Dinner

Grilled Veggie Pizza:

Ingredients 

1/2   frozen store-bought pizza dough
3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for grilling
6 ounce fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes cut crosswise
1   large red onion, thinly sliced
3   cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup pitted black olives (recommended: kalamata)
1   bunch arugula
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the dough on an oiled baking sheet. Stretch out the dough to form a rough rectangle almost the size of the baking sheet, about 9 by 13 inches. Lift the dough from the baking sheet, from 1 end and carefully place it on the grill. When the bottom is browned, around 3 to 5 minutes, using a tongs, turn the pizza crust over. Continue cooking for about 1 minute, or until the second side begins to brown. Using tongs move the crust to a cooler area of the gill and brush it with olive oil. Add half of the toppings, beginning with the mozzarella, then the tomato, red onion, garlic, olives, and capers. After 2 to 4 minutes, the cheese will be melted. Slide the pizza onto a baking sheet; place half of the arugula on top and season with salt and pepper.

Sunday

A perfect day for a bike ride.....

Phillies Game

Today wasn’t an average Thursday for Zoe. Nope, this lucky little girl got to ‘skip’ school and go to a Phillies game with her friend Cadence (& her parents).   When Cadence’s mom asked if she could take Zoe, I knew she would have to miss school. Shelli nor I don’t usually keep Zoe out of school for things like this HOWEVER, it’s a Phillies game and if you’re going to skip school, it might as well be for something like this – right?  Zoe pulled out her Phillies jersey, Phillies hat, and even insisted on baseball tattoos for her and Cadence. The girls looked adorable and were both very excited about their big day together.   This is Zoe’s second Phillies game. She went a few years ago with Shelli. Mommy is the only one who hasn’t been to a game yet. I hope to get to one sooner than later but for now, Z is not missing out on any opportunities!

Home At Last

Once again work travel calls and this time it's in Europe. I recently got back from a 14 day trip, first to France, then over to the UK via the Eurostar train. The Eurostar is a very fast very cool train that goes all over Europe and over to the UK via a tunnel under the English Channel.

Although the trip was pretty much all work, I did manage to get some site seeing in over the weekend when I was in Paris. Here are a few pics from the trip, it was nice to go, but the best part was getting home!

Phantom

A couple months ago, Shelli saw a flyer at the coffee shop that the local high school was going to be putting on Phantom. I told her to get tickets and we would surprise Zoe.  Zoe has a love for Broadway (like her parents) and I thought this would be right up her alley. If it were up to Z, she’d see a Broadway show once a month, heck so would we if it weren’t so expensive!

Zoe knew that today was the “big surprise” but she had no idea what it was.  All she knew was that it started with the letter P.  Zoe has been guessing ‘P’ things for the past several days, sure that the ‘P’ was the birthday party she was going to Saturday morning.  Of course it wasn’t, but we decided to throw her a bone at dinner tonight before the show.  We grabbed a napkin and set up a game of Hangman.  She knew the first letter was ‘P’, but she got down to the last guess and decided she would just look a the napkin while she was eating before she made her last guess.  About 5 minutes later we saw a big smile on her face and knew she’d figured out where we were going. To say she was excited was an understatement!

The play was phenomenal!  Zoe sat in the middle of Shelli and I, and was on the edge of her chair the entire time watching in complete awe. About act 5 Zoe turned to Shelli and was asked, ‘Is it almost over, I don’t want it to end!’  Shelli assured her there was a lot more to come.  Zoe sang all the songs and when her favorite song, “Masquerade” came up, she danced from her seat and mimicked the dance moves the kids were doing on stage. I never in a million years would of thought a high school play could be so amazing.  They pulled out all the stops and the production was just fantastic.  Between watching my daughter in full delight and watching the play, I’d have to say we had a magical night. 

Powder Puff Derby

This past weekend was the first running of the Girl Scouts PowderPuff Derby, which is the Girl Scout version of the Pinewood Derby that the Boy Scouts have been running for years.  It was a blast!  The instructions and rules said the girls had to create their cars all by themselves.  So when I left for my trip I'd told Zoe everything she needed to do while I was gone so her car would be ready.  I was really surprised when I saw her car, she did a really nice job on the paint and she'd sanded it several times, put the finish coat and had it all ready to go just like I'd asked.

We put some finishing touches on, and then were off to the weigh in.  We ended up having to add a few pennies on the car for some additional weight, but overall it came out pretty good.  There were 66 heats, which took a few hours to complete.  All the cars had to run on all 6 tracks, so it was a little exhausting for the younger girls, but all of them hung in there to the end.  Zoe's car didn't place higher than 3rd, but we had a blast.  Zoe had a really good time, and got a pretty cool badge to boot!

Adoption Day

Happy Adoption Day to the most amazing daughter in the whole wide world. We celebrated over a nice Italian dinner. Zoe has a new love for fettuccini alfredo. The restaurant made all their pasta and sauces from scratch and it was delicious. For dessert, blonde brownie with ice cream and fresh fruit. We could hardly move when we were done.

Garden

Spring is in the air and this year I wanted a little garden. I’m very fond of co-ops and farmer’s markets however this year I wanted to supplement with a small 4X4 raised garden in the backyard.

It was hard to choose what to grow but we settled on red peppers, yellow peppers, banana peppers, cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, romain lettuce, squash, and of course tomatoes; and a few herbs. Lets just hope the deer don’t get to them before we do!

Zoe was covered in dirt from head to toe but we had a blast every second of the way. She found about 5 earthworms in the soil and that just made her day.  Zoe was so worried Shelli was going to cut the worms in half with the shovel.  Zoe transplanted all the worms into the compost bin so they would be safe.  At the end of the day when all was said and done, I am so thrilled with the garden and cannot wait to see what happens. Shelli (even being jet lagged) helped make the garden beautiful.

Award

Today was yet another hectic day for this mommy! After finishing lunch duty I only had 45 minuets before having to head back to the school for Zoe's *Boomerang Award ceremony.  Zoe was nominated last year for the program Compassion category, and this year it was the award for Integrity; “Young person acts on his/her beliefs. Young person talks openly about what he/she believes in and values: they “talk the talk and walk the walk”

* The Boomerang Youth Recognition Award is a monthly program which recognizes and honors youth in our community for exemplifying and living by one of 9 chosen Developmental Assets (one asset for each month from Sept.-May). The 40 Developmental Assets are positive experiences, behaviors, and personal qualities that all youth need to possess, in order to be responsible, caring, and strong in the face of peer pressures and other life challenges.

We are so very proud of Zoe for getting this award. We may not be perfect parents, but at least our core values are being absorbed! Shelli was on a flight back from Europe so she was unable to make it however I cheered loud enough that I think Mimi heard us in the plane.

As if Zoe’s day couldn’t get much better….. Mimi got home!!

 

Run

Shelli has been out of town for almost 12 days on business. The last time she was gone this long was when she went to India. I’m convinced it was much easier to do these long stretches when Zoe was younger. These days, I can hardly keep up with the schedule. It’s been non-stop.

Zoe has recently signed up for a running program called irun4life that she does one day a week after school. (http://irun4life.com/ )At the end of this program, she will be running in a 3K. She has really enjoyed being in this program. Last weekend my baby and I grabbed breakfast out and went shoe shopping for brand new running shoes. She needed a shoe that was comfortable and would last. After trying on several pairs and running around the store to see which ones made her run the ‘fastest’ we decided on a pretty pair of Asics. She says they felt perfect and she knew those were the ones. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Shelli and I both have a pair that we use strictly at the gym for running. Either way, I think they are cute and we had a really good time shopping.

When Mimi is out of town working, she misses a lot of Z’s activities. Z knows the amount of days Shelli will be gone but, she always asks, “Will Mimi be here for so and so?”. I have to tell her no! She gets sad but only because she doesn’t want Mimi to miss out on anything. She always makes me take pictures to text or email Mimi. We like it better when she is somewhere domestic however, this time she is in France and the UK so the time change stinks!!!

We are looking forward to Mimi coming home safe and sound this weekend. It’s been a long trip and we are ready for her to get back!

Girl Scouts

Zoe joined Girl Scouts (Brownies) a couple months ago and she is really enjoying it. The group meets every other week for an hour. The first badge she earned was her “Fair Play badge”. That entailed playing games fairly, with sportsmanship, and including others in the games.

Today, she was invited by another troop to join them for her “Go Green” badge. I dropped her off at a local park and they learned about all kinds of animals, insects, and habitats. All the girls made cute bird houses and a pine cone with birdseed.

This was the first Brownie thing she did that wasn’t with her own troop. It was open to all Girl Scouts. I didn’t see many Brownies. Most of the girls were older, but Zoe didn’t think twice about hanging out with all of them – even though she didn’t know any of them. Three hours went by and it was time for me to pick her up and of course she didn’t want to leave. She was playing with all her ‘new’ friends. I was happy to see when I got there that a few of her troop girls ended up coming after all, so there were some familiar faces.

I remember being in Girl Scouts and having the time of my life. Now I get to re-live it and enjoy it through my daughter's eyes.

Food Drive

There are lots of things that Zoe’s school participates in throughout the year. They have dances, fairs, movie nights, coat drives, bake sales, raffles, and lots of other stuff. Zoe’s favorite for the past 2 years has been the food drive.

The notice came home Thursday in Zoe's backpack about the food drive and Zoe couldn’t wait to go to the grocery store to get all the goods listed for 2nd grade. This year the 2nd grade was asked to bring canned fruits and tomato products. Zoe wanted to make sure she got a variety of items for a family in need.

Zoe has always been very compassionate and I absolutely love that quality about her. We hope all the items Zoe so carefully selected will help a family in need!

Accent of the Arts

Tonight the 1^st and 2^nd grade classes put on a fantastic Accent on the Arts show. The theme was “Children of the World”. All the kids were told to dress in a costume that represented any country of their choice. Zoe was very excited to wear her Indian sari that Mimi bought her when she went to India a few years ago.