Flashflood in Ridgecrest, 07/20/2008

Around the last half of Isabelle's Scooby Doo party on Sunday afternoon, July 20, it started to rain. Jeff had the kids go outside to do the pinata earlier than scheduled since it was starting to sprinkle at that time. As soon as we finished the pinata and were heading inside the rain started coming down hard and didn't stop for approximately an hour and a half. Thankfully our house was spared from any water damage, but Jeff feels that had it continued to rain, the water would have penetrated our foundation. A few blocks away, friends of ours had major water damage to their home. Many other homes in Ridgecrest had flood damage as well as many businesses on Balsam Street. Here is what it looked like outside our house:







And click here for The Daily Independent's article about the storm

Happy First Birthday, Melina!

We celebrated Melina turning 1 by having Mom and Mackenzie over, opening presents, and having cake and ice cream. Melina had a great time playing with the gift bags and wrapping paper and didn't waste any time with her birthday cake. It was a very memorable 1st birthday!

More pics at Dropshots...

Isabelle's 5th Birthday!

Isabelle had a great birthday! She started out her 5th birthday by celebrating with some friends at John's Pizza; then swimming at Pinney Pool followed by one of her favorite dinners, tacos; then presents and cupcakes and ice cream! Then she and Melina played outside in the newly filled sandbox. What a busy day!







more pics at DropShots

Isabelle's Scooby Doo Party

Isabelle is very "in to" Scooby Doo right now (thanks to her Aunt Kitty!). So needless to say, she wanted a Scooby Doo birthday party with her friends. The party went very well (although Jeff and I were exhausted for the next few days and will maybe host another in 2-3 years??), and everyone had a great time. We had some excitement at the end of the party when we had a torrential desert flash flood! (more on that later).

A Scooby Doo pinata, of course




playing Shaggy, Shaggy, Scooby (otherwise known as Duck, Duck, Goose)


See more pics at our DropShots site...

Craft (just one this week)

We saw a picture of this fish on the new package of pompoms we just bought and decided to make it:

One minute...

... of an afternoon at the Morgan house:

Melina

Melina has had a virus and is also teething so she has been quite grumpy, so needless to say when she falls asleep I usually just keep her there. Here she is in the recliner on 2 separate occasions last week:

Funny Things in the Morgan Household

WHAT'S A FORK HANDLE?
So today at lunch we're talking about ages and birthdays. Isabelle
asked how old her Papa is (my dad) and I said "oh 53 or 54." Jeff
said he thought he was 54 since we had a cake for him earlier in the
year and we were missing a "fork handle" to put on his birthday cake.

Marla: what??...a fork handle--what's that??
Jeff: a fork handle
Marla: you said, a fork handle????
Jeff: yeah, I did
Marla: really--I guess I just don't know what a fork handle is...(I'm wondering to myself if this is a term used for the #4 that I am completely unaware of--maybe the number four turned upside down resembles a fork handle?????)
Jeff: (now looking at me as if I am a complete and total moron and rolling his eyes in his head and speaking slowly and at the same time holding out 4 fingers on his hand): Y----E----S, a...----F-O-U-R C-A-N-D-L-E!!!

Really, try it for yourself. Say it out loud or have someone else say it: fork handle or four candle--you hear the same thing!!

PLAYING DRESS UP
The other day Isabelle was helping me organize my bedroom closet. Some of my negligees had slipped off their hangers and were on the floor. Isabelle said, "Mama, these are beautiful--I love them--I've never seen you wear them though--what do you do with them?" I wasn't quite sure what to say so I said, "ummm, well, your Daddy and I like to, ummm, play dress up after you and Melina go to sleep at night." Well, she thought that was great and seemed quite satisfied with my answer.

A day or so later we are in the closet again finishing up and she asked if Daddy and I would be able to play dress up that night. And later the next day, Jeff asked what I was telling Isabelle since she had asked him earlier "are you going to play dress up with Mama later tonight?"

Spiders, Sailboats, and Inchworms

We hosted a craft day with one of Isabelle's playgroups and made spider hats (from my favorite crafty blogging mom) and sailboats.





A couple of days later, again from the above blog, we made inchworms:

What's For Dinner?

Jeff and I have a recipe we love to make called Shrimp Scampi (from the Taste of Home magazine--thanks, Grandma Clark)!

We had this around my birthday last month and I just love the flavor. Because shrimp, is a little costly, I decided to experiment and see if it would still taste good with chicken. And...yes!!!

Quite delicious! Isabelle and Melina agreed too, and while the chicken was cooking, Isabelle came into the kitchen and asked what the yummy smell was (the chicken cooking in the garlic).

Here's the recipe:

SHRIMP (or chicken) SCAMPI

3-4 garlic gloves, minced

¼ C butter, cubed

¼ C olive oil

1 lb. uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

¼ C lemon juice

½ t pepper

¼ t dried oregano

½ C grated Parmesan cheese

¼ C dry bread crumbs

¼ C minced fresh parsley (dry works too)

Hot cooked angel hair pasta

In a 10-in. ovenproof skillet, sauté garlic in butter and oil until tender. Stir in the shrimp, lemon juice, pepper, and oregano; cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and parsley. Broil 6 in. from the heat for 2-3 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Serve over pasta.

Yield: 4 servings.

4th of July cookies

We're a little late for the 4th of July, but since we had this great flag cookie cutter, decided we just couldn't pass it up. We did learn something about coloring icing, however, and in order to get the deep red and blue colors we were after for our flag cookies, next time we'll use Wilton's icing (thanks for that tip, Traccee) instead of using food coloring (I used the whole bottle of red and still only got a dark salmon color). Nevertheless, Isabelle and I enjoyed our cookie decorating while Melina slept for part of it...

4th of July Crafts

A friend hosted a craft day at her house and here is what Isabelle made:

Wednesday Morning Breakfast

Sleeping Girls

Sunset

One of the many wildfires burning in California at the moment. The Piute Fire is about an hour to an hour and a half from us (Jeff and Uncle Pat goldmined there 2-3 months ago). We can smell smoke in the air, and obviously the air quality isn't the best, but as a result we can get some pretty awesome sunsets.