Well, I've been tagged...!

Since I have not posted in awhile,I'll bite! :)

The task that has been given to me by my friend Sue in PA is to post the 6th pic on the 6th page of my online photo album. Hm. Don't have one of those, not really. Unless you count the one that has perhaps, if I'm lucky, six pictures total. Another is created from the pics that are uploaded to this blog. But we have seen all those already, not that there's that many, either...

OK, let's see -- sixth picture in the sixth album on the laptop here... Perhaps I'll get the 6th pic from the 6th album from the desktop. A majority of my vids and pics are on disc. Slim pickings it'll be. Here we go!Well, by gollygeewillikers, I sure forgot about all of these... That was only last year? Can't be! Yep, the date is February 2007. So these were taken late 2006 or early 2007. Now the only problem with having a nice large memory card, that I can tell, is you don't unload it too often... Hm. Connor, Rael, and Gavin in the dining room. Reading Calvin and Hobbes at breakfast. Such a great book to read when I was younger, but not as young as they are now. It was very enjoyable to READ, and... now it's not so much as enjoyable to have your very own children in their formative years not only reading, but acting it out as well. Ah, the memories! lol

Alrighty then, now we flash to the twins in college:
So ridiculous the costumes they come up with! These are also photos ala Calvin. Do you remember the portraits of Calvin hung on the walls of his comic home? Yep. Perhaps too impressionable at their tender young age! lol
Here's another:

...aaaand another... (aren't they great?!)And another!Poor Gavin was posing SO nicely too. We finally *did* end up getting a good picture eventually. This one was the backdrop for our desktop for quite awhile!

And here's the Gavinator with his lovely 'tattoo' that his bro Rael did for him. He looks like a real 'tough guy', eh? What you can't see are tats on each deltoid too ;DNow that I have completely digressed within the photo albums... The last part of the "task" is to tag six(!) others. Perhaps I should have not used that particular number. Can I change it? Maybe the first pic in the first album or something much less, seeing as I only know one other blogger. That's Sue! And I am sure there are no 'tag backs!' lol

Well sadly so, it seems, the chain apparently ends here... Well, it was fun going down memory lane a bit. Maybe, it is a good idea for a once a week theme: a 'meme' on Mondays. Ah, I so love the alliteration AND thanks for the idea, SusieQ :)

Mr.Bun's family...

It is no wonder that he's a growly bunbun! I wonder if he thinks he's a dog, being raised around the two 100lb pups. Possibly?

how I make sushi

So, as a home school project, and to fuel the interest in Japanese culture that existed in our house awhile ago, I made sushi.

Most of the ingredients I can purchase at Hannaford. Price chopper has almost, but not, all I find around here. It is actually cheaper to buy at Hannaford than at the local "natural food store." Luckily the Asian market is not too far away in Albany. My recent trip to Pennsic included a stop at the Asian market a block from my friends' house in Rochester. No where else have I found nori/seaweed wrap cheaper (10 sheets for $1.39 wow!)

Ingredients: rice wine vinegar, nori/seaweed sheets, soy sauce, sugar, dried wasabi paste, water, sushi rice (cooked and cooled to directions - too much to get directions into here, I think. The directions are on the rice container!), rolling mat, veggies cut "julienne" style - often carrots, avocado, scallions, cucumber, and sometimes even bamboo shoots, mushrooms, cooked shrimp, fresh tuna (only hours old, caught at Hampton Beach, true indulgence!)...
Really the fill can be anything you like :)

So the veggies are julienned or whatever. The shiny side of the nori is placed side up -so the matte side is down on the mat.

A bit of the cooled rice is scooped onto the nori. The white bowl is filled with a mixture of mostly water and a bit of sugar and rice wine vinegar that has been heated and then cooled.
This'll keep your fingers from sticking too much to the rice as you spread it out an even thickness across the nori.
Next the veggies are laid out.
The edge without the rice is marked with water from the white bowl. This will allow the nori to stick to itself whe it is rolled over. Note: Please notice the one bite of portabella there?
Next, the one edge is tucked over using the rolling mat. Be firm without squishing it too much.
Voila! (I don't know the aha-here-it-is! in Japanese :) Now I have a nearly finished sushi roll!
Next, cut, slice, chop. The rice is very sticky so it gets cleaned about halfway through as well as at the end of each and every roll that I make. And I have to sharpen my really crappy knife between each roll too. It's super sticky rice I tell you!
There is a certain way to cut it. A kind of sawing works best. Otherwise the roll gets flattened a bit. See the young child waiting patiently in the lower right corner?
Looks like a happy diner, eh?! Well, maybe not so much. But that's my Connor for you!
Now HERE's someone looking forward to eating! :)
And here's another happy child with his dinner!
Usually we eat this with homemade miso soup and/or edamame (soy beans). I am grateful that my family looks forward to unusual foods... Sometimes, the weirderthe food, the better. In this particualr labor-intensive dinner of love, everyone chooses the ingredients and I make to order! It's all good!! :)

Halloween fun

Is it a sign of the times? There was practically NO ONE out trick or treating in our neighborhood on Halloween. Last year, there were numerous people to say "hi, how ya doin?" to. Almost enough folks around to almost say it was kind of like a block party! But this year, I think we met three other groups altogether! When I mentioned how few people were out and about to my mom-in-law, she said that much of the candy was monitored (no longer made in China or Brazil) from fear. The kids across the street went to the mall. We tried that a few years ago, but the candy was the crap kind - pure sugar, like sweet tarts or bottle caps (remember those?) and the fruit flavored laffy taffy or tootsie rolls... None of the chocolatey goodness or chocolate peanutty dreamy combo. Anyway, I digress, as usual. ;)

Below is the family after we returned from the walk around our block.

Dan and I were some sort of ghoulish skeleton faced zombie sort, um, we just like to dress up - barely anyone can recognize us, even with normal clothes on!
Rael was a video game character that would be created by a cheat code for the game Gaunlet. I would like to note that he made his entire costume. He even went out to get the long sleeve black t-shirt days earlier. Actually he made a few different costumes so he could have "choices" (his words, not mine) depending upon what he "felt like."
Connor was "an infantryman." He would settle for you calling him a soldier, but he would politley reply that he was actually an infantryman.
Despite what the photo indicates, Gavin was -for the third year running- a "zombie wizard" or a lich. But this year there wa sa twist - partly "dragon-born" - so he had red fuzzy pants with the dragon tail (see previous post). After he got home, he removed the dark green cloak and put on the top half of the dragon costume...

Below are the wonderful friends who came trick or treating with us. Misty, Patrick and Cobra. Cobra is such a cool name for a little girl. This little one has the spunk and right and adorable "attitude" to go with it too! I wonder if her personality is a result of her growing into her name or the vica versa kind of thing. Hm.
Below is Connor dressed and ready to go out, but first he needed to carve his pumpkin. He did a wonderful job, too! Both Rael and Connor did great - this was the first year they did more than draw the face on the pumpkin so I could carve it. Well, they *are* ten years old now!! And I was still 'allowed' to carve Gavin's, at least.
Nice smile, eh? I am referring to Connor still, in the photo above, not Rael, below, who is in costume as his painted smiling "stick figure happy face." What you cannot see here is the cardboard/duct tape/aluminum foil chainsaw he made with his own two hands one evening. Very ingenious, I can tell you for sure :)
And now below, here is a close up of Dan and I. The tie-dyed happy face t-shirt that Dan is wearing does look quite incongruous with the face paint, eh?! lol
More post trick-or-treating, candy-munching and Gauntlet-video-game filled dazed-eyed children.
And the family once again. Nice faces all, right? lol A good view of the chainsaw, too.

What a crew!