Oregon Vaughns

I’ve learned to make some new foods this year, that I couldn’t make in the past. Here they are:

• Guacamole
• Fried Chicken
• Fish and Chips (sans-chips)
• Egg, Tomato, Provolone & Basil Sandwiches
• Sweet Potato Fries

Guacamole

Ingredients: 2 cloves garlic, 1 fresh whole tomato, 2 avocados, 1 tablespoon lime juice, 2 tsp salt.

Process: Finely mince garlic. Dice tomatos. Slice avocados into baby-finger sized chunks. Mix together with fork, including the tomato juiciness, smooshing avocados in the process. Add salt and lime juice, mix until smooth. Serve with corn chips or other good foods.

Fried Chicken

Ingredients: 12 pieces chicken leg or thinly-sliced breast, 3 cups apple juice, 1 cup water, 4 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp cinnamon, 2 eggs, 1 tbsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp black pepper, 1/2 cup corn starch, 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups canola oil, 2 paper bags.

Process: Brine the chicken in the apple juice, cinnamon, salt, and water for 30-45 minutes. Mix egg, cayenne pepper, and black pepper together in bowl. Fill double-layered paper bag with corn starch and flour. Heat oil over medium-high heat in large pot. After brine, dip each piece of chicken into egg mix, and place in paper bag. Shake the paper bag until the flour/starch mix covers each piece. Progressively, place each piece in the pot, and fry for approximately 5-7 minutes each piece, depending on thickness of meat. After fry, let each piece rest on paper towels to let excess oil run off. Eat with glee.

More to come…
*Disclaimer: I am not a chef, nor claim to be. Use the recipes with caution and joy

Lily likes to close herself between the Screen Door and the Front Door.  There is obviously little-to-no space in between those two things.  She cannot close the door, but she tries!

Wednesday Night, 8:24pm: Dropped off Lily at Grandma and Grandpa’s for an hour break.  Andy and I came down to Borders to play on our computers.  Oh, how I miss the days of sitting at Borders, pregnant with Lily, wondering all about her…  Oh yeah — and how I miss watching that couple I used to stalk *you know, that couple having the affair???  Whatever happened to them?  Aren’t you curious?

I posted those photos first, Andy Vaughn.  You posted them after I did.  Therefore, they rightfully belong in my post.

This weekend, we went to Newport to play in the sand and eat some bad fish. We didn’t intend to eat bad fish. In fact, when we ordered it, we still thought we were going to get good fish. But, World Famous Mo’s failed to deliver. We received something that looked more like it belonged at Shmo’s Happy Hut of Horrors. The clam chowder was runny and thin, the “chicken nuggets” that were on the kid’s menu for Lily were re-heated frozen chunks-o-chick’n, and our cod (in the fish and chips) was not worth ordering again. The only redeeming element to the experience was the waitress, whom succeeded in cheering up an ever-curious Lily with a toy shark. Bonus points, but the total still ran negative. Sorry, Mo’s.

(The look on Lily’s Face says it all)

Lily’s big kick of the trip was seeing the sea lions down at the harbor. The last couple of days, she has intermittently yelped out with “awh awha awh awha” emulating sea lions, followed by “shh” because some of them were sleeping.

In the picture, you will notice that some of the sea lions are on a float with a metal cage. That is there for their safety, as it helps the state wild-life officials in assisting them when they get caught in ocean debris.

I titled this post Mmmwa!, since that is the sound that she makes when kissing you. It’s my favorite good-night ritual she has of-late; a loving snog before bed.

Another one of my favorite habits she has is that when swinging, Lily cranes her neck back with joy and guffaws at the upside-down world. Although, earlier today, I found trappings from a meal, hidden in her neck folds – only exposed at the crescendo of one of these laugh-capades. Oh blissful joy, uncleanliness joy.

On Saturday, Andy, Lily and I took a quick trip to the beach.  It was cold (but not rainy).  That did not keep us from playing in the sand!

After a cold/damp time at the beach, we headed to Mo’s for lunch.  I was actually very disappointed by the food — seemed to have gone down hill.

We had a great family day all-in-all.

Lily loves to wear Daddy’s “eyes” as well as his watch:

With Mommy tutoring and teaching and Daddy working on his new software company, someone had to pick up the slack around here:

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YouTube DirektLily Working

Happy 17 Months to the best girl ever.  I cannot believe it has been 17 months already… However, I can also not believe that she is only 17 months old!!! She seems so much older some days.  Wow.  I am in shock.

So, all about Lily… Here comes some info:

• Words include:  Cheese, shoes, Mama, Dada, Bob-bob (grandpa), Nana, “Stacey”, home, help, cat, hat, apple, “thank you”, “get you”, LaLa (Isabella), NO, broom, up, down, blue, balloon, bottle or baba…  I am sure there are some more.  Oh, not to forget “Poop”.
• She loves to sing songs: “Wheels on the Bus” and “Shake Your Sillies Out”
• She loves to go on walks to the park.
• Cheese is probably her favorite food.
• She likes to go for hikes in her Kelty Back-pack carrier (Andy carried her all the way up Bald Hill the other day on our hike!!)
• She gives good kisses now and makes sound effects while she does
• She still sleeps really well through the night (sometimes I just wish she would sleep in a little longer).

I cannot think of what else to put.  Of course there are thousands of things that Andy and I obsess about every day.  She loves being around people — friends and family.  She brings joy to all.

What has happened since my last post?  Lily and Andy each spent about 4-5 days with what we think was the Norwalk Virus (vomiting and such).  Somehow, it went right past me and I never got it.

Lily is now making up for the days of no appetite by eating everything in sight.  Today, for breakfast, she ate: 3 bananas, 2 loaves of bread, 3 dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and a handful of goldfish crackers…. It was something like that.  She has a huge appetite for cheese, avocados, crackers, you name it.

On her first day of being healthy, she burped over my computer… Thinking she was going to throw up on it, I freaked out a little and reacted very quickly.  Realizing there was no throw up coming, we both had a good laugh.  The problem?  She now thinks that pretending to throw up is very funny.  It is pretty cute, but Andy gets mad when I encourage it

Lily and I enjoy going to story time at the public library.  Sometimes Auntie Shauna joins us and sometimes we see my friend Abby and her kids.  Lily definitely needs more socializing time with kids her own age.

There is probably much more to write about.  I will post an update just about Lily’s new doings later tonight… Not that I think everyone is entirely interested in the fact that her favorite word is “poop” and she is obsessed with string cheese, but I think that it is just fun to document so that we can all look back later (especially Lily).

I will leave you with some photos:

Taken a few days before Chinese New Year… I gave Lily a “Pocky” to eat (a small chocolate covered stick):

Taken today at story time.  This is the face Lily will make if you ask her to make “funny eyes”:

Lily with Abby’s daughter, Bella, at story time: