Jeanie's egg toss...the kids (and some adults who will
remain nameless) throw an egg onto a tree for the title
of the "best egg thrower"...

 Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter Ya'll!  Chloe was up bright and early this morning, around 6:30 to be exact.  Since she gave up chocolate for Lent, she had eaten one of her chocolate bunnies first thing, cracks me up!  It was a great Easter.  Chloe's growing up so fast but totally still believes in the tooth fairy, Santa and the Easter bunny.  Let's hope it'll stay that way for a while!  Anyhow we had a fun Sunday school class decorating the cross, hunting for eggs and listening to a story.  The service was also wonderful since our church is blessed with a great interim pastor Bill Branch.  Jeanie invited everyone over for lunch after church and it was really nice.  We haven't had it since J.Harmon gave everyone the stomach flu in 2002 and Harmon's sister blamed it on the salad I made instead.  Needless to say, no one got sick this year and I didn't make anything because I was outta town most of the weekend thank goodness.  Jeanie's egg toss was fun too.  We've always enjoyed it even in the rain a few years back when we tossed eggs off the front porch into buckets, good times.

Jackie stayed over at the farm till 7 pm watching some golf game even though we had 30 pages of Benchmark quizzes to go over (I had asked them to handle that Friday and Saturday but they didn't of course) and a piano lesson.  Whatever!  Chloe and I handled it Easter afternoon and it was good.

It was a fun Easter. There is one thing I need to work on and that is interrupting people.  I was sitting at our high class table enjoying the excellent potluck (seated were Jim and Jimmie, Bonnie Sue, Carolyn and Mick, Jeanie and Bob Hardin) and our conversation.  We were discussing multiple trips to Colorado when Jackie totally interrupted, rudely, then thankfully Jim Shaver told a good story on Bonnie that cracked us all up.  It's a great one that I'll share later.  But I doubt Jackie could have heard Jim's story because we didn't interrupt them across the room.  Whew...now I feel better!

Listening to Margaret Woodruff read the Easter story
before decorating the cross

Dying the eggs....

I thought this would be a great photo...

Egg hunting.....August is so cute!

Chloe holding August during the cross
decorating, there's Julia Shepherd who
went with us to church and Seth Poindexter

Easter Egg hunt over at Kara's

I'm not sure which bunny this is...but Whit has 2 lop bunnies
(yes, Chloe's growing up!)

Memaw started letting the kids drive down her gravel road
and Chloe always asks us....she does pretty good over
the bridges that used to scare her 

Easter at Wynne Presbyterian includes decorating the
cross with flowers representing life with Jesus raised from
the dead.  There was an egg hunt right after....

Decorating the cross...yes Chloe loves to baby August

I can't crop this photo but here's a group shot after lunch
at Jeanie and Harmon's...Jeanie brought back the old tradition
of having Winnie Bob's brother Jim Shaver and family out
along with Harmon's two sisters that live in Wynne and Birdeye.
There were 28 there including Kara's parents

Jackie hates photographs...

Roasted Red Pepper Salsa, Birdeye

Blogger is jacked up again...here's the finished product.
So delicious on egg whites and for a salsa with baked chips!

Chloe on Sunday right after getting home from DC....It was
80 degrees and she grabbed Gumball Waterson and he
loved gettin in the pool...they crack me up.
He's on my hit list since I found a
water hose chewed up today dang it! :)

Winnie Bob planted these Azaleas
 at her gate in 1991

They really are outstanding!

Her daffodils are still blooming and have this year since January

I copied off Kara and got my tomatoes in
for the first time 4 weeks before our last
projected frost....We'll see if this is the
death of my garden....

The veggies before they go into the oven

My blender with a double recipe
(look at the daffodils...:))

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Winnie Bob's birthday is this week so I had to add some photos from her beautiful yard.  We are so lucky to have such a mature yard.

One of my favorite recipes from Fresh, Lake Austin Spa by Terry Conlan, is this salsa.  It's so stinking easy that I think everyone can pull it off.  So here it goes and with some photos....

"This earthy, brick-red salsa with complex flavors and sweet, smoky undertones drawn from the grilling process and the chilpotle chiles is great as a simple chipper and dipper, or as a lively accompaniment to any number of Mexican, masa-based dishes."

1 medium red bell pepper, I doubled today, so I used two and cut them in half so they wouldn't char too much
3 medium tomatoes, I only used 4 romas today; I also added a poblano
1 small onion, I only used one but doubled the pepper
2 garlic cloves minced, I used 4
1/4 C fresh cilantro leaves, take stems off and I did double this
1 C. tomato juice, I used tomato sauce
1 t. adobo paste from canned chipotle chiles, buy this 4 oz can in the latino/mexican isle; Rachel Ray said on Food Network to freeze the left overs and break off the amount you need later, and it's worked beautifully for me, the can I froze was back in November, don't judge me, it tastes great! :)
Juice of 1 lime, I only used one
1/2 t. sugar and 1/2 t. salt, I did double to balance the acid in the tomatoes

Roast the bell pepper over hot coals, turning until it is thoroughly blistered, about 5-10 minutes (I always broil on 500 degrees about 15 minutes, I hate waisting charcoal if I'm not cooking out).  Transfer the pepper to a paper bag and close it tightly and allow it to steam for 10 minutes.  Remove the bag, peel and seeds.  Grill tomatoes and onion over hot coals until softened and charred (I just roast with peppers in the oven). Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and process until the desired consistency is reached.  Yield 80 1 T. servings, or double that for my recipe today.

Nutrients: Cal 3; Prot 1 gr; Carb 1 gr; Fat 1 gr.

Hanami Japanese Restaurant, College Park, MD

Here's Chloe behind the Capital acting like she's holding
up the building....cracks me up!

Chloe took this during our Capital tour from Sen. Mark
Pryor's office....George Washington

We also toured the National Geographic Museum and saw
the new Titanic display.  Chloe made a video of it with
her Ipad for Whit.

Chloe took a quick photo at the Metro stop in Maryland
before we headed into DC the last day....Wendy and Me

Chloe at the Smithsonian Museum, it was a long, long
day with at least 10 miles of walking but she made it!

Mount Vernon was a total treat on Friday of the trip....
Here's Chloe, Maytal, Wendy, KK the dog, Ayelet and me

Friday, March 30, 2012

My BFF Wendy Koons Meir rented a house in Maryland for Spring Break this year and invited me to come along.  A shout out to my mother who offered to fly Chloe and I out there.  I considered driving but it's 15 hours from Birdeye and I'm so stinking glad I didn't try that with Chloe.  Anyhow, we arrived on Thursday in Washington DC and started our long weekend with a tour of the Capital via Senator Mark Pryor's office.  His super nice staffer Crystal was the bomb!  She was so sweet and informative about everything from where to be and stand while all the huge crowds who filtered through our nation's capital.  Looking around during the tour, I was so glad that Bess Heisler Ginty arranged us to have a tour. We met for dinner at Old Ebbitt's with Meredith Dalton, Jackie's cousin from Oklahoma City (crazy I know and I knew her brother John in high school), who totally made dinner fabulous.  We had a great time catching up.

Ok so with our tour of Mount Vernon and a fun time making fun of my Google App that totally had us in the wrong area, we had a great weekend.  Chloe and I also ventured out around the mall going first to the National Geographic Museum which strutted its new Titanic show (which is totally worth going to by the way, and was just a few days into its show at the museum) and then on to the Smithsonian's National Museum of History which was fabulous.  Chloe and I had been on the Metro since 9 am and walked around 10 miles I guess then back to the excellent Embassy Suites at Reagan Airport.  Chloe ordered room service (which generally is banned with me but...) so she could rest her rubber band legs and lemme say I thought I would die.  I'm going to blog it soon.  Yes blog on hotel room service because it was fantastic.

So...let's talk about the Hanami Japanese Restaurant in College Park, MD, which was totally full of the University of Maryland college students.  It was so stinking great....I'm just saying!  We had a fabulous waitress that had the water refilled and of course the food out lightning fast.  The place started filling up as we sat down and by the time we were outta there the place was packed.  And I noticed that they have a huge following of carry out.  They were sending to go orders out the whole time.  I'd say that's a sign of a good restaurant.

As I always do, I let Wendy pick the rolls we were to have and she picked the yellowtail which featured spicy yellowtail, crunch on the inside with wasabi tobiko on top and two off the specials menu that I didn't get a copy of.  I know one of them was a salmon roll.  I did get a salad, yes a salad, and so did Wendy.  She got the seaweed salad and went on and on educating me on the health benefits of seaweed, how it cleanses your body by attaching to the garbage in our systems.  She also made me eat more than my usual portion of pickled ginger because it neutralizes any foul, raw seafood in your system.  Mainly to keep me from upchucking if I had something this Arkansas body wasn't ready for.  And for the record, I was fine and full at the end, everything was outstanding.  For my salad, I had the avocado salad on top of iceburg lettuce (I can feel Kara cringing) topped with a viniagrette and seasame seeds.  It was divine and we shared the salads, I had a whole avocado to share and of course I needed some seaweed.  It was good, lite and crunchy.  I also partook in quite a bit of wasabi.  I love the spice in the soy sauce, it was delicious on all of the rolls.

No dessert for us, we were headed to the nearest gas station to get our Mega Million tickets.  I was excited that someone from Maryland had one of the winning tickets, too bad it wasn't one of ours!

Hanami Sushi has a fabulous website, check it out.  The rolls were divine as was our conversation.  You can't beat an old friend, juicy conversation and some spicy Japanese rolls!  When you're in College Park, Maryland, check out this sushi place, clean and delicious!

Mt Vernon

Hanami...it was filled with lots of University
of Maryland students, packed!

Hanami Sushi, 8145-M Baltimore Ave., College Park, MD, 301-982-9899  http://www.hanamijapanese.com/

La Hacienda, Hot Springs

Bailey  Bigger was one of our sleepovers....look at
Gumball Waterson Smith in a jacket.....:)

Dr. Calico dressed as a Razorback Cheerleader, at least
he's taking a nap...he's got a good tolerance to him, obviously

Chloe and Whit in my front yard continuing to work on
digging one of the deepest holes in Cross County

Stella, Chloe and Whit at Garvan Gardens

The whole crew

The only photo I have of Oaklawn this Spring Break!

Jackie, Chloe and I

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Chloe is always thankful for Spring Break.  This year ours was spent with 4 sleep overs (yes, 4) and we ended the week in Hot Springs at Garvan Gardens and Oaklawn.  Add some swimming, Rocky's pizza and this fabulous Mexican restaurant and I'd say, "Well Done!", and it was.  I give Polly Hardin the shout out for suggesting this restaurant just down the road from our hotel.  She made a remark that its color resembles pepto bismal and it did but don't let that keep you from partaking in excellent Mexican fare.

We walked in and asked for a table of 12.  We were asked if we had a reservation, but it was 5:30 so we weren't sure about making one.  We were immediately seated and very well tended to.

 First of the all, the complimentary chips and salsa were excellent.  There is also a fiery hot green salsa that Martin let August get into and he screamed bloody murder because of its heat.  We also think he got a blister from the heat.  I didn't blister but it was super, stanking hot and I loved it.  The fresh, crispy chips were just right and refilled constantly.

Jackie got three enchiladas covered in a green chile sauce and he went on and on about it.  So I tried it and it was excellent, it seemed like lots of roasted Poblano chiles, cilantro and lime, delicious. Really good.  I ordered off the vegetarian section of the menu which had many offerings.  I had a vegan tamale, cheese enchilada with rice and fresh japs.  It was divine and I held back on truly licking my plate clean.

We had dessert back at the hotel for August's precious 2nd birthday.  We loved Polly's recommendation of La Hacienda, the efficient waitstaff and delicious homemade food.  It was so much better than we are used to locally.

Try La Hacienda next time you're in Hot Springs.  Don't let the color of the building make you drive on, drive on in and go on an empty stomach.  You'll leave amazed at the authentic food and totally happy with your meal, I promise!!

La Hacienda, 3836 Central, Hot Springs 501-525-8203  I didn't find a website but I did find many, many excellent reviews of the restaurant on Urban Spoon and Trip Advisor among many others.

Spring 2012, Birdeye

Here's granddad helping Chloe get old Rosie to move along,
she's stubborn and doesn't wanna give up an opportunity
to have a little oats, Chloe's got her feet in the stirrups so
 let's hope they can work it out.....:)

Chloe did her 4th Little Rockers Kids Marathon with Anna
Claire Burrow again this year.  Whit has joined them the last
two years.  They had a great time running the final mile.

I cannot tell you why Blogger is uploading pictures this way,
this was at the end of this post because it was yesterday and
not weeks ago.  Anyhow, this was the BBC cycling club that
met at my house for a St. Patrick's Day bike ride down Million
Dollar Road in Cherry Valley.  It was a ton of fun as was the
after partee.  Pictured are:  Neall, Jackie, Becca, the only one
without green!, Jimmy, Beth, me, Beth, Cecilia, Kyle, Martino
and Stan... poor Cecilia and Kyle barely got a ride in due to
their bike rolling down Hwy 64B on the way to our house then
they had chain problems and had only a 4 mile route.  The rest
of us made it the 24 miles and had a great time afterwards!  

This is Stella, Katie and Rose who were in Chloe's closet the
whole time wearing her dresses, see the pile in the window.
Chloe spent the night at Kate's so we just let them help
themselves and they did!   A great time had by all!

These were Kyle's socks that Cecilia said are a gift from his
parents after trips they go on.  I think these are vintage socks!

We had Kate Davis over again Friday night and Saturday the
girls wanted to groom Chloe's horse Sonyador.  This is them
at the farm with Rosie (brown on the nose) and Sonyador,
(white star) trying to get to the oats. There's another pony
in there that wanted some too!

Ok, blogger, this was the 2nd photo, this is the group that
all had speaking parts in the skit a month ago.

I had to take a photo of one of the roosters strutting around
the farm when we were getting the horses groomed.  He is
beautiful, just look at those tail feathers!

It's been so mild, that before school this week,
Chloe went tree climbing with her cat, Dr.Calico.
She's in Winnie Bob'sweeping cherry tree.

The beautiful Crab Apple Tree...if you could
only hear the buzz of the bees.....it's divine....

It only blooms once a year and it's fabulous...

Yes, Tony Holder of my favorite workout dvds,
p90x2, says "this is my nemesis" when it comes
to workouts that are hard for him...well this is my
nemesis, the crazy canine Gumball, that digs up
my garden and yard.  Just look at the dirt on his nose...

I couldn't believe it when Gumball's brother, Munchkin, came
into the clinic on Friday afternoon.  He lives just down the road
and is totally house trained and doesn't dig up the yard...hmmm,
why didn't we keep this one?  He is 55 lbs. though....

The evidence

More evidence

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Gosh it's been such a warm winter.  The first day of Spring isn't until one day this week but I think Spring started a month ago.  I'll share some photos of what we've been up to.  I'm looking forward Chloe's Spring Break, Easter and some summer planning.  It's hard to believe that we've got so much on the calendar so far!

Little Rock Half Marathon, Little Rock

Our BBC crew with a few extras!

Thursday, May 8, 2012

We're back from Northern Oklahoma for Jackie's grandmother's funeral.  Wilma was 93 and a classic.  She decided last week to quit eating and said that she was "ready to meet God" as long as she could take her purse.  It was a neat service given by her youngest grandson Blaine Boyd.

After the Little Rock Half on Sunday, we made our way to my mom's in Edmond in route to Ponca City where her funeral was.  I was SO sore Monday morning and I should have been since I failed to pack my p90x Stretch DVD that I always do after a foot race.  I hate to brag but this was the first race ever that I still had gas in the tank and felt like I could have run another 5 miles.  I've been doing therapy with my orthopedic Dr. Jeremy Swymn for my knees and some p90X2 and I think it made a difference!  Here are the times of our BBC group that ran on Sunday.  Stan Bradshaw has made us all pay attention to times, dang it!

Full Results:

Martin Smith 4:09:00
Stan Bradshaw 4:13:38

Half Results:

Michael Hirons 1:54:51
Colley Burrow 1:55:06 (Wynne native)
Jackie Smith 2:02:35
Jimmy Huff 2:29:00

The Ladies' Half Results:

Stacey Boeckmann Riley 1:58:24  (blazing fast speed..and Ashley's sister)
Myself 2:13:13
Beth Huff 2:25:36
Beth Bradshaw 2:26:11
Ashley King 2:26:14
Kara Smith 2:27:00

Each one of these times except Jackie's were personal bests!  I am proud of our cycling crew, I think they had a great showing at Little Rock.  My first Little Rock Half was in 2007, I walked a bunch and took a big rolling fall near the Governor's Mansion.  A group of veteran runners behind me made a comment on my half block long fall that "we give that roll a 9 out of 10, that was awesome!"  I think the pothole has been fixed since then!

My time above should have an asterisk next to it because my very first half marathon was in Wynne at the Midsouth Championship Marathon and Half in 2004 with a snail pace time of 2:46...see even this old bird got betta! :)