Allen Celebration

Fourth of July festivities start early in Allen.   Tonight was our 3rd annual Allen Celebration with the Rodriguez's.  We had so much fun...as always...at this amazing summer tradition.

All this is literally right in the Rodriguez's backyard so we always have an up close parking space, perfect seats for the entire night and great company.

 Here's how brooding teenagers spend their evenings outside in the gorgeous summer weather.  I finally got her to perk up and smile for one picture with me.

 McKay spent most of his night trying to track down people to play catch with him.  

 Isn't this the most adorable Rodriguez you've ever seen??

Emerald City...70s and 80s cover band.  Unbelievable.  Best local live band EVER!  They opened for Dennis DeYoung, who wasn't as good as these guys.  :)

 Star Spangled Girls

 Another adorable Rodriguez.

Fireworks!  I tried to practice with my manual settings...it's SO hard to hold the camera still without a tripod.  

We had an amazing night hanging out with our dear friends in the cool Dallas summer breezes.  What a great way to end June and bring in July.  More fireworks next week, too! 
I LOVE summer.

Spontaneous Music

Our amazing friends, the Rodriguez's, invited us over for dinner tonight.   There are so many of us, when we all get together, that it's kind of a major undertaking to pull off food for such a big crowd.  They made brisket and a million other delicious things.  It's always amazing to eat at their house.  Always!

And somehow it always turns into karaoke night over there.  Couches are moved, microphones are connected, the Apple TV is turned on, and POOF!...we're all transformed instantly into lounge singers.  

Andrew is home from University of HOU for the summer, so he jumped into the singing.  Savannah came late with McKay after baseball practice, and they didn't hesitate to jump in.  I sang a couple of Carpenters songs (with Megan as backup and moral support.)  Craig sang a Zac Brown song.  And the rest of the Rodriguez's filled in the empty spaces.  I LOVE hearing them sing all those cool Spanish songs.  I have a secret plan to sing something in Spanish the next time we get together!  :) 

And sometime, after four hours of passing around that mic, picking every song we could think of on the Karaoke Cloud, and singing our heads off, the instruments appeared!  Johnny pulled out the ukulele so he and Alyssa could sing the song they had taught our girls.  And then all of a sudden, Thunell girls were replaced with Rodriguez boys.  More instruments appeared.  I'm telling you, guitars appear out of no where in that house!  And they started just improvising stuff.  

They sing.  They beatbox.  They harmonize.  They are amazingly talented.

We had SO much fun just listening to them mess around together.   Totally entertaining!!

What an amazing night.  I honestly have no idea how it is that we managed to be connected to this family as closely as we are, but I LOVE IT!  And I LOVE them!  What an honor and a privilege to be associated with them.  Whenever we're together, they feel more like family than friends.  

Happy Chinese New Year

Let me just say in advance that I am SO disappointed that I didn't get pictures of all that went into this day.  

Here was the inspiration for it...

On one of our Hawaii trips back in January 2011, I received a set of dishes that once belonged to my (birth) grandmother, Nanny.  My mom and auntie carefully packed part of the set for me to carry home on the plane, and then brought the remaining pieces with them when they came to Dallas the following August.  I LOVE glass.  I LOVE dishes.  I LOVE heirloom pieces that have been handed down from parents and grandparents.  So these were a treasure to receive.

For two years I didn't do anything with them.  I just put them on a shelf in my kitchen and felt a little bit of happiness every time I looked up there and remembered them.  And then at the end of January, when all the Christmas stuff had finally been taken down and my dining room table looked heartbreakingly bare, I decided to set the table with Nanny's china.  

I hand washed all of these gorgeous pieces.  There are serving pieces, spoons, a creamer and sugar bowl, and salt and pepper shakers that were also included in this set, so it took a good chunk of the morning to wash and dry all of them by hand.  BUT...it gave me such a great opportunity to lovingly give each of those beautiful pieces a little bit of overdue attention.  And I fell in love with them all over again.

OK...here's where this story strays a little and I start to sound like I'm very easily distracted and scatter brained...

I set the dining room table for 8 and happily admired it for about three days.  

And then I thought, "It's such a shame no one will get to see this table except us."  Except I must have said that out loud because Flowering Buttercup chimed in with, "We should invite the Rodriguez's over for a Chinese party!"  (Yes, I know my dishes are from Japan and not China, but in the minds of the people who live in my house, there is very little distinction between those two countries.)  

A few days later, the girls and I were having lunch at Panda Express and my neighbor came in to buy Orange Chicken sauce.  Of course that led to a conversation about what she was going to do with it, and she ended up giving me a recipe for homemade orange chicken.  

Wheels were turning in both my mind and Flowering Buttercup's...and one of us Googled Chinese New Year...I'm not sure who.  And guess what!  We were happily delighted to find out that it was coming up...on February 10th.  

I came home and mentioned our great idea to the Scout Master who said, "Um...why don't we just invite them over without calling it a Chinese New Year celebration.  Cuz we''re not Chinese and that's a little weird."  Well, I am actually a teeny bit Chinese, so it didn't sound that weird to me.  So I sent out this group text to every one of my contacts whose last name was Rodriguez.

(yep, Flowering Buttercup pointed out the date discrepancy, so I had to send another text to change it to the 10th.)  Within a few hours I got responses back from all 6 that they were available and would love to come for dinner.  HOORAY!

So, I started planning a menu...

Orange Chicken (with Panda Orange Sauce from my neighbor Jill)
3-4 chicken breasts, cubed
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil
Salt and pepper, to taste

Rinse chicken in water and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in large skillet. Dip in cornstarch, then in egg. 
Cook chicken until browned but not cooked through. Place chicken in 9x13 greased baking dish. Cover with orange chicken sauce (I use almost the whole bottle). Bake for 45 minutes at 325 stirring the chicken every 15 minutes to coat evenly.

Beef and Snow Peas (from the Pioneer Woman)

Beef with Snow Peas via TPW

Fried Rice (my mom's recipe)

Baked Wontons (from my Pampered Chef years)

and...
Homemade Fortune Cookies

These were SO cute and so easy, I'm thinking about making them again this week to give to my friends for Valentine's Day.  When I do that, I'll remember to take pictures and post about the whole process.  

Flowering Buttercup helped me think of some cute fortunes to put in the cookies...

I planned and cooked and put stickies all over the fridge, and had a tiny little meltdown on Saturday afternoon because my head was filled with Chinese parties, Valentine's Day, photography homework, a Book of Mormon pageant rehearsal (more to come on that), a play at the HS, a multi stake dance that I had volunteered to chaperone, and not enough hours left in the weekend.  But I pulled myself together and did one thing at a time, and as always, when the Rodriguez's are involved, everything comes together better than I even imagined it.

So, even though I forgot to take my camera out of the bag, and didn't even think about pictures until after the food was long gone, we still had a really great time.  (It's just not documented quite the way I had hoped.)

And guess what else?  Those inspiring dishes that started this whole thing??  I didn't even use them because I only have 8 and there are 9 Rodriguez's and 6 of us...there was no way to make that work.  Instead we went with red plastic plates and cups...brilliantly Chinese, huh?  I did use two of the serving bowls, though, so the dishes were there in spirit.  

After dinner, we played games and then passed the guitar around and sang songs.  Those Rods are so dang talented!  I don't know why I'm always so shocked that they can play yet another instrument every time we're with them.

We LOVE this family so much and are SO happy that they are always willing to come over and hang out with us.  We had such a great time and Chinese New Year was the best excuse EVER to have a little get together.  We might have to make this a tradition!

Happy Year of the Snake!!

High Five for Football

It's been an ALL-football month in Allen.  

1.  Mass transit is the only way to go to SMU.  

2.  We ventured onto the train with three of our neighbors and their kids.

3.  When we got to the stadium, we met a few other families and all sat in the same section...right next to the band!!  SO much fun to watch a great game with people you love. 

4.  Halftime was amazing.  But it's always amazing, right?

5.  And, by the way, we happened to WIN this game, 51-36.  In fact, we were ahead the whole game!  So much for those intimidating other Eagles.  

I wrote a H54Football post because now that we've won all the playoff games, guess where the Allen Eagles will be tomorrow night!!  At Cowboy Stadium for the State Championship Game!  We can't wait.  Stay tuned for one more football post before the month is over.

Johnny and Alyssa

I'm not sure when I became such a chicken about doing things that are different or spontaneous.  I think age has made me less adventurous.  

It was a difficult thing to prepare to leave my kids for FOUR WHOLE DAYS!  These guys are busy!  On most days, I start early and stay in almost constant motion throughout the day.  It's hard to delegate all of that to someone else.  Originally we had asked the Grs to come out and stay with the kids so that we could go on this trip, but some family emergencies came up right before Thanksgiving, so they had to cancel.  We considered asking a few people to stay with them, but none of them felt right.  We thought about farming them all out, but that didn't quite work either.  And that would have been like another vacation all over again if we were all gone for yet another week.  (I had visions of laundry piles taking over the entire house.)  

But then, one of us thought of our friends' son and his super cute new wife.  I think I've mentioned about 1000 times how MUCH we LOVE the Rodriguez family.  They really should have their own picture and caption on the sidebar of this blog because I write about them so much.  We sent Johnny and Alyssa an email and made the offer sound so awesome that we knew they wouldn't be able to refuse living in our house for a week and babysitting our kids.  We were so relieved when they said yes.  I think that was the final thing I needed to fall into place to be able to completely throw myself into the idea of leaving all of my responsibilities for a week.  

They came over the Monday night before we left to get the "scoop" on the house, kids, routine, etc.  And then I made a million lists, pre-cooked a couple of dinners, stocked the pantry, and started packing.  On Tuesday morning, right after they all left for school, the Scout Master and I happily boarded a plane for Phoenix.

Here's the first text I got as we landed...

And then I texted later at bedtime and got this...

And four days later, this is what we got when we texted and told them we were on our way home...

There is absolutely nothing more comforting than knowing your kids are not only safe, but also happy.  We have been on trips before when all we got were texts and phone calls asking when we were coming home.  That was definitely NOT the case this time.  The kids all loved Johnny and Alyssa instantly, and even better...they loved EACH OTHER more while Johnny and Alyssa were here.  And apparently the adoration was mutual, because this is the letter the kids found after they they left...

The Scout Master was so happy that he's already cooking up another trip for February.  We'll see if I'm any more adventurous at 43 than I am at 42.