Happy Fourth of July!

Hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday weekend! I've missed everyone since I haven't been doing very well keeping up on the blog front, but what can you do. So lots of exciting news; Kori is visiting from BC, Luke is crawling, we made awesome Raw Meatballs and we got our Vitamix. Kori is here until the end of the month and Liam and Luke are having a great time with their auntie here. It's so nice to be able to take a break from the boys for a little bit and let them wear out the backup. So Mr. Luke has decided he has wheels and watch out world because he cruises. The kid is ridiculous fast, every time the fridge door opens or the door to the back porch is left open, in a flash the kid is there. Of course, now that he has been crawling for all of a week he thinks that it is time to start walking. The Vitamix is the most amazing, super-duper blender that you could possibly imagine. This machine is the best, it does everything that you could possibly want. So far we've made chocolate ice cream, potato0-kale soup, chocolate sauce and smoothies. It truly makes cooking and cleaning a million times easier, you should all get one. Trust me!



For the 4th, we made Balsamic marinated Vegetable Quesadillas with Hummus, Garden Fresh Potato Salad, Spice Cake, Watermelon and BEER! It was a perfect meal for a wonderful weekend.

Quesadillas
sprouted grain tortillas
1 red onion
bunch of kale
lb of portabello mushrooms
balsamic viniagrette

Cook the veggies with the balsamic and then wrap in tortilla topped with the homemade hummus, excellent.

Hummus
1 1/4 cup garbanzo beans
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt

Potato Salad
2 lb Yukon Gold potatos
1 cup mayo
4 tsp white sugar
1-2 rings minced onion
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp white vinegar
4 stalk chopped celery
2 clove garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp chopped ginger
fresh parsley, cliantro & chives
black pepper

Spice Cake
1/2 cup almond
1/2 cup walnut
1/2 cup pecan
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
8 medjool dates, pitted
1/2 cup raisins
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cloves
pinch of nutmeg

Combine all the ingredients in food processor and then top with dried fruit and serve, enjoy!

Skuut skuut boogie time!

It's been a crazy, fun weekend at the Hopp house! Friday morning was the big day for Mr Liam, we went out and got him his very first bike, a Skuut. Anyone with little kiddos, I'd recommend starting them out with one. The bike helps them to learn balance before they moved up to a big-kid bike. Skuut shopping also provided mom and dad with an excellent learning opportunity. Unfortunately, I realized the import of the lesson after the fact. Here goes, if you are buying an outside toy for your child which requires you to assemble it and the weather is craptastic then don't take them with you to pick it out! Very important. Once we had picked out the bike and were on our way to buy Liam a helmet, all we heard was "bike, bike, bike" nonstop for about 45 minutes. Then I had a 2 year old helper while I was trying to get the thing put together, luckily it's a pretty simple design. Lastly, we had to ride the Skuut inside because it was raining.

On Saturday, we had a very nice day hanging out in Middleton. We had originally planned on heading down to Lake Kegonsa for the day to play at the beach, but the weather didn't look like it wanted to cooperate. Instead we visited with Nana, went to the lake, played around at the park, had nice naps, and daddy even managed to go out a geocache a little bit before our dinner party. For dinner we made vegetarian sushi with a teriyaki dipping sauce and miso soup.

Raw Nori Rolls
4 sheets nori seaweed
1 cucumber, julienned
1 carrot, julienned
1 ripe avocado, sliced
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 cup sushi rice
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
pich of dill for seasoning

Teriyaki Sauce
1 cup shoyu soy sauce
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp ginger, whole or chopped
1 clove garlic
drizzle of toasted sesame oil

Sunday, funday consisted mostly of dodging rainstorms and doing some stuff around the house. All in all a pretty good weekend if I do say so. Now it's back to the grind and ready for another week of running around trying to stay sane. We'll see you all on the flipside!

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Gather round my children as I spin you a tale. I'm here tonight to tell you of things bright and wonderful as well as the grim and depressing. All types of news are welcome here I say! We'll look back at the weekend that was and ponder our week to be, so sit down, strap in and enjoy the popcorn.

Our weekend was set to be about perfect; nice weather, family coming to visit, geocaching with the kids and my yummy new GPSr. Well as luck would have it, nothing quite turned out as expected. Isn't that how life always ends up. Between garage sales, hiking, cooking and relaxing it ended up as a decent time.

THE GOOD:
So to start us off on the good, we have my amazing find from a block away at the neighborhood garage sale. The wife has been wanting to get an art table for the boys since Liam was born. Well lo and behold, as I was driving home from the grocery store, I spotted with my little eye what appeared to be a Little Tykes setup. Quick into the garage, groceries on the counter and running the boys down the block. Hooray, I win! It is just what the doctor ordered and it's marked at less than I had planned to pay. While all this fun was happening, I got an email that my GPSr that was on backorder for up to 30 days shipped after only 4 days, oh goody.

Saturday, oh Saturday how I love you. Today we are going to take Gordon and Mary out hiking and geocaching in the Pheasant Branch Conservancy. After that it's barbeque and beer, a Wisconsin classic. It was nice to get out and enjoy the weather a little bit, perfect temps and the boys had a lot of fun. Then Sunday we are off to Devil's Lake with Madeline. We planned a picnic, some hiking and more geocaching. Perfect way to spend a summer weekend.

So theoretically someone in the Billing Department of UW Hospital has finally corrected the $1000 'Well Baby' visit that Liam and Luke had almost 2 months ago. She assured me that they were faxing the necessary information to the insurance company and would have this fixed in no time.

THE BAD:
Again we will start with a garage sale update. There is no freaking way I can carry this table and push the kids in the stroller. Poop, the wife is at work until 10 PM. Oh well, just think of it like layaway, pay now and pickup later. On the GPSr front, by Friday evening the tracking told me that it had made it all the way to New Berlin, where it would languish all weekend sad and alone.

Hiking a 2 mile loop pushing 50 pounds of whiny kids is not the greatest way to spend your day, but what can you do. Oh yeah and I had a forty pound pack on my back, plus we never did manage to detour off and find the caches in the park. So even though we spent all weekend hiking and enjoying the outdoors, I never did manage to find a cache. Unfortunately, I had no cell service at Devil's Lake and couldn't go hunting since my 60CSx was crying itself to sleep in New Berlin at this time.

Once my new shiny finally arrived today, I learned a terrible truth. Garmin doesn't really support Mac users for their products. Are you kidding me, I'm now the proud owner of a $200 paperweight. That's great, can't wait to explain this one to the wife! So after an evening of stalking computer geek and geocaching forums, downloading and installing countless applications and updates, and generally learning more than I need to know about the buttons on my toy I think I have it working.

I still can't believe that the boys went in for their checkups and vaccinations and it ended up taking every penny in my HSA as well as earning me a couple of overdue bills from the clinic. Even after I talked to the Billing Department and they assured me (the 2nd time) that the coding was corrected and resubmitted to BCBS, I learned that was apparently a load of shite. In my understanding of the world, if you do the same thing multiple times and expect a different result isn't that the definition of stupidity?

THE UGLY:

A Zoobound Disaster of Epic Proportions!

Good evening! Tonight I must bear grave news of a family trip gone horribly wrong. The Hopp Clan had thought that a jaunt to the zoo this morning before the wife went to work would be peaceful and relaxing. It's funny how Murphy can kick you right in the junk when you aren't paying attention.

The adventure began because Liam was having a crabby, crabby morning. After about an hour of trying to let him eat breakfast on his own, we decided that if he ate we would make our way to see lions, tigers and bears oh my. Seems like a simple trip to solve a minor toddler issue. Well as the food was eaten, puggles were walked and crated, kids into the car and we were off. Fun times, here we come. The first problem that was to arise, Liam had a cup of water in the back with him. Our second issue, the wife drinks tea. These would converge in a perfect storm of pantwetting destruction, but I digress.

We had arrived at the Ancora Coffee shop on Monroe St so that the wife could get herself a cup of tea before the excitement we had planned. While she was in getting her tea, I looked into the backseat and discovered that Mr Liam had removed the lid to his cup of water and proceeded to dump it in his lap. All in all not the worst that could have happened, but still something that would need to be addressed. Minor crisis, this can be dealt with, no problem. So once everyone was back in the car, it was back on the road to the zoo. As we approached the zoo, there is a veritable sea of yellow school buses parked everywhere. Oh crap, we picked field trip day to come to the zoo. Unfortunately, as we turned to find a parking spot, the lid to the aforementioned tea popped loose and the wife got her legs bathed in boiling hot jasmine tea. Quick trip to Walgreens on the way home for burn spray and promising Liam that we would go play at a park after lunch and we can call it another successful family outing.

On a positive note, my car now smells like flowers.

Cache Grab: Ep. 2 (5/6/10 - 5/12/10)

So between inclement weather and a busy schedule, we only managed to grab one new cache this week. My oh my though, it was definitely a good one. The whole gang made it out to the Ice Age Trail near our house on Mother's Day. We had beautiful weather and found our little goody box without too much trouble. Then we spent a nice afternoon at Nana's house visiting with Abbey and Jason.

This week's successful trips:
4. Leopold Legacy: Spetember

So after spending most of the last week walking dogs in the rain, poop, today it was time to relax and spend some quality couch time. Just kidding, it's not to be, off to the gym for a workout, walking dogs, grocery store, playing with the kids. Are you tired yet? Dinner tonight was absolutely delicious, Creamy Chicken Primavera. Not too tough to whip together even with Liam helping me.

Creamy Chicken Primavera
1 tsp olive oil
2 red, yellow or green peppers; coarsely chopped
1 medium onion; chopped
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken; cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 jar Parmesan Alfredo Ragu
ground black pepper
8 oz linguine

First, heat oil over medium-high heat and cook red peppers and onion for 10 minutes or until golden. In seperate pan, cook chicken. You can season with thyme, oregano, basil, tarragon or any other herbs you enjoy. Then stir in the chicken and peas to the peppers and onions. Continue to cook and stir about 5 minutes. Stir in the alfredo sauce and black pepper. reduce heat and simmer. Serve over hot linguine.

Cache Grab: Ep. 1 (5/1/10-5/5/10)

Good evening everyone and welcome to a new weekly feature that I will be working on, Cache Grab. The family has taken up geocaching as a hobby, so I thought that once a week, I would recount our adventures, misfortunes and victories as we take on the challenges of geocaching.

For any Muggles not familiar with geocaching, it is basically a high tech treasure hunt where you use GPS to track down hidden caches of goodies. People will sometimes take or leave swag as well as move Geocoins and Travel Bugs from location to location. For additional information visit www.geocaching.com and learn all about a very enjoyable pasttime. Quite a few of the caches are kid friendly and Liam and Luke are really enjoying visiting new parks and trails around the city.

So Tuesday morning, before the wife had to go to work, we set out to find our first cache. A nice, kid-friendly location that was close to home for us. After a minimal amount of time wandering through the park we achieved victory. A box full of goodies for Liam to check out. This isn't so bad, I think we're getting the hang of it. Since Wednesday is the wife's day off, we planned to spend the afternoon out hitting some caches and enjoying the weather. So off we head to walk the dogs, you know work before play and all. Well wouldn't you know it there's a cache hidden right in the neighborhood we are walking dogs in. Okay troops let's get this one. So after wandering around for quite a while and getting ready to call it quits, we meet Chuck. Chuck is a very nice elderly gentleman who pointed us in the correct direction to find our cache. That was a very well hidden micro cache. Once that was all said and done, we ended up at a nearby park for a mile and a half hike to the cache site. Along the way we lost one of Luke's socks, later recovered on the way out of the park, were buffeted by hurricane force winds, and stomped through a marshy grassland in flip-flops but ultimately the cache was located. Inside were quite a few interesting swag items as well as a couple of Travel Bugs. We left everything as it was and hiked our way back out to the car. Everyone was thoroughly exhausted, but ready for more adventures.

This week's successful trips:
1. Blackhawk Park
2. Simply Simple
3. Leopold Legacy: January

Let me finish up my cerveza and the remnants of our grass-fed beef burgers to wish ou all a fine evening. So as I sign off, here's to a Happy Cinco de Mayo and I'll catch you next week for another installment of Cache Grab.

The Weekend Review: May Day Edition

Hopefully everyone has recovered from the celebration of Beltane, except for those of you who enjoy a more robust celebration and are still in the midst of our five day long Floralia festivities. As another May Day passes, I'd like to pay homage to the ancient Druids of the British Isles. They were the first to celebrate the coming of spring and new life each year. Did everyone remember to wash your face with morning May Day dew? It's my best kept beauty secret, keeps me looking so young and vibrant.

This week we tackled homemade potpies. Our Cauliflower and Mushroom Potpie with Black Olive Crust was delicious and surprisingly easier to make than I would have thought. Liam loved it so much that he decided to add 'potpie' to his ever expanding vocabulary of food related words. On Saturday, besides celebrating May Day, the boys and I managed to jam three seperate farmer's markets into our morning. We started out at the Dane County Farmers' Market on the Capitol square. Once we had maneuvered our way through the throngs of zombie-esqe idiots milling around uselessly, it was a quick trip to the Hilldale Farmers' Market as well as the Westside Community Market. All in all a pretty good haul of goodies. Liam munched on PB cookies and freshmade cheese curds, while I managed to pickup some grass-fed beef and green onions. Saturday night's dinner was a very nice combination of Vindaloo Pork Chops with Herbed Mashed Potatoes. Simple yet delicious, just how I prefer my meals when I'm trying to squeeze them into happy fun time with two crabby kiddos.

To all my fans in Hawaii, I'd like to say Aloha and Mahalo. Here's to a happy Lei Day for the islands.

PSA: Starting tomorrow it's National Teacher Appreciation Week!
Remember that none of us would be where we are now without the wonderful teachers who push us to our full potential. Say thank you to the special advisor or educator that you know, give them a hug and let them know that you truly appreciate the hard work and sacrifices that they make day in and day out.

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school" - Albert Einstein
"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think" - Socrates
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts" - C.S. Lewis

Our first dinner party, The Hopplets & an intervention for the Wife!

Stay tuned campers, this one is gonna be good...

So here I lay; half-asleep, half-naked, half-drunk preparing to give you half a blog. Now I know what you're thinking, "I paid absolutely nothing and expect to receive a whole lot of goodness." Normally I'd oblige, but tonight there are too many half-thoughts floating around to form a coherent post.

Hey quick question, how do I get Jillian on my blogtastic pile of brain droppings?

So even with the weather gods trying to dump on my rainbow (see today's 1st post), we managed to grill out and pull off the dinner party. Teriyaki Ginger Chicken on the grill with Italian Herbed Veggies, absolutely one of the easiest and tastiest meals you can make. Plus the wife and I pulled off a made from scratch Lemon Meringue Pie. All the more impressive considering neither of us had ever made one before. Plus an Italian Pasta Salad, courtesy of Jana, with a nice blend of olives and feta really made for a nice night. Once we added in the bottle of Shiraz and Jen's Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookies the night was about perfect. This may have to become a semi-regular gig, good friends and good food can't be passed up. So if you are in the greater metro Madison area sign up now for a visit. (I'll update with recipes ASAP)

{to my favorite East Coast readers, feel free to make the trip out. I'll cook raw, vegan goodness for you}

Now onto the Hopplets and The Wife's impending intervention. So The Wife is addicted to babies and while I can sympathize, I mean honestly we do make cute babies this is getting a little out of control. I received an official notification that we want to have twins or possibly triplets, hence the Hopplets and that I would subsequently be driving a Siena. WTF! A minivan for Hippie, say it isn't so. Someone please pinch me, remind me that this is just a dream and comfort me with the fact that I couldn't possibly be barefoot, pregnant and responsible for five babies under the age five. To any and all of you that love and care for The Wife and hate to see this terrible addiction tear her life apart, I'm calling on you to join me for an intervention. It's not too late, we can still make a difference. On the other hand, this is mostly my fault. I'm an enabler and I do so enjoy being a stay-at-home dad that I may have pushed an innocent habit into full-blown addiction. What can you do, I guess we just roll with it the best we can.

In completely unrelated news, Sunday will now come complete with a new segment where I share what you should be eating, listening to, watching or doing. Pretty much whatever strikes me fancy at that given moment. So here goes (drumroll)

TV Show - Lie To Me
Music - Endless Boundaries podcast
Food - Larabar
Charity - Earrings for The Wife (cash, credit, no checks please - we accept Paypal)

Okay friends, the sleepy time fairy is singing sweet lullabies of Grateful Deadness to me so I leave you with the reminder that while I may be a difficult and contrary P.I.T.A. you are all my sweet chosen lambs and I dearly love my flock. Until next time...

Curse you Caillech, Freyr & Oya!

This weekend was supposed to be about enjoying the outdoors and the nice weather, but the aforementioned weather gods are conspiring against me. We were supposed to make our first outing to the Dane County Farmers' Market on Saturday and then use our fresh produce to grill out with friends on Sunday. Instead my weekend was mostly about walking dogs in the rain and sitting on the couch. So if anyone has a spare virgin, please let me know so I can prepare the sacrifice immediately and appease the fickle weather gods. All is not lost, our local Woodman's has a wonderful variety of fresh produce and beer. Both these items are key ingredients to a successful barbeque. Now that I'm stocked up, I just need to brave the weather and grill out in the rain, no problem. I can do this.

Since the weather wanted to do its best to keep us locked up inside, we decided to explore our local library. Funny story here; when we moved, I talked to our previous library about updating my address. They informed me that because of where we were moving to, I would need to get a new library card for the county not just the city. Fast forward to yesterday and the librarian there tells me I need a new card and that it'll actually be a City of Madison card, which was what I originally had. Does it really matter what color my library card is. I'm going to check out the same books at the same library regardless of a red or green or white card. Come on people, it shouldn't be this tough.

Saturday Lunch: Homemade Mushroom, Onion & Pepperoni Pizzas
Saturday Dinner: Leek & Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits

4-6 Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in 1/2 inch dice
3 cups vegetable broth
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, washed well and thin sliced
1 small onion, medium dice
1 1/2 cups carrots, cut in 1/2 inch dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 heaping tbsp chopped fresh thyme
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup frozen peas
1 can navy beans, drained & rinsed

For the biscuits -
3/4 cup plain soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening

Preheat oven to 425.

Boil potatoes for about 10 minutes, while they are boiling start prepping the biscuits. Add the vinegar to the soy milk and set aside to curdle. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt.

Back to the stew, mix the cornstarch into the stock until dissolved. Saute in the oil the leeks, onions and carrots until soft and just starting to brown (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic, thyme, pepper and salt and cook an additional 1 minute. Add the cooked potatoes and frozen peas, then pour in the vegetable stock mixture. Bring this to a simmer and allow to cook about 7 minutes. Finally, mix in the beans.

Time to finish up the biscuits. Add the shortening to the flour mixture in small slivers and work into the dough until you have large crumbs. Drizzle in the soy milk and mix with a fork until moistened. Gently knead the dough about ten times. Now you are ready to add the biscuits to the top of the stew. Roll about golf ball sized chunks and place on top of the stew about an inch apart.

Transfer everything into the oven, bake for about 15 minutes or until the biscuits are just slightly browned on top. Garnish with some more of the chopped thyme, serve and enjoy!

One last note of rainy weekend fun, don't play Wii Bowling with the wife, she's a hustler. She whooped up on me pretty good over a nightcap Saturday night. It wasn't pretty folks, I lost 4 straight games to her. Embarrassing!

How to pick a lock (And other useful skills with a toddler around)

So funny story today, I got locked out of the house by a two year old.

This amazing tale of suffering and ultimate triumph in the face of toddler misbehavior starts innocently enough. Mr. Jack McPuggle is on antibiotics which can cause some nausea and diarrhea, poor guy. So when he comes over by me and I can see that he is trying not to have an accident on his mother's nice hardwood floor, I have to act quickly and take him out. Since the monsters are up and about and I don't want to leave them in the house alone, I hit upon a brilliant idea. Hook the puggles up on their chains tied to the deck. What could possibly go wrong?

As I attach Bailey and Jack to their chains I hear Luke start to cry. Danger, danger unhappy baby! I bound up the stairs and rush through the door to save the poor, suffering baby. Oh wait that would have been perfect, but instead I run into a door that won't open and can hear Liam giggling inside. Dear God, please tell me that little turd didn't just lock me out of the house while I was taking care of the dogs. As calmly as I can (which is not very calm at all) I tell Liam to unlock the deadbolt on the porch door. He laughs and runs into the living room. This seems to be going from bad to worse. What to do what to do? Finally Liam comes back over to the door and when I tell him to unlock it he reaches up, jiggles the handle a bit and runs off. As an apoplectic rage threatens to overtake me I ponder the irony that just yesterday the wife told me to start deadbolting the door to the garage so that Liam can't get out by mistake. Hmmm, did I actually remember or is it unlocked, please be unlocked door. Thank you, thank you. It's a good thing that I'm lazy by nature and didn't get around to locking the back door or there would be either a broken window and strangled toddler or a daddy sleeping on the porch and two babies with the run of the house when the wife got home tonight at 10:30.

To ease my mind after this torturous affair, I made Curried Carrot Dip tonight, enjoy!

Curried Carrot Dip

1 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2"
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
2 tsp grapeseed or other vegetable oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1. Boil the carrots about 10 minutes or so until tender, let cool.
2. Put sunflower seeds in food processor until crumbled, then add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
3. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes
4. Serve with crackers, pita bread or fresh veggies.

Back from my mini-vacation.

Hey everyone -

I've been lazy the last week or so with all the family coming for Liam's birthday, so finally I'm back. Booper is back to NYC and Matt left for Hawaii, terrible for poor Liam. He walks around the house saying "Matt, Booper, Matt, Booper" wondering where they are.

So Mr. Luke has been having a rough week after his vaccinations on Tuesday. Somehow, he seems to think that anywhere from 1-5 AM is the best time to make sure that dad is listening. So we are running a little ragged with no sleepy sleepy. Now Luke has decided that I'm too cool to drink my bottle. Fussy babies and no sleep make me a sad panda! Apparently all this is acceptable because according to the wife, he's cute so he can do what he wants.

Since I'm still feeling somewhat lazy and wanted to play with the new vegetable chopper, dinner tonight was an Italian inspired pasta salad.

TGIF Picnic Pasta Salad
Penne pasta
Italian dressing
Chicken tenders
Basil
Tarragon
Penzey's Spices Old World seasoning
Diced Red & Green peppers
Diced Red Onion
Black Olives
Broccoli
Grape Tomatoes
Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Mix, chill & serve. Enjoy!

Homemade pizza, Flying Dog Beer & Matt's birthday.

Today started out with walking the puggles in a freakin' blizzard at 12:30 in the morning! You have to love Wisconsin weather. So Bethany, our NY fashion consultant, has arrived and brought this craptastic weather with her. I show up at the MSN airport around 10:30PM to pick her up and there's a great storm going. Then an announcement comes on that they are diverting flights to Chicago because of the weather. The next announcement tells me that her flight is being rerouted. So I join a large group of people trying to find out what is going on from Delta. So the worker bee tells us that the flight is going to Chicago because of the storm and our passengers will have to find their own way to Madison or wait for another flight up. So here I am passengerless, tired and ready to see Bethany. As I walk back to the parking ramp, another announcement comes on to say that the flight from NYC has landed. Hmmm, what is going on here? I was just told by the company flying the plane that it was going to Chicago. Wouldn't you think that they should have some idea of when the pilot was going to divebomb out of the clouds? I mean there wasn't that much of a gap, I'm thinking that they were already descending when we were getting our erroneous message about Chicago.

Hooray! The Hawaiian has arrived. He's freezing because he was fooled into thinking that it was in the 80s in Wisconsin, but no one told him that was so last week. We've finally assembled our cast for Liam's party. It should be a fun weekend, at least after Matt performs his native Hawaiian sun dance and sacrifices a virgin to the volcano.

Tomorrow night, the gang - (me, the wife, the Hawaiian, & Booper) are off to the Ivory Room. It's a piano bar in Madison, where we will proceed to enjoy the fermented fruits of some random brewers labor.

Tonight's meal included a couple of homemade pizzas, Spicy Thai Chicken & Vegan Veggierific.

Spicy Thai:
Flatbread crust
Peanut sauce
Vindaloo chicken
Broccolislaw mix
Black Sesame seeds

Bake at 325 for about 15 min, eat and enjoy!

Vegan Veggierific:
Flatbread crust
Maninara sauce
Spinach
Baby bella mushrooms
Red onion
Red & green peppers
Black olive
Broccoli

You can add cheese if you want to be vegetarian instead of vegan, bake it at 375 for 15 min.

Stay tuned for drunken reviews from the Ivory Room tomorrow night! Thanks everyone for tuning in.

Pedestrians, You've Been Warned!

Okay kiddos, as of today, the following rule is in effect: Pedestrians will be treated like deer when encountered on the road!

Seriously, I'm in a giant hunk of metal that only wants to turn you into a human pancake. Why is it that people seem to think the world exists for their use. If you are moving solely under the power of your own two feet, you should not walk in front of me, stop in front of me or play in front of me. I will win! From now on, when the slow or stupid in the human herd run out in front of the car, you have to just drive through the collision and hope that their body doesn't come in the windshield. If they are still alive, but badly injured just call the DNR to put them out of their misery. It's the humane thing to do.

Even worse than idiot pedestrians are all the jackasses on their bikes around here. Hey FYI moron, if you change lanes in front of me without looking or signaling and I run you over, I'll still sleep at night. You might have more serious problems though. The people that ride their bikes around town seem to think that they own the road. I'm pretty sure that lots of taxpayer dollars go to making a very enjoyable network of bike trails all over Madison and probably the rest of the country. Use them! That's what they are intended for.

Lastly, we have the amazing drivers of Madison's Beltline and their complete lack of driving skills. If these cretins spent a little less time on cell phones, turned around talking to kids or generally not paying attention we could probably reduce a few of the daily accidents that occur. I'm always amazed that these people manage to drift between lanes and cause accidents, but never quite take themselves out of my misery. Just once could it be one of the terrible, inattentive drivers that is hurt or killed instead of some poor bastard on his way to work. Oh yeah, teenage drivers and old people shouldn't be allowed on public roads either. We should create special road preserves where they can drive under the illusion that they are free to go where they want!

One final warning to all the incompetents on the streets, if you cause an accident with my kids in the car, I will beat you to death with my flip flop. It will be a slow, painful death and if I'm feeling generous I might just leave a rock in the bottom to speed you along. Anyways, the doctor says if I limit my exposure to the roadways my blood pressure should return to normal in no time.

On a happy, fun note we are bringing in a fashion consultant from NYC who assures me that "naked is the new black". She'll be sharing wisdom here for the next week. Love you Bethany!

The Weekend Review: Easter Edition

In honor of the Easter holiday, today's post will be dedicated to a rebirth theme with a cast of drunks, Nazis, peeps & my impending godhood in the Jaspalist faith! Enjoy!!!

So the puggles are idiots, and I'm hoping that they are reborn with half a brain. So Friday night/Saturday morning they kept me up until 2AM with their whining and walking and assorted BS. Then to make it even better, at 7AM they were up crying to go out for a walk. So the boys finally start sleeping in and now the dogs think that they have to be up before the sun. What in the hell is wrong in my house? All I want is some sleep, just one day out of the month.

Easter Sunday has been a difficult day for Liam & Luke. Luke is apparently teething and decided to scream all day. AAAARGH! Oh wait, I stopped screaming for half an hour to sleep this afternoon. Liam got to hunt down the vicious easter eggs and treats this morning with his mommy, so then he decided to skip on the breakfast.

Have you ever lost a battle of wills with a two year old? It's humiliating! I'm stronger, smarter and faster but I lose to this uneducated monkey whose brain isn't even wired straight yet.

He would put the spoon in his mouth and then take it out and throw it on the floor. Three and a half hours later, still over half a bowl of cold, nasty oatmeal sitting on the table. Lunch was somewhat better, only an hour and a half to eat some raisins and a bowl of soup. He was helpful when it came to baking our cake for tonight, go figure. He helped grease, mix, stir, bake and kind of clean up a bit. Now onto fixin' our dinner. We made a ham with maple-citrus glaze and cheesy potatoes.

Maple-Citrus Glaze
-Maple Syrup
-Brown Sugar
-Honey
-Orange Peel

Cheesy Potatoes
-Hash Browns
-Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Shredded Cheddar

Nice simple, delicious Easter meal. Thanks Nana for bringing the green fluff for dessert.

So back to our rebirthing, if I'm going to be reborn I'd like to be a living deity in Nepal. Sounds pretty sweet, I'd even be willing to be dead for a couple days before I get to be a god. Get to hang out, do what you want and have fanatical followers do whatever you want. Now that is the life. So I found some interesting Easter facts that I would like to share with everyone.

1. Had the Gregorian calendar not been introduced in 1582 to correct increasing inaccuracies in the earlier Julian calendar, within a century, Christians would have found themselves in the confusing situation of commemorating Jesus Christ's rebirth on Easter Sunday three days before his death on Good Friday, rather than the other way around. In addition, the fast of Lent would have extended almost year-round, leading to widespread malnutrition, while the holiday of Pentacost would have been bloated into Hexacost.

2. Marshmallow Peeps candy is chemically similar to those novelty business cards made of compressed sponge that expand dramatically in water. In 1982, this similarity was successfully exploited by Israeli Nazi-hunters who surreptitiously replaced the Easter candy of a fugitive war criminal living in Argentina with a deadly substitute, rupturing his stomach and killing him.

3. For a time, legendary actor John Barrymore was considered particularly devout for his re-enactment of the Easter story, in which he feigned death on Friday evening, remained confined to his bed throughout Saturday, and finally rose and publicly re-emerged on Sunday morning. Later, it was discovered that the celebrated drunkard was simply passing out and sleeping off the effects of a particularly bad hangover, and this was more of a weekly event than an annual one.

Quote of the day: Nikki said; "My mom is like the Nana elephant."

Hope everyone had a great day and we'll talk to you soon. Looking forward to Liam's birthday, the family all flying in and the opening of our Farmer's Market next weekend.

Holy poo-bags Batman!

Okay so today we have a dual purpose post. For those of you with children of your own, sit back smile and reminisce. On the other hand, anyone without children, today will serve as a PSA about birth control!

As some of you may be aware, we are working with Mr. Liam on potty training. This brings its own special challenges and rewards, mostly positive happenings. Liam has been doing really well. He will go pee pee on the potty and will even sometimes go poo poo. He has also started to tell us once in a while when he has to go. I really appreciate that he is making my life easier with this. Today we did none of these wonderful, positive things.

Today we forgot to tell daddy that we had to go poo poo, we were too busy in the kitchen playing with tupperware and spoons. We also forgot to tell daddy that we learned a new trick. Apparently, since Liam doesn't like to have a poopy pullup on, he pulled it to the side when he had to go. The net result of this new development is that the nasty, stinky poo was on the kitchen floor, dishes, Liam - from the bottom of his foot to his back, the bathroom floor and daddy! Hooray! So before I get to the rest of my chores for the day, I will be washing the floors, doing all the dishes including the clean ones in the cupboard that he might have been playing with, giving Liam his second bath in 14 hours and washing a very soiled load of laundry.

Oh the joys of parenting. On the plus side, now that Liam is cleaned up he is in a very good mood! These are the things that make us crave hard liquor at 8AM on a school day.

The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled...or April Fools 2010

I love April Fool's Day and my wife....they go together so well! I may have managed my greatest prank to date this morning.

Our story begins on my online poker profile (free - unbeknownst to the wife). So this morning when she joins me for coffee, I tell her that I've been working on kind of a "job" for the last couple months. Then I proceed to show her the poker profile, which shows a balance of about $141K and tell her that I took $2500 out of our savings and started playing poker online at night while her and the boys were asleep. Even though she didn't want to believe me at first, eventually she accepted that this was real. Unfortunately, she wasn't excited about the money (WTF!) because I didn't tell her that I took the initial money. So the trust issue on the initial money outweighed the $100k+ that we have now. She wanted me to cash out and be done with this because she thought I might have a gambling problem and would lose all of our money. I countered that now I had enough money in the account to really start playing some high stakes poker. Later, after I had told her it was a prank, she decided that she would like to have the money after all.

Anyone else have a good April Fools story, please share. Sometimes we just can't help ourselves!

Gute Nacht

Welcome to Hippie's World

DISCLAIMER!!!! If you are easily offended, don't have a sense of humor or cannot process sarcasm you should probably avoid me like the plague. However, should you enjoy a witty turn of phrase, a bit of mischief and a generally hedonistic approach to living life then this is the place for you.

Hello and velkommen!

(Translation for Choi, Kori & Nessa) 환영합니다

(Jaspal - here you go) ਜੀ ਆਇਆ ਨੂੰ

To those of you who only comprende the ingles, that was a Korean & Punjabi welcome!

First an introduction to the crazy cast that I call my family:

Myself, the captain, Hippie - August

The woman henceforth to be known as the wife - Nikki (love you baby, you asked for this)

My miniature destroyers of worlds - Liam (2 yrs) and Luke (6 mos)

An amazing inbred combination of stupid (pug) and stubborn (beagle) - Bailey & Jack the Brothers McPuggle.

The crazy lady that sleeps on the couch - Nana

I'm a recovering hippie, SAHD (stay at home dad), dogwalking Jaspalist! For those of you that don't know me, that means I'm crazy. To the rest of you, I'm still crazy.

Today is Wednesday, my favorite day of the week. It's my "day off", the wife doesn't work on Wednesday and therefore it is a standing joke that it is my day off as well. Unfortunately, today isn't just any Wednesday, but the Wednesday that Abbey is getting married. So bright and early, the wife has to be ready to drive to Appleton with Nana. This leaves me contemplating how to enjoy a beautiful 70+ day in Madison with my little monsters.

**Flash of brilliance** Off to the zoo we shall go, it's free and will keep the kiddos occupied for a while. Come to find out the tiger is a hit with Liam. He loves the "meow meow", dragging me back to the enclosure twice during our visit. After checking on the giraffes, rhinos, bears, otters and ostrich it's back home to grill out. **2nd flash of brilliance today (I amaze myself sometimes)** Get Spotted Cow at Woodman's along with the rest of the groceries. This will prove a life saving purchase later. Onto our cookout:

Italian Herb Chicken

• Thin sliced chicken tenders
• Italian dressing marinade
• Fresh garlic
• Tarragon
• Cilantro

Grilled Veggies w/ Curried Mayo Dressing

• Red & Green Peppers
• Red Onion
• Mushrooms
• Olive oil
• Mexican oregano (at least I think it was oregano)
• Mayo
• Curry powder

and Hotdog (for Liam)

• you don't want to know

So while we grilled and enjoyed dinner, Liam decided to demonstrate a new trick not once, but twice. Opening the door to the patio and letting the puggles run wild around the neighborhood. Now after dinner, I thought it would be fun to go to the park and play. Little did I know that my son is apparently depressed and would decide to end it all tonight. Liam thought that jumping off the top of the play structure would be an acceptable playtime activity. I disagreed, while my back disagreed with me saving the crazy toddler.

(This is where the Spotted Cow portion of the show begins, GENIUS!)

So here I sit, talking to myself and drinking my beer while I wait for the wife to arrive home safe and sound from her sister's wedding. I bid you goodnight and remember that I'm a lazy, procrastinating fool so if you keep your expectations low there will be no disappointments!