Cooking up some eats

1. Ella showing off the pretzels she helped make.

2. The family making Brigadeiro.

3. Just a really cute picture.

4. Getting ready for bedtime.

Okay, so everybody needs to go out and have Indian food right now. It is the greatest stuff ever. Shelley and I thought we would have a date night, and were driving around looking for a Thai place, and we pulled into this little strip mall to look around, and it had an Indian place, so we went in. It was so amazingly good, everything we had was great. We had thought we would be having nice conversation about stuff, but instead we spent most of the time talking about how great the food was. They also had a really good beer called Golden Eagle, that even Shelley liked. After dinner we went to Blockbuster and bought Nacho Libre, A Prairie Home Companion, and rented the Ex, which was hilarious. It’s got Jason Bateman, Zach Braff and Amanda Peet. We would totally recommend it to everybody.

Nancy is getting her house redone so we’ve been doing lots of cleaning and moving stuff around. We spent most of today getting ready for them to scrape the ceilings, which have a stucco-like thing on them. It’s a big project and everything but the furniture has to be put away because the stuff gets everywhere. As we we’re cleaning up Nancy found an old teachers book about cooking with kids, and it had a recipe for making pretzels. So Ella and I mixed up all the stuff and made us up some pretzels. We made shapes and letters and spelled out Ella. They turned out really good, and Ella had a blast making them and eating them. And then after dinner we made Brigadeiro, the delicious Brazil treat of butter, sweetened condensed milk, and chocolate power, cooked up together, and then rolled into little balls and covered with chocolate sprinkles. So boo for the Bears stinking, but woohoo for the Cubs making the playoffs!

Ella's interpretive Dance

So yesterday at work was awesome, because I was in the back of the kitchen, doing some stuff and our little bell rang, so I went up front, and it was totally Andy Richter waiting to get some food! It was so cool. He was there with his brother and a friend, and he got a Turkey sandwich, and some Chili! His friend asked him how they Chili was and he said 'Pretty good,' so his friend got some too. It was great. They were all super nice and relaxed. I thought about saying something, but decided it would be better not to. Also exciting, I had my first Capoeira class for kids this past Tuesday. It went really well. The kids enjoyed it, and even kind of payed attention to me, which I thought was pretty good. It was a lot of fun, we did a little bit of the moves, then worked them into some games, and did some music too, good times.
Shelley and Ella are doing quite well. Ella has been going to the center with Shelley when I have to go to work, and she hangs out there for most of the day. It has caused a little bit of problem for when she has to go to actual preschool, but nothing terrible. She's been really into helping us make dinner lately, which is great. She helped us make lasagna, a frittata, taquitos and tostada pizzas. She gets really excited and pulls a chair into the kitchen and washes vegetables, and if we grate cheese, she keeps asking if she can try the cheese, no matter how much she's already eaten.

The Finger

So Nate and I have been busy, busy bees. We have both worked a ton this past week and to be honest I am starting to forget what he looks like. Nate gets up to go to work at 4 in the morning on weekends and Ella and I sleep in for a bit and then hang out. Normally Nate would get off at around 2:30 and be home for the evening but one of the guys who works there hasn't been coming in lately so he has been working quite a few shifts 10 to 12 hour shifts. On the week days he goes into work at 10:30 and doesn't get off till 8, because he closes the grill.

This weekend has been crazy, I worked on Friday until seven which is normal, but then offered to stay late, as family not an employee, helping get ready for kids day in the park. We stayed at work till 1 in the morning. When I got home Nate was asleep and then he woke up late at 5:15 to be at work at 5:45 and ran out the door, at some point he told me he cut his finger but I was pretty much still asleep so I didn't even realize it. Saturday I had to work at the park all day telling people about our center and that was crazy I worked outside from 10-5:30 and was supposed to work at night from 5:45-10, but got someone to cover for me. Nate ended up working 5:50am to 7:30pm and on the way home called to tell me he need to go to urgent care when he got home because his finger had not stopped bleeding. We waited a bit after he got home and ate some dinner and then headed over. He ended up needing stitches but he had waited too long, they typically need to do stitches within six hours, and it had been over 24 so the irrigated it, numbed it and used some fancy vaseline gauze and wrapped it up well. We have to go back tonight so they can look at it again and then they will teach him how to wrap it and we will have to go back in a week so they can check on the progress of the healing. He is also taking an antibiotic to prevent infection. Nate is back at work today so it didn't slow him down at all.

We are excited that he is going to be home in a bit and we will get to finally bake the lasanga Ella and I made two days ago. And get to take care of some much needed business.

So about this guy I've been working late because he has called out. His name is Thi, and he's a nice enough guy, 25 and has a five month old son. But if I close and he opens, he gives me a list of things I did wrong, which is good in a way because I haven't even been there that long and need to know what I can do better. But it also seems like he is just looking for things I've done wrong, which sucks. And he has written that I haven't 'stoked' some things enough. I feel this is unfair because I give the soda cups and lids one hell of a pep talk before I leave for the night, and they all seem pretty stoked to me. But perhaps he meant to write stocked. Other than that it's a really fun job, and I've been making wicked awesome tips. We just bought Ella a super fancy Eddie Bauer car seat that can last until she's old enough to be out of a car seat. There are some really stupid car seat designs out there by the way. I also got the fist season of Scrubs on DVD, and we bought stuff to make a scrap book of our Brazil trip. Oh, and the finger checked out alright at the doctors tonight.

job news

1. Shelley's new do from the front.

2 Shelley's new do from the side.

3. the Mission in San Luis Obispo.

This weekend we all went out to the coast to go to the beach. We all are Troy, Christie, Cody, Nancy and the three of us. We stayed the night in a town called Carpinteria, and spent a ton of time at the beach. Shelley got super sunburned, and I got a little burned, but Ella was fine. We spent the night at a nice Best Western, and then went to the Santa Barbara Zoo in the morning. We had a good time, and Ella started a collection of smushed pennies with designs on them. She got one with a Meerkat from the zoo. She calls it Skat the Cat, and loves it. After the zoo, the three of us went to San Luis Obispo. Shelley really wants to move there, so we went to check it out. It was a really nice town, smallish, but with a cool downtown, and a university, Cal Poly SLO. There is also a old mission, from the Spanish colonial times. We ate at a Thai restaurant for lunch and had excellent Pahd Thai, and Ella got fried rice. For those of you who know Champaign, it felt kind of like Champaign, but with Mountains, and near the ocean. And they even had a good pizza place, which is severely lacking here in Santa Clarita.

When we got back I had to go to a meeting for the Lucas Club where I’ll be teaching Capoeira. If you go to www.lucasclub.com, then click on the Adult button, then click on the Meet the Meastros link, and then look for Capoeira Club, Espiga, and it’s Me! I’ll be teaching 5 classes; two at a grade school for 1^st-6^th graders, two at a Boy’s and Girl’s club for Homeschool Kids, and 1 for 9 year olds and up at the Park District.

For my full time job, Panera didn’t work out, because they pay less then Target, don’t have benefits, and didn’t have full time hours available when I wanted to work. Target said they wanted me back, which was cool, but I’m not going to work there either. I’m going to be a short-order cook at a golf course! I worked all day today, almost 11 hours. They’ve had some staff upheaval at their grill, and really needed someone to start. The reason I got it is because the head pro there is Shelley’s sister in law’s Dad. So now we both owe our jobs to Christie’s family. The course is called Rustic Canyon, and it’s ranked the number 4 public access course in California. It was a lot of fun working there, even though I was on my own from 3 o’clock until 8. I was told vaguely how to close things up and clean up, and I think I got everything done alright. I’ll be working 40 hours a week there, benefits, making more than at Target, and getting tips as well.