Cool Cucumber

Last week Rob surprised me with a trip to Denver to see a 3D Imax movie that he knew I would enjoy. U23D! I had never even heard of it, which made it even more exciting. Having been to three U2 concerts before, it felt as if I had a front-row seat the whole time. The only odd part was the quiet of the theater; several spots in the film were so moving and the on-screen crowd was so excited that it felt only natural to cheer or sing along. We had a fun time at the theater with our groovy 3D glasses on, too. I have such a fun husband!

Then today, for a late Valentine’s treat, I made my first apple pie ever for my sweetie! I think I made a pumpkin pie once last year, but it was from a store-bought crust and pumpkin from a can. I made the entire pie today from scratch, including the crust, which was very scary when it started to tear as I put on the top crust. In fact, I had never done a top crust before and had to look up what “vent slits” looked like in my Joy of Cooking.

Here’s the pie just before I put slits in it:

(I just noticed that this photo includes the box of “Live Crickets!” for our class toads at school… and no, that wasn’t what I filled the pie with!)

Here’s the pie just out of the oven (the house smelled heavenly by this point and the apple juices were bubbling out of the vent slits):

It’s pretty on the inside too! This photo was taken to showcase the pie plate that it was baked in. My mom bought this for me as a gift for Christmas, knowing that I loved some of the Polish pottery she has. She has an identical pie plate, making me even more proud to make a pie in this one!

I had a lot of fun making my first pie from scratch and I would recommend it to anyone who has President’s Day off.

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Rob and I are sitting here watching Earth: The Power of the Planet, a BBC program that’s relatively new. Ohmygoodness-wow, this is the greatest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Lots of people have gotten excited lately about the Planet Earth series, but personally, I’m way more into this history-of-our-planet series than the animals-on-earth angle.

Here’s a neat clip that totally blew my mind!

Between the computer-generated simulations of the movements inside the earth and the amazing camera-work of spectacular places like under the oceans and the heights of the Himalayan mountains, I am simply amazed by the the quality of this series. Check it out if you can!

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This boy is a student of mine!

(Photo by Bob Breidenbach - The Providence Journal)

Brock was chosen to be a kid’s reporter for Scholastic News at the Superbowl.  There are all sorts of articles on the web about him today.  Here’s a neat story (though I’m not the teacher who wanted the autographs that he mentions).

What a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a great kid!

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Rob and I had never played Scrabble together until January 1st of this year. We had the whole day off and I suggested we play for fun (I had an old version that I’d picked up at a garage sale). That was the day that the addiction began.

Since then, not a day goes by that Rob doesn’t ask me, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”, to which I reply… “Scrabble?”. Recently, we’ve had to set a timer because otherwise we get lost in the game and nothing gets done around the house the day.

We began to realize that the old version was hard to play with because the tiles easily slid off the warped board. We also wanted to be able to set it aside and resume the game later without having to painstakingly remove it from our dining room table, covering it with books so our crazy cat wouldn’t steal the tiles and chew them.

So we found a Scrabble Deluxe set on eBay and ordered it. It came with a beautiful game board with recessed grid spaces for the tiles, a two-minute timer, and a bag to store the tiles. I think it’s so pretty!

We’ve also been very proud to see our skills increase. Here’s the game we played this morning:

And here’s our score sheet- an all-time high score for me! (Sorry, sweetie…)

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