29 posts tagged “supper”

We met up with my friend, Le-Ann, and her family from Arkansas at the Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse. 

The famous flaming onion

Le-Ann's family

Juggling & cracking eggs in the air

 

Yes, that is an upside down bowl of fried rice

It was already getting late after supper but we took a short dip in the hotel pool before heading to bed. 

As I mentioned previously, this month we read

"Wicked" for book club.  The book was chosen because our book club founder who moved to Michigan last summer had moved back to the mid-west into Aberdeen, SD.  We decided this was definitely going to require a road trip one month for our meeting.  Aberdeen is home to Storybook Land, including the Land of Oz.  So, B thought it would be fun to stay with the theme. 

Unfortunately, only 6 of the 14 of us were able to make the trip.  We left around 4:30 and all piled into S's SUV.  When we arrived at B's, chicken kabobs were ready from the grill along with some wonderful bread (I absolutely have to find it), and fruit.  Dessert consisted of Better Than Sex cake.  In the past, I've never quite agreed with the title.  However, B's cake lived up to the name!  She also decorated her table with green in honor of the book.

We had a lively discussion.  I gave the book a rating of 3 on a scale of 1-5 meaning I feel pretty neutral about it.  The book held my attention but it was just so bizarre.  If I were going to use one word to describe it, it would be 'demented'.  There was a wide range of views on the book which always makes for the best discussions.  I have to say I enjoy it more after hearing other people's opinions which often happens.  We all feel compelled to now read the novel, "The Wizard of Oz", hoping it would clear up some of the questions we have about "Wicked".

The reason B's family moved back to the mid-west was because her husband decided to go into ministry.  They live in a parsonage right next door to their church so we got a tour which is when this photo was taken.  B is on my left.

I feel the need to share a little more about B because she's also a children's author.  She has her own publishing company, Bubble Gum Press, and has published 3 books so far.  My personal favorite is

If you know anyone in the military, this book is a must have!  I still can't get through it without crying and I don't know anyone in the military!  She's currently in the process of writing her first children's chapter book series.

Things That Stink:

• Seriously, what could stink when you're at the lake for a week?

Things that Rock:

• The 15 fish the boys brought in last night:  14 walleye and 1 catfish.  They made for a great supper!
• Sleeping in.
• Being with my hubby all week.
• Eating the amazing meals my mom cooks while we're here.  She's trying to fatten me up because she thinks I'm getting to skinny.
• Super weather while we're here!
• Playing cards with family.
• Beating everyone in my family at blongo ball.  (I take that back.  Lily beat me but she gets to stand really close so I'm not counting it).

I mentioned that Ray was in Mexico City last week for work.  He didn't take a camera but had a colleague take several photos.  So far, I've only seen a few.  WARNING:  One could be considered offensive.

 

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Is it just me, or is he a little to happy to be having his picture taken with that?

Today is Ray's 37th birthday.  We celebrated by going out for supper, golf, and then back to our place for pinochle with Gndsgang.  We'll be leaving this afternoon for a week at the lake.  First, we're going to make a stop in Medora to take in their wonderful, outdoor musical.

Yesterday was the summer solstice for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. How did you celebrate the arrival of summer and the longest day of the year?

At a soccer tournament, of course!  We actually started on Friday.  Here's the rundown on the games:

Cody:

• Game 1 - Led 1-0 at the half.  Cody scored a goal and we were tied 2-2 until one of our teammates accidentally scored for the other team ending in a 2-3 loss.  Painful!
• Game 2 - First half went great which seems to be the story for this team.  We had a 2 point lead until our "Director of Coaching" whom none of us like decided to show up to coach the 2nd half.  He had Cody, our leading scorer last season, on defense or on the bench!  The game ended in a 3-3 tie.  Normally, that wouldn't bother us but we would've won if our parent coach had been allowed to keep calling the shots.  He knows the team best and did a phenomenal job with them last year.
• Game 3 - We lost 0-1.  The other team was really good so I wasn't too upset.  The boys actually played really well all weekend in were much improved from the previous tournament.

Jace:

• Game 1 - Ended in a 3-3 tie.  We led the whole game until the last 3 minutes when they tied it up.  Bummer!
• Game 2 - We won!!  Final score was 5-2. 
• Game 3 - It was a hard fought game but they lost 2-3.  Jace came really close to a goal and had 1 assist.  His team also played much better this tournament.

This photo is actually from the first soccer tournament.  The tournament photographer took it and it was up on their website.  Jace's team had just scored a goal to take the lead and Jace did 2 flips.

Friday night, we went to supper at IHOP for the first time.  We've been meaning to get there for quite awhile.  Ultimately, we were disappointed.  I thought they'd have a lot more variety of pancakes to choose from and I much prefer Ray's or Perkins' pancakes.  Lily's chocolate one wasn't bad, though.  After supper, we went back to our hotel so the kids could take a swim.  It was a small pool with no "extras" but we had the whole thing to ourselves.  The boys were getting bored after awhile so decided that Ray & I would judge their different jumps into the pool.  They came up with names for them and even starting acting our characters.  It was the best time and I can't remember when I last laughed that hard with just the 5 of us.  Twice I was laughing so hard I couldn't speak and was crying.  It was a great family moment.

Between games on Saturday, Ray took the kids to "Kung Fu Panda" while I did some shopping for his upcoming birthday and business trip to Mexico this week.

Things I'm Not Liking:

1. It's very cold & rainy so Gndsgang and I didn't get to go golfing.
2. Crabby children.

Things I'm Liking:

1. We really need the rain.
2. Tonight is my last PTO meeting.  I've been treasurer for the past 3 years.  We're meeting over dinner at Perkins so I don't have to cook either.
3. Listening to Cody practice his tenor sax. 
4. My new bed.  I haven't given an update in quite awhile but my shoulder problems have disappeared ever since we got the new bed.  Maybe it wasn't the computer that was my problem but the bed!
5. Ray started painting Cody's room last night!  With any luck, we'll be moving him into his new room within the week.

Things I disliked:

• First official day of summer break and the kids were driving me nuts!  Constantly fighting and thinking they need to eat every 5 minutes.
• Grocery shopping
• Gas prices
• How many times my cell phone rang while I was on the golf course.

Things I liked:

• The wonderful anniversary card Ray got me.
• Going out to dinner at Applebee's.
• Golfing with Gndsgang.  I even did pretty well!
• Gorgeous weather!
• My lilacs starting to bloom.

My MIL lived here until 3 yrs ago and we hadn't seen her for 2 years until we flew her here this weekend.  We didn't tell the kids she was coming and they were soooo happy and surprised!  We relaxed around home Friday night.  Saturday morning, we slept in and then Ray made pancakes & sausage.  I have no idea when we last had a free Saturday.  I'm guessing it was around February!  It was great just lounging around and not having anywhere to be.  MIL and I took a few hours during the afternoon to do some shopping.  Saturday night, we took her out to our nice new restaurant, Buffalo City Grille.  We knew there wouldn't be time to go out on Mother's Day so that was our early treat.

Sunday morning, she got to see all 3 of the kids perform for the last time this year with their choirs in church.  MIL was lucky to be here one of the rare times they all sing on the same day.

For Mother's Day, both Grandma & I got Blue Tooth Adapters to connect our cell phones to our computers.  Now, I can synchronize my calendar to my phone without even taking it out of my purse.  Very cool.  I also got a very nice card from MIL in which she wrote "You are the DIL people dream of having in their lives.  But, I gotcha & I ain't sharing"!  I'm very lucky to have such a sweet MIL.

We finally had a beautiful day and we got to spend it outside at soccer games.  Jace's game was first.  It was a really tight game and Jace scored 2 goals.

 

 

After a short break, we were off to Cody's game.  He really showed off for Grandma!  I believe they won by 1 point and Cody scored 3 goals, 2 of which were highly impressive.  The first was a corner kick.  Now, Cody's made quite a few goals from corner kicks but they were all during competitive soccer with the big net.  Since they're just playing 4 v. 4 for recreational soccer, they're playing without goalies and with small nets.  I honestly didn't even think it was possible to make a corner kick into those nets!  His last score came when a teammate passed the ball to him.  The ball crossed in front of the net and was way over to the side by the time Cody got to it, but somehow, he managed to get it in the net. 

 

 

Since Grandma was here, we let Cody open his birthday present from her even though it's a few weeks early.

Last night, we went to a family dance at our church.  I'm going to share pictures from that another time.

We let the kids play hookey from school this morning to spend a little more time with Grandma before she had to catch her plane.  They taught her bowling on the Wii.

 

We had lunch at Paradiso.

After the big dance recital Friday night, we went to Bismarck for Ray's MBA graduation.  First, the masters' graduates go through a Hooding Ceremony.  Ray's behind the speaker.

That was a nice, short, 30 minute ceremony.  That picture was on the newspaper's website. Then, was commencement which was 1 hour 40 minutes.  Thankfully, the graduate students go first so the rest of us left after Ray walked across the stage. After the ceremony, we took them to dinner at Space Aliens because they'd never been to one before.  Lily hit the jackpot on a game and ended up with over 400 tickets!  She traded them in for some fun things.  We spent the rest of the evening swimming, playing pinochle, and watching a movie. I didn't get one good picture of Jace on the waterslide because he was always laying down.  This was the kids ready to watch the movie. The kids swam some more in the morning after we had breakfast.  Then, we parted ways. Amy Sue should have some more photos from the weekend on her blog this week.

What an exhausting weekend!  My dad arrived Friday night just in time for the State Greco Tournament.  Ray worked at the tables and I worked at the awards copying all the bracket sheets onto the big poster boards for the winners.  Serious writer's cramp!  The National Anthem went very well.  There was only one note that was a bit shaky so I was happy overall.  Only a few of the other wrestling parents knew I sang so there were a lot of surprised people.

Jace easily won his first two matches which put him into the championship round.  It was back and forth but Jace came out victorious to be the state champ!

We were pretty excited about Cody's prospects because Adam, his biggest competition, went down a weight bracket and the other really tough guy wasn't wrestling Greco.  Cody earned 3rd place.  Somehow, we didn't end up with a picture of it.  It was near 10 pm when Cody finished so we had my dad take the kids home as we weren't done working the tournament.  We got home at 11 pm, completely exhausted, to find my dad reading the paper and the kids all still up watching cartoons!  Ack!  He flunked babysitting.  We hurried them into bed as we had another big day ahead.

Saturday morning, we had to be back at the tournament by 8:30.  They do a neat parade of athletes where each team comes out while they're playing "Let's Get Ready to Rumble".  Jace's first match was against the boy he wrestled for the championship Friday night.  We knew the kid would really be gunning for him.  Jace lost the first period.  We thought he'd won the 2nd period which would've taken it to a 3rd but the ref. changed the score after some discussion and Jace lost.  He was very upset and then the ref. admitted he was wrong but said it was too late.  I don't know why it always seems like those situations always hurt us and never benefit us!  Jace wrestled back strong to take 3rd.

Cody also wrestled strong and made it to the match for 3rd & 4th place.  It was really close but he lost.  Fourth place was still great, though!

Our club did a big raffle for the tournament with 16 different prizes.  It was a shock when we won one of the top prizes!

We didn't get out of the tournament until 5 pm on Saturday.  Afterward, we went to Pizza Ranch for supper with my dad and then he headed back home.

Sunday was not a day for rest either.  We had to be at church by 9:30 and the Chorister Choir sang.  Cody missed the first half of the song but at least got Lily's solo at the end.

After church, Ray took the kids home to get them lunch before Jace's soccer game.  I had to miss it because we had a church council mini retreat for the whole afternoon.  I got done just in time to make it to Cody's soccer game which they won 6-5.  My brain is so fried!