We’ve taken up golf, and I am really enjoying it.  It’s sort of a love/hate relationship.  I hit a great shot and love it.  Then I shank it and hate it.  But it’s hard to hate it to much, when you have to look at this:

and this:

And this:

and this:

David of course, has always golfed, and I have a time or two.  I always liked golf, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything for 3 hours.  I mean, do you know how much laundry I can do in 3 hours?  Me either.

Anyway,  the kids have started the junior program at The Bluenose Golf Club in Lunenburg on Wednesdays.  It’s the only day that I don’t have to pour cold water over them to get them up.  They love it.  They have a practice clinic where they do drills, then they play a few holes, and then they have lunch with their buddies.  I promise you, you’ve seen nothing cuter than a 7 year old with a tab at the club house.

Recently David and I have golfed at Lunenburg, David is a member at Osprey.   When we went in to pay they asked if we were members, and we had to say “No, but our kids are”, and then I put beer on their tab.  There’s just something wrong with that.

Honestly, parenting just keeps getting better.  As much as I love traveling with the kids and watching them play hockey and soccer, I find that golf is much more of a family sport, something we all can do together.

Plus, Colin finally put on a clean shirt!

It’s worth every penny!

Wrestling, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, apparently none of those are competitive or aggressive enough for my Colin.  He wants to play football.

And I thought it was a phase, and I’ve humored him.  I’ve bought football jerseys at Frenchies.  We’ve sat down and watched it on TV, I explained the rules as I know them, and the difference between flag and touch.

But nope, he wants to play, and doesn’t understand why that’s going to be difficult.

Then one day he put on his hockey shoulder pads, his football jersey and soccer goalie gloves, and he wanted to play.

I told him to play with his big brother and their friends and to be careful, he’s only 7 and they’re bigger and stronger than he is.

Let’s just say,  it ended in a touch down, a tackle, and with tears, and they weren’t Colin’s.

The other day, Colin dug out the blender, popsicle mold, fruit, juice, Activa, and ran around the corner and said, “Mama, where da sticks at?”

He wanted to make popsicles.

Colin needed no help in making them. In fact, the recipes just came out of his head.  One was good, the other, not so much.  But in both I added a teaspoon of Benefiber…that’s all I have to say about that.  Fiber is good.

Here are Colin’s recipes:

Melon Mango (this was the not so great one)

1 cup diced melon and mango (together a bad combo)

1/cup orange juice

1/2 cup plain yogurt

teaspoon honey and Benefiber

Straw-nanna ( really good, in fact, ran out)

1 banana chopped

1/2 cup strawberries

1/2 cup strawberry yogurt

splash of milk

teaspoon vanilla and Benefiber

Ok- This is very exciting.  I am going to announce my new favorite product that I’ve recently discovered. It’s sort of like Oprah’s Favorite things episode except no expensive gadgets, state of the art appliances, delicious bon-bon’s and no, unfortunately, no give-aways.  I suppose I could give you half, but that half will be gone shortly…maybe even tonight.

First, some history.  If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, than you know that I’m a big fan of booze.  Not chugging vodka for breakfast fan, but anxiously awaiting noon on Saturdays fan.  I don’t have a drinking problem, I mean, I have a pretty serious liqueur collection, but problem drinkers don’t have liqueur collections, only empty liqueur bottle collections.

I think working in bars has ruined me.  I know what a significant difference a slash of Cointreau makes in a margarita, and really, just how many margaritas does one drink a year? (7 as a matter of fact)  So a bottle of the stuff can last a while.

Anyway, rewind to that Canada Day party I went to, and one of the guests, Denise Cook, owner of The Knot Pub, maker of the best club sandwich ON THE PLANET, was there with 2 pints of vodka made right there in Lunenburg at a place called IronWorks Distillery.  I’m pretty sure that would be both my dream job, and the end of my liver.   As if Lunenburg had to get better, it now distills it’s own vodka.  I know!  I had some and it was awesome.  I mean dangerously awesome.  I mean I haven’t stopped thinking about it awesome.  I’m not one to sit down and drink straight vodka, I love a cosmopolitan or a martini, but just straight vokda, not so much.  But THIS is sipping vodka.  Not good for me.

Then, fast forward to a few days ago and my husband, who I sometimes complain that he doesn’t pay attention, presented me with a pint of Iron Works Vodka, made with Heckman’s Island cranberries, just because he thought I needed a good buzz a treat.  I haven’t stopped talking about how much I loved it, and he actually heard me!!

I seriously can’t imagine a better gift to give this summer as a hostess gift.  And giving a bottle of this stuff would be much better than an I went to Nova Scotia and all I brought back was this stupid T-shirt t-shirt.  And I’m not kidding when I say it literally came gift wrapped.  It was in a lovely bag with black tissue paper, really classy.

Notice, I took the picture after the beautiful seal was broken, only because I couldn’t wait.  You’ll also notice that the picture isn’t great, only because my regular camera’s battery was dead, and I was unwilling to wait until it charged for fear I’d drink the whole dang thing and not get to show it to you in all it’s glory, so I took it with my back-up camera. Deanna, please come and fix my camera settings:)

Seriously, add this vodka to your summer booze selection.  Oh…and please drink responsibly.

I’m not a big reader.  I mean, I haven’t sat down and read the Twilight series, but give me a book like “Who Moved My Cheese”, or “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People”, and I’m all over it.  I like real life books, and ones that give you that shot in the arm in 100 pages or less.  I’d rather watch Twilight while eating popcorn, where no one can watch me salivate over the guys who star in it.  Cougars devour both wolves and vampires you know.

Anyway, I thought I’d post the summer reading we’ve planned.  I will be reading this:

It was given to me last Christmas by my sister-in-law.  I didn’t take any offense.  I read it, and there were several great tips and tricks.  My decision to re-read it has nothing to do with the fact that my bank account has a zero balance.  OK, maybe a little bit to do with that.  I can admit that we’re not good examples to our children when it comes to good money habits.  I promise to post one of the great things I learned from this book a little later…it involves more jars!!

This book is what Evan will be reading.  I learned about it at Chapters from a mother whose son was reading it.  It’s about a philanthropical boy who sets out to save a body of water from becoming a toxic wasteland.  It’s a series and they all have to do with saving the world, which I love.

And then there’s this.  I read it, but Evan hasn’t.  My plan is for my boys to read it together.  It’s a book and a workbook, so they have some exercises to do.

But before any of this can happen we have to get through this Fifa World Cup thing.  Oh…the sound of the bee’s…make them stop!!

Happy reading!

On Canada Day, we went to a house party hosted annually by our friends, Jamie and Sandra Myra in Lunenburg.  There was food, beer, bouncy houses,  more food, more beer, another boucy house, a pool, even more food, trampoline, lawn games, fireworks, and I wouldn’t be exagerating one little bit if I said there were over 60 kids.

They were like ants.

From 4pm until 10pm I barely saw the kids.  Only when one yelled at me for food, and I literally threw him a hot dog as he continued to play soccer, was I reminded that they were even there.  It was delightful, and then there were fireworks.

See, this is how serious fireworks people go about lighting fireworks.

It was like we were at Disney World.  All they needed was Mickey Mouse.

The people were awesome! Happy, fun loving people, who, along with bringing their great  kids, they brought great food, which made them all the more awesomer.  I love when people bring their best salad, dips and dessert.  Not so good on the muffin top thou, but what the hell.

On the way home I explained to Evan and Colin how lucky we are to have nights like this and that these are things that they’ll remember about their childhood.  Not how many DS games they had, or what kind of bikes they drove or if they had Guitar Hero Beatles edition; it’s the nights like this, where they hang out with friends that they’ll remember. Things like….

Strategizing football plays…

When parents and kids genuinely like each other…

When brothers don’t even mind having their little sisters and brothers around.

These are the things that are important.

“And that doesn’t change when you become an adult”, I said from the front seat.

And that “Littlest House on the Prairie” moment was lost on the boys who were both asleep in the back seat, beat from exhaustion, faces dirty, smile still slightly visible.

We picked them up and put them in bed.  My God, they’re heavy.  I tucked Colin in his bed and he woke for just a moment, long enough to look at me and say,”Dat was the best night of my whole wife.” and fell fast asleep.

Here are the recipes of the desserts I brought.  Enjoy them as you make childhood memories.

Carmel Corn

If I don’t have carmel corm at a party there is usually a riot.  And while this is 5 bags of microwave pop corn, I should have made 2 batches, and we would have still run out.  It’s so good and fairly easy, it just takes time.  There are a million recipes on the internet, so try a few and go with what you like, but I like this one.  It might seem like a ton of bad stuff, but keep in mind, it makes a lot of popcorn, and few can eat it all in one seating.  I think I hold that record.

5 bags freshly popped microwave popcorn lightly buttered and salted
2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 cup corn syrup (white)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda and salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cook butter, sugar and cornstarch in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil for 5 minutes.  Add the salt and baking soda and stir, remove from heat.  Add vanilla.  Pour over the popcorn.  I do this by dividing the popcorn in 2 roasting pans.  Bake stirring every 15 minutes to make sure all the popcorn gets coated.  Remove and let cool and break it up.

Cream Puffs

Bake and cut puff pastry according to directions on the package.   Cool and split in the middle.  I cut them with my maple leaf cookie cutter because it was Canada Day and because I lay awake thinking of stuff like this.   David later told me that he ate 6 of them.  I’m sure people are still talking about him.

Filling

1 cup of sugar

1/4 cup white flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups of milk

4 beaten gg yolks

2 tsp vanilla

Combine the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt in a sauce pan, gradually add the milk.  Cook, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens.  Add a little of the mixture to the beaten egg yolks and then return to the hot mixture.  Stirring constantly just until smooth.  Cool and then add to vanilla.  Chill and beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

Glaze

2 cups sifted confectioners sugar

dash salt

1/4 tsp vanilla

3-4 Tbsp boiling water.

Mix altogether and drizzle on the puffs.

Fill with the filling and top with the glaze