Too long

It's been too long since I've updated. We returned from our trip and I've posted some photos on Flickr. I still haven't found work, although I did interview a week ago Friday with H&W. Nick's football team, West Jr. High, won the city championship. They outscored their opponents 8:1 this season and the coach told them they're the best team he's coached (over 20 years).
Nick injured himself the other day and had surgery on his hand yesterday. It looks like he'll fully recover, just have some scars to remind him to (hopefully) think before acting.

Darius' Birthday

Darius turned 3 October 6th. Katie held his party at Chuck E. Cheese where we ate pizza and cake. The kids played games and interacted with Chuck E. Cheese. Darius had fun and was kind of "zoned out" playing games and riding rides. He was cute running around and putting coins in the machines he wanted to use. One of his favorites was a ride that sang the "ABC's", he rode it 3 times in a row. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Big Judd's

Becky left for Las Vegas last night. She's down there for a Vision Seminar to learn more about the business. She'll be gone all weekend.
Nick and I went to dinner at Big Judd's. He's been slightly obsessed with going there for a while and I thought I'd surprise him. When we pulled up, he got a big grin on his face. They have a couple of specials 1) a 1 lb burger with fries or tots and a drink or, 2) a 2 lb burger with fries or tots and a drink. If you finish one of the specials, you get your picture on the wall. I ordered the Super Bacon Burger (bacon & ham). Nick ordered the #2 with tots. He finished over half of the burger in 10 minutes, after 45 minutes he was done eating. He finished 3/4's of the burger and half of the tots.
While he was eating the burger another family with 2 teenage boys came in. Their faces reflected incredulity at the size of Nick's meal, then the boys proceeded to order the same. Their waitress told them that the meal was free if they beat the current record of 10 minutes 34 seconds! They only caveat was that they had to order fries rather than tots. She told them that the record was broken a few months ago. The previous record was 11 minutes and stood for 3 years.
Our waitress hadn't told us about the challenge or Nick would have tried it. One of the boys only finished about 1/3 of his meal, other finished 3/4's of his in that time of 10 min 34 sec. Nick felt that one should eat the meal slow and not drink soda in order to complete it and get your picture on the wall. I explained to him that one must eat it quickly so the brain doesn't get the signal that the stomach is full. He's a little uncomfortable right now--but he'll be fine. He said that next time he'll order the 1 lb special.

Bug Cakes

Last week was Becky's boss' (cousin's) birthday (Happy Birthday Dave). He was out of the office hunting all week, so they decided to do something for him today. She volunteered to make a cake and wanted to make a "bug" cake for him. For those who don't know, he is an entomologist and spends time in Mexico studying insects. I remembered seeing a cake pan at Williams-Sonoma called "Backyard Bugs". We talked about it and I bought one. She spent the weekend playing with the pan and decorating "bugs" for Dave.
The pan comes with a cake recipe but she found that she didn't like the cake. She then used a cake mix (along with her extra box of pudding) and liked the results better. I didn't try either one as I am working on losing another 15lbs before we leave and am not eating any simple carbs. The grandsons enjoyed eating the cakes from the first batch. I took pictures of the finished "bugs" before she left for work this morning and have posted one here.
If you want to borrow the pan, just give us a call. We also bought a Train pan for Darius' birthday next week and that can also be borrowed.

Big Nasty Hill Climb

The Big Nasty Hill Climb in New Plymouth, ID was our last event of the year with the shave ice shack. Although they set an attendance record this year, we didn't do as well as we thought we might. Friday was almost dead, Saturday was better, Sunday was the best day. We had more business in fewer hours than Saturday. It helped that the day revolved around the big hill which was right in front of our booth, plus it was the warmest day of the weekend.
We don't like doing events over Sunday because of our beliefs, so we will decide if we want to do this again next year (and only do events that don't do Sunday) or not.
We bought the shack a little too late to get into many events this year, so we'll have to start working on next year right away if we're going to keep it. Our flavors are the BEST, as stated by our customers.
Check out some of the 700+ pictures I took (I won't post them all [lol]).