Apology...

Well, I thought that summer would be a good time to start this blog...nothing much to do, no strict schedules to get in the way...  However, somehow, it seems that my summer is slipping away from me.  So, I apologize for the lack of new posts.  I promise I'll try to do better.

Since my last post, we've been busy!  I took the boys to their first circus, which they absolutely loved! 
We spent a weekend camping - a friend was visiting up in the Farragut Park area, so we hoped to camp there.  Unfortunately, it was the first beautiful weekend and the campground was full the first night, so we kept driving a ways further and camped at Springy Point.  Next morning we broke camp early and headed back to Farragut, managing to snag the very last camp site they had.  We hiked around the park and visited their very cool Brig Museum.  My mom visited for the afternoon and took the boys hiking some more while I got to go visit with my friend.  We spent a few hours at the beach the next day, before heading home.
Fourth of July was a blast - my parents came down for the weekend and we enjoyed lots of time with family and good food.  We even braved the expedition to Pullman, Washington to see the fireworks display.  It was great, as usual - my parents thought it was the best they'd ever seen!
Now, my mother-in-law is spending a couple of weeks with us, which has been great - we don't get to see her often enough.  And, there's finally time for her to teach me some authentic Mexican cooking!  She's giving me her beautiful wooden tortilla press, so I can finally make decent corn tortillas (you have no idea how excited this makes me!).  I must admit I wasn't thrilled about the first meal she taught me (my husband chose the foods he wanted me to learn to make)...any vegetarians should not read any further...The first meal we made was tongue tacos.  Yep - beef tongue.  I couldn't bring myself to try it, but everyone else enjoyed it immensely.
The second meal I learned was chicken mole, completely from scratch.  There are SO many ingredients in it!  Time consuming, but not too difficult (I think...I just watched while she made it).  It was absolutely delicious!  I'll try to share the recipe soon.
Next up will be tamales, which I'm thrilled to finally learn, and then tripe (not keen to learn, but it's my husband's favorite, so I suppose...)

Amongst all of that, I've been trying to stock up on my baking.  My brother gets married on the 24th and I'll be spending some extra time there, visiting with out of town family, so I have to plan all my meals to take up with me.  Usually, I don't have to pack much to go up to my parents' house, as they are great about the gluten issues, but with so many extra people there, I don't count on having a clean kitchen to work in.

So, that's a quick update in a nutshell.  I'll get back to posting about food very soon.  Hope you're all enjoying the summer, too!