Last Day with Auntie Julie

 On our last day with Auntie Julie we decided to take her into Nashville and show her a bit of the "city life" in this area.

We ended up in the Franklin's Historic District where there is a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop. Julie bought baby her very first, very own, cup of ice cream.  Bonnie Rose was very happy about it.

Then Auntie Julie took Rosie's mama to the Mellow Mushroom for Gluten Free pizza. Julie likes to spoil us.

After a nice walk around the old houses of Franklin, 

in the rain...

 and visiting a few shops...

Rosie drove us to the airport,

 where we played tag for a while and then said good-bye to Auntie Julie.

It was so nice to have Julie come visit us. I love seeing how much Rosie loves to be with her Godmother and I'm so thankful that Julie is a part of our family. 

I feel grateful to Julie for being such a good and loving Godmother to my baby girl and her devotion really touches my heart. Julie even got a tattoo in honor of Baby Rosie. It's one of my favorite tattoos ever.

Julie's Tattoo, on her right wrist and hand

I know that my baby is perfect and wonderful but it just makes me happy when other people think so too. And I'm so thankful for how many people surround my little Angel with love.

Busy Summer Days

I was talking to a friend of mine online the other day and I mentioned we've been really busy lately. She laughed at me. You see, she works full time and has to be clever all day, then she goes home to her toddler and nurses her and plays with her. During the week she goes to preschool performances. She spends every minute she can with her baby, but she also has to go to work all day. She is a busy Mama.
My busy days are not quite the same... but are still busy. My friend says it's "the best kind of busy" and think she's very right.

Baby Girl and I wake up every day and go outside right away. Some days I can get Rosie to eat breakfast first, but other days I feed it to her on the porch. We walk out to the goat pen and hang out with the goats.

Rosie walks around and says hello to all the goats. We check and make sure everyone is healthy, make sure they have food and walk and we bottle feed one of the babies.

Rosie stays very busy climbing on the logs and rocks with the baby goats.




When Baby Girl doesn't want to go for a walk outside, she wants to be pushed in her stroller. She loves her stroller. She can climb up in it all by her self, and then she asks to be pushed around the house or out side. Some times we just go around in circles and  sometimes we even chase William around the kitchen with the stroller. Baby Girl always loves that and laughs and laughs.

We take walks at sunset and admire the wonderful sunlight, walk down to the mail box and chase each other up the hill.

Sometimes we chase the cats too.

At dusk I like to go out and watch the fireflies dance. They look like fairies sparkling up from the lawn. Actually I just call them fairies when I show them to Baby Girl.

In my ideal world I would never live in a place that didn't have fireflies. They are so magical.

Despite how it sounds we do spend some of our day in the house.  Especially if it gets really hot outside. Rosie doesn't like to be hot.  We come inside and count the rocks in her rock collection, read books, stack blocks and of course have dance time.

Rosie is so creative and sometimes I just like to sit and watch her imagination work.

Of course there are normal life things that have to be done, like laundry and cooking dinner. Sometimes I even manage to clean the house a little.

By the end of the day we are all exhausted. We watch some Doctor Who (Rosie loves SciFi) and Shawn the Sheep (Rosie calls them goats) to wind down and then we all fall into bed.

We do have to convince Rosie that she is indeed tired. She fights it so hard and we usually end up running circles in the house and playing chase in the evenings. I am definitely more tired than she is.

So at the end of the day I can't always tell you what we've done or how productive we've been. But we are busy. I agree with my friend Diana. It's the best kind of busy and I'm so thankful for it. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

It is the best kind of Busy.

Drive In

 Last night we went to the movies. We saw Green Lantern on opening night. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie on opening night, but the best part about it wasn't that we were getting to see a nerdy movie the night it opened. The best part about it was that it was at a drive in movie theater.

For six dollars per adult (kids under 12 are free) you can sit in your car with your own snacks and you can watch not one but two movies! How crazy is that?!

When we first got there I was a little surprised that it wasn't more crowded, it was Friday night after all and opening night of a big movie. But  I was also very happy it wasn't too crowded.  I realized right away that I am a Drive in Noob.  We showed up in our car with a small cooler of snacks and that was it. Every one else had comfortable lawn chairs and pillows and their dogs, and sat comfortably and ready to enjoy the perfect summer evening.

I thought the movie was good. Sure it followed the predictable comic book formula, but hey, it was a comic book movie so what do you expect. I thought the Green Lantern character was cute and loveable and slightly sarcastic... in a funny way. There was the nerdy side kick (every one needs a nerdy side kick, that's why I have William) and the cute girl that sees the hero for who he is before he does (every one needs a cute girl to support them, that's why William has me).  Sure it was predictable but it was fun and cute and the characters for likeable and funny.  We all liked the movie very much.

Baby Girl got to climb around the car during the movie when she wasn't watching it intently or trying to smash her face against mine, she always does that after kissy scenes.  She also thought it was great fun to hang out the open window to watch the movie. She looked like a puppy dog.

We didn't stay for the second movie. I would have liked to but it was a romantic comedy and it's not one of Baby Girl's favorite genres. She pretty much just goes for Sci-fi or movies with animals in them and it was a small space for her to be confined in for another movie. So we decided to go home and watch some Doctor Who.
Except, the car wouldn't start.

We had the car on, but not running, so we could have the radio on. That's how you hear the movie. And as a result the battery died. Luckily the guy at the concession stand had a portable car starter and helped us get the car started. He says he does it all the time.

How do people go to drive in movies and not have their cars die? And how to people sitting outside their cars hear the movie? Any advice from Drive-in-theater veterans would be great.

Our drive home was beautiful.  The moon was a perfect sci-fi moon, big and bright and yellow and partly shrouded by wispy crowds.  All in all it was a great night and I very much look forward to doing it again.  Especially now that I know that the concession stand has a portable battery starter.

Fish Fry

Last weekend we went to our very first Fish Fry. Fish Fries are a very special local past time here. Politicians must host them if they want to get elected, Churches host them to draw people in. To me a fish fry is the mark of Summer around here.

A fish fry is just what is sounds like. A bunch of people getting together and eating fried fish. In these parts that means Catfish.

I think I could eat fried catfish every day. It's amazing. I'm so glad we live in the South. I can't believe I've gone all my life without fried catfish.

This particular fish fry was hosted my Aunt Mae's church and was a pot luck. Every one brought their specialties. There were hush puppies and french fries and 3 tables of desserts and of course Coleslaw. Or as people around here call it "Slaw."

 Coleslaw is historically a dutch dish called "koolsalade", which means cabbage salad. It's main ingredient is shredded cabbage and often has shredded carrots in it too.

 I thought there were only two kinds of "slaw," vinegar slaw and mayonnaise slaw. But last weekend I learned I was very wrong.  There was vinegar slaw, and slaw it milk sauce, and slaw with grapes in it, and slaw with green peppers. I have seen so many different kinds of "slaw" in my life!
We sampled most of them and William came home with many ideas to try.

Bonnie Rose enjoyed the fish fry very much. She loves hush puppies and Aunt Mae made sure there were special Gluten Free hush puppies and fish batter just for us! She's so good to us and we all over ate.

Another special treat was Uncle Joe's presents there.  At first Bonnie Rose played a little shy with him. But he managed to make her laugh and win her over, as he always does.   I'm so happy she has some one as kind and fun and musical as Joe to grow up with.

After eating way too much and visiting and Joe taking Rosie in the bouncy house and playing endless rounds of hide and seek with her, we all rolled our selves home and sat lazily in front of the TV and watched Doctor Who.  We didn't even have any room for ice cream. 

I can tell we are going to have a very wonderful, if not fattening, summer.

Paulina's Famous Stuffed Peppers : A Food Post

Since William works all day outside and my mom works all day on her computer it's only fair that I cook dinner for every one.  I'm really enjoying having an American sized kitchen with counter space and an oven and a stove with more than two burners. Even though I enjoy baking more, I'm enjoying planning and figuring out new dinners to make.

Me, Paulina and Lukas, Classmates in Shanghai

In the Summer heat I like to make food that isn't hot and doesn't take much cooking. So this summer I've been making Paulina's Famous Stuffed Chili Peppers.
Paulina was a dear friend of mine in Shanghai. We took Chinese together and she was such a great cook. She would bring sandwiches to class and our classmates would buy them from her. I think of her and how much she taught me every time I make this meal.

First I start with these ingredients:

Anaheim Chili Peppers (2 or 3 per person)
Lime Juice (or real limes)
Tuna (one can per person)
Boiled Eggs (one per person)
Red or Yellow Onion
Mayonnaise
Salt and Pepper
I  like to put a green apple in it, but I didn't have one today.

You'll also need a pair of tongs or long wooden chopsticks.

First I chop the Onion and put lime juice on it... to taste. I usually put enough on the just barely cover the onion.

I let the Lime and Onion sit while I do the Chili Peppers. The lime will soak into the onion and make it taste amazing.

Then I cook the Chili Peppers on an open flame to blacken the skin

Paulina used to use her fingers to turn them over, but that was too much for me. In China I used a pair of wooden chopsticks so if they got burned it didn't matter. In the States I use metal tongs.

Get the skin nice and back... all over

Once they are completely back take them off the fire and put them in a container with a lid. I use a Glad Wear box.

Put the lid on right away. I cover the peppers and leave them in there while I cook the rest. The key is to leave them covered in the container to let the sweat so the skin gets nice a loose.

After I cook up all my peppers I set the covered container aside and mix up my tuna salad. That gives them extra time to sweat.

I do everything "to taste".  So just kind of "eyeball" how much of everything you think you like. We don't like a lot of Mayonnaise so I don't use more than a spoonful or two. 

  Put whatever else you think will be good in tuna salad. I usually dig around in the pantry to see what I can find. I like to put apples in it when I have them and Paulina says she likes to chop up almonds.  

After the Tuna salad is mixed it's time to peal peppers. I do this at the sink so I can have a small stream of cool water to rinse my fingers off since the skins tend to stick to them.

Just take one pepper at a time and pinch the skin lightly between your fingers and it comes right off.

I hold the pepper with one hand and pinch the skin off with the other (but I had to take the picture with one hand.)

You can rinse the peppers after all the skin is off to get it clean of all the black specks. Cool water will cool off the pepper right away if it's too hot to handle. Warm water will keep the pepper slightly warm.

I use just cool water.

Once all the peppers are pealed slice them open on one side. Sometimes a pepper with tear while it's cooking or being pealed. That's ok, just use the tear to start the slice.

I also pinch the seed cluster out at the top of the pepper.

Then with a spoon scoop the tuna salad into the pepper. I usually pile it high to make sure everyone gets enough to eat.

And it's ready to eat!

These Chili Peppers are not spicy, though sometimes one will be. 

That or I accidentally bought a jalapeno last time. 

We usually serve it with my mom's Homemade Ginger Ale and either chips and salsa or Carrot Soup.

This is the perfect Summer dinner and one of our favorites. Even Baby Girl likes it. I enjoy making so much that chances are if you come to visit us this summer I'll probably make it for you.

Growing Things

 William keeps very buy all day long working on the farm. Somehow between building fences, shoveling goat poo, cutting down trees, fixing the tractor and a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about, he managed to build us two garden boxes!

Having a garden was something we really wanted to do this year since it was so impossible for us to do it in Shanghai.

 We have alot of trouble with our seedlings this year for some reason but my mom did manage to get some stuff to come up. We have three tomato plants, two zucchini plants and a pumpkin as well as some peppers and a small forest of basil.

Look how fast it's all growing!


Besides all the wonderful vegetables we are looking forward to, I found some vine guide thingys in the shape of animals and I've really enjoyed watching them grow.

My Rabbit vine is already so tall!

 My Doggie vine had a rough start and I thought we'd lost it but then it came back.

 And my Kitty vine took a while to come up but then all of a sudden all these leaves popped up.

Baby Girl is really enjoying watching everything grow too and loves helping water and take care of the plants. She's such a good little farmer girl.

The Dotson-Brown Band

 On Thursday night Uncle Joe's band was playing at Loretta Lynn's Ranch. Baby Girl loves music but she especially loves Uncle Joe's music.

 She got all dressed up to dance at Joe's concert.

 She loves to dance with her Daddy.

 Or even by her self. She just loves to dance.











 During the show Uncle Joe gave Bonnie Rose a signed drum stick. She was so happy and held on to it the rest of the night, dancing with it and swinging it around. She was a very happy girl.

Ice Cream, Vines, Goats and Sunset: It must be Summer 142/365

 I only like to eat ice cream if I'm hot. Sitting on the porch at dusk, watching the plants grow and the sun set is the perfect time for an ice cream treat.

 Speaking of plants growing. I'm pretty excited about this vine we have growing in my rabbit shaped vine guide thingy. I swear  you can see it growing. It grows about 6 or 7 inches every day. Soon I'm going to have a lovely rabbit shaped vine with pretty purple flowers.

 Baby Girl likes to watch the vines grow too. This is my cat shaped vine guide thingy.  These seedlings popped up over night.

 Baby Girl's favorite part of the day is also dusk when she gets to walk out with the goats to the back pastures and watch them eat. She's guarding their water bucket here and making sure they are all drinking plenty of water.

 William calls this time of day "The Golden Hour" I really do love it. The more I'm here the more I fall in love with living in this area.

The beauty of the nature all around us is so peaceful and perfect.