An obscene number of videos

We can be honest and say that the primary purpose of this blog is to allow distant family and friends to see how incredibly cute our daughter is, without feeling like we are foisting videos on people who don't really care. With that said, here are some of my favorites from the last week:

Eliza loves to play on her rocking horse, although her attention span for it is generally 25-30 seconds (about par for the course for her). The cool thing about this rocking horse is that it was originally Jared's and was made for him by his Grandpa Bill. The thing is built like rock, and I'm pretty sure our grandkids will be playing with it someday.



Here we have the munchkin playing with her bath toys. Usually I try to limit them to bath-time only, but I left the bathroom light on (she won't go in if the light is off), and it was cute so I took video.

Also, we go get Jared just about everyday and bring him home for lunch. The accomplishes a several things 1) we get an extra half hour or so of Daddy-time during the day 2) I don't have to eat ALL the left overs by myself (Cooking for two is tough. Recipes almost always make enough for 6-8) 3)We don't have to pay 5 bucks a day for Jared to eat bad food at the mess hall 4) It gives me a vaild reason actually put on make-up, rather than stay in my PJ's or, worse, work out clothes all day. 

However, Eliza often gets mad because it seems like whenever she starts to do something really fun, Mommy says we have to stop and go get Daddy.



Here is another outing to the beach. Last Thursday was ridiculously gorgeous outside: 72 degrees, mostly sunny, but a few puffy clouds, and just enough of a breeze to feel good. So, we (I) decided we needed to go outside and take a walk to the beach. The beach is less than a mile away, so it's almost not worth the trouble to drive there. Eliza loved digging holes in the sand. She also  really like piling the sand up on my legs or on the blanket, but I didn't get any video of that.



Saturday was also really nice, although it cooled off and the wind started to blow. We decided to go across the Chesapeak Bay Bridge Tunnel and find out what was on the other side.  On the other side, known as the eastern shore of Virginia (something we learned when we got there), is a large wildlife preserve, or refuge or what-have-you. Due to the time of day and time of year we didn't get to see anything too awesome, but the Visitors' Center didn't have a nifty observation window, with one-way glass so you could look out at the birds that like to come check themselves out in the mirror side.  This little guy few right into the glass three times while we were there.



After spending some time at the Visitors' Center we decided to try out one of the little trails that criss-cross the area. We found one called the "Butterfly Trail" that was only 1/2 mile long, so we thought that Eliza might be able to handle it. Her legs could do it, but her attention span wouldn't let her focus on walking long enough to make it more than about 20 feet before we had to stop and look at something, usually a stick, a bigger stick, or a dandelion. But we had fun anyway.

You will notice that we are surrounded by dead bushes. I was a little freaked out by these at first, as they were all covered with thorns ranging from really tiny to about half an inch long. I was a little afraid Eliza would trip and fall face first into them (didn't happen, although she did trip once and grab one; that was about the time we decided to turn back) but I kept thinking that they looked vaguely familiar. This was a strange thing for me to think because I am not a botanist by any stretch of the imagination.  About the time Eliza tripped, grabbed one for balance, and started crying I realized why they looks so familiar: they were RASPBERRY bushes. And some blackberry bushes. My parents have some raspberry bushes in their backyard, so I saw dead ones every winter. Also, in my last apartment on my mission our daily jogging route took us past a (what seemed at the time) large patch of them. Luckily I was there in late summer, so my companion and I went by one day and collected a bunch for our morning fruit salads. That was when I learned that while raspberry plants will catch on your clothes a little bit, black berry bushes will reach out, grab you, and try to pull you into their bowels.

So, those dead bushes you see? Come late summer that island is a piece of heaven, covered with acres of delicious berry goodness. If we were going to be here in July I would totally find out if they let you pick them.



And, last but not least, though definitely the least visually interesting, is a video I took on Sunday after we tried to put Eliza down for a nap.  She was ok snuggling while Jared sang to her, but apparently after he put her in bed she decided she wasn't tired, so she decided to sing to herself. She probably did this for 45 min. What you see is her bedroom door. I tried to get as close as I could so you could hear it, but you'll still have to turn the sound way up. The clanging you hear in the backround is Jared eating his lunch; the last bit of a gumbo I made a few days earlier. (BTW gumbo is delicious, and gets better with age. Sadly, it also got spicer with age and by the end (the part Jared was finishing off) I couldn't eat more than a bit or two before I had to go looking for a glass of milk. But, oh, it was good eatin'.)



Eliza likes to sing

Eliza loves music, especially singing. She always has songs before she goes to bed and she'll ask for more songs if she's not ready to go to sleep yet. She also really likes to sing. Often we can tell what song she is singing (twinkle twinkle little star is pretty good, and she's really good at many songs from Yo Gabba Gabba). However, sometimes she also enjoys making up songs and we just try to figure out what she is singing about. This video includes a song that I'm pretty sure has something to do with farming...

And I think this on appears to deal with a bunny and something about the floor. You also get to see some of her awesome dance moves. She likes to dance and really enjoys Mommy's silly dancing, although you don't get to see any of Mommy's awesome moves in this video.



This one is when we manage to get her to sing something half way recognizeable. This is a song from the Church's Primary Children's Song book called "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." The jumps on "beam" are kind of a traditional way to let the 3-4 year olds (the "Sunbeam" sunday school class) get some energy out.

 She actually knows more words than she sings in this video, but whenever she's singing really well, I move to the get the camera and she stops.  Sadly, she is not the performer we sometimes wish she was...



And last but not least we have Eliza's discovering the joys of bubble wrap. Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Jim and Uncle Travy sent a great package for Valentine's Day, and she loved all the presents, but she really thought the bubble wrap was something.



Chicken!

But a different kind this time.

I decided to roast a chicken. "Why?" you ask. Why not!? It turned out really well, although the seasonings didn't make it very far into the meat. I think brineing it first may have helped, but I don't think I am capable of thinking far enough ahead to do that successfully. Tonight I made chili, and I meant to put the beans in to soak last night, but forgot, so I thought I would have time to do it this morning, but forgot again. Luckily you can do a rushed soak on dried beans that turns out fine. Although I had a hard time getting the chili to stay seasoned. I would add the spices and it would taste pretty good, but when I went back to taste it a little later the seasonings were gone and it was bland again. Any ideas why?

Oh, yeah this was supposed to be about the chicken. So, it turns out that you need more kitchen utensils than I thought to roast a chicken. I figured Chicken + pan+ oven = roasted chicken

WRONG

It turns out you need things like little spears to hold the chicken's rear end closed and kitchen string to pull the drumsticks together. Tooth picks failed as a substitute for the chicken-rear spears, but I decided I wasn't too worried about that, if I could find someway to hold the drumsticks close together.

So, it turns out that when you don't have a sewing machine and don't knit you have very little reason to keep anything resembling string in the house. I thought about finding some old clothes or something that I could cut into a long strip and use that, but it turns out that when we moved I really did get rid of all the old clothes I didn't like. So, I had to get a little more creative and use what we did have.

It turns out we have a lot of spiral bound notebooks. Between the two of us Jared and I spent about 10 years in college and neither of us are the kind of people to throw out our notebooks when the class is over. Usually it's only half full and we hate to waste the paper or something. I've started using those to give to Eliza when she wants to color. It fits well in the diaper bag and she's learning to turn the page when she fills up the one she's working on. If that doesn't work, she says "new page?" over and over and over and over until I come over and turn the page for here. She does that a lot. Repeat something until she gets my attention, that is.

Oh yeah, I was talking about the chicken.

So, we have these spiral bound notebooks, and Eliza has filled up a couple and they were about to be thrown out. So, I got a pair of needle nose pliers that had a wire cutter in them (thank you Dad and Liz for that incredibly useful Christmas present to Jared) and snipped off a piece of the wire, unwound it from the rest of the book and wrapped it around my chicken's ankles. I don't know if whatever metal that's made out of is poisonous, so we just avoided eating the chicken's ankles. It wasn't hard, there's not much meat on that part anyway.

So, if you look closely at this first picture, you'll see a bit of notebook wire at the top of the far ankle.


This is the picture I moved it too the plate. I read somewhere that if you put the chicken on a bed of onion slices before you cook it, it will keep the chicken from sticking to your pan and you get to have yummy onions with your meal. I love onions and I hate scrubbing pans so I figured this was totally a win-win. Sadly it was just a win. Not a win-lose, but just a win. The onions that the chicken was directly on were ok, but the rest of them were charred lumps of tuber-carbon. However, they didn't stick to the pan, and neither did my chicken, so it wasn't too bad.

Here's the plated chicken:

The gigantic slash you see across my chicken's chest is a sign of the killing curse. Or a sign that I don't have any type of kitchen thermometer and had to cut into the meat to tell if it was still pink inside. I guess I could have rotated the chicken before I took the picture, but that would have required forethought, and, as I mentioned, I am severely lacking in that area.

The fridge

Eliza learned how to open the refrigerator. This is what was happening when she was looking for some apple juice. (The empty shelf in the door is where we keep Jared's Coke Zero. It was grocery day.)

Jamestown (aka Chickens!)

Last Saturday we decided to go up to Jamestown for a few hours. We decided that one nice thing about only being on this side of the country for a few months is that we feel a much more urgent need to visit our local tourist attractions. When I was growing up we lived in Heber City for 7 years and kept "meaning" to go up to Timpanogos Cave. We never did.

But, we know Jared graduates on March 30 so we have a deadline. Deadlines are great for making sure you get thing done. So, we went off to Jamestown. It was pretty cool. The have a mock up of an Indian Village (the modern day remenants of the related tribes said they prefer being called Indians, not Native Americans), a rebuilt replica of of the original fort and replicas of the three ships that came across with the orignal settlers. By the way, so not a fun trip. The ship we looked at housed 52 (54?) men for six weeks in a space no bigger than my living/dining room. That space starts to feel small after a week with just me and Eliza. Imagine 50+ smelly men using chamber pots. *shudder*

Anyway. Here are a couple short videos.

Chickens. Eliza like these.

One of the ships, the Godspeed. (The other's were the Susan Constant and the DiscoverY.) This is the middle sized one. Eliza didn't really care about this, except that she learned the word "ship" which I'm not sure I want to encourage. Her pronounciation is less than stellar.

A rooster. Another of Eliza's favorite parts. For some reason she didn't get the draw of the inanimate objects. Sheesh.

More video

And the last one.

This is the middle part

Videos!

I get it, you really want to see videos of Eliza. She's the cute one, and far more candid than the rest of us, so, here you go. In order to make sure we stay under the limit the blog platform allows, I'll have to post these as separate posts. They are actually all one video.