Just Beachy!

Took the boys to the beach today ... it was a rough day, lots of disappointments throughout, so I'm glad we had some fun too. I was supposed to go with a friend, but she cancelled last minute. Totally fine, but still a disappointment, especially since I'd just gotten off the phone with Dustin who told me our shop had been broken into over night and both our dirt bikes were gone.
I didnt tell the boys about the dirt bikes until later, when Dustin called and said that the police may come by. It would have worried them, and I didn't need freaking out kids to deal with when police are here.
Needless to say, the boys, along with us, are not impressed.

It is giving me an opportunity to teach (and learn) a lesson though; it's SO easy to nod and 'amen' to someone saying "love your enemies; pray for those who hurt you." When it actually happens, the knee jerk reaction is to want them thrown in jail for a ridiculous number of years, fed nothing but stale bread and water and .... treated the way Jesus was when he died for all of us lousy sinners.
Whoa, wait a minute, that's different... he was God!
Uh-huh, my point exactly. My faith grows every time I think about it, and it's been on my mind a lot today. I'm so ticked off at whoever stole those bikes I think it would be hard enough to give a kind word, let alone die for them!!
GOD loved us enough to endure everything he did for thieves and sinners - and dirt bikes takers.
For me and you, really.

Mind boggling, isn't it?!

My prayer is that God will make something good from this - his word says he can, and I believe his word. If that's all that happens, then at least he strengthened my faith and awe of his amazing love through this. At least I can understand, even the tiniest amount, of what he went through for people who did and would treat him so horribly. And that's actually a lot to take from this.

But I am still mad - I wonder if Jesus was too?


Okay, enough preaching - here are beach pictures .... FUN pictures!

SOUP'S ON!

I felt like making soup today. It's really not that weird a thing for me, I make a lot of soup since that's Dustin's idea of a perfect lunch. Soup and a sandwich for him - so I make big pots and then jar it (so it's sealed) and then we have homemade soup for a few weeks.
I was in the mood for experimenting today though, I guess that's why it's a little weird. I wanted Chicken Noodle Soup, but not the same ol' thing I always make, although I know there can't be that many variations of Chicken Noodle soup.
Anyway... here's what I did. I think it's pretty good!!

Chicken Noodle Soup
3 chicken breasts, frozen and whole
5-6 carrots, chopped
5-6 celery stalks, chopped
a bunch of green onion, chopped
water

-Boil this together with a teaball containing a teaspoon's worth of black peppercorns and 2 large bay leaves.

-Once the chicken is cooked through, pull it out and chop into desired size pieces, return to the pot after. If it wasnt' as cooked as you thought, still chop it up but continue boiling before adding more.

-Add 1/2 cup (or more) of dehydrated parsley flakes (sounds like A LOT, I know, but it gives a really great flavor), and the tiniest bit of garlic. I used a drop of oil from the minced jarred stuff.

-Add 1/2 package (2-3 cups uncooked) eggs noodles, and 4-5 Knorr Chicken Bouillon cubes. Let this boil until noodles are soft.

Salt and pepper to taste. (oh, and dont' forget to pull out the teaball and discard contents!).

VOILA!

I'm wishing I had time to bake buns or something, that would be the best side dish... mmm, fresh buns! I am horrible at baking buns, they rarely turn out, but I should get an A for effort at least. Maybe my family is glad I don't have time to bake buns today.... then they won't have to fake liking them - again!

Let me know what you think if you make the soup!

A mini Holiday

Since summer is Dustin's busiest time at work, we prefer to take longer holidays in winter. So in summer, we try and do a few nights away just so that it doesn't feel like it's been months in between breaks. Ideally we go camping, but seeing as how it's rained most weekends, and the mosquito population is bursting in numbers after every rain, we opted for something indoor.

We booked a family theme room at CanadInns Grand Forks for a night. It's only a few hours away but feels like a major change since the stores and restaurants are all a novelty in the States.
We got a "Caveman" themed room. The boys had bunk-beds, and a cable tv with a ps2 all to themselves in their own little room within the room. They were in heaven with it, and Dustin and I could watch something other than cartoons in the evening on the flat screen by the Queen bed. We were really impressed with the room and the hotel.

Mmm, donuts for night snack!

The water park was another hit! It was fairly big, and we thought the separate entrance fee to use it was completely reasonable. We've spent almost as much using the town's pool and it doesn't have nearly all the things the water park here did.
It was super family friendly, our kids could ride everything with us, or separately, although Zach opted to ride with a lifejacket on one that had a height restriction to ride solo on.
With lots of lifeguards and seating all over for parents to take a break and still be able to watch their kids, again, we were really impressed!
We will definitely be back!

Water slides, a huge bucket than dumps water, and valves and hoses to spray each other! So much to do on this platform!

We named this one the 'toilet bowl'. It was a tube ride that sent you down a regular waterslide, then around and around in this big thing, and then "flushed" you down another slide to the pool below. It was SO fun!
There was also a Lazy River that floated around this slide.

A regular swimming pool with cool floaty things to climb on, and basketball nets on the other end.

He pushed his hair into a mohawk and air guitared along to the music playing. Pretty funny!