion to Rio Secreto, a cave on the mainland outside of Playa del Carman. Other people had given it rave reviews, so I thought I’d give it a try. It turned out to be really neato! After a bumpy ride down a dirt road my group of 7 arrived at the Cave entrance. They suited you up in a wetsuit, water shoes and goggles, and then led us down a jungle path to the cave. From there it was lots of walking and swimming… yes, swimming… through the cave! At one point they turned all the lights off and let us sit in silence and total darkness for 1 minute. Then finally we made out exit, changed clothes, and ate some great mexican food under a cabana. Then back to the ship. Rio Secreto lived up to the reviews. Worth the money!

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Adios Amigos!

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Finally, Sunday morning we disembarked from the ship and headed back to airports and homes to recover. Now begins the weight loss from all that food. That was a great trip, y’all! What a great experience. I hope we can do it again sometime!

Joey Dutton

A few weeks back, Ivy started talking about “champing”, and neither Joey nor I were sure what she meant. She was quite excited and got frustrated when we made it clear we didn’t understand. Finally she threw her hands in the air and gave us her best 4-going-on-14 eyeroll: “It’s when you take the marshmallows and put the fire on them!”

Whoa, wait… she meant s’mores, but what was champing? Then it dawned on me: CAMPING.

“That’s what I tole you – CHAMPING!”

So, we had a communication breathrough. That escalated the requests to go champing I tried to appease her by building a tent in her room with bedsheets and chairs, or a pillow fort in the living room. Fun, but not enough. She really wanted to do the cookout thing and understood that champing happens outside, at night.

So, last night while Joey was out of town at Jim’s wedding, once night fell, Ivy and I champed in the back yard.

It was the maiden voyage for a 2-man hexagonal dome tent I bought a year before (that thing is never going back in the bag, obviously), which fit just right on the lower patio. Ivy helped me with assembling the tent poles and raising the dome. She was excited!

Ivy selected several sticks that had fallen off the dead cypress tree in the front yard to use as skewers for the hotdogs and marshmallows, and we enjoyed s’mores (mmmm, burnt crispy marshmallows) and hotdogs with a juice box and soda for dinner, under the cloud-covered stars.

Then we retired to the tent. With two pillows, a Hello Kitty blanket and a Tinkerbell sleeping back laid out on the floor, we reclined on the ground and looked up to the skies through the open mesh of the tent. We went through the animals and shapes we saw in the cloud formations, and watched the moon slip out for view every now and then. A few airplanes zoomed by far overhead. There was a little car traffic, but not much. No trains passed by. Mostly we heard crickets. Lots and lots of crickets. Made it hard to believe downtown and its skyscrapers were less than a mile away!

Ivy said “this is going to be a beautiful night!” and then asked for my phone so she could watch Diego on Netflix. Hah! We may were champing, but this was definitely an urban adventure 🙂 After awhile she got tired of the cartoons, and shut it off. A little sleepy and a little sweaty she rolled over and kissed me and said “I love you” and went to sleep. D’awwwww.

I tried to sleep. For about 90 minutes. I wish I could have, because it was nice, but these hips and back on a brick patio surface with no padding wasn’t gonna cut it. Around 10:30 I scooped the essentials and got Ivy to sit up, and we finished our slumber indoors.

She was a little disappointed to wake up indoors, but we went over our fun from the night before and all was well.

So, Ivy’s been camping. We have no idea where she picked up on this, but I’m glad she did. That’s something I’m looking forward to doing more. Next time, with an air mattress, though… and perhaps more than a mile away from the 4th largest city in the US 🙂

Well, I never thought I’d see that day, but here it is – Jim is getting married today!

He asked me to be best man and I obliged. It was a small, simple wedding at a church near Pea Ridge, Arkansas. A reception followed at the Hilton Hotel.

The weather turned out to be great for a trip to the beach this weekend, and it just so happend to be the first weekend of Mardi Gras. So we loaded up the dogs, Ivy, and our friend Jason and headed down to Galveston for the afternoon. The dogs hated the parade… too loud! But everyone else enjoyed it and we collected a fair amount of beads. Whoever was holding Ivy would get the most beads; it seems a child is a prime target to throw stuff at.

Afterward, we grabbed a burger at the Rainforest Cafe and then headed back to Houston. Very nice day!

Christmas 2012 came and went in a blur. First up, went learned at the last moment Ivy was having a Christmas Program at her school. We weren’t prepared! Or maybe we just weren’t paying attention. Either way, we scurried around and got to the school on time. She did great! Front and center and enjoying the limelight. It was a big night for her, and it was sweet watching her interact with her friends and classmates.

Holly and I took a night off to go see the Brian Setzer Christmas Orchestra. Remember him? Formerly of the Stray Cats? Yeah, that guy. He does a big-band, rockabilly Christmas show each year that is very popular. I enjoyed it quite a bit. This was at the Arena Theater on Houston’s west side.

We met up with Arturo a few nights later at Discovery Green Park for some Christmas activities.

Holly’s immediate family in Houston does not get together, so we considered just doing nothing for the holidays or making the drive to Arkansas. After some thought, we decided to head north. I was worried about Ivy surviving a 10 hour drive and not making us crazy, but she did fantastic!

First, we stopped in Dallas to visit my good friends Chuck and Tina Deitrick. Then, the next morning scuttled on up to Fayetteville. It was cooooold!!! But Wes and & Jenn’s house was big, warm, and inviting. We celebrated with lots of food and wine, and even a chocolate fountain. We even got mom to take a shot of hard liqour. I don’t think she cared much for it. Then came opening the presents and especially the White Elephant Game. One hilarious moment came when Ivy went to pick out a random gift, but it turned out to be a bottle of Whiskey! Oh my! Fortunately, someone stole the gift away from her in the next round and she ended up getting a Soap and Lotion basket. Much better.

The weather report was giving us bad news, so we decided to leave Arkansas bit early. It turned out to be not early enough! We drove into a snow storm in Oklahoma, and for the next 8 hours or so just creeped along at about 30-40 miles per hour. I saw lot of wrecked cars and flashing police lights, so we finally decided to hole up in southern Oklahoma at a hotel. To make matters worse, Holly was getting sicker by the minute. Her throat was sore and she felt feverish. So we pumped her full of Nyquil and put her to sleep. The next day, we scraped off the ice and snow from the car and continued crawling south. The roads didn’t finally clear up until Dallas. Then it was smooth sailing all the way home. I drove the entire way – 16 hours – and was exhausted by the time we finally reached the house.

That was about it for Christmas this year. Not too wowzie, not too shabby. Another year gone by.

Ivy became fascinated with learning to snap her fingers when she saw someone (probably her Daddy, who just *does* it sometimes, for no discernable reason) doing it a few months ago. I saw her attempting something weird with her fingers and asked what she was up to. She didn’t know the word for snap so was trying to describe to me what she was trying to do. “Finger sounds. I’m trying to make the finger sounds.” There was a lot of wrist flicking and weird pointing motions and growls of frustration as she demononstrated for me. The lightbulb went on and I said “ohhhh, you mean a snap!” And then did it. She nodded and went back to hand contortions.

So I broke it down to the basics and showed her what needed to be done. She kept at it for a few minutes and then another shiny object caught her attention and she moved on to The Next Thing. Fast forward 4 months or so, to last night. We’re watching TV and I heard a dull click from her side of the couch, and then a gasp and a laugh. I look over and her hand is in the distinctive “post-snap” position. I said “did you snap?” “Yup!” A couple more attempts and then sure enough, another snap sound.

Proud moment for a 4 yearold!

One other nifty “trick” of sorts is that she seems to have a pretty firm grasp on shapes and how they can be manipulated and moved around and combined to form other shapes. She is also in the early stages of wanting to actually READ… we sound out letters and words, and she wrote “Mama”, “Papa” and “oso” (spanish for bear) on paper on her own without help… citing that they are “patrons” (spanish for patterns — what they were studying in preK before Christmas break). There’s a magnetic board just inside the door to her room, with magnetic letters on it. She matches all the upper and lower case letters together, which I thought was pretty cool, but then yesterday as we walked past she stopped and said:

“Look, when you put them like this ” – maneuvering the upper and lower case L and l to near each other – “It’s a ‘L’, but when you do this ” – she put the upper case L to the left and up a little bit, and touched it to the middle of the lower case l – ” it’s a 4.” And sure enough, she’s exactly right!

Proud moment for a 4 yearold’s Mommy, right there 🙂