Disney on a Wing and a Prayer

A couple of weekends ago, we took our first Pitcher family vacation. Yes, we’ve gone on trips before, but it’s always included other family going with us, visiting family at our final destination, or just the two of us. This was an actual trip, away from home, staying in a hotel, with a destination… and with two kids in tow!

Now, some people might be inclined to approach the ‘first family vacation’ as a milestone, something to be cherished, remembered and revered. A vacation that will be remembered throughout time, one that will be measured against all other vacations to come. Well, it will be remembered and measured – but maybe not for the reasons you might think. Don’t get me wrong – overall, it was a wonderful trip, one I know Jonah will remember for a long time… and one Wayne and I will be reminded of until we’re able to catch up on all the lost sleep.

You can probably guess from the title where we went on our FIRST EVER family vacation. We don’t do things small in the Pitcher family. Sure, we could have headed to Half Moon Bay or Santa Cruz for the weekend, or even waited for the first snowfall and went to Tahoe for a weekend of sledding. That would have been too easy. Nope, we decided to do Disney – over a weekend.

Did I mention we hadn’t told Jonah about Disneyland yet? I dropped the bomb about a week before the trip that we were driving down to southern California, where I grew up, to visit some friends and see my old neighborhood. He was less than excited – I think he would rather have gotten a flu shot! Well, on Friday morning Wayne asked him about the trip, and he said he didn’t want to go. He then asked Jonah if he knew mommy grew up near Disneyland. It didn’t take him long to put it together

So, our planning started out innocently enough. I mean, it’s only a trip to southern California – how hard could that be? Jonah had a day off school, so we figured we could be ‘leisurely’ and make it a long weekend trip. Our first instinct was to leave Thursday after work – however a few weeks ago we took a trip to my parent’s house and left after work. They only live a few hours away, and when Wayne got pulled over by a cop at 11:00pm for swerving, we thought maybe driving through the night after a full day of working might not be such a good idea.

So, we decided to leave ‘early’ on Friday. Well, early to some, isn’t the same as early to others. We finally got out of our town at 9:00am – which is actually early to some in my family! No need to drag out the story any longer than it needs to be… Bottom line is it took us 11 hours to get to our hotel. I will never complain about Bay Area traffic again (well, I probably will, but at least I can now put it in perspective!). We got on the other side of the ‘grapevine’ at about 3:30pm…. and we didn’t get to the hotel in Anaheim until after 8pm. All in all, I’d have to say Dylan was an excellent traveler. He was getting a bit cranky towards the end, but heck, weren’t we all?!

The hotel was perfect. Portofino Inns. Not a lot of frills, but was great. It was sort of like a ’suite’ without paying the ’suite’ price. Had french doors to separate a portion that had a bunk bed and pull-out couch. No ‘lights out’ for the whole gang – we could relax and unwind after the long trip just fine.

Jonah and Dylan are all smiles the morning of our big day at the park!

After a relaxed morning getting ready, we headed next door to the Sheraton for some breakfast. The place was recommended by one of the clerks in the hotel lobby. I actually had a decent breakfast, but I think Wayne would rather have just grabbed a bagel in the lobby and been on our way.

Jonah enjoying a hearty breakfast to get ready for Disneyland!

I have yet to mention and thank 2 very important people in making this trip happen – Lisa Wittenberg and her mom Darlene. Lisa is a dear friend of mine from high school. Her mom Darlene, has been working at Disneyland for a while now and had graciously extended an invitation to me and my family to come to the park. We are so very grateful to both of them.

While waiting to meet Darlene at the entrance to California Adventure (which, by the way, was a parking lot the last time I went to Disney…. 17 years ago!!), Jonah and Dylan stopped for a photo…

The day at the park was great. Jonah and Wayne went on their way as soon as we stepped in the park, and I hung out with Dylan for a long day of quality mommy/baby time. It was fine with me – I enjoyed walking around, getting nostalgic while eating my frozen banana, and letting Wayne get exhausted while running around the park with Jonah! We met up a few times and I actually rode Autotopia with Jonah.

We left the park around 6:30pm, needing to head back to the hotel (which was just down the block), to get some food for the baby. As exhausted as we all were, Wayne and Jonah managed to head out after our take-out feast and grab some icecream at Coldstone.

The next morning brings us to Sunday… our trip home. As luck would have it, Rory, Wayne’s aunt from Boston, just happened to be in the area for a recruiting trip and conference. We made arrangements to catch up with her and have breakfast that morning. What a wonderful way to spend our Sunday morning!

Before heading back up to Castro Valley, I took the boys on a quick tour of my hometown – El Toro (now known as Lake Forest), and then stopped in and visited with Lisa and her two boys, Tommy and Andy, whom I have never met, but felt like I knew them so well after all the years of picture and story exchanges! It was a great visit – one I wish could have lasted longer. By the time we gassed up, it was 1pm… and we were off on our trip home.

The drive home was less eventful – which was a good thing. With a few stops for necessities, we got home in 8 hours, putting the boys to bed just after 9pm. Although we got into bed just after 11pm that night, giving us just about as much sleep as we do on ‘regular’ work-nights, I think we’re still trying to catch up on our sleep!

Again, all-in-all, it was a wonderful trip. We’re so very glad we did it, and love that Jonah had such a great time. We definitely want to go again, but will wait until both boys are a little older… and will plan for at least 2 days (maybe 3) of being at the park. Oh, and we’ll definitely fly next time!

The Eggs That Didn’t Hatch

I was reminded a couple of weeks ago just how innocent and sweet our little Jonah is. He so often acts like such a grown up boy, that I almost forget that he’s only 4. The story goes like this…

Two years ago we went to visit Jen and Dave, Jonah’s godparents (and good friends of ours), up in Oregon. It was around Easter time, and Jennifer had bought some plastic eggs filled with Sesame Street characters. Before going to bed that night, Jen told Jonah to ‘plant’ the empty eggs under a blanket in the living room. Magically, in the morning, the eggs ‘hatched’ and there appeared some more toys (dinosaurs, I think). Jonah was completely thrilled with all this. Remember, he was two, almost three.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. Jen came for a visit to see the new baby and spend some time with Jonah. Once again, she brought a couple of plastic eggs, this time filled with Lightning McQueen cars – Jonah’s favorites. That night, she told Jonah to plant the eggs under a blanket in the living room… and yes, the next morning there appeared 2 more cars! I really didn’t think much of this, other than I thought it was cute…. and Jonah is a pretty smart cookie, so I was sure he knew Aunt Jen put the cars there.

Well, Jen left that morning, and so the evening came around – and yes, you guessed it, I caught Jonah ‘planting’ his eggs under the blanket in the living room again. I asked him what he was doing, and he ever so innocently and with complete sincerity, told me he was planting the eggs. I asked him what he thought would happen when he planted the eggs, and he told me, with conviction, that new cars would show up. I tried to break it to him gently that Aunt Jen was actually the one who put the cars under the blanket for him. It was one of the hardest thing I’ve had to explain to my kid yet, if you can believe that! He was truly devastated, and honestly thought the eggs were going to hatch new cars! Definitely a reminder of how sweet my little guy is

Jonah and his Aunt Jen

And baby makes 4…

I can’t imagine why I haven’t been able to update my blog in so long… oh yeah, the early arrival the newest Pitcher to our clan has put a bit of a cramp in my time at the computer (note that it’s  3:45am when I’m writing this!)!  Dylan Andrew Pitcher arrived on March 23rd at 7:30pm and was quite the surprise – a very happy ending, but quite the ordeal getting there His due date was April 30th (scheduled c-section for April 20th), so you can see how we might have been caught a bit off guard.  Without getting into the really gory details, here’s the scoop…

Fortunately, I was down to working half-days by this point.  I worked in the morning (attended a riveting training meeting), and my water broke as I got up to leave – actually wasn’t even sure it was that until a test at the hospital confirmed it!  Put a halt to my lunch plans with Wayne for the afternoon

I was not having contractions and was surprised when they came back around 3pm and said my c-section was scheduled for 6pm (had a c-section with Jonah, so already knew this would be the case).  6pm came – they wheeled me into the operating room to start the spinal – sans husband   Tried for almost 40 mins to get the spinal in, to no avail. Previous lower back surgery and current herniated discs got in the way – big time. Had the choice of having an epidural or going completely under. Asked to let Wayne come in so he knew what was happening. We chose the ’safest’ and went with epidural. Took a while for the epidural to work (or so we thought!!). Half of my body went numb (left half), the right half took a while longer. Doctor was given the go ahead to start…. Let’s just say I wasn’t actually ALL THE WAY NUMB.  Didn’t feel the incision, but felt everything after that. After screaming a few expletives (pretty tame, by the way), pumping me with more drugs, watching my blood pressure drop…. they got the baby out.

The doctor said the anesthesia made the baby ’sleepy’ – which is why he wasn’t crying…. but the pediatrician was able to get him to ‘wake up’ pretty quickly. Fortunately (if you want to call it that), I was so out of it, I didn’t even remember them taking the baby out and showing him to me. Unfortunately, Wayne remembers everything. By the way, Wayne was there the whole time – which is unusual, as they usually bring in the hubby after the incision has been made. He was asked to hold the fetal monitor on my belly and a few other things I don’t quite remember. The anesthesiologist later told me she thought my husband was AWESOME (something he won’t soon forget!!). Since I was only at 34 weeks, the baby was considered a preemie – but weighed in at a whopping 6 lbs. However, he definitely looked tiny. He had a hard time eating and breathing at the same time (it’s o.k., I have a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time), so they put him on an I.V. for a few days.  We got word on that Friday that he could come home with me – something that both excited and scared us at the same time!  He is a wonderful baby. Jonah is completely enamored with being a big brother, and we’re slowly getting used to having a new baby in the house.

It’s now been 7 weeks, and we’re just trying to get some sleep to stay sane.  Nights are getting better – but days are another story.  He won’t sleep long in any one place – unless you are holding him.  I can put him down for about 5-10 mins. in either the swing or bouncy chair, but usually will have to pick him up after that. Hopefully will grow out of that soon!!  Enjoy the pics…

Won’t ask… Won’t tell

Ahhh… the memories of school years.  You’d come home from school and at dinner your parents would inevitably ask you “what did you do at school today?”  And your reply?  “uhh… I don’t know.”  I’m not sure I quite remember myself responding like that, but I do remember my brother doing it, and Wayne tells me he was pretty much the same way.  Was it a gender thing?

Looks like Jonah is starting early.  We’ve always had to prod him about information about what he did in school that day.  Wayne read somewhere that since little kids do so much each day, and have a hard time answering an open-ended question like that, we should ask him more pointed questions like:  “What did you talk about at circle time?”  “Did you color something at the art table?”  “What books did you read?”  “Did you go down the slide in the shady yard?”  It was hit or miss most of the time.  He quickly got into the habit of just answering “I played.”  When we asked what else he did, he would just repeat “I played and played and played and played.”

About a week ago, after the usual “I played…” response, I told him, “You know what, I’m just not going to ask you anymore what you did in school today.”  And his response?  “O.k., because I’m not going to tell you.”

Ahhh… A Perfect Day in San Francisco

This past weekend had to have been one of the best ones we’ve had in a while.  So, deciding to take advantage of the nice weather (and our Exploratorium membership Christmas gift!), we decided to head to the city.  How crazy is it that we probably live less than 10 miles as the crow flies to San Francisco, but we never go there?!  And, what better day to go than on Super Bowl Sunday!  It’s not like the Patriots or 49′ers were playing (stop laughing, the 9′ers will have their day again!), so why stay home?

We had a leisurely morning at home, no rush to get anywhere, packed up some lunches and blankets, and headed to the city.  I have never seen 580 look so empty- well, maybe that one Saturday I had to show up early for graduation at Cal…  hmmmm… nope, not even then!  We zipped right along, straight through the ‘parking lot’ (which is what they call the area right before the toll plaza on the Bay Bridge), and over to San Francisco.

I have failed to mention up to this point, why the day was so darn perfect.  Well, the night before, the winds came howling through – and I mean howling!  I thought our other fence was going to fall over (however, thanks to some handywork by Wayne, and the tall trees on the other side, the fence should last a bit longer).  It was quite the night – heard Jonah’s backyard toys being thrown around, thought the windows were going to shatter (not really high quality windows, so I wouldn’t be surprised)… but then we woke up to the most amazing day!  That doesn’t often happen in the Bay Area.  The skies were clear and blue – and I mean really clear and blue!  The sun was shining, and the boys actually wore shorts!

So, back to our drive.  As you leave our neighborhood, there comes an opportunity at the top of one of the hills to really check out the views.  They were amazing.  We were able to see the SF bay and the city skyline.  Jonah got a kick out of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge in the background as we drove over the Bay Bridge.  He’s actually learning about bridges right now in his preschool class, which made it even more special for him.

Driving through the city was – well – it was the city.  Van Ness has a multitude of stop lights – but honestly, it was probably one of the smoothest drives through that area I’ve ever experienced.  To top it off, we got to the Exploratorium and found parking quite easily – and right across the street from the grassy part in front of the Palace of Fine Arts.  Perfect place for a picnic.  We grabbed our blankets and the food, and headed down for a spot next to the water.  LOTS of seagulls, a few ducks, and even some swans served as our backdrop.  We figured as long as we didn’t start waving our hands around like we were throwing food, the gulls would leave us alone.  We were right – except that a mom and her two kids decided to come RIGHT WHERE WE WERE EATING and throw some bread.  The flocks came – from all over.  They stayed for about 20 seconds feeding the throngs (no joke), and then left.  Which meant we were sitting targets.  A few brave/stupid birds tried to come up and check out our stash, but we managed to fend them off.  A bit of excitement for a bit, but then were able to just sit back and enjoy the views.

After lunch, we simply headed down the sidewalk and right into the Exploratorium.  No lines, no fuss.  What a great place to explore and open the mind to possibilities!  We followed our usual route – headed upstairs first.  I’m not sure who was having more fun – Jonah or Wayne!  Jonah definitely enjoys the hands on aspect of the museum.  The magnets and pendulum exhibits were especially intriguing.  As we walked further along, we ran into the sound and music area.  Again, a favorite for both boys!  Downstairs we enjoyed so much more as well.  There was the water area, building blocks, and the “Alice in Wonderland” room (that’s what I call it!).  The amazing thing is that we pretty much got to touch and play with everything we wanted to.  Aside from a few children whose parents needed to teach some manners to, we truly did not have to wait or be disturbed for most of the day.

After a couple hours of the ‘museum walk’ we decided it was probably time to go.  We headed back out into the beautiful outdoors and headed over to the view area next to the Golden Gate Bridge.   We parked and stayed for only about 15 mins. – enough to walk up to a point where we could sit on some benches and enjoy the view and the peace and take a few pictures.

We then headed home – again, without traffic or incident – and even caught the second half of the Super Bowl!  I have to say that I felt more relaxed on Sunday than I have in a while.  The pregnancy makes me tired, achey, and miserable most of the time – but on Sunday, it was all forgotten, as I had a most perfect day with my 2 favorite boys!

                                               

Holiday Re-cap

After a few friendly nudges from friends who are keeping tabs, I realized I hadn’t updated you all since before the holiday!  Last we ’spoke’ I just finished my crazy week of baking and preparing for a really fun holiday open house at our place.  Not sure if we’ll do it next year – having another little one underfoot may just prevent that, so we’ll see!

On Christmas Eve we were off to Wayne’s parents’ house for the start of the festivities.  After only a few minor delays, all the family (minus Lydia) from Boston was here.  The tradition in Wayne’s family is to prepare 7 fishes on Christmas Eve.  No one could actually tell us why, so a few years ago we did a bit of research and found a few different explanations.  There indeed is the Feast of the 7 Fishes – or, La Vigilia in Italian.  The origin seems to be from southern Italy.  It dates from the medieval Roman Catholic tradition of abstinence – refraining from meat on Fridays.  There seem to be variations on where the 7 comes from…. one place we read says it has to do with the holy sacraments, and another says 7 represents perfection:  the traditional biblical number for divinity is 3 and for Earth is 4 – the combination of these two is 7.  Still no idea how our Liberace clan came to this tradition, but it’s always fun to make sure we have all our bases covered for the night.  Below is a pictorial representation of our evening of fishes.

 

Our little Pitcher clan went home that night and woke up on Christmas morning to find that Santa had indeed stopped at our house, leaving a shiny new guitar for Jonah.  He was quite thrilled, and enjoys rocking out.

 

We stayed in our jammies and headed back to San Mateo for more crazy holiday fun   Jonah had a blast hanging out with the Boston relatives – while we don’t miss the snow, cold and ice for one minute, we sure do miss seeing the Boston folks every week

On the 28th we headed to my parent’s house for a couple of days of quiet.  Jonah enjoyed simultaneously pushing the ‘on’ buttons to all my mom’s musical statues, running around the house, and letting off lots of energy!  On our way home, we stopped a local golf course so Jonah could hit a few balls – Uncle Richard bought him 2 real golf clubs, just his size.  He’s a natural!

On New Years Eve we headed to the Foster’s house for a visit with the Rhodes – all the way from North Andover, MA!  It was nice to finally meet little Mereli – and see how big the girls have gotten.  The rest of the vacation was spent relaxing and recuperating, for I had to return to work on the 5th.  Wayne had another couple of weeks off before classes started, and I think is enjoying being back to work now

 

The Madness of the Holidays

Christmas is now 3 days away, I’m at work (shhhh, don’t tell), and things are finally slowing down for me!  What a crazy (but fun) past few weeks I’ve had.  I traveled to San Diego for 3 nights the 2nd week of December – longest I’ve been away from Jonah since he was born!  Returned home on the evening of the 12th, baked 12 dozen cookies on the 13th, attended WILD Cookie Day on the 14th (hence, the 12 dozen cookies!)… and then the real madness began.

For those who know me, I love to throw a party.  Wayne is a great sport (thank you honey), and goes along with me most of the time.  This year was no exception.  It was party time!  So, the invitations went out and the plans began.  Now, I could have just run to the local bakery and bought a bunch of cookies, party platters, and veggie plates and called it a day, right?  Nope, not me!  Here is a glimpse of the week leading up to the party (keep in mind that I work full-time, so this all takes place after dinner!):

Sunday: (after returning home from Cookie Day) Mix Snowball dough

Monday: Mix Lebkuchen dough, Make Pumpkin Bread

Tuesday: Mix Honey Jumble dough (cut out cookies), Bake Lebkuchen, Bake Snowballs (had small panic attack when I found the snowball dough was hard as a rock after taking it out of the refrigerator – an hour sitting on the counter helped)

Wednesday: Bake Honey Jumbles, Mix and bake brownies

 

Thursday: (attend Jonah’s preschool performance), Decorate Honey Jumbles, Mix and Bake Lemon Bread

Friday: (take Wayne out to dinner for birthday), Mix and Bake Spritz

Saturday:  Go to the grocery store, clean downstairs (declared the upstairs off limits because I was too lazy to clean there!), make Yule Log (which I left in the garage and didn’t even put out on the table!), make lazagna, lay out cold cuts, assign parents to help lay out cheese/crackers, cookie trays andbreads, get sweet husband (have I told you all how much I love him??) to hang Christmas lights on our house so people would have a better chance of finding it on our street where every house looks the same (no kidding!)…. and then PARTY!!!

Sunday:  (nope, not done) – got up in the morning and made Wayne’s b-day cake to bring to his parents’ for dinner, ran to the store to buy more cocoa powder to make the icing

I never thought I’d say this, but TGIM!!!  And guess what?  I’d do it all again  

Now the R&R begins.  I’m taking Christmas Eve off (can’t even believe I have to take a vacation day for this – I’m in education, I should get all these off already, right?), and look forward to resting and putzing around the house until we head over the Wayne’s parent’s house for dinner.  Family is flying in from Boston (let’s hope they get here!), and it should be a great time!  Christmas morning we’ll once again head back to his parent’s house to open presents.  This will be the first Christmas morning Wayne and I have actually stayed in our own place!  I asked Jonah if we should leave a note to let Santa know to leave any presents he MAY receive at Grandma and Papa’s house, and he said NO.  He has already told me where he think Santa should leave the guitar he asked for.  Who said he’s getting a guitar?!

I don’t go back to work until Monday, January 5th- yippee!!  Hope to catch up with some friends, will visit my folks in Oroville, and just do some good resting.  I wish all of our friends and family a wonderful and peaceful holiday season.

His Name’s Not George

As many (all?) of you are aware already, I’m pregnant!  It’s been a long (read – uncomfortable) journey – and I’m only half-way there!  One of the original intents of this blog was to share some “Jonah Stories” that we found cute and amusing, hoping to give you a glimpse into our every day life with our 4 year old.  This one’s about a month old, but until I get some holiday cookie decorating pictures uploaded, it’s all you’re getting for a bit!

When we found out we were having a baby – and before we knew it was a boy or girl (you’ll have to wait a few lines to find out if you haven’t guessed by this entry title), we asked Jonah if he had any suggestions for names.  It didn’t take him long to come up with a couple:  Lank if it was a girl (one of his friends in school has a little sister named Lanka, so we guessed that because his possible sister would be even smaller than Lanka, she needed a shorter name??!); and George if it was a boy (no idea on this one).  While we appreciated his thought process and input, I thanked him for his suggestions and told him that we probably wouldn’t go with either of those names (no offense George!!).

So, fastforward about 5 weeks to finding out it’s a BOY.  Jonah seemed excited about the news, but didn’t really seem to want to discuss his little brother – or the fact that he was growing in my tummy – eww… yuck…!  Well, I go to pick him up at preschool one afternoon and the teacher said “Congratulations, I hear you’re having a boy – and his name won’t be George!”  It was fine that he shared this information – it wasn’t a secret, but not sure what prompted him to not only share that he was having a little brother, but also that his name won’t be George – something we hadn’t even discussed since that conversation about 5 weeks earlier!  Go figure – I wish my memory was that good

Indeed, we are having a boy – and his name won’t be George.  We don’t know what his name will be yet, but will probably have one picked out before he’s born (and maybe will even share it with our friends!).  I’ve been told by many family and friends that we can wait until he’s born and see what he looks like to figure out a name.  I’ve seen newborns – and the only name that comes to mind is Yoda.

The holidays are upon us

Wow, I can’t believe how quickly this holiday season has snuck up on us!  I swear it was just 4th of July.  So, the Pitchers have been pretty busy as of late.  Jonah and Wayne headed to the newly remodeled Academy of Sciences with Jonah’s friend Marco and his mom on Veteran’s Day (observed) – go figure, my work actually had Veteran’s Day off – who gives a Tuesday off?  A good time was had by all!

Jonah and Marco

We headed to my parent’s house in Oroville for a nice, quiet Thanksgiving.  Just the 5 of us – and LOTS of great food!  I’m missing having leftovers, but it’s probably for the best, right?!  Hey, who said you can only roast a turkey, make stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie on the 4th Thursday of November?  Honey, we’re having turkey this weekend!!

       

As soon as we arrived home – it was out with the scarecrows and indian corn and in with the Christmas decorations!  Yippee!!  We headed out on Sunday to buy a Christmas tree – sorry, the nearest place to cut down a tree is in Half Moon Bay (I think), and we just weren’t up to it.  Maybe another time!  Jonah had a great time running around the lot – in shorts, nonetheless (gotta love California!) – pointing to trees he thought would be good in our house.  We finally settled on a nice looking noble fir – of course, after getting it home and set up, I noticed it could go for a hair cut!  We still love it.  I have to commend myself for organizing the decorations rather nicely last year, making this year a breeze!  I knew which bins to grab, and everything was neatly put away.  Definitely something to strive for every year!

We got the tree up, lights on, ornaments hung, angel up, and garland wrapped.  Jonah enjoyed watching me pull different decorations for the mantle and other areas in the house out of the bin and put them up.  With each new item, he would declare “Santa Claus will think our house the most beautiful!”  I’m no Marth Stewart, but I do have fun with the few things we have!  We put on some Harry Connick, Jr. Christmas music and danced the night away.

So now, it’s time to rest – at least for a few days.  This month is quite a busy one for us.  We have a party this weekend, I leave for a 3-day conference on Wednesday, attending Cookie Day next weekend, celebrating Wayne’s birthday, hosting a holiday party, enjoying a visit from Wayne’s side of the family over Christmas, visiting with my parents, hopefully catching up with the Rhodes’ when they’re here over the 1st…. and the list goes on!  I’m sure I’ll have many updates to post again soon.  Until then – Happy Holidays!

 

The Wonders of the Crockpot

How many times have I thought – wow, wouldn’t it be great if dinner would just cook itself?  Little did I know this could actually happen!  Many years ago we received a crockpot from my parents as a Christmas gift.  It went unused for 2 years, and then after hanging out on top of the refrigerator, found its demise on our kitchen floor.  Apparently the motor actually vibrated the refrigerator enough that over time the crockpot moved, and boom – you get the picture.  Fortunately, no one was injured – although it left a small dent in our kitchen floor (shhh, we didn’t disclose that in our seller’s agreement).  After receiving a gift card for Christmas (from my mom), I decided to again take my chances at crockpot ownership.  Armed with my newfound refrigerator wisdom (and the fact that our current refrigerator doesn’t have room for a crockpot on top of it), we decided to store it in the cupboard… and there it stayed - unused.

However, the weather has changed and I was inspired by a conversation with a co-worker to dig it out of the cobwebs about a month ago.  My first experiment was beef stew – not bad, but hard to make dumplings in a crockpot.  Next, I went for an easy chicken recipe.  Again, tasty, but after 8 hours in the crockpot, the chicken fell completely off the bone, into the liquid abyss, never to be seen again – well we picked out enough to have for dinner that night.

The weather here in sunny Castro Valley started getting a bit nippy this past week – still sunny, but nippy nonetheless.  There was a call for comfort food in the house.  My comfort food of choice?  Chili!  I found an excellent recipe in Bon Appetit back in 2002 (which, by the way I no longer subscribe to after 13 years, on principal that their new design sucks – maybe I should blog about it!).  I’ve never made chili in the crock pot.  Wasn’t sure how it would go.  Chopped all the veggies the night before (trying to make for a quick morning), and allowed for 30 mins. to brown the beef in the morning before work.  It actually worked out great!  No surprises I suppose, but hey, with my luck, you never know.

Only problem with the crockpot (discovered this with the stew and chicken, but definitely accented by the chili) – the aroma (smell) lingers on for DAYS – and lingers EVERYWHERE.  When I got home that night, I parked in the garage and I swear before I even opened the car door I smelled the chili.  As soon as I opened my door the smell of chili surrounded me, the table saw, Jonah’s old toys and our golf clubs.  Wow – I’m sure I’ll be craving chili the next time we golf!

So, as the days and nights continue to get a little cooler I expect that I’ll be breaking out the crockpot once again for some yummy food.  My “slow cooker” recipe knowledge is limited, so I’m expecting a lot of stew and chili, but hey, not a bad winter, eh?

Enjoy, and happy crockpotting!  (not ALL stories can be about Jonah!!)