PB & J Factory

Is there an easier way to do school lunch for 5 kids a day?  Obviously, paying $7.20 a day for all of them to have school lunch doesn't make economic sense.  But peanut butter and jelly is so sticky!  The sticky, crumby pile of knives every morning is the bane of my existence.  I set out to solve that problem the same way one solves every problem:  Google.  I typed in "Can I freeze a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" and got some tidy little responses.  (You can, if you spread a thin layer of peanut butter on both slices of bread so the jam doesn't make it soggy.)  This afternoon in my clean, quiet kitchen, I mass produced sandwiches and put them in Ziploc bags in the freezer.  I only had one mess to clean up, versus one mess per sandwich when you have lots of mini cooks in the kitchen every morning.  That makes economic sense!  Of course, the sandwiches are so nifty, they'll probably all be gone by tomorrow.  I already dropped one of for Golda as an after school snack to eat along with a few of the many, many snack items I stocked up on at the dollar store, which are quickly disappearing too.  Kids would be so much easier to take care of if they didn't have to eat.

I have been trying to concoct ways to make feeding the masses easier.  Since school started, I've been making dinner in the morning.  It has been empirically proven in our household that I can't fix dinner at dinnertime and stay sane.  For one thing, you have to be in the kitchen to fix dinner.  The car outside a cello teacher's house is not an ideal place to come up with a wholesome meal, unless you have David's Pizza's phone number in your phone, which I do, but he can't be fixing our dinner every night.

So, it has been an incredible help to have dinner ready to warm up, in the fridge, before the kids get home from school.  I've made a few lasagnes and spaghetti pies, sliced and diced bowls of fruit and even let the kids make jello the night before.  The hardest part is coming up with an idea.  I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have to be the best idea in the world every day.  Just an idea.  Ruby told me that she doesn't approve of anything based on Cream of Mushroom soup, so that makes it tricky.  Pretty much everything Mormons eat is out.  (I'm kidding!!)  My biggest hit was poppy seed pancakes.  I made them in the AM, put them in a Ziploc in the fridge, then warmed them up at 5:00 and served them along with yogurt and whatever fruit I had cut up.  For some reason, the kids liked that better than the spinach lasagne where I got carried away with the roasted garlic.  Anyway, the family is eating dinner, usually around 5:15 in case you're in the neighborhood.  Bring your own fork.  Ours are usually all in the dishwasher.

All About Xanthe

Xanthe is a stickler for homework.  She worries about it from the minute it comes home until the minute it goes back to school.  She was pretty wound up and excited about this project, the All About Me poster.  We filled out the question page on the back and then I turned her loose to design the front using a stack of photos.  Her answers are very food-centric.  She loves the beach "because you can take Oreos there."  Daddy is her favorite famous person because he takes her to Panda Express.  She says her favorite food is watermelon.  I reminded her that watermelon was the only food Daddy and I could get her to eat when we were in China.  She thought that was funny.  This morning, after a traumatic systems failure and a re-gluing of several photos, Xanthe proudly carried her poster to school.  With her little braided buns, she said, "I look like a Chinese girl!"  I'm so glad she's in first grade.  She is an adorable school girl and completely ready for all-day school, including...lunch at school!  Hooray!

Last Recital of the Week

And because two recitals in one week isn't quite enough, we had one more.  Ruby's summer guitar recital took place in her teacher's serene back yard with a reception afterward.  She practiced...um...hard?..for it. She really did, except when it was late at night and she got the giggles. 

I am so happy that Ruby fell in love with classical guitar.  I love it, too.  She said to me, "You're going to miss me when I'm in Spain for two months studying guitar and flamenco."  I said, "No I'm not, I'm going to be thrilled that you're there.  And I'm going to come visit you, too."  That's an experience that I hope is buried somewhere in Ruby's exciting future.  For now, a piece whose name I can't remember.  I just call it #5, as in, "Ruby, how are you doing on #5?  Come play it for me."  Good job, Ruby!  Except on that one part that I told you to practice more.  (She told me that she messed it up on purpose because I told her it wasn't ready.  Uh-huh.  She's definitely Scott's child!)

I had a date night with Araceli Friday that included listening to her cello play-in, (cello ensemble) then eating cream puffs, followed by picking up the older girls from a Brazilian carnival.  We even got to enjoy some shish-kabobs and some dancing.  Who knew this kind of revelry was taking place in our sleepy little town?  A random assortment of activities, but we had a good time.  Ari was ready to cut loose, 4th grade style with her Lemon-Lime Shasta, after working so hard on her binder full of cello ensemble music for the last few weeks.

Ari is going to be a dynamic and mature fourth grader.  Lately, she has developed the knack for being prepared wherever she goes.  At the pool, I look over at her and she is reclining in a lounge chair, reading a book with her sunglasses on, sipping a drink she fixed from water and lemonade mix and eating a snack she packed for herself.  It cracks me up.  Sometimes she overpacks, but most of the time, I marvel when she pulls out a diaper and some wipes or a snack for Xanthe or a little pouch of hair supplies.  I even noticed the other day that her usually hairy legs were smooth and bare.  She casually informed me, "Mom, I've been shaving for, like, a month.  Some of those hairs were seriously an inch long!"  This girl takes matters into her own hands, no doubt about it.  It's a strength that will serve her well the older she gets, so I think I'll let her run with it.  Besides, you never know when she's going to whip something out of her bag that I might need.  Love ya, Ari!

Golda Channeling Eponine

 Charity, Jessica, Luke, Golda and their fabulous summer voice teacher, Jacqueline.  She is going back to CIM tomorrow to continue her master's in vocal performance.  Good luck, Jackie!

 Coco and Bill looking summery

The snowglobe we had to leave at Dulles, just in case you wondered.  :(

I sortof recorded Golda singing "On My Own" from Les Miserables at her recital tonight.  I caught it all except for the first few seconds.  It is such a delight to hear her sing, and she did a wonderful job.  I cry every time I listen to Golda sing, even at her lessons, but especially when it's a tear-jerker like Eponine's big moment.  Les Miz is my favorite Broadway show, based on my favorite book of all time.

The recital was maybe the best I've been to.  It was delightfully short, every performer was polished and did a stellar job, and the refreshments were definitely above average.  Above Average is the Mouritsen way, whether you're talking about opera or chocolate chip cookies.  And we deserved both after surviving Back to School Night tonight.  Thanks for a great evening, all!

Odd Man Out

We have a lonely little boy on our hands.  The first day of school was perplexing for Ptolemy.  He kept patiently going through the list of kids with me as if to say, Surely there's been a misunderstanding. "Where Goga?  Where Uby?  Where Ari?  Where Teetone?  Where Zamfee?"  He didn't like it that his people were missing.  So the second day, Tolly hatched a plan, I swear.  He found a big, pink sun hat and put it on.  It was big enough that he looked like a little pair of legs under the giant hat.  When the kids were ready to go, he inched toward the door, shuffling with his head down.  I'm convinced that he had his fingers crossed nobody would see him.  The little guy was mumbling to himself, "I go a school too.  I go a school too."  He looked like an odd little commuter pushing his way onto the subway with the crowd.

Unfortunately, we did somehow spot him.  When his plan didn't work, he went to plan B.  He got in the car in his hat, climbed in his carseat and was trying to hook his seatbelt, saying, "I go somewhere too!  I go somewhere!"  This little guy does not want to be left behind.  It's lucky for him that there are plenty of places to go.  He spent the morning at the violin shop, got candy from Daddy, drove through the bank for his sucker and managed to fit in a nice nap before his people got home from school to entertain him.  I would show you a picture, but I don't know where the camera is.  Everybody wanted to take pictures of Ptolemy when they got home.  I guess they missed him as much as he missed them.  As for me, I'm so glad he's here.  I couldn't stand it if everybody left!

What a Trip!

 We tried.  We really tried.  We said we were going to relax on this trip, not try to see everything.  See Scott relaxing in the hotel lobby?  That was the first five minutes of the trip.  The rest of the time, we walked.  And walked and walked and walked...AND walked.  Thursday, after posing for this relaxing picture, we walked all over our neighborhood, DuPont Circle.  All the embassies are in that area and it was fascinating to see their flags flying outside some of the most posh and stately buildings I've ever seen.  After familiarizing ourselves with our area, we hopped on the metro and went to the National Mall. We got our bearings and fit in a couple hours at the National Gallery of Art.  We were going to just walk through briskly, but you can't do that when you're looking at Picassos and Rembrandts.  It was incredible!  We also went to the top of the Old Post Office for an overview of the city and checked out the Natural History Museum before taking the metro to dinner.

 Our camera was misbehaving that first day, so my only picture of my cousin Kristine and her husband Sin is blurry.  We met them for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in a neighborhood called Adams-Morgan, followed by dessert at a hip joint across the street.  It was great to see them, and to talk about everything from kids to...kids.  We loved every minute of our time together.  Krissy lived in D.C. when I was in college in Indiana and I visited her several times, seeing the various places she lived, hearing about the different stages of her life - internship at the White House, working for the USO, law school at Georgetown, meeting her husband - all the while, getting to know the D.C. area.

 We saw hundreds of columns.  We climbed thousands of stairs.  We got around by metro, and there were a suspicious number of escalators not working.  By day two, both of us took a deep breath at the top of each enormous, broken elevator and ouched our way down, our calves burning.  If I sat down to rest, my body started to close up shop.  After resting, I couldn't move my legs at all.  I could tell you where we went, but it might be easier to tell you where we didn't go.  Let's see...we missed the Native American Museum.

 A relative?  National Gallery of Art

The Kennedy Center.  We went there for a free concert on the Millenial Stage.  It's a world-class building and there is a free concert every night of the year.  We couldn't pass that up.  Wicked was playing that night and we decided to wait in the stand-by line.  We narrowly avoided accidentally buying two tickets from scalpers to some obscure Checkov play for 80 bucks apiece, thinking they were for Wicked.  There was a torrential downpour that night and we spent some time under an awning outside the George Washington University Hospital with a bunch of interns.  Most tourists probably don't get to do that!

 We saw the White House (from far away), The Washington, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II, Vietnam, Korean War and Jefferson memorials.  We even saw the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument through the fence, and it wasn't even open yet.  Nevertheless, it was really powerful.  My favorite monument was the World War II because a group of veterans was there.  Some of them were in wheelchairs, posing in front of parts of the monument that were significant to them.  We were humbled to be there with those men who understood far better than we ever will what it means to be a patriot.

 Here is a man to whom we owe everything, a WWII veteran.

 We took time to read the inscriptions on the walls at the Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam Wall

Korean War Memorial

 The new Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument

 Roosevelt

 Jefferson

 The Holocaust Museum was overwhelming.  We knew it would have an emotional impact, but we wanted to see it.  Immediately upon entering, I picked up a picture of the children of the Holocaust.  One child was so small, maybe a year old, and I broke down.  Scott and I bawled our way through the exhibits, trying not to imagine what it must have been like for parents, children, grandparents, everyone, to endure such a time.  It is horrific to imagine not being able to protect your child, to lose everything.  The museum is a masterpiece.

 We dined twice at restaurants one block from the White House, Cafe du Parc and The Occidental.  The hostess at Cafe du Parc would size people up and either seat them or tell them they had to have a reservation.  She turned down all the overly tousisty-looking folks.  Scott and I barely passed her test.  She turned us down and then I said, looking at the empty tables, "But this was our plan."  She seated us saying, "Well, since it was your plan..."  Good thing we were dressed up!  We took pictures of all of our food, but I'll spare you. This one was cold salmon and cucumber gazpacho. Lucky for us, it was restaurant week in D.C. and many expensive restaurants had a prix fixe menu at three courses for $20.11 for lunch.  We ate some really good food in beautiful settings.

 Arlington Cemetery

 John F. Kennedy's grave

 Trolly to Alexandria, VA

 Worlds collide:  A Starbucks in a 17th century building, the site of our much-needed afternoon glass of juice.  Cobblestone streets are a killer on the knees!

 Alexandria

 We even took a ferry ride from Alexandria to Georgetown at night.  This is the Kennedy Center and Georgetown.  We couldn't get a reservation at Founding Farmers, which everyone had recommended, so we walked from Georgetown to our hotel on DuPont Circle and collapsed.

 The last day of our trip, we sauntered (OK, hobbled) up to the Eastern Market and walked around the Capitol Hill area, enjoying the morning. There was a great vibe there.

 Loved the architecture.

The buildings were closed, but from the Eastern Market, we walked around the grounds of the Capitol Building and the Supreme Court.

We strolled through the Botanical - uh- building? I loved it.  We couldn't pass it up.

 About halfway through the trip, Scott decided D.C. would be the perfect place to take Freestone on his ten-year-old trip.  We went inside the Air and Space Museum strictly for research purposes for Freestone's trip.  I said I had no interest whatsoever in a lame replica of the Wright Brothers' contraption and a bunch of freeze-dried space food, but once I got inside, the museum was so mind-bogglingly incredible, we had to drag ourselves out.  I guess that's why we ended up seeing and doing so much the whole time instead of relaxing, reading and resting.  Everything in Washington D.C. is so well done, so inspiring, so rich in history and so humbling and awe-inspiring, you want to see it all.  You have to!

Maybe that's why we got into a bit of a frenzy at the end, feeling the pressure of having only a couple of hours left in such an incredible city.  We hit several of the Smithsonian museums, including the Hirschhorn (not my fave) and the buildings with the African and Asian art.  Toward the end, I really thought I could see the entire Portrait Gallery in three minutes and Scott didn't want to do that, so we split up.  He went to the hotel to retrieve our luggage while I schlepped up to the Portrait Gallery where I earnestly tried to admire hundreds of famous paintings in 20 minutes.  We met at the metro stop where we caught the airport shuttle, and just like that, our relaxing weekend was over.  Except for TWO trips through security for me because of a snow globe we tried to take on the plane.  After heroically going back through security to check the snow globe, I found out it would cost $25.00 to check a bag!  You all probably knew that, but I didn't, because I never check luggage.  I couldn't save the little snow globe, which was Golda's gift, and I couldn't give it away to anyone without getting arrested.  I don't think I've ever hated terrorists so much.  I handed it over to a sweet little security agent my second time through and she promised to love it forever.  Or sell it and buy drugs.  At any rate, I got a Cinnabon and everything was better.

Our trip was perfect, even though we didn't stick to our plan.  I'm glad we dined so well, I'm glad we walked so much, I'm glad we didn't miss anything that was humanly possible to see.  I loved spending time with Krissy and Sin, I loved the interrupted hours and hours spent with Scott, the energy of the city, the beautiful architecture, the reminder of what makes our country great and what makes up our history.  I loved soaking up the urban energy, dreaming about what our lives would be like there, observing people on the metro and doing whatever we wanted to do.  But I also loved coming home to our amazing kids.  We sure missed them! They are our national treasure!  Thanks to our trusty staff, Coco and Chauffeur Bill, Uncle Trajan, Aunt Jennie and Sarah!  Golda and Ruby couldn't have done it without you!  :)  Plan on us going on another trip sans kids in about five years!