Colorado Crockers

Summer is tasty. Lots of fresh fruit and veggies and lots of things that taste better when cooked over flame. Grilling seems synonymous with summer to me. The only thing better than stuff cooked over fire is not cooking at all. That's right, planned leftovers. Here are a couple of my current favorites: 1. BBQ chicken and corn, BBQ chicken salad First night grill a couple of boneless skinless chicken thighs on the grill. Top with favorite BBQ sauce, which at our house means Sweet Baby Rays. Grill some corn on the cob to go with it. Make sure to do extra of both. Serve with start of choice, grilled potatoes perhaps? Second night, usually a day or two later. Collect lettuce and cilantro from garden, wash and shred. Cut up chicken and cut corn off the cob. Add a piece or two of crumbled Bacon and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. Toss all of the above over the lettuce and top with a drizzle of ranch dressing and BBQ sauce. 2. Chipolte Lime Chicken and corn, Southwestern Chicke...

Not the dwarf, me. I am grumpy. I am tired, my kids were sick, my house is trashed and I feel lousy. And grumpy. I have for the last week or so. Sorry about the lack of blog posts, but I figure no one really wants to read my bad attitude. My "brain to mouth" filter is usually fairly full of holes but lately my acidic tongue is in danger of causing some damage. Mama always told me "if you don't have anything nice to say..." So here I am, not saying anything at all. Sorry about the funk, I am sure I will recover soon.

- Please don't sit on the cat - Stop bugging your sister - We don't eat things off the ground - Mama, do bugs dream? - NO THUNDER! Go away! - Addilyn, will you PLEASE put some clothes on - Kitty doesn't like it when you carry her by the head - Not right now - Who needs to go potty? - I said stop bugging your sister! - Child, go to sleep! - No, me do it I'self! - If she is hollering it means she doesn't like it! - This is what we are having, your choice is to eat it or be hungry - I love you - Please don't put toys in my coffee - No playing outside naked - Where are your shoes? - STOP BUGGING YOUR SISTER! - Be a nice friend - She bossin' me! - Dogs don't like watermellon - Bugs stay OUTSIDE - Less talking, more eatting - You look like a crazy woman, let me do your hair - Don't be ugly - Thank you Jesus for the rain to make our garden grow - Don't freak out - I miss papa - Be a good helper - Jesus, I am thankful for my WHOLE LIFE! - Otis, quiet or ...

Flash back to the early 90's. Remember that term, "POSEUR". If you were too old, young or un -cool to know what that means, let me help you out: poseur: a person who habitually pretends to be something he is not, a wanna-be No, this little jaunt through the urban dictionary isn't just for your own edification, I actually have a point that I will get to in a minute. Tonight was...colorful. Colors like black which is the color of the pizza I made my dinner guests on the grill. Or green, the color my child turned when she ate the pizza I made for her. Or red, the color of my face in embarrassment at having my best friends family see the state of my home. Gray, the color of my laundry pile that is so large at present you better hope you don't need to use the restroom at my house because it is inaccessible . Or purple which is the color the babies face turned as she howled at the top of her lungs every time I tried to put her down. Brown is the color of the two piece...

We in Colorado like to pretend to be Mountain Folk. This includes hiking in mountains, exploring old mining towns and most of all camping. We love to camp. We have been taking Eliana since she was little and each of our girls have spent at least one night under the stars before they reach a year of age. We have a 3 man tent, and in case you have lost count, our family now numbers 5. I am not great at math but even I can tell you those numbers don't work. A couple of our friends have some very nice pop-up campers and we decided that sounded like a great plan for our family. I had one growing up and have great memories from it. Only a couple of problems with that plan: we drive a mini-van and don't have a huge "camper budget". I have spent the last few months trolling craigslist in search of something we could use. Most are much too big for our wimpy-van-sans-tow package to pull without blowing our transmission. The newer light weight ones wouldn't blow our transmis...

This is part 2 of our CA trip, a day spent in the cutest little beach town ever, Capitola . The wharf was beautiful, breezy and offered a great view of the town and the water. We spent some time in the sand. I would love to say that Annabelle enjoyed her first beach day, but she feel fast asleep in her stroller. So Matt and I sat on the sand, built a mermaid, and buried kids. Not just random children, our friend Otis and his kids joined us on the beach. Between the chocolate factory and this salt water taffy store, this might just be the best trip ever! We had fun choosing from all the flavors and we even brought some back for the girls. They are HUGE taffy fans. We enjoyed a nice lunch at a burger joint right on the beach. It was a wonderful day, relaxing and refreshing.

As promised, here are some pictures from our trip to California. Since I have a lot of pictures, i figured I would break it up some. These are the photos from San Fransisco. Above is the place we ate for lunch, which is AWESOME. Here is Matt enjoying some calamari . He likes the ones that actually look like little octopuses , I prefer the ones that just look like little fried chunks. And, of course, no trip to the city is complete without a stop at the chocolate factory. My favorites are the dark chocolate mint and the peanut butter filled. Yum! San Fransisco was fun, but we froze our butts off. I forget how cold it is there, not above low 60's. Poor baby Annabelle was too cold to ride in the stroller much so I ended up holding her most of the day. We also stopped by a cool little shopping area down by the piers. There was a gluten free bakery there called Mariposa that I got some Delicious bagels from. We had big plans of bike ridding but ended up having a very nice low ke...