Found While Wandering Around a Cabela’s Store

16. May 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Uncategorized

My reason for the trip. Dave had a dark green Cabela's hat that disappeared recently. I offered to get him a replacement. This one was on the clearance rack for about $4.75!

I wandered over to Cabela’s in La Vista, NE on Monday before I went to the Apple Store for an appointment to fix my iPhone’s back glass.

It was nice taking my time and browsing around. I enjoy Cabela’s camping and outdoor gear…especially since we’re a house full of Cub Scouts. I got to see so many interesting things that I usually don’t get to pay attention to because I’m too busy with the boys…enjoy a photo gallery of my findings on a short trip to Cabela’s.

It's a 2-gallon bucket with a 60-day food supply. I'd never seen anything like it! They were stacked in a pyramid at the front of the store as if there was a hurricane heading towards Nebraska. Dave pondered that maybe it was in preparation for December 21st?

Nebraska is in the middle of their relatively short turkey hunting season. The store was essentially "RealTree" colored throughout.

I enjoy seeing the old-fashioned candies at the checkout line areas.

Jacob has recently started snacking on sunflower seeds. A baseball thing. He also enjoys hot sauce on many of his foods. So I picked him up a package of these sunflower seeds and we'll see what he thinks when he tries them next week.

Am I Really That Picky? My Rental Car Adventure.

15. May 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Many of you know that I have my pet peeve about rental cars. When I reserve a particular size of car, I would really like that size. I’ve been renting vehicles most of the times I travel to Omaha for my AF Reserve duty, and rarely do I receive what I’ve reserved.

Call me cheap, but when I don’t expect to do any more than shuttle myself to/from my job every day, I don’t need more than the smallest, most fuel efficient car available. Some of you may remember my adventure with the Ford Mustang that I rented in late February 2011.

This time around, I was pleasantly surprised when the car rental dealer attendant told me that they had a “subcompact car” waiting for me. That was what I had requested.

A Toyota Yaris. It starts at $14K new. Probably among the least expensive cars on the market.  And that’s what you get. It’s a very very simple, low powered, basic car. Hooray for 30+ mpg and hooray for it being nice and nimble in the tight Offutt AFB parking lots near the building where I work.

But as you can see from the picture above, I couldn’t even fit my single wheeled duffel bag in the back. I wasn’t expecting that. BOO! I was able to toss the bag into the back seat, and I guess I should be thankful that there even was a backseat. It could have been a Smartcar, right?

This car has mostly manual controls (except the power windows and automatic transmission), a very basic stereo (with an MP3 jack, at least), and the dashboard information — such as the speedometer, odometer and engine lights — was in the middle of the car…instead of right behind my steering wheel on the driver’s side. Why is it like that? I’m not sure at all.

From what I read, the 2012 Yaris doesn’t have that centralized dashboard anymore. Phew!

With a 106hp engine, you can imagine the cars trailing behind me when I am trying to climb a hill, say, near I-680 and Dodge St. in Omaha, where you’re climbing up into the elevated express lanes.

Here’s a better view of the car.

It maneuvers quite well. But not very powerful, which is evident on hills.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? — What to Do With School Papers?

13. May 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I know...the top of this plastic rack of drawers is sagging terribly.

As the school year wraps up around here (my boys finish on June 8th) I’ve started thinking about sorting and storage of the boys’ school papers. I’m sure other school systems are similar in that the kids bring home volumes of paperwork: completed worksheets, tests, readings, PTO newsletters, classroom newsletters, announcements about summer camps, sports, and special charity events in the community. This all takes PAPER!!

I can’t keep everything obviously. In part because I have enough “stuff” in the house, but mostly because when it’s time for us to move, we have to account for any extra weight over and above the allowances the Air Force gives us. So I have to pick and choose what’s worth keeping forever, and what’s worth tossing — also forever.

Trying to figure out what stays and what goes....

When the boys were in preschool, my friend FotoMom taught me I could staple together two pieces of posterboard to make a portfolio-like envelope. This easily held the papers as well as the larger pieces of artwork. I have these stored in our shed in the backyard, and we’re toting those from house to house. To be honest, I haven’t accessed a single one of those envelopes once the boys’ school years end…but I’ll continue to carry them from house to house.

What say you? Help me strike a comfortable medium between keeping the special stuff and not overwhelming the moving folks with seemingly extraneous paperwork!!!

Florida Discoveries 23: Pensacola Blue Wahoos Baseball

09. May 2012 · 5 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , ,

Pensacola went without a minor league baseball team for a season while this ballpark was under construction. This the Blue Wahoos' inaugural season.

After a day of the boys playing baseball, we headed out to downtown Pensacola for an evening with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos — the city’s brand new AA Minor League baseball team. They had a team called the Pelicans until 2010, but for summer 2011, there was no professional baseball in the area. We’re excited to have a team to watch locally now.

About a month ago, the local Boy Scout Council announced that May 5th was “Scout Night” with the Blue Wahoos. Unfortunately, the first two months of games was were nearly sold out and even within an hour of receiving the announcement about Scout Night, I couldn’t get 4 tickets together for the family. So I went ahead and got two sets of two tickets.

There was a Scout parade at 6pm but we didn’t get to the park in time. Instead, we chose to stop for dinner.

The park isn’t that big, it seats 5,000 people, so there weren’t really poor seats anywhere. We were at the very end of the first base line…which still gave us a good view of the game itself, but we could barely see the scoreboard. Jacob, our statistics boy, was trying to track the speeds of the pitches. More »

Florida Discoveries 22: NYSA Baseball

06. May 2012 · Comments Off on Florida Discoveries 22: NYSA Baseball · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , ,

Yesterday was one of the baseball-iest days I’d ever experienced.  Each of the boys had their own baseball games during the day, then we headed out to Pensacola and enjoyed seeing our new local AA minor league baseball team, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, in their brand new stadium right on Pensacola Bay!  More on the Blue Wahoos later.

Our boys here play for Navarre Youth Sports Association’s baseball league.  As is typical in Florida, they’re serious about sports here.  And they start those boys EARLY!  Our own sons had never played baseball until we moved here, and it turns out there are several hundred boys playing baseball here, and several hundred more playing soccer in the same club.  And come this fall, ALL those boys (except my two) are playing football.

In this particular club (and I’m not sure who the national level organization is that this club now follows — last year it was Dizzy Dean, but this year it isn’t) the boys’ teams are simply named after the coach’s favorite major league team.  Last year Jacob was on the White Sox, this year he’s on the Tigers.  His current coach is indeed from eastern Michigan.  Timmy is on the Braves and he couldn’t be more excited about that.

I captured some pretty good pictures of the boys at their games yesterday.  They’re both respectfully among the youngest on their teams, and this is Timmy’s first year playing baseball.  It’s remarkable seeing their skills develop over the course of the season!

When my boys' teams are the "visitors" here, I'm sitting on the side that gives me a good view of the batter. Here's Timmy hitting a foul ball. He's become a VERY good hitter this season...

Two hours later, we were at Jacob's game. I haven't taken many pictures this season because I always fear I'm going to miss something while looking at the screen on the back of the camera. And in this case, I took this picture right before he hit this ball for a single! Do you see the ball in motion? It's hovering between the third baseman and the shortstop.

More »

Do You Love Your Bread Machine?

06. May 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I don’t use mine enough. My sister exclusively makes her bread in her machine. I always say I’m going to do that, but then real life gets in the way.

Sent from my iPhone…pardon the typos!

“New Orleans Style” Red Beans and Rice — Another Major Mom Staple

06. May 2012 · Comments Off on “New Orleans Style” Red Beans and Rice — Another Major Mom Staple · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

No points for presentation -- but maximum points for flavor!

I’m a huge fan of beans.  All kinds of beans.  Unfortunately, I married a man who doesn’t like beans.  So I didn’t have them very often until Jacob was old enough and he loves them as much as I do.

This recipe I’m about to share came from an apron that my Mom bought as a souvenir on a family trip to New Orleans in 1987 or so.  My Dad was there while ship spent some time near New Orleans for some work in a shipyard.

Here is the apron, which I now own.

This is a very old apron, and it's my favorite. I don't need another one.

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Our Math-Magician!

05. May 2012 · Comments Off on Our Math-Magician! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

We couldn't be more proud!

This past week Jacob’s school had a competition for a program they’ve been doing all year: Powerhouse Math.

Strangely enough, I couldn’t find much about the program when I Googled it.  Just a blog post by someone else in my neighborhood whose son earned a medal last year. But based on what I had learned earlier this year, it’s a program that teachers may choose to perform…or not perform…with their students.  Jacob’s class opted into the program.  Based on some of the examples Jacob described to me, it seems to work with kids’ logic skills more than the traditional math curriculum.

I had signed up to be a parent volunteer for this program, but my time requirements conflicted with other obligations I had on base, so I sadly had to say “Sorry, I can’t assist.”

Jacob brought home a medal and a trophy yesterday!  He was on a team that took first place for all of the 3rd grade classes (that opted into the program) and he also took the individual first place prize!

Jacob wore the medal on the school bus home. I’m tickled that he did this with such pride, since in my day I’d have probably been given a wedgie or had a sign stuck to my back if I wore a big medal that read “Mathematics”.

A close up of the medal. Jacob wanted to point out to everyone that the calculator is showing Pi.

Florida Discoveries 21: Dolphin Cruising in Destin

30. April 2012 · Comments Off on Florida Discoveries 21: Dolphin Cruising in Destin · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , ,

We had a wonderful afternoon on a dolphin cruise. The weather couldn't have been more cooperative!

I guess it’s been a while since I wrote one of these “Discoveries” posts, isn’t it? It doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything — in fact, I’m reminded that I should relabel my USS Alabama, Mardi Gras and Santa Train posts “Alabama Discoveries”…we do seem to spend a lot of time there, don’t we?

Maybe while I’m at it I’ll rename our Atlanta road trips “Georgia Discoveries” 🙂

Thanks to a Groupon I purchased several months ago, we were able to take advantage of a dolphin cruise around Destin Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico this past weekend. The Groupon benefits expired on April 30th, so in typical Major Mom fashion, we took the trip on April 29th.

We took a 30 minute narrated tour of Destin Harbor and then traveled through the East Pass into the Gulf and got up close and personal with three separate pods of dolphins. As you might have read or heard, dolphins are indeed very social and friendly. The younger ones enjoyed showing off for us — trying to get as much air as possible when jumping! More »

Canning Homemade Fresh Salsa

28. April 2012 · Comments Off on Canning Homemade Fresh Salsa · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

I tried canning two pints of fresh salsa.

You know it happens to you, right?  Those food cravings.

Come on…admit it!

Sometimes you just feel like having something that isn’t sitting in your fridge or pantry.  In my case, it was homemade fresh salsa.  I like the salsa that you get in Mexican restaurants.  The kind that comes to you in a carafe and you pour it into a bowl with some fresh corn tortilla chips.

Last year — at about this time — the boys and I made Pioneer Woman’s Restaurant Style Salsa with cilantro and jalapeños fresh from my garden.  Since I put in my garden about 3 weeks late, I had no such freshness in my backyard and I had to settle for the ingredients from my local grocery store.

The recipe makes about 48 oz. of salsa…so this year I tried canning two of the three pints of it.  I had some wide-mouth pint jars, and it was simple to process the two jars in a smaller pot.

I consulted my handy-dandy Ball Blue Book for some guidance on how long to process the jars.  And here’s where I’m in a conundrum: I didn’t cook the salsa ahead of time.  I want “fresh” salsa.  So except for the cooking process during the 15 minutes in the water canner, I otherwise did NOT cook this salsa.

It appears there are numerous guides suggesting that a salsa mix needs to be boiled for 10+ minutes but found this recipe on Food.com where the author didn’t cook the salsa ahead of time.  There was plenty of lemon juice in the recipe (mine had the same amount of lime juice).  Seemed to be good reviews.

Since all of us in the house are blasting through this salsa at breakneck speed, I don’t think we’ll be letting these jars sit for more than a month or so.  The pint that I put in the fridge on Thursday is already almost gone.

What say you?  Do you think the 1/4 c. of lime juice that I squeezed into this recipe is enough to keep the yuckies at bay without boiling the salsa first?

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