After a full day ending with a parent/son baseball game with Nathan’s team over at Pine Lake park, I decided that I needed to try out a couple recipes from the books that I got for father’s day.  As a main course, I chose to make Asian spice-rubbed pork chops with wild mushroom-soy vinaigrette from the Bobby Flay book.  As a side, I whipped up some Risotto coupled with grilled asparagus wrapped in pancetta with Citronette; chosen from the Mario Batali book. 

We paired a bottle of 2006 Cinsault (columbia valley) limited release Chateau Ste Michelle with the meal and the results were off the chart.

Of course, I have to include some gratuitous shots of the food.  Guys, remember that the best way to continually justify the purchase of a Big Green Egg is to grill dinner often for the family ;-)  I think Erin would have let me spend 10x the amount on a green egg had she known ahead of time the kinds of meals that she would be served throughout the year.

Be sure to get thick 1+” chops

The wild mushroom-soy vinaigrette zaps the taste buds and tastes amazing with the grilled chops

After you wrap the asparagus in pancetta, refrigerate for an hour and you’ll get the best results when grilling

The citronette sauce gives the asparagus a tangy flavor that pairs well with the main course.

Here’s my plate just before I consumed every bite.

I am a spoiled soul.  Erin and the kids made a huge breakfast feast on father’s day with sausage, eggs with peppers, home made coffee cake, strawberries, honey dew and hash browns. In addition to the handmade cards, poems and Ian’s plaster hand print, the kids hooked me up with a couple of awesome BBQ books and grill accessories. 

The first book is Italian Grill by Mario Batali

I can’t wait to try the Beef Braciole “Pinwheel-style” recipe that is a variation of one of my favorite summer recipes; flank steak pinwheels.  The pork shoulder Braciole also looks like it could be a winner. 

The second book is Boy gets Grill by Bobby Flay. 

It is going to be a busy summer in our back yard!

After the great breakfast, my mom stopped by and all of us drove over to Tiger Mountain to hike about 3 1/2 miles to see the Talus Rocks.  Here’s a few shots I took during the hike; click on any of them for a short slide show. 

Despite all of the energy the kids expended on the hike (I think they probably ran 7 or 8 miles back and forth despite the 700+ foot change in elevation), we later met up with Ian’s t-ball team back in Sammamish for a family picnic.  Needless to say, there was not a single complaint last night when bed time arrived

Nope, not a typo.  Snoqualmie pass received well over 6 feet of snow between Tuesday and Friday and the pass itself has only been open to traffic for a couple of hours between Tuesday and this morning.  The PowderPig website (the school that we enrolled the kids in) posted some pictures on their site.  It looked like 5 feet of snow had accumulated on the roof of the chalet and that it would take hours to dig out the chair lifts.  Ian is chomping at the bit to get back to the mountains after last week, but the cancellation was probably a good thing since Nathan is feeling pretty crumby.

Not much else to report (that I can talk about anyway ;-)  I’ll try and post some new videos and pictures soon.

Yesterday was our second day of skiing lessons for Nathan and Ian at the pass. Like last week, it dumped snow all day long. The kids are all making great progress and enjoying the snow, although the drive home was kind of bad given the snow, traffic and affect that hunger has on kids.

I posted some un-edited video on the site. Click here to see it.

Nothing much to report. The holidays are still coming too quickly and I haven’t come close to finishing my shopping, but I refuse to stress over it Erin and I had a night out last night and we we able to purchase gifts for the kids in record time. Erin thought we might want to press on and finish up the rest of our shopping, but I convinced her to punt on that plan and enjoy a couple cocktails and dinner out instead
No one has to get Cole into the Christmas spirit. Erin snapped this pic of Cole eating ice cream with his Santa hat on.

Mom started the tradition of getting us kids a new ornament each Christmas that represented something from the past year. Erin and I have continued the tradition and bought the kids their own trees (Ian and Nathan share one and Cole has his own) that they can decorate with their ornaments. Here are a few shots of Nathan and Ian decorating their tree.

And last week mom and Amanda came over for dinner to celebrate mom’s 46th birthday (give or take a decade). Happy Birthday mom!

Nothing puts you into the holiday spirit quicker than a light snow on the first day of December. I made two trips to the storage unit to pick up all of the holiday decorations, but went outside first to snap a few shots of the kids enjoying the snow.

Enjoy the season!

The kids

Our backyard

Cole

Happy Holidays from Seattle! We’re enjoying our extended weekend, with Kate visiting from San Diego. After our big turkey feast on Thursday, we stayed busy, taking the kids to visit Santa on Friday night followed by our tradition of dining out. Then on Saturday, we had pizza at Grandma’s and later took in the lights at Bellevue Botanical Gardens followed by the drumming at Snowflake Alley in Bellevue.

This afternoon we are going to tour the Theo Chocolate company in Seattle….mmmmm!

I’ve uploaded many more photos to Flickr. Click here to check them out.

Cole all bundled up for the holiday lights

All three boys together for a rare pose

The lights at Bellevue Botanical Gardens

Cole enjoying a candy cane at “Snowflake Alley” Bellevue Square mall.

Nathan

Aunt Kate and Ian enjoying the show

Cole checking out the “snow” that accompanied the show.

Ian and his trademark smile

The three boys posing by the nutcracker

They must be getting older! We actually captured three shots of them together and all smiling at the same time!

I can’t believe another Halloween has come and gone and that the holidays are already upon us. Mom and Amanda came over this year to accompany the kids and me trick-or-treating. Cole was so much fun to watch. He ran circles around Nathan and Ian, running house to house in his little pirate outfit.

I posted all of the pictures below and some additional ones to Pictage. Click here to take a look at them.

Well it’s a month and a half late, but here are a few shots of the kids that Erin took back on September 6th as the kids went back to school.

Wow, it’s been practically two months since my last post. Life has been complicated lately, so pardon the fact that I haven’t gotten around to posting pics of the kids for such a long time. I’ll try and follow this post up with some additional piucs soon. I need to find or take some recent pictures of Cole! Not sure where he was hiding last weekend but here are a few shots of Nathan and a couple of Ian that we took last weekend at Nathan’s Soccer game.