Funny Kids

Three cute kids, one sleeping bag. I had been checking my gear before a campout (which ended up getting cancelled) and the kids couldn't resist the call of the sleeping bag. That is Optimus Prime on Clark's chest. He is transformers obsessed right now. 

Eliza was very eager to help work the foot pump to blow up the air mattress. 

We went to the Perot Science Museum this month because the kids had been begging to go for a long time. The build-a-bird feature that Sabrina loves so much was unavailable, but the race feature was working. You can race various athletes, a cheetah, a t-rex or a tylosaurus. There are Sabrina and Clark racing the tylosaurus. It was a good effort, but that tylosaurus could swim really fast.  

All summer long we think about how much we want to leave Dallas, but when you can comfortably play in water in an outdoor park in January, life feels pretty good.

I guess it was too hot in the house though. Eliza was walking around in her diaper for some reason (my guess is that I am white trash [my other guess is that this comment will be deleted by my wife]) and Clark got jealous. So soon they were both in underwear playing and having a good time. If they are playing nice, I don't really care what they are or aren't wearing. 

We got some package that had a whole bunch of brown paper stuffed inside as packing material. Sabrina made herself some sort of power coat/robe thing. She also helped Clark make one. They wanted to wear them outside to our neighbor's house, but there was a strong wind blowing, and they ripped right off. They took it pretty well. 

After four weeks of hockey training, poor Sabrina has three missing teeth!

In his last week of hockey practice, Clark (in the red helmet) finally stopped relying on the upside down bucket stack and started using a hockey stick. Sabrina (in the black helmet with the blond hair hanging out) and the coaches kept trying to get him to hold the stick properly. He would hold it right for a moment, and then go right back to using it like a walking stick. He said he had a lot of fun, so that is what matters.

Inspired by Opa's delicious stuffed pork loin, I smoked a pork loin with some cherry wood a week or two ago. I stuffed it with walnuts, dates, raisins and apricots all chopped up and soaked in some pomegranate/cherry/cranberry juice. I rubbed the outside with an herb mix that had basil, parsley, sage, bay leaves, rosemary, and something else. It was pretty darn good. My filleting skills could use some work, but I'm sure I'll be trying this again, so I will get some practice.

We found my confused origami seal with the walrus, coo coo cachoo. I assume that whichever child did this was not trying to do something funny. I'm sorry if nobody else finds this to be pretty funny. 

I should end on a cute note. This is little Eliza outside of church today. She was having a hard time not screaming a lot. Having church at 11 - 2 can be hard on a 17 month old who is used to napping sometime between 11 and 2. She had been leaning on the bricks there so cutely that I pulled out my camera to get a picture. The little ham stood up straight and gave me a big smile the moment she realized I was going to take a picture. I think this turned out well enough, even though the lighting is terrible. What a little sweetie.

A Hockey and Pulled Pork New Year

Well, when I uploaded images, the pork came up first, and it was first chronologically, so here goes.

I got an electric smoker for a just-after-Christmas present. Good pulled pork is very hard to find in Texas, where beef is king. So I decided to smoke a pork shoulder (both the butt [just called a butt, it is from the shoulder] and the picnic ham [not really a ham]). It was 11 pounds and spent 23.5 hours in the smoker, though I only ran smoke for the first few hours. 

This is what it looked like when it came out. Yes, it looks burnt up, but that is the bark, and only the very outside layer was charred. 

This picture shows me sliding the shoulder blade right out without any problem- which is the sign it is done. It cooked to an internal temp of 195 degrees, which ensures the collagen has broken down so that everything shreds apart with ease. 

And voila, after just a few minutes of shredding with forks we have a big pile of yummy pulled pork. I think it was better than a lot of pulled pork you get from around here. Not the best, but I am pleased with how my first real barbecue experience turned out. We ate a ton that night, had a bunch of leftovers later in the week, and still have three quart bags in the freezer. Yummy! 

So my wonderful wife found a free hockey training program for kids every Saturday this month in Richardson (not too far away at all). Here is Sabrina getting geared up. 

Clark with everything on except for helmet and ice skates. We had trouble finding helmets that fit our kids. Blame that on my genetics.

They started out pushing around stacked buckets on the ice to hold themselves up. This picture shows Clark with a coach who is trying to help Clark skate with a hockey stick instead of the buckets. They had really good coaches out there watching the kids and helping them improve. Clark was the only kid with a red helmet since they had to find a special one to fit him. Made it easy to find him. 

Sabrina took to the ice pretty quickly and got to skate around doing some basic drills while holding the stick. She had so much fun! Clark had fun, but Sabrina was so excited about it afterwards. What a great, free (yeah!) Saturday activity. 

I just realized I had no Eliza pictures, so here you go. We had really cold weather, and a little snow, the last couple days, so Eliza had to get all bundled up to go outside.

I got off work a little early Friday because it started snowing and Dallas gets really ugly when it snows unexpectedly. They expect it to be 74 degrees on Tuesday, though. This place has some crazy weather.

Happy new year!