House of Estrogen

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My mother

my daughter, Addison

  

Grandmamma to the Rescue!

When my mother-in-law called this morning offering to take the big girls to a movie in the afternoon, I thought for sure she had seen the blog post yesterday and was swooping in to rescue me (or perhaps she was concerned about the safety and well-being of her grandchildren in my care!). Regardless of her motives, she was my hero this morning with that phone call. As it turns out, she hadn't even read the post yet, and just happened to make her offer at what couldn't have been a more perfect time! While Grandmamma and the girls were out seeing Ponyo (which they all loved, by the way), Addie and I took off to a park. It was truly impossible to have a bad day while spending it with this smiling face! We definitely ended what had started out as a rotten weekend on a high note. The cherry on top was that the weather turned sour in Snowshoe, so the guys came home early. J.C. was home and ready to take over kid duty when we returned from the park! All's well that ends well!

 

 

A Little More Fourth of July Fun

The evening of the Fourth was spent with family...eating burgers, corn on the cob, and watermelon... a classic Independence Day meal. As always, the girls had a ball with their cousins.

 

 

 

Goodbye, Hill Country Hyatt, We'll Miss You!!

Sniff, sniff... Friday was our last day at the Hill Country Hyatt. Have I mentioned I love this place? Have I convinced you to take a trip there yet? We had another great day just taking advantage of all the fun activities at the hotel. The girls' cousin 'I' came over to spend the morning with us, and the girls thought they were hot stuff showing him around and introducing him to the lazy river. Elise won the jackpot when a family said, "We have to leave for the airport, so you are welcome to have these floats." Ahhh... the coveted dolphin float... Elise had been begging for one all week, and now it was hers! We had lunch delivered poolside - complete with froofy island drinks. Life is good.

  

 

 

Is it just me, or is it a little scary how tall Addie looks in this picture? 'I' is four, and she is just 17 months! What do you bet she weighs more than he does?

 

The agenda for the afternoon included face painting and ice cream.

 

  

There's my mom!

Family vacation heaven, I tell ya!

Now I get to the one really rotten part of our trip (well, in addition to the flight, but I'm trying hard to forget that part).... dinner Friday night. I hate to even mention it because it does put a small chink in the armor of the HCH since the concierge is the one who gave us the recommendation. I'll try not to hold a grudge. My parents had come in town for a couple days, so I asked the concierge for a recommendation for a Mexican restaurant for us.  She recommended a place called Perico's. I do not second the recommendation. The 20 minute quoted wait was an hour. Service was awful. Food was awful, and IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS IT OK TO PUT AMERICAN CHEESE ON NACHOS???  Hello??? American cheese?  I shudder just thinking about it. That's almost worse than North Carolina nachos with their drippy, melted cheese goo making the chips all soggy. At least with those, you know what you are getting as soon as you see the plate. These nachos looked like authentic Texas nachos but then BAM! the smell of the American cheese knocks you off your feet. I'm really thinking Ann's Nacho Hut is in my future. Any venture capitalists out there wanna get in on this? Anyway, it was a bad night and it put me in a foul mood, but s'mores back at the HCH put me back in my happy place, so all was good.

The next morning, we said good-bye to the Hill Country Hyatt to embark on the next leg of our San Antonio adventure!

24 Hours of Dallas

My 24 hours in Dallas is coming to a close, and I've managed to fit in quite a few Texas must-haves in the short time I've been here. The caesar salad from La Madeleine was perfect, as always. Last night's outing provided nachos and tamales at a good Tex-Mex place. I have yet to find decent nachos or tamales in North Carolina... tacos and enchildas, yes... nachos and tamales, no.  What is so complicated about nachos for crying out loud?  It is beans and cheese on a chip! Why can't any restaurant in NC get that right?  Maybe that should be my next business venture - a nacho restaurant. That's how I'll make my millions... Ann's Nacho Hut, perhaps? Today, I got to introduce Elise to pecan (that's pronouced puh-kon for all you Carolinians reading that as pee-can) pralines... oh my! - a little blob of heaven wrapped in plastic wrap!  She is a fan. Maybe she'll bring one back for me at the end of her trip.

My parents moved out of my childhood home and into a condo a couple years ago. This morning, my mom said, "There is a park with a nice playground that I think is about a half mile or so from here. We can walk over there."  We started walking, and she would say, "I think it is just a couple more blocks this way." (famous last words). After those couple of blocks, she would say, "Or maybe it is the next street over."  This continued for a while until Elise started saying, "JoJo, I think you're losing your mind!" - gotta love a seven year old to call it how she sees it!  We finally asked a jogger how to find the park, and he said, "Oh,  you've gone a few blocks out of your way... I saw you walking a while ago."  Nice. So not only were we lost, people had noticed how completely lost we were. Fortunately, at this point, we were only a couple blocks from the park, so he pointed us in the right direction. The jaunt definitely provided a bit more exercise than we had planned for the morning.  Elise had fun, but she was a bit freaked out by all the grackles overhead. If you've never seen a Texas grackle, it is like a giant crow that caws like a prehistoric pterodactyl.  I'm not sure if Elise was more worried about being used as target practice for their excrement or being eaten alive by a flock of them. Either way, she was a bit anxious, so we didn't stay long.  The walk back was considerably shorter thanks to knowing where the heck we were going. Note to self... when mom says she "thinks" she knows where something is, have her scout it out by car first.

Off to Indianapolis now!  I missed out on Texas BBQ, but I'll just have to save that for the next trip.

A Very Merry Christmas

We had a very merry Christmas this year and hope you did too. Since last year's Christmas was such a blur with an 8 day old baby in the house, we were really able to enjoy all the festivities more this year.

Santa brought American Girl dolls for Elise and Nina. Elise had originally asked for Kit but later changed her mind, wanting Josephina. Santa told me that he was sweating bullets about bringing Kit, hoping that Elise would be pleased despite the late requests for Josephina. You can see in the video that clearly he had nothing to worry about!

 

Addie wanted nothing to do with being in this picture!

 

What's in this box?

 

J.C. declared this gift his "favorite T-shirt ever!" Wow! I was just hoping he might think it was funny. J.C. and ceiling fans don't have a good working relationship, so "Giraffes United Against Ceiling Fans" really struck a chord with him.

   

After presents and breakfast, we were off to a big Christmas dinner with family!

And more presents!

At this point, Addie had endured just about all the Christmas excitement and activity that she could stand!

 

     

Then we were outta there and on to the next destination for family festivities with the other side of the family!

   

Cousin K is always a good sport about playing "beauty salon" (which can be a little scary with a four year old stylist).

 

Nothing beats matching girl and doll nightgowns to end a great day!

First Birthday Party

We celebrated Addie's first birthday yesterday with cupcakes and family... can't think of a better way to honor a first birthday!

Addie was pretty apprehensive about the cupcakes at first...

 

 

She got over that though!

 

   

 

One of her favorite gifts was a baby doll from Jo Jo.

 

The doll got some sweet kisses from Addie with Grandmamma.

   

The girls' only cousins were able to come to the party! Yea!

 

By far though, the highlight of the birthday has been Addie's new wagon. She is driving this thing all over the house. She walks until she runs into a wall, then whines and looks to the closest person to reset her in a new direction. Walk, whine, reset, repeat!

 

 

Santa Fe, Day 8

On Day 8, we said good-bye to Jo Jo and Bubba and began our long travel day with an hour drive to Albuquerque followed by two flights. It all went pretty smoothly with Addie sleeping most of both flights again. We had a wonderful vacation, but it felt really good to be home.

 

Santa Fe, Day 7

Day 7 of our Santa Fe trip was our last full day. Mom and Dad treated us to a delicious breakfast at one of their favorite Santa Fe spots for breakfast - Tecolate Cafe. I ordered French toast which was delicious, but some of the locals at the table next to us ordered New Mexican breakfasts which looked fantastic. I think I'd order one of the New Mexican selections next time. After breakfast, Mom kept Addie while we took the big girls to the Santa Fe Children's Museum. They had a great time there. It is a cute little place... just right for a morning of fun.

   

   

For lunch, we headed back to Tia Sophia's for one last meal of tamales and sopapillas before leaving New Mexico. In the afternoon, mom and I wandered around Jackalope which sells things like pottery, rugs, and folk art but has a little bit of almost everything under the sun. We didn't buy much but had fun poking around.

As the day came to a close we rushed outside to try to get pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses before the sun set.

 

After that, we were treated to this amazing view off the back patio of our condo... nothing beats New Mexico for a gorgeous sunset!

For dinner, J.C. and I had a date night while Mom babysat the kids. I was mourning the loss of one of my favorite Santa Fe restaurants, Paul's, which closed a couple of years ago, so I asked mom for a recommendation. She suggested Il Piatto, an Italian restaurant, just a block or so from where Paul's used to be. Our meal was scrumptious! I definitely recommend this place for a nice meal. Reservations are a must though - the place was packed. We walked to dinner, so hopefully we burned off a couple calories on the walk back. Il Piatto was a nice way to end the trip.

R.I.P. Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll

It is a sad, sad day here in the House of Estrogen. After exhaustive searches of three different grocery stores, I have been unable to locate the elusive Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll. A quick Google search revealed that the Kraft company stopped making the beloved Garlic Cheese Roll earlier this year. I found blog posts, attempts at substitute recipes on the Kraft website, and message boards filled with people mourning the loss of the Garlic Cheese Roll. Kraft, seriously, why get rid of a good thing? Those of us here in the South using recipes passed down by aunts, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers NEED the Garlic Cheese Roll! Paula Deen was even a fan of the Garlic Cheese Roll... if you won't bring it back for me, then bring it back for Paula!

My grandmother on my dad's side was a great cook - all the yummy, fattening, artery-clogging comfort food was her specialty. She was famous for her mashed potatoes, sweet squash casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, fried chicken, coconut cake, and chocolate cake. We all called her "Gonga", so all those foods were commonly known as "Gonga's mashed potatoes", "Gonga's chocolate cake", etc.  I've never mastered the art of mashed potatoes or fried chicken, but I do love to make Gonga's chocolate cake and Gonga's broccoli cheese casserole for the holidays. Gonga's chocolate cake has become a big favorite in J.C.'s family, so the love the Gonga's recipe lives on and has been passed on to a new family. I will still make the broccoli cheese casserole this year, using the suggested substitute for the Kraft Garlic Cheese Roll, but I know it won't be the same. Even if I get the flavor right, it still won't be Gonga's broccoli cheese casserole without that weird little overprocessed roll of cheese food. It is the end of an era. 

Kraft, if you're reading, please bring back the Garlic Cheese Roll. We'll forgive you for this grievous error.