My Weekend....

Here's a very generic boring post about what I did all weekend, but it ends with a recipe, which is the point of this whole post.

Friday night...I had a hot date all lined up, but fell asleep on the couch instead. LOL, life with family and kids. In all seriousness, it was a nice evening. Jeff came home with a pizza and a 12 pack of Leine Big Butt (yes, that's what it's called!) After spending all day Thursday shoveling the driveway and then most of Friday shoveling the driveway and trampoline, I was beat. I had 2 beers, some pizza, and zonked out on the couch. Woke up at 8:45, did a crossword puzzle, and then went back to sleep. Not bad.

Saturday we had NO plans. Slept in, wandered downstairs for cereal and tea, and Jeff tells me he wants to take his truck in for an oil and fuel filter change. No biggie, but I wasn't too excited about driving over there, getting him, driving home, sitting for an hour, and then going back to get his truck. So, we ran by the mall to pick up some lotion. Not that I don't have enough lotion, but The BODY SHOP....yes, you read right, has a new Japanese Cherry Blossom out that I can't live without. So I defied my source of income and purchased from the competitor. Then we found out that Radio Disney was doing some sort of kids club thing, with games and prizes and dancing, so we checked that out. Maicy and I won a prize for dancing (HA!!) and then she won a drawing for the Twitches Two DVD. Emily won a hula hoop contest and got a autographed Hannah Montana card. Then they asked for one mom and one Dad to come up and compete in a game. Jeff was picked (volunteered by ME) and he went up on stage to compete in how fast he could unroll a roll of TP. And he won! Of course. It's a man thing. He won a Radio Disney backpack with a bunch of crap in it and a Hannah Montana DVD. Happiness reigns with the Bristol Family. Then it was off to get the truck from the dealer.

Saturday afternoon, Emily and Andrea went to Open Gym and I dragged Colleen to the gym to torture her for an hour. I inflicted all sorts of pain for a long time, and then made her do cardio. She's not thanking me today. But she wanted to go back!

Saturday night sounded like a good night for Outback and friends, so we got a babysitter and headed to BG with Paul and Colleen for a pre-Valentines Outback dinner. Good food, good friends, good beer, and good conversation. It was a nice, relaxing time.

Sunday of course was up and out of the house to lead my flock. I taught them the story of Jonah, and my contribution to the morning was to teach them to fake barf (you know, like the whale) on the count of 3. After church we grabbed lunch and headed down to Abt to get what every family on a limited income needs...a new Samsung 45" 1080 LCD tv. ARGH. I've been fighting thing TV tooth and nail for the past 18 months, and now is NOT the time to buy one. But he had it all laid out...where we were getting this money (NOT a charge card) how good of a deal this was, blah blah blah. I gave up. I drew the line and the fancy stand though, and he drew the line at my insistance of a wall mount ($399 for labor alone!!!). The TV is being delivered on Weds. Why didn't we just take it home? Because we had the van..because the TRUCK IS NOT RUNNING. ACK!!!! Something went wrong overnight, because it ran fine last night to Outback. So, now he's driving Paul and Colleen's extra vehicle.

Sunday night, Colleen had found a recipe on Rachel Ray that she wanted to try, but didn't want to cook it. She offered to buy all the stuff if Jeff and Lisa would make it. Lisa called me up and said "come over for Cuban hash..it's sausage, eggs, cheese, PICKLES, and mustard, all served over bread". I was like...uh....NO. We went anyways, because come on, free food, and OH MY GOD it was so good. We all devoured and went back for more. Wow. Here's the recipe.


Cubano Hash Melts with Egg
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
3/4 pound ground pork
1/3 pound (1/2 package) chorizo, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin (1/3 palmful)
1/4 teaspoon allspice
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 bottle of beer
2 Portuguese rolls or 2 sandwich-size English muffins, split and toasted (we used Ciabatta rolls)
4 dill pickles, chopped
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
4 deli-cut slices of Swiss cheese (we used Cheddar)
2 tablespoons butter
4 large eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 400°F.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat with the EVOO, one turn of the pan. Add pork and brown, 3-4 minutes. Add chorizo, onion and garlic and season mixture with cumin, allspice, salt and pepper and cook for 7-8 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, cook a minute longer, then add beer.

Arrange bread on baking sheet. Toast the split bread.

Coarsely chop the pickles, mix with mustard and reserve.

Cover bread with yellow mustard, then top with mounds of hash and a slice of cheese. Melt in oven.

Melt butter in medium size nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add eggs to melted butter and fry to desired doneness.

Top the hash with fried eggs and pickles and serve.

Here's a link with a picture.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_37309,00.html



Yes! It's good stuff!!! We had pears, apples, and cheese for an appetizer, and cinnamon pickles. And waaaay too much wine. We ate, watched a program on Ireland, did dishes, had cake and coffee, and that's it. My weekend, or should I say, a typical weekend in my life.

Miscellaneous flying pix....

Just because.

Me going over my preflight checklist in the plane:



Me preflighting:



Straining fuel:


The cockpit:


Right after takeoff, turning crosswind: Actually, I think this the base to final turn. That's because the road below looks familiar and those stacks in the distance are in Kenosha, and on this particular day, I landed on 27. So....Base To Final:


Coming in for a landing. Why do I look high? I looked alot lower on base to final

Two in one day....

Two requests in one day to post. Better live up to the pressure! Then I realized, I have no topic. I thought about doing Top 10 Things I'd Like To Do To_____________: But then figured very few people would care about that. I made a nice little list, but it didn't make the final cut. So, to take a cue from my board, I'm doing Top 10 Things I Can Do. In no particular order.....

1) I can ski. I'm only putting that because I think I'm going skiing on Sat with some boy scouts and so I have skiing on the brain. And when I'm thinking about skiing, there is no room in the brain for anything, or anyone else.

2) I can fly a plane with some degree of accuracy and skill. Nuff said. Here's a plane picture, just because I have nothing else to say about this.

3) I can multi-task really well. After school, this place is a day care with 4-6 kids demanding my attention. At the same time I can work, converse online, and listen to the radio show. All while cooking dinner and cleaning house. But when I'm reading, the whole world is shut off. Another example of when my brain is too full for distractions.

4) What else can I do? Obviously I can't think. Oh! I can do a crossword puzzle in pen and ONLY do the acrosses, and only do one clue at a time without skipping ahead and without making mistakes. So I start with across one and do not move on until that one is done. By the time all the acrosses are done, the puzzle is done.

5) I can teach kids and make them "get" it.

6) I can fill my schedule to capacity and still be bored. So right now I work 3 jobs, take care of a house and 2 kids, watch 4 other kids after school on varying days, lead a Brownie Troop, teach Sunday School, and still find time for friends and for me.

7) I can carry on a conversation with strangers. My Mom taught me this.

8) I can spell really well. HA this is silly, but Jacob was over tonight and he was quizzing me on some pretty whacked words and hoping I would get some wrong. It's because I have a photographic memory, and that helps.

9) Speaking of Jacob, I can use sign language. I learned it in 6th Grade and it stuck with me. Except I told him "dog" instead of "no". But other than that, I get the message across.

10) I can cook. I didn't used to be able to cook but now I can. I kinda follow a recipe but I don't measure. And it works.

And people think I don't know snow....

When I moved to the Midwest, I cannot tell you the number of times I heard "oh, you're from Arizona??? Wait until this winter". I tried to tell them...TRUST ME, I know winter. Well after 10 years back here, the gray endless weeks full of ice and blowing snow has proven to me that I don't know winter....but I can say without a doubt...Midwesterners might know winter, but they don't know snow.

I grew up in a mountain town. My house sat at 7500 feet (it still does ;) which is actually higher than Denver. A half of a mile higher, in fact. Snow is a common occurence, one that does not require Snow Team Coverage on radio and TV, wide spread closures, and drivers with amnesia. Snow meant that the area was going to be covered with anywhere from 6-36", school might be delayed, the plows and Cats would be out in force, and life would go on. You threw your vehicle in 4 wheel drive or strapped on your snow chains, and off you went. The next day, the sun came out, shone for 3 days, melted all the snow, and it started over again.

My Dad was visiting their "summer home" earlier this week and was able to enjoy the peaceful magic of a Flagstaff snow storm. Here's some pictures. What you can't see is the 12000 ft mountain behind the house.

Our Christmas Portrait

Well, did you get to go skiing?

YES!!! Finally. Jeff even went with me! He was worried since he'd had a few bad skiing experiences in college, but this time he started out slowly, I taught him the basics, and he did great!!! We also took a neighbor kid with us, he's 14, only been skiing 6 times, and WOW is he great. Slalom down the hill like a madman, tucked his poles and crouched at the end and rocketed down the hill. It was all I could do to keep up with him! We had several ski races, but he won every time. Still, it was fun and such a rush to crouch down, tuck your poles behind you and FLY down the hill. Jacob would ski straight back into the lift line but I liked screeching to a turning stop and waiting for Jeff to come down the hill.

Near the end of the day, I could tell Jacob was ready for the black diamond (most difficult) run, so I dragged him over to that lift. "I'm not ready for Level III yet, I'm only a Level II skiier" he yelled. I told him he was ready, just trust me. We got to the top and I told him to follow me down slowly, Halfway down the hill, he gained his confidence and took off. I slalomed down after him, saw where he crouched and tucked, figured if a 14 y/o could race straight down a black diamond, so could I. So I did! What fun. You really have to have confidence that you won't fall. If you get nervous that you're going too fast or that you'll fall, you will. Thankfully I didn't fall one single time, which was nice since I wasn't wearing ski pants!!!

So...how did you spend your Christmas?

Anyone looking for the tradtional unwrapping-of-presents photos? YAWN you won't find them here. Those aren't interesting to anyone but family, so here's something better, or at least....warmer.

Jeff and I were going to go skiing at Christmas, but he really was not excited about it. To me, 10,000 feet, crisp air, pine forest, and come on...SKIING, well there's not much that beats that. Except in order to go skiing, we'd have to leave my parents house in warm sunny Phoenix and drive 2 hours north to their house in cold (yet sunny!) Flagstaff. Jeff wisely suggested hiking the valley instead. He's a smart boy, he knows that as long as I'm outside doing something active, I'm happy.

We both decide we want to climb Piestewa Peak (was Squaw Peak before the Iraq War). That's the "big one" in the area...elevation gain of 1200 feet, lots of tourists. I saw that it was only 1.2 miles one way, and decided that wasn't nearly enough. So, I mapped out a hiking itinerary of my own. Three hikes, two happy hikers (HA!), one day without kids.

Hike #1: South Mountain
Knowing I wouldn't have a willing partner for a decent warm-up hike, I chose the less strenuous but still moderate one mile Kiwanis Trail at South Mountain Preserve for a "get ready because Piestewa Peak will kick our rear" warm up hike. This is a popular park, but still vast enough to enjoy secluded trails. Here's a picture of me contemplating the trail. Actually, I'm killing time while Jeff gets his water ready. The trail wound back and upwards through a canyon filled with cactus, scrub brush, and palo verde.

No charge for beautiful city views, either.

Yes, those are power lines. The West IS in the 21st Century as well, you know.

Hike #2 Piestewa Peak

Sufficiently warmed up from our 2 mile moderate hike at South Mountain, we headed to the middle of the city to tackle Piestewa Peak. I still call it Squaw Peak though. I guess that comes from living there for 24 years. See that picture I took from the car? That's it. Doesn't look tall? It is. You can even see the trail zig zagging up the side of the mountain. Still don't see it? Here's a bigger picture for you.

Yikes. Neither of us, in our combined 50 years of living in Arizona, have done this one before. But it's such a big tourist attraction, we figure it couldn't be THAT hard (wrong!!!). The trail stats out nice and paved, and I'm thinking, ok, this is great. I can do 1.2 miles of PAVED switchbacks. Well, looking at the picture again, I guess it's not really paved. But it's not South Mountain sand, either.

So we plug away, enjoying the city view grow with every turn of the bend. I think it's planned that way....you see more city with every turn to take away from the fact that you also see more mountain above you with every turn. Just when you think you're near the summit, you either see a sign that says you've only gone 0.6 miles, or you look up and see that you are in fact NO WHERE near the summit and that trail you see waaaaaaaaay up there, well, it's waiting to kick your butt.

Pretty soon paved gives way to just rock steps:

Which in turn gives way to "ok this sucks" rock steps:

Which then gives way to "how the eff am I going to get up THIS?":

Yes that's the trail!!!!!!!!! YES! See the little head in the upper right corner? That's a guy at the top of the mountain. But who cares....LOOK AT THAT SKY!!!! Beautiful!!

So, 90 minutes after we start, we reach the summit. And Oh My God was it worth every rump-kicking step. You can see everywhere. EVERYWHERE! Here's just a few shots:

Looking south...the lower mountain on the left is South Mountain, our warm up hike.

Looking east at the 4 Sisters (part of the Superstition Mountains):

Looking west with a zoom lens at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale (UPiG!)

Here's us, about ready to fall off the top of a mountain. This was a few rocks down from the very tippy top. That can only hold one person at a time. The guy taking our picture was standing at the top.

A few more shots:

After catching our breath and taking in the view, we figured we'd better head down. I wasn't too worried about the trip down, because coming up was relatively simple for me. I still have some sort of cardiac health left over from my gym rat days, and I still have pretty strong thighs, so I figured hey, going down couldn't be THAT bad, could it?

WRONG. It was that bad, and worse. First off, I quickly discovered that my thighs are so strong because they've sucked every bit of strength and energy from my calves and ankles. Secondly, I live in the midwest. I am no mountain goat. How can you get down that trail without falling and twisting your ankles many times, including your surgically repaired previous twisted tendon? Well, if you're Jeff, it's a piece of cake. For me, no way. I had to make that above picture extra large so you could get an idea of what a straight-down hill sand and rock strewn trail looks like. That and you can get a good idea of what happens if you fall, take a misstep, or lose your balance.

And while I'm trying to stay alive going down this trail, there are people RUNNING past me. Not jogging, RUNNING?!

Obviously, we made it to the bottom. This is what one kicked Bristol Bootie looks like:

But HA! We're not done yet! No siree, we are not quitters. It's time for our cool down hike!

Hike #3: North Mountain
After Squaw Peak did us in, I insisted that we finish off with a short cool down stroll around North Mountain. I picked a nice 1/2 mile trail marked "easy" and figured we could do it a couple of times. So we collapsed into the car, made a mad dash to the Golden Arches for a Diet Coke, had an energy snack, and made our way to North Mountain. I wish I could say something exciting about this hike. It wasn't. It was a stroll to stretch our muscles and try and get our bodies to stop hating us. It was so uneventful, we left our camera in the car. This picture here of North Mountain was actually taken from the top of Piestewa Peak. Ha ha, see I was savvy and planning in advance. Smart girl.

Well, that's it. We knocked off our 3 mountains, headed home, gathered the family, and went to Red Robin to eat our weight in food and replace all liquids with beer. Ahhh........

Oh, and did I mention that my sister-in-law used to hike Piestewa Peak EVERY DAY AFTER WORK?!?!!