Scottsdale

We had a great time this weekend hanging out with Katie and Tebben in Scottsdale, despite the fact that our hotel tried to rip us off.  But we got the better of them, and a regional manager ended up getting us two free nights, so that worked out pretty well.  But more importantly, Dez got to meet his Aunt and Uncle!  He was a very happy 

baby this weekend, and smiled and gabbed a lot.  

There was a ton to do in Scottsdale, and didn't even end up going anywhere else, we just stayed pretty much within 20 minutes of our hotel at all times.  On friday night we had the best pizza that I've had since we were last in Illinois.  It was chicago style stuffed crust, with spinach, broccoli and garlic, and it was incredible.  It completely put all california pizza to shame.  And our waitress was super friendly and helpful as well.  If your ever in Scottsdale, or the Phoenix area, you have to go to Oregano's.  We liked it so much we went there for lunch on Monday as well.

There was a really cool wine and art festival just a block from our hotel, so we walked around and looked at all the stuff, some of which was really nice, but didn't buy anything, although we all saw something we wanted.  Tebben and I did end up buying Bamboo shirts, because we both love bamboo, and they had a whole store of just bamboo clothes.  

Both of our families packed a ton of stuff for the hotel, so we were able to have dinner in our rooms both nights, and we brought our Wii, and we all played that, which Ella really liked.  The thing that Katie and Shelley were most looking forward to was going to the diaper store in Scottsdale.   They had all sorts of cloth diapers and other baby stuff, so we each ended up getting tons of stuff.  Our big buys were a fabric wrap for Desi, which is 6 yards of fabric that you tie around yourself and it makes a super comfy holder for the baby, way better than a snuggli or baby bjorn.  We also got reusable snack bags for Ella, and bought enough cloth diaper for Dez to get us set for the rest of his diapering life, hopefully.

It's kind of funny, and a little sad too, that we're having to spend so much money to live like it was maybe 60 years ago.  Some people are shocked that we're doing cloth diapers, because they think it's really hard and messy, but they are so easy, and so cheap in the long run.  A woman I work with spends $45 every two weeks on diapers, which over two years is $2,340 and a ton of waste in a landfill, whereas we spent maybe $400 on our cloth diapers and wipes, and we're set, except for water, electricity and soap for washing, but that's not going to cost $1,900.  We're also stocked up on rubbermaid so we use less ziploc bags, we all have reusable bottles and coffee cups, we're going to get cloth napkins, and I'm totally into handkerchiefs now, for me and Ella.  And we're doing a lot better about cooking at home.  For a little while after Des was born we ate out a lot, but we're in a good schedule now, and have been good about shopping and cooking.  So if only we had lived in the 40's we've fit right in.  Stupid technology.  I do realize that I'm writing this on a super advanced computer on the internet.  I'm not quite ready to carbon copy a newsletter and mail it to everybody.

Great Broccoli Cheddar Recipe

So we have two exciting developments; Desi is smiling a lot, and kind of interacting with us, and Ella's hair is starting to get long enough to do stuff with, finally, after 4 years of growth.  Shelley is quite jealous of cousin Maddie's beautiful, long hair.  At this rate, Ella will catch up by the time she's in her twenties.  Hopefully the 2-3 bowls of cereal she eats every morning will help.  Oh, and Gabriella has decided that at home and at stores she wants to be called Gabriella, and at school, and somewhere else that escapes me at the moment, she wants to be called Ella.  We don't know what brought about this change, but we will try to respect her wishes.

  Last Saturday we went to see a local production of High School Musical here in town.  Gabriella was incredibly excited and sang along with the entire show.  Shelley and I made it through on the strength of Gabriella's enjoyment.  I had to watch the movie when we went to bed to clear out the bad taste.  But again, it was cheap and totally made her day, so it was worth it.

I know that we have been absent from the recent Bittman talk, and I wanted to let everyone know that we have been Bittmaning with the best of them in the past couple weeks.  We made his Enchilada recipe, which was very good, and following his direction I made the best fried rice I've ever made.  Normally we just wing it and it turns out passable, but with his recipe it was really good.  Also, my new favorite recipe is his Walnut with Tomato sauce for pasta.  Super delicious, and we made a bunch and I had pasta for lunch for a few days after.  It sounds weird, but it was really great, and it's stuff that we normally have around anyway, so it was good pantry clearer.  He did fall short on the soup front, though, and we had to go elsewhere for a really good Broccoli Cheddar recipe that Ella said was even better than Panera, which is huge (I think I made the title a link to the recipe).  but my food recomendation for the week is Frittata.  Really easy to make, and easy to load up with lots of veggies.  We had it last night for dinner with half Broccoli, cheese and fake sausage for Gabriella, and peppers, green onions, fake sausage and cheese for Shelley and I.  I would also recommend Lily Allen, for great british pop music.  Her album Alright, Still is only $7 on iTunes and is really fun and peppy and funny.

movies

So we've been watching a bunch of movies lately, and I think that we have gotten Ella up into the double digits of movies she'll actually watch.  We've added Back to the Beach and the Music Man.  We watched Mama Mia with her, but for some reason she thought it was way sad, and cried a lot.  But she liked the first part of it, so maybe she'll like it a second time around later.   We're not forcing her to watch movies all the time or anything, it's just hilarious how something will set her off and then she'll be crying and won't want to watch the movie anymore.  There are remarkably few movies without conflict or something sad, so we mostly go with musicals because the songs will make up for the sadness, and the sadness doesn't last very long.

Everytime I watch the Music Man, the part at the end where all the proud parents are standing up and saying stuff like "That's my Davey," I'm reminded of a time in college when I was doing catering.  We'd go around and deliver coffee and sandwiches and cookies and stuff to various meetings and conferences, and my mother was in town at one such meeting.  I forget if we both knew we would see each other or if it was a surprise, but either way, when I wheeled in a cart with the coffee, my mom said "That's my boy!"  loud enough for me to hear it across the room.  My mother may dispute this, but that's how I remember it.  I also remember leaving the room as fast a possible.  

Dez has been pretty congested lately, so we're taking him to the doctor today.  It shouldn't be anything big, but we're gonna go just to be safe.  

We got our camera back, so there are a bunch of new pictures on the Picasa page.