Ah, kids...

Don't ever pray for patience...you'll get a two-year-old. :) Yes, Liam is well into the notorious terrible twos, and we love him to death...even when he makes us crazy.

Nothing really new to tell, just thought I'd take a few moments and shamelessly post some adorable pictures of the boys. One of our new neighbors recently gave us a tug-boat sandbox, and we have not yet filled it with sand because the boys love to play with it just as it is...and well, that's less messy. :) Enjoy the pics!

Frenchiladas!

So, I tried a new recipe this past week that I really liked, so I thought I'd share. It's Chicken Crepes, but it reminded me so much of a French version of an enchilada that I decided to rename the dish "Frenchiladas". Enjoy!

Cook 1 Chicken and cut into bite-size pieces (I actually just cook a bunch of chicken tenders and shred them up). Set aside.

Crepe Batter:
1 1/2 C. Cold Milk
3 Eggs
1/2 tsp Salt
7/8 C. Sifted Flour
2 TBLS Melted Butter

Use 10-inch skillet greased with butter at moderate to high heat. Spoon 1/4 cup of batter in and swirl pan around until bottom of pan is coated. Cook a minute or two (depending on your heat), then flip carefully and cook another minute on the other side.

Filling:
6 TBLS Butter
6 TBLS Flour
2 C Milk
1/2 tsp Salt
1/8 lb Gruyere cheese, grated
1/4 lb Cheddar Cheese, grated
1/2 can Cream of Chicken Soup

Melt butter, add flour until blended, then add milk and stir until smooth. Add salt and cream of chicken. Cook sauce until thick, then add cheeses. Mix half the sauce with chicken and scoop into the middle of each crepe. Roll up and place in a baking dish (like Enchiladas). Then mix other 1/2 of the sauce with 1/4 to a 1/3 cup of Mayonaisse and pour over rolled crepes. Bake 20 minutes in a 350* oven.

Yummy!

Mobile Baby

Well, it's official...Caleb's walking! He's moved from a few steps and falling to teetering his way through the entire kitchen, even managing to round the corner by the fridge and head into the hallway. He looks a little tipsy, but I'm pretty sure the juice wasn't fermented. :) He has also taken to throwing himself face first off of Liam's toddler bed when they play together at night in Liam's room before bed. He climbs up on the bed, scoots to the edge on his knees, raises his hands high above his head and throws himself forward head-first on to the floor. Then he laughs, jumps up and climbs up to do it again. He's trouble. :)

Liam's favorite thing to say right now is "Have a good day. You too!" He says it whenever Andrew leaves for work, or whenever I leave the room, and he says it all together, fast, like he's having both parts of the conversation. It actually started when we were in the drive-thru at McDonald's getting Chicken McNuggets (of course), and the girl said to me "Have a good day." To which I, of course, responded "You too." That was it, he started saying it there in the car and has been saying it since. I love the way their little minds work!

Backpacking in the Cascades

I just got back yesterday from a quick backpacking trip with a friend from work. On Friday morning we drove about 70 miles into the Cascade mountain range northeast of Seattle. We hit the trail and hiked about 3 miles up to Lake Dorothy, a 1.5 mile long lake in the Alpine Wilderness area. The lake had a few small islands in the center that I thought about swimming out to (it was a hot, humid day), but we decided to continue on over the next ridge to Bear Lake because they allowed campfires there and we thought the smoke would help to keep the bugs (non-biting midges) away. This picture to the left is on a bridge over the largest stream we crossed. Bonus points for anyone who knows what the numbers on my shirt mean.

Bear Lake

We finally made it to Bear Lake, a smaller lake above Dorothy over the ridge. Total distance in was 5.3 miles. There were still patches of snow in the shady areas around the lake and mountain. We set up camp and explored the area for the rest of the day. We never saw much wildlife except for frogs and bats - no bears, unfortunately.

This is another shot of the stream we crossed - the water falling on the rocks was pretty loud.

When we got up on Saturday morning the mist and clouds had rolled in covering the mountain and most of the lake. Very cool setting. It drizzled as we hiked out. Definitely a great trip - I hope to do more like it.

Home Sweet Home

Okay, so now that we are getting a little more settled in, we thought we should get a few pictures of our house up on the blog. We'll have plenty of "after" shots once we get paint on the walls (not to mention pictures with our furniture), etc. but for now, I thought I'd start with some of the original shots of the house when it was first put on the market. That way, you can all see it as we first saw it...(before the masses of toys and little boy laundry took over)...enjoy! :)

After visiting the Hoh forest (which has an awesome 16 mile hike up to the glaciers on Mt. Olympus ... alas, another day) we stopped along the Hoh river which turns a brilliant blue in the faster rapids portions.

Liam enjoyed throwing rocks int the river while Caleb and Kathy cheered him on from the shore.

We headed back home on Saturday afternoon as the boys were very tired from all the driving and hiking. There are still tons of places that we'd like to visit, but we'll have to save them for next time. The whole place is definitely an untamed area of the world that is worth checking out. Just like there's tons of open desert in all the open spaces of the map in southern California, there is just miles of dense forest and hills in the open spaces of the western Washington map - so many more lakes, waterfalls, mountains to conquer! Even once we got home, Liam tiredly repeated one of his favorite questions: "I go my hiking?"

We drove back down the ridge and further towards the coast, circling around the beautiful Lake Crescent. There were lots of great camping spots around the lake as well as some posh lodge locations - definitely a fun place for some family reunions of the future. We continued on and spent the night in Forks, about 15 miles from the pacific coast.

The next morning we drove to the Hoh rainforest, a pacific northwest style jungle that gets about 140 inches of rain a year and an addiitonal 30 inches just from all the mist floating around. Hiking through the forest was sweaty work since it was so humid and there were plenty of mosquitoes feasting on juicy boy flesh.