+ C painted my nails on Thursday.  I'm currently sporting five different colors in three different patterns.  T asked if he could paint my nails this week.

+ Spending so much time at home has greatly heightened my intolerance for dirtiness.  Blanket forts across the hallway, Nerf darts and dog food are perfectly acceptable (Shooter always levels his food with his nose, so there always seems to be dog food on the kitchen floor three seconds after I sweep it).  But I don't think I've ever cleaned a bathroom twice a week.  Except for that one time, when I was in England.

+ I made sea salted butter and organic banana-peanut butter ice cream on Thursday.

+ Alan took the boys for frozen yogurt after exploring the area on Saturday.

+ Alan and the boys went to the playground across the street and played tag basically all Saturday morning.  And then they played "ninja," a game they learned at Bob's Diner (chapel youth group).

+ We had an incredible time of fellowship at the Soldiers' Hospitality House yesterday.  We finally connected with another couple who married only five days before us (we've been attending the couples' Bible study together, but haven't talked much beyond that).  We have some similar experiences, and hearing their story and how God brought them together was really touching.

+ Afterward, Matt and Yessica came over so Alan could teach Matt how to replace his brakes.  Yessica and I spent three hours chatting.

+ We wrapped up Sunday evening with Alan and C playing hide-and-seek Nerf tag while T made rice with a tadiq/tahdig.

great britain is reassembling the empire + there's actually water in texas

Who wants eslaamboli polow?  Or, better yet, who wants to  pronounce it?

Yesterday, the Soldiers' Hospitality House hosted a "Taste of Nations" in honor of the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics.  Families signed up to bring dishes from different nations.

We took eslaamboli polow (chelow), an Iranian lamb and rice dish.  (Didn't see that one coming, did you?)  I couldn't form a nice tadiq, or crust, on my rice--mainly because I forgot making rice is a +2 hour process--so it was sadly not totally authentic.  Oh well.  Lamb makes the world a better place.

And so does my husband.  He made rice in a South American pot after I told him about my tadiq-less rice.  I have no idea why I did not know about this pot earlier, because yesterday was the first time I had crispy rice since 2007.

Anyway.

The food and fellowship were a blessing.  As was seeing London on television.  We had the opportunity to try food from Norway, Indonesia, Peru, Japan, Korea, Greece and a few other countries.  While representatives from various branches of the armed services raised the Union Jack, one of the soldiers at the house joked, "Your stripes are upside down!"

Unfortunately, we (at least Alan and I) were tired by the end of the night, so we only stayed long enough for me to watch the South Korean team enter, and then it was time to head home for prayers, summing up the day and bed.

We explored the neighborhood this afternoon--or rather, we explored what's behind the neighborhood.  There's a small stream bed with lots of fossils nearby, so we took Chipmunk and Ophelia and I charged the battery for the Nikon, all ready to take the first photos of summer with something other than my phone.

And then I realized that I left the battery at home.

So, I carried around an expensive necklace and took photos with my phone.  We also picked up some interesting fossils, some of which I plan to ship home to my dad.

ginger chicken rice + kongnamul muchim

Because the Army (or at least Fort Hood) says that Thursdays are family days, Alan came home early today.  After he stormed the barricades in the living room and lost the battle to three new Nerf guns (his misfired), I made ginger chicken rice and a Korean bean sprout side dish for dinner while we played Apples to Apples.

Typically, I make ginger beef rice, but we had some extra chicken in the freezer.  Also, my measurements are mostly guesses--I never measure anything when I cook.

Ginger Chicken Rice

3/4 C. soy sauce
1 T. mirin
1 tsp. sugar
1 T. ginger, finely chopped
3/4 lb. chicken, cubed
5 C. rice, cooked

Bring the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and ginger to a boil.  Add the chicken and reduce heat to low--cook for two to three minutes.  Add the rice and stir until well covered.  Serve.

more savings, a workshop and an early birthday

We made another trip to Target yesterday!  We picked up two Milky Way bars with a $.75 off coupon.  I also picked up another cami--originally $8 and on sale for $5, it cost me $2 with a $3 off coupon.  The boys each got a pack of gum--I had a buy one, get one free coupon and the peach mango variety was on clearance.  We also picked up another trial-sized tube of Aquafresh, which was free (plus some overage) after a $1 off coupon--we gave it to the Soldiers' Hospitality House.

While the boys attended the chapel youth group, I went to a "Peace of Mind" workshop at the Soldiers' Hospitality House.  Elizabeth covered 72-hour emergency kits to keep in the event of a natural disaster or anything else that might stall normal life (like having to evacuate) for up to 72 hours.  It was interesting, considering that my family is prepared for a major crisis, but that I haven't given much thought to a shorter event.

Alan made dinner last night (potato parmesan soup) and picked up the boys while I was at the workshop.  Youth group ran late and Alan said everyone seemed enthralled (okay, not his exact words) during the extra half hour--they discussed the Aurora tragedy and how it is part of God's plan--so I had enough time for a quick run when I returned home.

We also celebrated C's "other" birthday--since he won't be celebrating his actual birthday in Texas with us, we gave him a cookie cake (and he had a burger from Five Guys for dinner) and some gifts last night.  Gifts are his secondary love language, and Alan and I are trying to learn to speak it better.

school's {not} out for the summer

We've been spending the mornings prepping for the upcoming school year--or at least as far as math and communications are concerned.

C has math workbooks that review what he learned last year and preview what he'll learn this year.  We had some tears of frustration yesterday (not that I blame him; I remember those well), but he figured out the answer and understands the concept, and I've been learning to adapt my tutoring techniques from the campus to the living room.

I've found that he does better work when we first do several examples together, before I supervise while he completes a problem on his own.  He completes three worksheets each day while T watches math videos and completes assessments through Khan Academy.

For communications, the boys are writing their own stories, which they've enjoyed reading to their dad when he comes home from work.  First, they wrote them with paper and pen, and now they're using OmmWriter.  The program has sounds, music and backgrounds, which they enjoy.  After they've typed them up with OmmWriter, we'll copy and paste them over to Microsoft Word for editing and revising.  We plan to act them out with Lego characters, take photos and then publish their stories through Blurb.

Also, we started Free Rice for grammar and vocabulary practice.

They were thrilled, of course.

couponing--new camis, pens and toothpaste

Thanks to coupons and sales at Target, we purchased two trial-sized tubes of Aquafresh, two tubes of Aquafresh Kids (one isn't pictured because we gave it away), two Mossimo camisoles and two packs of PaperMate pens for $1.92!

Target currently has coupons for:

$1 off 4.3-oz or larger Aquafresh toothpaste

$1 off PaperMate writing instrument

$3 off Women's Mossimo apparel item

Mossimo tank tops are on sale for $5 (originally $8), so the coupons brought the price to $2.

A 10-pack of PaperMate pens is $1, so they were free when we used coupons!

The Aquafresh Fresh 'N Fruity toothpaste is $1.87 (and it's 4.6 oz.), but the Aquafresh website has a $1 off coupon, and because we paired it with the Any Aquafresh Extreme Clean coupon on a trial-sized tube of Aquafresh ($.97), the toothpaste cost less than $1 and the trial-sized tubes were free!

sweet and sour chicken

Having shopped our pantry, I decided to make sweet and sour chicken this week.  I've never made it before, and thought I'd give it a try and maybe add it to our repertoire.

While I knew the basics, I was able to find a more authentic recipe at the last minute, and tweaked it for our tastes.

Alan, T and I loved it.  C liked the chicken, which quite frankly says a lot.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

1 lb. chicken (it was actually slightly less, because I trimmed the meat from the bone and fat, which I use for chicken stock)
3/4 C. soy sauce
1 T. mirin
1 tsp. sugar
1 carrot
1/2 onion
3 spring onions
1 C. chopped pineapple with juice
1/2 C. vinegar
1/4 C. pickle juice

Place the chicken in a pan and marinate it in soy sauce, mirin and sugar for 20 minutes.  Turn heat to medium and steam chicken mixture until almost fully cooked.  Remove the chicken and marinade (reserve).

Add sesame oil and stir fry the onion over high heat.  Add the carrot and spring onion, then cook until slightly tender.  Add pineapple with juice, vinegar, pickle juice, chicken and marinade.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until chicken is cooked through.  Add more soy sauce, pineapple juice or vinegar to taste.  Serve over rice.

geocaching

While scrolling through some iTunes apps, I came across an app for geocaching.  I'd heard of geocaching, but never tried it, and since the app was free and an international treasure hunt dictated by a GPS system seemed like a very "boy" thing to do, I downloaded it.  Alan and I decided we'd take the boys and try it in the evening, after church on Sunday.  The closest geocache location was at the mall.

Since we didn't want to get the boys' hopes up (What if someone moved the geocache, or we couldn't find the coordinates?), we drove to the site and I explained geocaching while we started walking around the mall perimeter.  We couldn't find the first one, but fortunately there were a few more in the series, so we drove around to the other side of the mall and started looking for the cache. 

The boys (especially C) had fun being stealthy and trying not to draw too much attention to us while we looked in the bushes.  We finally found it and C pulled it out of its hiding spot.  We signed its log book, left another treasure and drove home to play Cranium (which C and I won, by the way). :)

one month later

It's hard to believe it's been a whole month since Alan, Chipmunk and I started our adventure from my parents' driveway.  Our adventuring took us to an Arkansas gas station with more cockroaches than I ever want to see again in my life.  To a Wendy's at 2:30 a.m., after which Chipmunk ran around crying and carrying a chicken nugget in her mouth (at 2:30 in the morning, remembering to tear up a chicken nugget was not the first thing on my mind).  To two hotels with no vacancies.  And finally, home.

Although it didn't actually feel like "home" until we returned from visiting some of Alan's family in Oklahoma.  Up until then, I just felt like I was on vacation, but while turning on one of the last roads before the house, I realized that I was excited to finally get out of the car and just be home.

+ We are mostly unpacked--there are still a few boxes, but they're mostly office things for which I have no room.  At least they're in the office.