Thursday was Cal’s 12th birthday. Today he is having 4 buddies over for a sleepover. He is outside making water balloons as we speak. He is a cutie and will always be a needy, cuddly but wonderfully funny and ironic teddy bear. I think Cal enjoys his birthday as much as anyone. Loves being the center of attention in a sweet self-conscious kind of way. And yes, in the last photo, those are almost industrial grade fireworks being shot off the cake, inside the house. It very much de rigueur for birthday cakes in Argentina.
I think Owen's zeal has more to do with the Yanks being on the brink of a World Series than Cal's Birthday, and clearly the dog is not impressed by either.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day in Argentina. Several years ago I wrote about the Argentine version in this post. It was also GM’s birthday so while it was Mother’s Day, I couldn’t expect GM to cook his own birthday dinner and make his own birthday cake. Although I spent quite a bit of yesterday in the kitchen, I was not forgotten. Georgie brought GM and I some really bad coffee in the morning, GM cut me flowers from the garden, GM’s mom brought me some goodies from Vermont and I was surprised with a beautiful new lens for my SLR. Yeah!
I also received my favorite hand made cards for Mother’s Day. These days George and Owen are the only senders. Cal and Henry are entirely too cool and self involved to take the time to acknowledge their mom on Mother’s Day. Or Henry’s case, he just really cant stand me. So enjoy these sweet tokens of their love while they last, it wont be forever.
First up is Georgie’s Photo/Poem Gift
She made the frame with cardboard and flowers from clay and sprayed the whole thing gold
Found on the back is a sweet declaration of her love for me in Castellano
Owen in the other hand….
Once you unfolded it from its accordion pleats, you find a funny little man wishing me a Happy Mother's Day
Scatch that, the funny little man is apparently me!
I think the odds of anymore Mother’s Day cards from Owen are pretty small:(
This past long weekend we had an asado. It was a gorgeous spring/summer day and Georgie decided we needed brownies to go with our requisite ice cream. We combed the internet for a new and interesting twist on brownies and found this recipe that called for peanut butter. GM returned from his US trip last week with a 1.13 kilo container of Skippy so we are flush with peanut butter. Our only modification was to throw some chocolate chips on top of the batter and cooking it less than the suggested time (again, we like it gooey).
Georgie likes to crack the eggs. Interesting technique, huh?
My kids were getting sick of oatmeal everything. I always use whole wheat flour but I cant pretend that this week’s recipe is healthy. Again,they are not processed and my nurturing energy has been baked into them, but they are chock full of butter and sugar.
Regarding this week’s recipe. Recipe is hyperbole. Although there are numerous recipes on the internet for this bar, that is how I was inspired, it hardly warrants one. It is a brownie chocolate chip cookie bar. Its a brownie that has chocolate chip cookie dough cooked on top. So make your favorite brownie recipe, bake it for about 10 minutes before slopping approximately 1/2 to 2/3 of a chocolate chip cookie recipe (make buttons and freeze the rest) on top of the semi cooked brownies. Return it to the oven to finish cooking. Probably between 30-45 minutes of baking at 350 in a 9×13 baking dish. They are brookies or chip cookie brownies (we like them gooey), easy to make and require a glass of cold milk.
Cal is back: Excellent but could have been better if the brownie was bigger. I didnt get a really good taste but think it was a 4 out of 5.
My sad reality. I am trying to learn how to use my SLR. I am taking some on line classes and unfortunately for my family I practice by taking pictures of them doing almost anything,the dogs, flowers, and food. Food turns out not to be naturally photogenic and is quite temperamental. I was trying to photograph the brownies and the natural light was crap. So the photo is not very sharp and doesn’t really do a good job of capturing its very tempting texture. The photo is not great.
Henry likes to play with the camera and has a very natural instinctive relationship with it. He screws around with the buttons, has a decent idea about how to use the creative mode settings but doesn’t seem burdened by them, like me. He came up with this concept. He half closed a shade in his room and turn off all the lights, it was late afternoon so there is was some natural light. He left the camera shutter open for seconds and moved the camera around. They are pretty cool.
Every night before I go to bed I have to check Owen’s blood sugar, he is a diabetic. I then visit the other three. I suppose I do it to check and make sure they are safe in their beds. But I also like to remember them this way, totally relaxed and soft and peaceful. It reminds me how much I love them and even though they spend much of their waking hours torturing me with perfectly age appropriate but still incredibly annoying behavior, I still love them more than anything. It also reminds me that tomorrow I can try to be more patient, be more engaged, be more present when I am with them. My children are beautiful and when they sleep they are even more beautiful.
Now to the cruel part..taking these photos. Henry would kill me if he saw this. Georgie actually woke up to avoid the reading lamp I was trying to use for light. Cal and Owen are use to my visits and lights being turned on, so they were none for the wiser. Do you think doing this was cruel?
Yesterday was George’s birthday. She is seven years old. She woke up to a new outfit for school. Normally she is in an uniform, but on her b day she can wear whatever she wants. Up to this birthday I always bought her a dress, this year jeans and a groovy t-shirt and shrug. Kind of sad, she is over dresses and pink and all but her most special dolls. Getting old, aren’t they all.
She also woke up to her breakfast of choice, chocolate chip pancakes, fresh OJ, bacon and her favorite, hard boil quail eggs. The kids always beg to open up one of their presents in the morning so I always make it small and school related. Georgie got 2 technical pencils which she loves in some cool colors and some birthday related stickers. Not surprisingly, I believe the extra pencil leads are already lost.
Before we left for school, I took this photo of the two of them. They have a complicated relationship, but I would like to think this is how they really feel about each other.
Georgie when to school with brownies to give out to her classmates. And when she was away at school, all of the party fairies were making preparations for the party that followed with her friends. We were lucky given the rainy spring weather we have been having here and had a beautiful sunny afternoon. Not summer warm, but since the kids were busy doing non stop track and fields events (Georgie wanted a “sporty” theme) the lack of warmth went unnoticed. It was a success. No one fell in the pool (except Osa went in voluntarily to retrieve balls), no one was red carded during the futbol match, and the cake that Jenny made was awesome!
One last picture, its from the postmortem breakfast meeting the next day. Georgie chewed on some old pizza and regaled us with highlights from her big moment, favorite gifts, favorites friends and ideas for next year….
All the kids love being told the story of their birth, Georgie even more so. I try to make it interesting but in reality all my labors were fast, natural and uncomplicated (well actually Callum was almost born in a car). She was born in a beautiful birthing center in Derby, Connecticut. I had a gorgeous room where I gave birth and recovered and stayed for 2 days before I went back home to my three boys. The labor was fast, 2 1/2 hours, and the delivery even faster, one push. I guess the real drama happened when the entire nursing staff screamed “its a girl!” and I realized that this baby who I was convinced was a boy and had named George was actually a Georgiana. Its hard imagining our family any different. I have a daughter, the boys have a sister and GM is now paying for his crimes from another lifetime.
I feel like crap. Just trying to hold it together until after tomorrow and then for sure I will collapse and sleep 18 hours. Tomorrow is Georgie’s birthday and there are 25 little ones coming over for three hours tomorrow to be entertained. Birthday parties for kids here deserves its own post, but not today, remember I am barely functioning. But needless to say, there will be a giant inflatable jumpy thing and I will have several energetic young girls organizing games..its a sporty party. But there is still a million little things to do. Kids parties here includes alcohol and food for adults. Fresh flowers, a blow dry and manicure are standard for the proud mother. I am telling you, its work!
What does smoking have to do with any of this. Smoking is why I feel bad. Not the pack a day kind of smoking. I gave that up almost 20 years ago. Its cigar smoking. On occasion I have been know to enjoy a Havanna. Last Friday we had a cocktail party and since I am not a big drinker I focused my efforts on cigar smoking, which a lot of people seem to do here. I smoked 2 large Havannas and numerous “woodies” or cigarette sized cigars. I chained smoked cigars for 7 hours. Not surprising I felt yuck the next morning, but that was almost a week ago and I still can feel it in my chest. When I work out I feel like I am going to die. I guess I am paying for stupidity and I am getting old. But then again, I didn’t inhale tequila through my nose with a spoon. And you know who you are…
I will try to get some good photos of the birthday girl, she is going to be 7!!!
I think I have mentioned before that asado is a big part of life here. Typically the weekend is when most people are either cooking their own, have been lucky enough to be invited to another’s asado or go to a restaurant that specializes in asado. Yesterday, after an exhausting social calender this weekend, we were happy to go to a restaurant, specifically a parrilla.(parrilla is the spanish word for the barbecue or grill that you make the asado on) Yesterday was a gorgeous day so we wanted to walk to lunch meaning our regular parrilla (aptly named La Vaca) was not an option and we tried a new one. We were an abridged version of our family as the two older ones are mortified to be seen with us and basically dont like us at the moment. They stayed home and we were accompanied by the younger two, happy to walk hand in hand, excited to try a new place. Two uncomplicated children, how easy! What was I thinking?
This is how every asado starts...wine, bubbly water, bread, empanadas, provoleta (melted cheese) and morcilla (blood sausage)
Tira is similar to short ribs, very tasty. They were served with fried sweet potatoes.
Georgie usually opts for the fresh tallerines and tomato sauce. Pasta is good in Argentina.
Normally at home we have ice cream for dessert, the parrillas have extensive dessert menus. These brownies were very good, crunchy on the outside, gooey and fudgy on the inside
This is my personal favorite, Flan. The condiments are key, crema (whipped cream) and dulce de leche (milk carmel)
After a protein heavy meal like this, you experience a bit of food coma
Georgie trying to muster up the energy for the walk back
Here is the beautiful view from our table, city livin'
It’s a hard thing not to do. You want to give them everything they want or sometimes the things you wanted as a kid. You want to make them happy. It’s a powerful desire. But spoiling your kids has consequences. They aren’t pretty and you have only yourself to blame.
Living abroad alleviates some of the compulsion to buy stuff. You just cant. The newest hand held game system, not available for purchase in Argentina, the latest tennis shoes from Addidas, not sold here. A Mercedes SUV for a sixteenth birthday (yes that does happen in the States) will never happen because kids need to be 18 to drive here..ha!
That is not to say that my kids are deprived. Hardly. But sometimes they do have to wait and wish and want for something a lot longer than their contemporaries in the States. This is a good thing. And when their father shows up from the US with a big bag of marshmallows you would think that it was a Mercedes SUV.
Speaking of cars..We just got a new car, or actually new to us but a 5-year-old minivan. You would think it was a Mercedes SUV by the treatment it is getting from the family. It’s clean, no dents and the doors automatically open when you push a button. The kids had been talking about this new/old car non-stop for the weeks leading up to us taking possession of it. You would have thought we were going to Disney. It is refreshing to see them so satisfied with simply a car with operational cup holders and radio with speakers that function.
They are healthy if you eat just one. And they are good, and they are easy. Hard to beat that. Made a big pan with more than half of it going into the freezer for a later date. I found the recipe here. Its a cute blog where she has fun photographing her baked goods. My only modification would be to cook it for more like 23-25 minutes for chewy brownies. I had some technical challenges as well, the melted peanut butter part was kind of a bust for me as I am forced to use a 3rd world plastic bags, which if pressured at all, the seams all spontaneously burst open. So instead of pretty drizzles I got blobs that I spread out with a knife. I also just put the chocolate chips directly on the warm bars where they securely half melted.
Given Cal’s sports schedule for the foreseeable future, Owen is going to step in until further notice to give the kids review. You really should ask the dog since he ate my first bar, but since he cant talk I will say “Woof Woof”. Transaltion: really good especially with a glass of cold milk, 3.5 out of 5.
Its not a long weekend here…but it has been a relaxing one. Yesterday was a usual Saturday of driving around children to different activities and friend’s houses, but GM is quite helpful that way so between the two of us it was manageable. Listened to a lot music and radio news, watched a baseball game (Yankees won! YEAH! and Boston lost:)), watched a horrible loss by the Argentine National Soccer team, made GM dinner and fell asleep reading some short stories Henry needs to be studying for an English test on Tuesday.
Dragged my ass out of bed at 10:30 and have had a cup of coffee with my online newspaper reading. Missed reading Franch Rich this morning, must be on vacation. Not much good news. Here are some fun links for the family.
I don’t know if you can really call these healthy, other than the fact that they are not processed and were made by my loving hands. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. I found them on Tastespotting and that site sent me here for the original recipe, its a great baking blog.
Not much can be said except this is a easy straightforward cookie dough that wont disappoint. What I will share is something I do when I make cookie dough. I always double it and I always freeze the dough. Sometimes the task if baking cookies is daunting when you think of having to sit around and be more than passive as the 3 or 4 batches bake. BORING. So I do something I learned from my mom. Take the cooking dough and roll balls of dough and press down to make buttons. Put the buttons on the cookie sheet, fill up the cookie sheet like below and put into the freezer for about 2 hours. Then put the buttons into Ziploc bags. (either all together or in batches in sandwich bags) Return to freezer. Now you have cookies on demand. It allows you to bake a batch for an after school snack and have warm cookies quickly. You make what you need and cant overeat. Or each time you pass the freezer you can help yourself to a button of yummy cookie dough!
As Cal, the regular reviewer, has volleyball practice today, Owen will be stepping in to give the kid’s review today. He is a man of few words but his words mean what they say.
They taste like I need another one now. I am not sure if they are brownies in the shape of a cookie or a cookie that tastes like a brownie. I definitely would like to have them again for snack but I would like to see them bigger. I rank this 4 1/2 candy bars. (one candy bar is crap, 5 is the best dessert EVER)
We just finished up another (almost monthly) long weekend. We got a taste of everything this past weekend as far as weather is concerned. Saturday it was stuffy and humid and hot (27C/86F). Saturday night the wind blew through and it rained and stormed (we have intense thunderstorms here, I love them) for hours on Sunday. The rain brought much cooler temperatures. (10C/50F) And this morning we woke up to clear, bright and almost periwinkle skies. Just gorgeous.
We had friends over for an asado. Excellent food, wine and happy children and dogs. Osa was especially happy because one of our guest loves dogs (more than we do apparently) and and she indulged Osa and her “problem” for several hours today. Osa didn’t even mind if the ball went into the pool, on a day like today she was happy swim for it.
Today’s holiday was Dia de San Martín. GeneralJosé Francisco de San Martín Matorras is kind of like what George Washington is to North Americans. He is considered the father of Argentina except in a mercenary kind of way. He was the go to guy if you were a Spanish colony and you wanted to be liberated. He also battled extensively in Chile and Peru. He along with Simon Bolívar are widely credited with throwing the Spanish out of South America.
Argentines celebrate with an asado which always implies family and friends. Followed by watching futbol which always implies a siesta.
When things get busy, like they have this week, I don’t always have time to research a new fabulous recipe off my favorite food site Tastespotting. So today I went to an old standby and always a crowd-pleaser. Embellished Brownies. These are brownies out of a box that I play with the directions and then make a gooey topping to hold some candy jewels. I don’t ever add butter to a box mix, I substitute oil, which makes the dessert moister and it doesn’t dry out as fast. The other change would be to cook them in a cupcake pan (no papers just spray) and cook them for considerably less time than is indicated on the box so the centers are soft. Its not everyone’s bag but its the way we like it and the next day they are still moist. The topping is driven by what I have in the pantry. Today I mixed peanut butter and as much condensed milk as possible while the mixture is still spreadable and then topped them off with M&M’s and marshmallows (mini marshmallows work better than cutting up the big ones with scissors:() . Some other ideas we have tried: putting a mini peanut butter cup in the batter, melting chocolate and condensed milk to make a great icing and making peppermint brownie with thin mints in the batter and a fluffy pick frosting with mint extract and crushed up candy canes on the top.
And we are. GM, Owen and myself hardcore. Cal and Henry are enthusiastic fans. Georgie not so much.
The Yanks swept the Red Sox in 4 games. This is after having being swept by them for the last 2 series. The highlight was the win Friday night. Even if you are not a Yankee fan but a baseball fan you know there isn’t anything better than a pitching duel, and a pitching duel (amongst a dozen pitchers) for 15 5/6 innings (Owen and I went to bed at quarter to three in the morning)is a sports competition at its best. Not to mention this epic game was between the best and meanest rivalry in the MLB. Yankees and the Red Sox. And to make it that more amazing it happened at Yankee Stadium. We all agreed it was like winning the 7th game of the World Series.
This is A-Rod’s entire up, go to the 2:15 mark for the action.
Well, that is not actually true anywhere in the world. It is especially true not here in Argentina where we are beginning the equivalent of February here. But break is over and the kids start a new year at school tomorrow. So no matter how many years we have lived here, in my mind August feels like the end of summer and its time to get back to school.
I always feel conflicted about break being over. I am not a morning person so I have relished the late lazy mornings. But the kids miss their friends and since most of them leave for the break six weeks of hanging out with siblings has been sufficient. We all can use some structure in our lives. I just wish it didn’t have to start so early in the day…
The kids are excited. I could tell tonight when I was trying to get them to bed. Georgie had her uniform (and the non authorized embellishments) out and ready for the morning. Owen was busy packing and repacking his backpack, double checking the contents with the supply list. Callum has come downstairs no fewer than five times with various physical aliments and random thoughts, I know he is excited. Henry took a shower tonight which is as good as any indication that he is preparing himself for his first day of High School.
And while I am excited for them, I remember those nights before the first day back, I am not excited to set my daily alarm for 6:45..Yuck!
Apropos of nothing I have watched this several times and I don’t know what is more amazing, her eye makeup or the pregnant pause when responding to the claim she had a problem with the car driver who had a Muslim name..
Compared to our last big ski vacation this past week’s ski vacation to Chile was a cakewalk! No follow-up visits to orthopedic surgeons needed.
The stars lined up perfectly for this holiday. The weather was tremendous..we had 5 out of 7 days of spectacular sunshine. We arrived after a big snow storm and schools had started in Chile. There was lots of fresh snow and didn’t have to share it with anyone. So me, the fair weather skier, clocked lots of runs with the kids. As a family we have hit a milestone. Everyone can get themselves dressed and manage their stuff. And for the most part everyone can carry their skis to and from the mountain. Yeah! we are a skiing family and its fun for mom too! And just when I thought it might be time to retire. Here is some cute video.
One of my favorite photos of all time taken in 2005 at Chapleco Ski Center located in northern Patagonia in Argentina. You think Owen needs a haircut? Neglect of my children manifests itself in long stretches of time between haircuts. You know its bad when a boy is asking, begging for a haircut, or even worst when teachers suggest it in a written note...
While it may be a ski vacation for the family, the next ten days for me will be full of dressing children, finding missing essentials pieces of equipment and outer clothing, picking up and dropping of kids at various classes and watching them swim in a stinky indoor pool. The highlights for me will be freezing my ass off on a longer than should be ski lift ride sneaking in a few pages of a book.
We have had a spectacular winter. Hardly a gray day in the bunch and maybe 1 or 2 days of rain in the last six weeks. Its made our very quiet winter break more bearable with sunny afternoons that have been perfect for walks, bike rides, various ball activities or trampoline marathons. But that all changed last night at 8:00 when it started to rain, and it hasn’t stopped. We have had thunderstorms and borderline hail. The streets are flooded and the natives restless. We have 2 rules during break, no kids media between 10am-8pm and you must be dressed before lunch is served. Well I don’t have the fortitude to enforce the law today. Its such a crappy, gray day that after I took these pictures of the kids getting soaked, I relented and they are now spaced out watching episodes of Get Smart probably for the next several hours. After posting this I am going to get into bed with some tea and read my book until I fall asleep.
What is better than playing in the rain? Playing in the rain in your pajamas at 1:30 in the afternoon!
Never turning down an opportunity to accessorize, Georgie sports the practical and fashionable unicorn umbrella
My name is Callum O’Connell. I make stop-motion animations with Legos. I made my first one when I was in 4th Grade with my friend Sherlock. We made it about a dancing Bionicle but it was only like 5 seconds. My second one was with my friend Marco and it was about Star Wars. I actually made 2 with him. My 4th was with my dad that was around 1 minute and was about a guy who wants to find the holy pizza. Then all the ones after that are on my you tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/callvim
I went to my friend’s house and stayed for a sleepover. His name is Francisco and he loves Legos. So when I went to his house I made a animation with him that took like 3 hours to make and its around 3 minutes. It is probably my best one and has a sequel. I hope you enjoy it and please visit my youtube.com channel. Or tell your kids if Lego videos are not your thing.
I am feeling a lot less in exile these days. But my blog is still a mess of political and personal thoughts along with experiences of living in Argentina. While I can't promise, I will try to balance talk about my kids with something more universally relevant. And sorry if salty talk is offensive but I was a derivatives trader in another life and it cant be helped.
Thursday was Cal’s 12th birthday. Today he is having 4 buddies over for a sleepover. He is outside making water balloons as we speak. He is a cutie and will always be a needy, cuddly but wonderfully funny and ironic teddy bear. I think Cal enjoys his birthday as much as anyone. Loves being the center of attention in a sweet self-conscious kind of way. And yes, in the last photo, those are almost industrial grade fireworks being shot off the cake, inside the house. It very much de rigueur for birthday cakes in Argentina.
This past long weekend we had an asado. It was a gorgeous spring/summer day and Georgie decided we needed brownies to go with our requisite ice cream. We combed the internet for a new and interesting twist on brownies and found 
Now to the cruel part..taking these photos. Henry would kill me if he saw this. Georgie actually woke up to avoid the reading lamp I was trying to use for light. Cal and Owen are use to my visits and lights being turned on, so they were none for the wiser. Do you think doing this was cruel?
Yesterday was George’s birthday. She is seven years old. She woke up to a new outfit for school. Normally she is in an uniform, but on her b day she can wear whatever she wants. Up to this birthday I always bought her a dress, this year jeans and a groovy t-shirt and shrug. Kind of sad, she is over dresses and pink and all but her most special dolls. Getting old, aren’t they all.
Before we left for school, I took this photo of the two of them. They have a complicated relationship, but I would like to think this is how they really feel about each other.
Georgie when to school with brownies to give out to her classmates. And when she was away at school, all of the party fairies were making preparations for the party that followed with her friends. We were lucky given the rainy spring weather we have been having here and had a beautiful sunny afternoon. Not summer warm, but since the kids were busy doing non stop track and fields events (Georgie wanted a “sporty” theme) the lack of warmth went unnoticed. It was a success. No one fell in the pool (except Osa went in voluntarily to retrieve balls), no one was red carded during the futbol match, and the cake that Jenny made was awesome!
One last picture, its from the postmortem breakfast meeting the next day. Georgie chewed on some old pizza and regaled us with highlights from her big moment, favorite gifts, favorites friends and ideas for next year….
All the kids love being told the story of their birth, Georgie even more so. I try to make it interesting but in reality all my labors were fast, natural and uncomplicated (well actually Callum was almost born in a car). She was born in a beautiful birthing center in Derby, Connecticut. I had a gorgeous room where I gave birth and recovered and stayed for 2 days before I went back home to my three boys. The labor was fast, 2 1/2 hours, and the delivery even faster, one push. I guess the real drama happened when the entire nursing staff screamed “its a girl!” and I realized that this baby who I was convinced was a boy and had named George was actually a Georgiana. Its hard imagining our family any different. I have a daughter, the boys have a sister and GM is now paying for his crimes from another lifetime.
I feel like crap. Just trying to hold it together until after tomorrow and then for sure I will collapse and sleep 18 hours. Tomorrow is Georgie’s birthday and there are 25 little ones coming over for three hours tomorrow to be entertained. Birthday parties for kids here deserves its own post, but not today, remember I am barely functioning. But needless to say, there will be a giant inflatable jumpy thing and I will have several energetic young girls organizing games..its a sporty party. But there is still a million little things to do. Kids parties here includes alcohol and food for adults. Fresh flowers, a blow dry and manicure are standard for the proud mother. I am telling you, its work!
I think I have mentioned before that asado is a big part of life here. Typically the weekend is when most people are either cooking their own, have been lucky enough to be invited to another’s asado or go to a restaurant that specializes in asado. Yesterday, after an exhausting social calender this weekend, we were happy to go to a restaurant, specifically a parrilla.(parrilla is the spanish word for the barbecue or grill that you make the asado on) Yesterday was a gorgeous day so we wanted to walk to lunch meaning our regular parrilla (aptly named La Vaca) was not an option and we tried a new one. We were an abridged version of our family as the two older ones are mortified to be seen with us and basically dont like us at the moment. They stayed home and we were accompanied by the younger two, happy to walk hand in hand, excited to try a new place. Two uncomplicated children, how easy! What was I thinking?
It’s a hard thing not to do. You want to give them everything they want or sometimes the things you wanted as a kid. You want to make them happy. It’s a powerful desire. But spoiling your kids has consequences. They aren’t pretty and you have only yourself to blame.
Given Cal’s sports schedule for the foreseeable future, Owen is going to step in until further notice to give the kids review. You really should ask the dog since he ate my first bar, but since he cant talk I will say “Woof Woof”. Transaltion: really good especially with a glass of cold milk, 3.5 out of 5.
Its not a long weekend here…but it has been a relaxing one. Yesterday was a usual Saturday of driving around children to different activities and friend’s houses, but GM is quite helpful that way so between the two of us it was manageable. Listened to a lot music and radio news, watched a baseball game (Yankees won! YEAH! and Boston lost:)), watched a horrible loss by the Argentine National Soccer team, made GM dinner and fell asleep reading some short stories Henry needs to be studying for an English test on Tuesday.
I don’t know if you can really call these healthy, other than the fact that they are not processed and were made by my loving hands. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. I found them on 
As Cal, the regular reviewer, has volleyball practice today, Owen will be stepping in to give the kid’s review today. He is a man of few words but his words mean what they say.
We just finished up another (almost monthly) long weekend. We got a taste of everything this past weekend as far as weather is concerned. Saturday it was stuffy and humid and hot (27C/86F). Saturday night the wind blew through and it rained and stormed (we have intense thunderstorms here, I love them) for hours on Sunday. The rain brought much cooler temperatures. (10C/50F) And this morning we woke up to clear, bright and almost periwinkle skies. Just gorgeous.
Compared to our 
My name is Callum O’Connell. I make stop-motion animations with Legos. I made my first one when I was in 4th Grade with my friend Sherlock. We made it about a dancing Bionicle but it was only like 5 seconds. My second one was with my friend Marco and it was about Star Wars. I actually made 2 with him. My 4th was with my dad that was around 1 minute and was about a guy who wants to find the holy pizza. Then all the ones after that are on my you tube channel: 
