Wow it has been awhile...so much has been going on.  My nephew Brady 16 came up and visited us during his spring break. He fell for a girl online last summer and finally got to meet her in person. They like each other even more now.   If you click on the pictures they blow up.

  Dave and the girls have all had their birthdays in March and April.  Carina turned 19 and Heather hit the big one of 21 ! and I have some great and funny pictures of both birthdays I just need to get them down loaded, I think they may have been down loaded to a different computer.  I'll post them here later. 

But here are a few of Dave's birthday.  We met with Dave Bickett, Connie and Jack, Lili and Brett, Jay and Karen for drinks at a bar in Kent that happened to have Karoke.  We got Dave to sing some and Brett and Lil sang a song and I sang one to Dave too.  Also the kids had a party for their Dad, Carina made a home made pie and I made tacos.

    Ben started to play basketball and we are very excited about that.  He is a beginner but he is catching on fast.  The puppy has been growing like a weed and he is about 5 and 1/2 months old now.  I think he is the size of our old female North Fawn when she was full grown and Shoebox isn't even a 1/2 year old yet.  We think he is going to get really big.  Here are a few of Shoebox growing from 10 wks old to 3 months old: My friend Robin is getting married this Saturday, I'm so happy for her.   I love weddings !  Oh and Dave and Carina went on a hike last weekend to Mt. Zion near Sequim and Dave sprang his ankle pretty bad.  So we have been having him soak his ankle.  Nancy talked me into trying Tai Chi for the first time this week.  Its not too hard and I think I will like it once I get used to it.

I finally got a picture of Shoebox in a shoe box, but he had grown so much I had to use a big shoe box (a mens size 12).

  

I found a website with lots of Gluten Free recipes called Gluten Free Recipe Exchange and here is their link:
http://www.gluten.net/recipes/index.php
They also have one of the best GF play dough recipes.

Also a really great site is
Karina's Kitchen - Recipes from a Gluten Free Goddess : http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/                                               

She cooks more like a Gourmet so I think that is why she is called a Gluten Free Goddess.
I've written about her in my GF groups before but doesn't hurt to post again for new members to the I Dream of Toast Group.   She has great info on her site about living Gluten Free on a tab at the top of her site and also on the side bar she has a post about cooking without sugar for you GF Diabetics that like to cook without sugar.   

Well its the morning of Fat Tuesday the day before Lent and Ash Wednesday.  I'm excited a couple of friends are coming over for dinner and drinks and hopefully a chocolate cake if it turns out.  I'm going to make Irish stew like my Grandma used to make, well a little different.  She would brown the meat in Crisco, vegetable oil and butter. It tasted sooo good, but I'm going to use Canola oil and a (tsp of butter at the end) darn cholestoral.  I wanted to make it special because Dave goes vegetarian for Lent.  I don't know what I'm going to do for Lent yet maybe not have any sweets would be a good one for me.

Here are a couple of websites below about Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras:

from Coolquiz.com

What is Fat Tuesday?

Fat Tuesday is Mardi Gras, the festival New Orleans, Louisiana, is famous for. "Gras" is French for fat and "Mardi" is French for Tuesday.

The annual festivities start on January 6, the Twelfth Night Feast of the Epiphany, when the three kings are supposed to have visited the Christ Child, and build to a climax on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which always occurs on the day before Ash Wednesday. The parties and parades will continue until Lent begins at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday.

Mardi Gras is a legal holiday in New Orleans. It is scheduled to occur 46 days before Easter. Since the actual date Easter occurs on changes yearly, Mardi Gras can happen on any Tuesday between February 3 and March 9.

For two centuries it has been an annual event in New Orleans, except during the two World Wars.

Mardi Gras

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mardi Gras (Also known as Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday)
Costumed musicians, French Quarter, New Orleans
Official name	Mardi Gras (French: "Fat Tuesday")
Also called	Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day, Dollar day
Type	Local, cultural, Catholic
Significance	Celebration prior to fasting season of Lent.

The terms "Mardi Gras" (mär`dē grä) and "Mardi Gras season",^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, ending on the day before Ash Wednesday. From the French term "Mardi Gras" (literally "Fat Tuesday"), the term has come to mean the whole period of activity related to those events, beyond just the single day, often called Mardi Gras Day or Fat Tuesday.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} The season can be designated by the year, as in "Mardi Gras 2008".^[6]

The time period varies from city to city, as some traditions consider Mardi Gras as the Carnival period between Epiphany or Twelfth Night and Ash Wednesday.^[7] Others treat the final three-day period as being Mardi Gras.^[8] In Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras events begin in November, followed by mystic society balls on Thanksgiving,^[7][9] then New Year's Eve, formerly with parades on New Year's Day, followed by parades and balls in January & February, celebrating up to midnight before Ash Wednesday.^[7]

Other cities most famous for their Mardi Gras celebrations include Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Many other places have important Mardi Gras celebrations as well.

Carnival is an important celebration in most of Europe, except in Ireland and the United Kingdom where the festival is called "shrovetide" ending on Shrove Tuesday, and pancakes are the tradition, and also in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

  

Ben made dinner for us a couple of Saturdays ago.  I made a new schedule to try out and get everyone helping a little more and its fun to have the kids in the kitchen. 

Ben made Chili with cheese and onions, and his favorite salad.  He was inspired by the Caesar salad they make at his school.  He likes to chop it up small and mix the dressing and parmesan together and then add it to the greens and then toss it.  He was so proud to make us dinner.  It tasted delicious!

I made a smilebox scrapbook-postcard for her.  If you click on the pictures in smilebox it will blow up bigger into the larger screen.

It has almost been 2 years since Carina's last dog, North Fawn, passed away in Spring of 2007.  Carina is ready for a new puppy, finally.  We went to Puyallup last week through the rain and flooding so Carina could choose her new puppy.  She has been looking for awhile and wanted to save up and plan to have everything ready.  So she decided to pick a Brindle color pup this time and a male, actually she got the pick of the litter and he is the biggest pup!  North Fawn was the runt of the litter and a female, she was the sweetest dog and very lovey, but was very sick from the beginning.  I didn't check the breeder out and it was too late by the time we had her vet checked a week later, we couldn't return her mostly because the kids fell in love with her.  She had a terrible heart murmur.  This time Carina was very picky and asked a lot of questions and found great breeders, Brandy and Kevin.  The Boxer parents are from different states and are very healthy.  What tipped the scale was when she saw the you tube video of the pups Brandy sent her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OmgMyjHHEU
 

The puppy just loved Carina and kept going to her to pick him up.  We got to meet the Dad, he was huge, probably double the size of what North Fawn was, and the mom Zoey is larger than North Fawn too.  She is going to pick him up in February around the 13th.  She has picked a cute name for him, Shoebox.  I made a smilebox scrapbook-postcard for her.  If you click on the pictures in smilebox it will blow up bigger into the larger screen.

! The Biggest Loser Message Board is Ripping Hot over the 1st show of Season 7 !!! Over 42,000 Comments ! I have a theory of why the twist.....

Sunday, January 11th, 2009, 3:35 am

Wow the BL message board comments (over 45,000+ ) are mostly ranting about the Season 7 opener on Monday January 6th, 2008.  The surprise twist at the weigh in was that 9 players had to leave.  One from each team that didn't make it above the yellow line. What a shocker and the reason everyone is upset, even looked like the trainers were upset too, was that they were the biggest and most unhealthiest players they had on.  The trainers eyes were popping when they saw them working out by themselves the first time.  

I had actually sent in an audition tape with my friend Anna and we didn't make the show but I was sorta thinking OMGosh I'm kinda happy I didn't make this season it looked pretty hard and then not to be able to stay after the first week, would've been devastating.  Anna was at her work that night and couldn't watch the show but I was texting her the blow by blow of the show.  

 I realize the idea is that 4 of the players will be able to come back if their team mate is still there after 30 days and its supposed to motivate us at home to see its possible to do on our own. 

Some of the players didn't seem that upset to be leaving. Watch this web exclusive video (1 min.) of players confessions of how hard the work outs were, one said she was getting a cramp in her armpits!

But what I'm thinking and wondering whats really going on is that maybe a lot them were wanting to quit or leave and instead the producers came up with this idea and asked them to wait till the weigh in and then they could decide but then the producer gave them an out with the twist ... Because it doesn't make sense to have a couples season with 9 people without a partner on week 2. What do you think?

 So if you are wondering there are two couples teams that didn't have to send a player home. The one who won the weekly Challenge which if I remember correctly that was the black team and the other team was the last 2 guys to weigh in, the brown team.  

Looking forward to the next show, hope all of you who are upset come back and keep watching, there are things going on behind the scenes we don't see.  Like did they really send them home or is there another trainer, training them all in the next city over...maybe they didn't go home. 

Have a Great Week,

Nite Owl Mama

ps.   For Bonus scenes click on this link  http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser/video/categories/bonus-scenes/915937/

If you missed the show check out:

http://www.hulu.com/videos/search?query=The Biggest Loser   New episodes are posted seven days after their initial TV broadcast. They're available on Hulu for nine days once posted.  They also have some web exclusive clips too.