Zucchini Casserole
I got this from January, and it goes fast! We were fighting over who gets the last of it, and I won! YUMMY!!!
ingredients:
1 package of flavored stuffing
1/2 c melted butter
3 c diced zucchini (can also add celery, mushrooms, whatever you have)
2 c cooked lentils or cubed chicken
1 can cream of anything soup OR 2 T melted butter, 2 T flour, 1 cup milk and some powdered milk and a little salt mixed together (I dont usually have cream of... soup)
1 big carrot, chopped
1/2 c chopped onion
1/2 c sour cream OR 1/2 c cottage cheese, 1 T milk, 1 T lemon juice in blender (maybe plain yogurt would work, I dunno, I think I'll try it next time... I think that is sour)
directions:
in a large bowl combine stuffing mix and butter. Take some out for topping.
Add everything to stuffing mixture and mix well.
Transfer to baking dish and sprinkle w/ remaining stuffing mixture
Cook at 375 for 30-45 minutes, until the veggies are how you like them
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Back to school, but still havin' fun!
Well school started, and so far so good! I am enjoying my classes and still trying to have fun on the side!
Here are our latest adventures-
January and John got free tickets to the Angels game, so we went to that with them. Of course the Angel’s won, because they are the best team! We had yummy nacho’s and watched the fire works afterwards.
We went to the Orange International street fair with Read’s friend from work, Amir, and his wife, but I can’t pronounce, let alone spell her name. They are really fun. He is Middle Eastern and she is Japanese. We ate lots of yummy “international” food until we made ourselves sick.
Matt and his girlfriend M.E. (Said Emmy, but spelled with initials) invited us to go iceskating. It was pretty scary, but by the end, I think I got the hang of it! I only fell down twice… But one time I knocked over a small child. I felt so bad, but we were both okay =) 
We took Heather and Brooke out on Saturday night, we went to Brooke’s soccer game, which she won! There was a Roundtable pizza within walking distance, so we had pizza while we watched the game. And it was GOOD pizza!!! Then we went to the Irvine Spectrum and went on the huge ferris wheel and walked around. It was fun to get to hang out with them!
Here are our latest adventures-
January and John got free tickets to the Angels game, so we went to that with them. Of course the Angel’s won, because they are the best team! We had yummy nacho’s and watched the fire works afterwards.
We went to the Orange International street fair with Read’s friend from work, Amir, and his wife, but I can’t pronounce, let alone spell her name. They are really fun. He is Middle Eastern and she is Japanese. We ate lots of yummy “international” food until we made ourselves sick.
Matt and his girlfriend M.E. (Said Emmy, but spelled with initials) invited us to go iceskating. It was pretty scary, but by the end, I think I got the hang of it! I only fell down twice… But one time I knocked over a small child. I felt so bad, but we were both okay =) 
We took Heather and Brooke out on Saturday night, we went to Brooke’s soccer game, which she won! There was a Roundtable pizza within walking distance, so we had pizza while we watched the game. And it was GOOD pizza!!! Then we went to the Irvine Spectrum and went on the huge ferris wheel and walked around. It was fun to get to hang out with them!
Summer 2008
Sorry this one is so long, but I should have started this blog in the begining of the summer rather than the end...
The first half of summer I was in summer school. I took gender communication and preschool fieldwork. It was very intense but I was glad that I did it. It was fun to plan lessons and implement them with the preschool children. It was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed being with them. They taught me more than I could ever learn in the college class room.
The very first weekend after finals, we went camping with a bunch of friends (January, John, Ethan, Loretta, Dave, Denise, Charlie) to Palomar Mountain. We did not set up a tent, but just brought our inflatable mattress and slept under the stars. It was so nice. We went on a few hikes and it was absolutely gorgeous.
The next weekend Read and I went deep sea fishing. I was not planning on fishing since I was not planning on eating any fish. Some guy asked me to hold his pole while he helped someone else, and while I did, I caught a fish. And that is when I was caught! It was so exciting, I just kept fishing. One time I caught 2 at once! Most of them were small and we threw them back. Read caught a few that he kept and brought home and cooked up.
A couple days after that, we were off to Montana for Grace’s baptism. We had a BBQ at the lake with Melody’s family the night of the baptism, which was really nice. Melody’s dad owns a meat shop and brought tons of meat (Read was in heaven since I hardly ever serve that) and he made some delicious vegetarian baked beans. (I am still dreaming about how yummy they were.) It was nice to hang out with the family. The kids played in the lake, we sang songs, and roasted marshmallows. Then we went to the church for the baptism, where I gave a talk, and we all sang a song. It was a very nice service. One night Read and I sat on a big porch on these huge chairs, and watched the sun go down and the stars come out. It was so serene, except the bugs eating us alive! It was a great place to relax and unwind from the rush of California! The family went our separate ways, but we met up with Bryant and his family in Glacier National park. We took the free shuttle to the top of the mountain, then hiked to Hidden Lake. It was much more intense than we had planned on, and in many parts the trail was covered with snow. We had snowball fights in July! Eventually the trail was getting more difficult, and the kids were getting tired of it, so Bryant stayed back with the kids and Read, Melody, and I went the rest of the way. A lot of
people had walking sticks and good shoes, but not us! We kept wondering when we were going to get there, and when we finally did, it was so worth it! It was absolutely breath taking. We couldn’t stay long though, because the last shuttle was going to be headed down the mountain soon, and we didn’t want to miss it. So we started running back, which is a good idea on ground, but not snow. It was really slippery, and we were laughing a lot, and I slipped and started sliding down the mountain side. 
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t move. Melody was taking pictures. It was so funny, I think it was the lack of oxygen we didn’t realize it was actually scary. I fell down a few more times, but just on my butt, not down the mountain. When the trail changed and went straight down the mountain, I just sat down and sledded down. I was too tired to keep running! We had so much fun! We camped at the KOA and made s’mores. The next day we said goodbye to the McCall’s and Read and I went white water rafting. It was not as rapid as we hoped, but it was still a good time. 
It felt good to get splashed by the cool water. When the water was very calm, they said we could jump in to cool off, and we did… YIKES!!! It didn’t feel as good when your whole body was in it! Once I jumped in I realized the water is fresh melted from the glacier and barely above freezing. Then I had a hard time getting back into the raft. It was interesting to say the least. On our first rapid, our very relaxed tour guide flew out of the boat, and was trying to get back into the raft, and Read didn’t realize how you really had to anchor yourself with your feet, and he almost flew out too! And our guide almost pulled Read out trying to get back in. There were also “pirates” that hid behind a rock, and squirted us with squirt guns when we least expected it. We had a really good time. On the flight home, we had a layover in Denver, and the connecting flight kept getting delayed. Then it got cancelled. Our original flight was supposed to leave at 9 am, and we got put on the 6 pm flight. So we called Read’s sister Tanya, and she came with her family to pick us up and we went to lunch with them. It was really nice to get to see them. Then we were expecting to be crammed on the flight home, not sitting next to each other, but we ended up getting put in first class! Wow, that was an experience! After the nice big seats, I think my next favorite part of the first class experience was the unlimited amounts of water! It was amazing the attitude difference of the flight attendants. We had a really great trip and it was hard to come home.
I still had not had enough of the great outdoors, so the next weekend Read and I went to Burnt Rancheria, which is about 50 miles east of San Diego. It was very nice and laid back. We slept under the stars again, and it was beautiful clear skies. It was so warm, you didn’t really need a fire or a sleeping bag. The firemen came to the campground, and I was afraid they were going to tell us to evacuate or something, but luckily that was not why they were there. They went to the main parking lot, where there was a huge dead log on a big area of dirt. They had volunteer campers stand on the log. They had other volunteers hold the hose with the firemen and shoot down the people on the log. It was so funny! The dirt quickly turned into a big mud puddle, and everyone was screaming and laughing. It was a nice way to cool everyone down. I didn’t dare get on the log,
but I stood near it and got soaked. Read watched from a distance. Of course we went hiking, and had tin foil dinners. We made peach cobbler in the dutch oven, yum! There were tons of squirrels and other little rodents, and one of them got a hold of a newspaper, and it looked like he was holding it up and reading it. It was so funny to watch! There were also a lot of birds at the campsite. Everyone who walked by was fascinated by some trees by our campsite, and I couldn’t figure out why. I kept thinking, “You are in a forest, of course there are trees!” But eventually I overheard someone say they had never seen anything like it… so I finally went over to investigate. It was fascinating, all over these trees, the woodpeckers had made TONS of little holes, and then the squirrels put their acorns in the holes. Human hands could not get them out (trust me, I tried a lot.) The whole tree was covered in this. It was amazing.
I was a nanny for 2 weeks for little Alexander, who was almost 4 months. Every morning we went on a walk to the UCI arboretum. It was very quiet in the morning, and the wildlife was very active. We saw lots of bunnies, hummingbirds, butterflies and lizards. There was a lot of beautiful colors and textures for Alexander to enjoy. Every other day we would go to the pool and splash around.
January, Ethan, Jacob and I went to the Fullerton Arboretum. We saw ducks, koi fish, turtles, cat fish, little fish, and lots of beautiful flowers and trees. We were feeding the turtles cheerios, and the LOVED them. It was so cute. They would chew the cheerio, and the little fish would eat the crumbs from the turtle. And the big fish were crazy mean to get the cheerios and were so quick.
The week of my birthday I went to Disneyland on 2 different days. It was really fun. It wasn’t very busy so we got to do a lot. Loretta and I were serenaded by the Disney quartet for our birthdays. We had dinner at the Blue Bayou, which is the restaurant that is inside of the Pirates of Caribbean.
The first half of summer I was in summer school. I took gender communication and preschool fieldwork. It was very intense but I was glad that I did it. It was fun to plan lessons and implement them with the preschool children. It was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed being with them. They taught me more than I could ever learn in the college class room.
The very first weekend after finals, we went camping with a bunch of friends (January, John, Ethan, Loretta, Dave, Denise, Charlie) to Palomar Mountain. We did not set up a tent, but just brought our inflatable mattress and slept under the stars. It was so nice. We went on a few hikes and it was absolutely gorgeous.
The next weekend Read and I went deep sea fishing. I was not planning on fishing since I was not planning on eating any fish. Some guy asked me to hold his pole while he helped someone else, and while I did, I caught a fish. And that is when I was caught! It was so exciting, I just kept fishing. One time I caught 2 at once! Most of them were small and we threw them back. Read caught a few that he kept and brought home and cooked up.A couple days after that, we were off to Montana for Grace’s baptism. We had a BBQ at the lake with Melody’s family the night of the baptism, which was really nice. Melody’s dad owns a meat shop and brought tons of meat (Read was in heaven since I hardly ever serve that) and he made some delicious vegetarian baked beans. (I am still dreaming about how yummy they were.) It was nice to hang out with the family. The kids played in the lake, we sang songs, and roasted marshmallows. Then we went to the church for the baptism, where I gave a talk, and we all sang a song. It was a very nice service. One night Read and I sat on a big porch on these huge chairs, and watched the sun go down and the stars come out. It was so serene, except the bugs eating us alive! It was a great place to relax and unwind from the rush of California! The family went our separate ways, but we met up with Bryant and his family in Glacier National park. We took the free shuttle to the top of the mountain, then hiked to Hidden Lake. It was much more intense than we had planned on, and in many parts the trail was covered with snow. We had snowball fights in July! Eventually the trail was getting more difficult, and the kids were getting tired of it, so Bryant stayed back with the kids and Read, Melody, and I went the rest of the way. A lot of
people had walking sticks and good shoes, but not us! We kept wondering when we were going to get there, and when we finally did, it was so worth it! It was absolutely breath taking. We couldn’t stay long though, because the last shuttle was going to be headed down the mountain soon, and we didn’t want to miss it. So we started running back, which is a good idea on ground, but not snow. It was really slippery, and we were laughing a lot, and I slipped and started sliding down the mountain side. 
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t move. Melody was taking pictures. It was so funny, I think it was the lack of oxygen we didn’t realize it was actually scary. I fell down a few more times, but just on my butt, not down the mountain. When the trail changed and went straight down the mountain, I just sat down and sledded down. I was too tired to keep running! We had so much fun! We camped at the KOA and made s’mores. The next day we said goodbye to the McCall’s and Read and I went white water rafting. It was not as rapid as we hoped, but it was still a good time. 
It felt good to get splashed by the cool water. When the water was very calm, they said we could jump in to cool off, and we did… YIKES!!! It didn’t feel as good when your whole body was in it! Once I jumped in I realized the water is fresh melted from the glacier and barely above freezing. Then I had a hard time getting back into the raft. It was interesting to say the least. On our first rapid, our very relaxed tour guide flew out of the boat, and was trying to get back into the raft, and Read didn’t realize how you really had to anchor yourself with your feet, and he almost flew out too! And our guide almost pulled Read out trying to get back in. There were also “pirates” that hid behind a rock, and squirted us with squirt guns when we least expected it. We had a really good time. On the flight home, we had a layover in Denver, and the connecting flight kept getting delayed. Then it got cancelled. Our original flight was supposed to leave at 9 am, and we got put on the 6 pm flight. So we called Read’s sister Tanya, and she came with her family to pick us up and we went to lunch with them. It was really nice to get to see them. Then we were expecting to be crammed on the flight home, not sitting next to each other, but we ended up getting put in first class! Wow, that was an experience! After the nice big seats, I think my next favorite part of the first class experience was the unlimited amounts of water! It was amazing the attitude difference of the flight attendants. We had a really great trip and it was hard to come home.I still had not had enough of the great outdoors, so the next weekend Read and I went to Burnt Rancheria, which is about 50 miles east of San Diego. It was very nice and laid back. We slept under the stars again, and it was beautiful clear skies. It was so warm, you didn’t really need a fire or a sleeping bag. The firemen came to the campground, and I was afraid they were going to tell us to evacuate or something, but luckily that was not why they were there. They went to the main parking lot, where there was a huge dead log on a big area of dirt. They had volunteer campers stand on the log. They had other volunteers hold the hose with the firemen and shoot down the people on the log. It was so funny! The dirt quickly turned into a big mud puddle, and everyone was screaming and laughing. It was a nice way to cool everyone down. I didn’t dare get on the log,
but I stood near it and got soaked. Read watched from a distance. Of course we went hiking, and had tin foil dinners. We made peach cobbler in the dutch oven, yum! There were tons of squirrels and other little rodents, and one of them got a hold of a newspaper, and it looked like he was holding it up and reading it. It was so funny to watch! There were also a lot of birds at the campsite. Everyone who walked by was fascinated by some trees by our campsite, and I couldn’t figure out why. I kept thinking, “You are in a forest, of course there are trees!” But eventually I overheard someone say they had never seen anything like it… so I finally went over to investigate. It was fascinating, all over these trees, the woodpeckers had made TONS of little holes, and then the squirrels put their acorns in the holes. Human hands could not get them out (trust me, I tried a lot.) The whole tree was covered in this. It was amazing.I was a nanny for 2 weeks for little Alexander, who was almost 4 months. Every morning we went on a walk to the UCI arboretum. It was very quiet in the morning, and the wildlife was very active. We saw lots of bunnies, hummingbirds, butterflies and lizards. There was a lot of beautiful colors and textures for Alexander to enjoy. Every other day we would go to the pool and splash around.
January, Ethan, Jacob and I went to the Fullerton Arboretum. We saw ducks, koi fish, turtles, cat fish, little fish, and lots of beautiful flowers and trees. We were feeding the turtles cheerios, and the LOVED them. It was so cute. They would chew the cheerio, and the little fish would eat the crumbs from the turtle. And the big fish were crazy mean to get the cheerios and were so quick.
The week of my birthday I went to Disneyland on 2 different days. It was really fun. It wasn’t very busy so we got to do a lot. Loretta and I were serenaded by the Disney quartet for our birthdays. We had dinner at the Blue Bayou, which is the restaurant that is inside of the Pirates of Caribbean.January, Ethan and I went to the Bolsa Chica ecological reserve. There were so many little fish jumping, it looked like it was raining in the water. It was truly amazing. There were so many beautiful birds. We saw a few birds catch some fish and eat them, it was interesting to watch.
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