Snow Cones & Kids

Each Tuesday, I pick up my grandchildren after school and we spend the afternoon and early evening together. Sometimes, one or the other of them have something going on at church or school so there aren’t always four.  We have a wonderful time playing games and lately we have been making snow cones every Tuesday.  The kids just love having them even though it is the middle of winter!

Click For A Larger View

I bought the snow cone maker just after Christmas for only $11 and it works really well.  The ice is frozen in round molds and then the machine shaves it to make a light fluffy ice – almost like snow.  At first, we used powdered drink mix and a bit of water to flavor the ice but I finally found some snow cone syrup and it works better.

Who knows, when the kids like to have snow cones in the winter perhaps they will be wanting hot chocolate in the summer!

Halloween

We had 75 Trick or Treaters this year! That is a new record for the over 20 years we have been living in this house.  Usually, there are around 50 or so.  It was a warm night which must have made it more fun to be outside.  Sometimes, it is bitter cold here on Halloween.

Even though we live in a tiny town of only around 700 people, we get more trick or treaters than people who live in much larger towns and cities.  I guess everyone here likes to take their children out to trick or treat!

The picture above is of my two grandsons. They were both soldiers this year.

This picture shows my friend’s two youngest girls.  They are almost like my grandchildren, too!  The youngest one is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and the older one is dressed up like a baby.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year.  It is so fun to see the little kids come to the door in their costumes.

Busy Week

This week was busy and fun – not a lot of time for knitting or blogging though.  On Tuesday, I watched my five year old grandson after school.  He is in Kindergarten this year.  We played Pirate-opoly – a version of Monopoly with pirates especially for kids ages 5 to 8.  It is very fun and he loves to play as he usually always wins! (I don’t let him either!)  He also loves to play the game with plastic jumping frogs that is kind of like tiddly winks – I can hardly get them to jump in the container but he does it so well that he wins every time.  Bubble gum is another of his favorite things – just look at the size of the bubbles he can blow.  He is so full of energy and fun.  Being a grandma is great!

On Wednesday, I went to lunch with a close friend.  Afterwards, I did the grocery shopping and on the way home took this picture of Mount Blanca.  There had been fresh snow during the night and it looked so pretty.

On Friday morning, I went to a school play.  My friend’s daughter in the 6th grade was in the play that was a project for her drama class at the middle school.  It was really good!  They did a set of four fairy tales – Three Little Pigs, Rumplestiltskin, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.  Each of the tales had its own new spin – such as the wolf ending up being friends with the three little pigs and the glass slipper getting broken when it was tried on by one of the ugly step sisters but Cinderella came up with the other one and still got to marry Prince Charming.  It was really an enjoyable play and the acting was very well done for 6th grade students.

Friday afternoon, I decided to go for a drive to the wildlife refuge then drove on to a neighboring town and shopped at a cute little organic store.  The Sandhill Cranes are back in the valley – they stop here on their migration in the spring and fall.  November is the main month for the fall migration but there are already a lot of cranes near the refuge.

The weather was lovely this week, warm without much wind.  Autumn is my favorite season.

Another Birthday

On Thursday evening we went to a birthday celebration for the daughter of our close friends – she turned eight.  Her Mom fixed a great dinner for everyone – there were almost 20 people there!  Afterwards, she opened her presents and then everyone had cake and ice cream.  She had a Hannah Montana cake – it seems like all the little girls around here really like Hannah Montana.  Since it was a week night there wasn’t much time for anything else but we did get to play a few card games with the kids.  They love to play Go Fish, Crazy Eights and Old Maid.

I brought two salads for the dinner.  One was a Wilted Spinach Salad that is very easy to fix and tastes great – I think so anyway!  The whole salad was eaten so others must have liked it, too.  It doesn’t look that wonderful in the picture as I had a hard time cutting up the boiled eggs – I grabbed a dull knife and it kind of mutilated them rather than slicing them neatly.  You have to make this salad at the last minute as it needs to be served as soon as possible after making it to stay warm – so, I was in a dreadful hurry with the eggs as we were already a few minutes late.

Anyway, it is easy to make – you need a lot of spinach, I used a huge sack that was about 14″ x 14″ stuffed with spinach.  You also need some bacon (1/2 a pound of so); one bunch of green onions; pepper; vinegar of your choice and several  hard boiled eggs for garnish.  Cut the bacon into small pieces (I used a scissors – so much quicker than a knife); chop the green onions and then cook the green onions and bacon in a large heavy pot until the bacon is cooked.  Stir in some pepper (1/2 tsp) and about 1/3  cup of vinegar – I used a combination of  white wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar.  Let this come to a boil and then start putting in the spinach.  Fill the pot with spinach and stir it until the spinach wilts down and then fill the pot with spinach again and stir it until the spinach wilts down – keep doing this until  you use up all your spinach or you think there is enough.  Put the pot contents into a serving bowl and garnish with boiled eggs – serve as soon as possible.

This salad would be good for people who are eating low carbs – the bacon and eggs have fat and protein but not many carbs.  It must be pretty nutritious as well because it has a LOT of spinach in it!

Barbecue, Birthday and Bowling

We had a busy, fun weekend. On Friday, we were invited to a barbecue at the home of our close friends – they are really more like our family than friends. We love them and being included in their lives.  It was too cold for a real barbecue but they barbecued meat in the garage and then everyone ate in the house ~ there were 19 or 20 people altogether.  The food was great but the company was even better!  It was wonderful to see members of the family we hadn’t seen for a while and to see how the children had grown and changed.

After dinner everyone visited and played games.  Some people (mostly the young men) played the Rock Band video game.  They were very good at it.  I’ve tried playing it a couple of times when we’ve been over and it’s very difficult.  My husband and I played a version of monopoly with the kids, it’s called Boo-opoly – it was fun, exactly the same as monopoly but the properties are named different things with a spooky twist like Dark Place instead of Park Place.

The Birthday Girl & Her Sister

On Saturday, we went to the First Birthday Party for a sweet little girl.  All the same people were there from the Barbecue plus quite a few more.  Even though it was a cold, dreary, rainy day the party was happy and fun. 

There were delicious sub sandwiches for lunch along with the birthday cake and the kids had a pinata to break. 

 On Saturday evening we went out to eat at a new restaurant with the same friends.  Afterwards, many of the young people (and us) went bowling at the Rock and Bowl from 10pm till 1am.  I’ve never bowled that long before – or that bad!  I’m ashamed to even mention my scores!

My husband and I paid the price on Sunday – very stiff and sore all day from the bowling extravaganza.  Both of us were especially feeling it in our left hip.  We spent the day resting up.