The Search for Miss Direction: Muppets + Pancakes = One Awesome Sunday

If you remember my brief mention of it, on Friday Noah officially earned his last 'bee in the bucket' to fill has bee chart at school. We were so excited that we decided it earned a big treat - a trip to the movies! So today we headed out to see the new Muppet Movie after anticipating it since we first saw the previews what seems like forever ago. I am a HUGE Muppet fan so I think this ended up being quite the treat for all of us. As a bonus, we were able to meet up with my parents half way between here in Fremont (roughly) in Monroe since they were going to be in Toledo for bowling tonight, anyway. So Muppets and Grandma and Papa time - dude how cool! We all enjoyed the movie and I will probably be purchasing the soundtrack in the VERY near future. As a HUGE bonus the theater we went to as of Friday just upgraded all of its seating. We had giant recliners to enjoy the show in! No joke, both the kids and I could have sat in mine together comfortably. Grant and I agreed that it would be worth taking the trip back to Monroe just to go to that theater again.

Before we headed out to the movie, though we had a full morning. It started out with some yummy cinnamon toast (had to use up the rest of that whole wheat bread somehow! If you're in need of an awesome recipe for cinnamon toast that I guarantee will have your whole house smelling yummy check out this post from The Pioneer Woman. I stumbled across this a year or so ago and trust me, go with #4!). Then we took down Kansas, put up the pictures for Idaho so we'll be ready tomorrow and I then surprised them with their Kansas pop quiz which they passed with flying colors.

After that, we had received some mail yesterday I thought they would be interested in. My friend from MOPS, Jenny, had a friend, Kelly, who was going to be moving to New Mexico and would be able to help us out with mail from there. Well, their move was delayed a bit and just in the past week or so Kelly and her family arrived in Albuquerque. During their move and upon their arrival they gathered materials to send to Noah and Mikayla and mailed it to us. The note they included even said that gathering materials had helped them learn about their new home and get excited about living there. We really enjoyed everything they sent and hope that Kelly and her family transition smoothly into the "Land of Enchantment!" How kind of them to take time out of such a hectic transition to help out complete strangers! Yet again this project of ours has made me realize how kind and caring people can really be.

After exploring New Mexico again, we went for a walk to Walgreens to earn the 'prize' from acing their pop quiz - a treat for the movies! Any guesses on the candy choices below who went with what?

Then off to the movies, time with Grandma and Papa before heading back home for the evening for one last Kansas adventure.

I had to round out Kansas week with one more nod to an important culinary creation; the pancake. And to make them truly Kansas pancakes, I found a great recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Pancakes. An important staple to settlers on the prairie as they were composed of easily stored and readily available ingredients, Kansans don't mess around with pancakes. In fact, they feel so strong about them they have a whole Pancake Day devoted to them in Liberal, Kansas. Complete with, and no, I'm not joking, a race! According to their website: "The friendly little competition between Liberal, Kansas, and Olney, England, with women running down the streets of each town flipping pancakes, has been going on for more than 60 years now. It is still the only race of its kind on the planet." And why would people do something like this, you ask? Well as the legend goes... In Olney, England, the Pancake Race tradition dates back more than 500 years to 1445. A woman engrossed in using up cooking fats (forbidden during Lent) was making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf (required in church) and ran to the church, skillet and pancake in hand and still apron-clad. In following years, neighbors got into the act and it became a race to see who could reach the church first.

After I heard about this, how could we not have pancakes one night? I mean honestly, it took everything I had to hold back and not stage our own race. Just kidding. (Mostly)

But anyway, whole wheat pancakes here tonight! You can't go wrong serving my crew breakfast for dinner and everyone loved these pancakes as they were super light and fluffy. I think we can officially consider Kansas sufficiently celebrated this week!

So tomorrow we're on to Idaho! It's yet another busy week at the Gatchel's so stay tuned to see what we're up to next. Idaho wall tomorrow, a potato or two and otherwise the first NORMAL school week (God willing, I refuse to hear any more about snow!) in a long time. So until then...

Kansas Fun Fact of the Day: Kansas won the award for most beautiful license plate for the wheat plate design issued in 1981. (You can check it out here)