Temporary Empty Nest - Getting us Prepared

I don't think it has hit me until today how quiet it is with just two of us home! Not as much dinner conversation, not as much food to prepare, no one to help take out the trash (ha, ha), not enough people to give Mina, our cat, all the feline attention she requires, no one to remind to pick up their rooms or move their laundry along.... But the positive side is the phone calls, emails, twitters, blog posts, etc. from these young adults showing us that life is going well, or struggles will be overcome. Mike shared Friday night with me some empty nest questions for thought he found online. I don't know that it made me feel better but good things to think about for the future when we are really empty nesters. Life will be great, just different. On to our next adventures!

A Special Song in Tribute to Mother's Day

Today in Primary, as in all Primaries where Mother's Day is celebrated, we practiced songs to sing for our mothers and grandmothers next Sunday in Sacrament meeting. While the children were singing so sweetly, I remembered the song (?) that Mike would sing after just a few minutes in the car with 5 children on the way home from church after honoring mothers on Mother's Day: "Bicker, bicker, fight,fight,fight,fight; Happy Mother's Day! (He of course had lovely music he sang it to.) You know, I didn't know it then, but I look back at that as a happy memory and we've had a lot of laughs about in on subsequent Mother's days. How blessed to have 5 healthy, normal (of course, they were really all above normal - they're my children), opionated, outspoken, precocious children practicing social skills they would need throughout life!

Fond of Fondue Chapter 2

Tamara and Jack drove out Friday night for a quick weekend and Jocelyn came down as well. What fun to have so many of us together! While grocery shopping yesterday, I thought how much fun it would be to have a fondue dinner with everyone on Sat. So while in the store, I called Tamara to see if she could bring out her electric fondue pot (Brent and Chelsea gave me a great electric fondue pot for Christmas).

So I'm shopping for dips and sauces, shrimp, beef, chix, breads, vegetables, fruit, chocolate...and cheese for the fondues. I asked the "cheese" lady at VONS for the best cheeses to use for a nonalcoholic fondue. She had lots of opinions and advice on how to make cheese fondue. I took the cheeses she had selected for me and listened to her advice. I think she was concerned about my ability (rightly so) and her last suggestion was to look up a recipe on foodnetwork.com! Well, I didn't look up a recipe but tried to follow her advice for the cheese fondue. It was a little thick and then clumpy - but it still was very tasty.

Everyone was given something to cut or chop for our fondue dinner. How wonderful to have a lot of counter space so that everyone could help! It was fun to cook slowly one bite at a time, eat and visit. We were glad Grandma could come down and join us too!