Spring Rolls

I made some amazing Spring Rolls the other day. Actually, they were chicken-green mango spring rolls with a Thai pineapple-lime dipping sauce. It was my first experience using rice paper in my kitchen. My sister Rachel actually helped me with that...I would definitely suggest doing it with a partner your first time. Rice paper is pretty cool stuff! You can only get it as Asian markets, though...it took me a couple days to get my hands on it. It is super fast, so once you have all your filling ingredients ready, you soak the paper in hot water for a couple seconds and then it is ready to be stuffed, rolled, presented, and of course, eaten. Delicious!!!

Remodel project

For Mother's Day, my family decided to do some service for my mother. We were going to reorganize her sewing room. Since it had ancient orange/green/black striped carpet from the 70's, we thought it would be great to replace that as well...and if we were going to do that, my dad decided to spring for new carpet in all the downstairs...and if we were going to re-carpet, it would be ideal to do new paint on the walls first...and if we were going to paint, why not take out the wood-burning stove and brick wall that didn't match anything...and if that, then the old built-in cupboards too...and if that then we need to hire a contractor...who can also fix the leak in the other bedroom...which we should turn into a hobby room...which means we could make the sewing room into a playroom...but that would need a new wall...and new furniture for the family room so things all look matching in the newly remodeled space...

As you can tell, it turned into an entire basement remodel project. I got to choose the color schemes (making sure my mother approved, of course...it is her house afterall). Several months later, I think it turned out fantastic.

Here is the "Before":

After:

Kimi painted this mural for the kid's playroom, which is adorable, I must say.

I had to laugh

I got two emails at work with great lines:

"I think my sugar went high because I didn't know how to count all the crabs in the cake and ice cream"

Me: while seafood is great, and actually carbohydrate free, I don't think it would make very good ice cream.

"My diet is still the same...lots of yogurt, cottage cheese, and small snakes. What am I doing wrong?"

Me: Maybe you should lay off the reptiles for a while...

Croydon

Croydon is famous for only 3 things:

Being close to Devil's Slide

Home of the "Widow-Maker" hill climb

DeLaMare family reunion.

A quaint little town that has only 1 park (which my extended family takes over every Labor Day weekend, thus doubling the population there). I spent many a birthday here growing up (since it always seemed to also fall on that weekend). I was actually kind of bitter to that fact for a while. Who wants to spend their sweet 16th birthday in the middle of nowhere, camping in a park?

I have since come to appreciate the joys of our family get-together there and loved being with everyone this year. I even took a few pictures!

(Ben didn't get to come since his dog got very ill that weekend)

My nephew TJ was trying to be cool and lay like his Grandpa.My cute sisters and our cousin Taylor