"You are the best Mom I ever had! You let us do something I always dreamed of!"
Okay, so any words that I may have to offer about today's big surprise for my kiddos would pale in comparison to Mikayla's praise on the way home today. I can't wipe the grin off my face. What a day! And I'm not the only one around here that should be earning super cool parent points, wait 'til I tell you about what Grant did!
But back to the beginning...
This morning while I put together the quintessential recipe from Campbell's,
Green Bean Casserole, the kids tackled this week's "We've Been There" State. Grant and I actually have both been to The Garden State (I actually thought about going to college in Jersey City!) so it was nice to put some stickers on a state this time. As you'll see from the pictures thought, we may have to rethink the map thing... Oh, I also put together tonight's dessert - Oreo Fluff! This is something pretty much of my own creation (honestly, I don't think I can claim credit for it, seems like a 'duh' kind of thing to me in a lot of ways, hehe)
Nabisco (who owns Oreo) is was founded in and headquartered in
East Hanover, so I wanted to get at least one recipe in this week tied to there. My family begs for this and honestly, it's just Cool Whip mixed together with a bunch of pulverized oreos. I'm a huge fan on using the mint oreos. It's best if it chills for awhile and you have some bigger cookie chunks in it. It's the little things some days...
Then it was off on our adventures. First stop was Busch's to track down an ingredient for tonight's dinner a
Pork Roll Sandwich. This is a straight up Jersey specialty apparently, including the actual type of 'pork roll' that should be used a
Taylor Pork Roll. The past few days I have looked EVERYWHERE. I have talked to lots of meat counters, trooped in and out of stores to no avail. And my research shows that an authentic
Jersey pork roll is very specific. I tried! We did our best. I had researched last night for an 'acceptable' substitute and settled on Canadian Bacon when all was said and done. So while tonight's dinner wasn't authentic Jersey, it was the thought (and lots of effort) that counts. Right?
So after no luck we headed off to the library so they could pick their free book from the book fair for finishing their summer reading. Then to continue to cash in on the freebies we stopped by the bakery to get their free cookie or cupcake. We tried one more grocery store (struck out again) then it was off to...
Meet a Tiger!
We headed up to ABC Warehouse and actually got to meet Tigers Catcher Brian Holaday! There were hot dogs, pizza, Paws (the Tigers mascot) and an autograph session. He was so nice to both kiddos (Mikayla even diligently spelled her name for him) and they were over the moon. But that's not all...
We met another Tiger!
We raced across town to Miejer where utility player and all around super nice guy Don Kelly was signing autographs for the first 200 people there. We made it! And he, again, was SO nice to the kids - asking them if they liked being brother and sister, how old they were, telling them about his kids. Have I mentioned that I can't stop grinning? Hours later and all of us are still over the moon. Hence the comment I opened with :)
This afternoon, in a tribute to
Campbell's, the kiddos colored the iconic tomato soup can
a la Andy Warhol. They actually got into this much more than I expected (a 40 minute coloring project is a rare event around here) and I love what they came up with - especially Noah!
After dinner it was time for Grant to shine as 'super parent' :) As I've mentioned the past couple of days, one of the most noteworthy claims to fame for New Jersey is playing host to
"The Wizard of Menlo Park", Thomas Edison, when he created many of his most famous inventions, including the light bulb that we played with yesterday (wasn't that fun??) and what Grant set out to recreate tonight (
using this as a starting place), the phonograph! The kids and I actually went and found a record the other day in anticipation of this and last night Grant gave it a test run. He put on quite the show tonight and amazed both of the kiddos as you'll see below. Super Dad!
I've been looking forward to tomorrow all week as I've got something super fun planned (as if today wasn't quite enough) and if you go back to Monday's blog, you may be able to narrow it down based on what we haven't highlighted yet. (and no, we're not going to be making our own pharmaceuticals) I know the kids will be excited. And I plan on spending the day tackling the laundry and getting packing since we leave on Friday morning (I hope) So until then...
New Jersey Fun Fact of the Day:
New Jersey is completely surrounded by water except for about 40 miles along the NY border.
Working on the "We've Been There" state
Grant and I have been!
May not have been the best planning on my part considering where the state falls on the wall
hmmmmm
Book choices at the Book Fair
Treat break
Hot Dogs while waiting in line
It's Paws!
Gordon, Nolan and Morgan met us at both signings - all the kids were such troopers!
Meeting Paws (with Noah's mini version on him)
Ready to meet Mr. Holladay
Talking and signing
Mikayla spelling her name for him
Think he was excited?
We met a Tiger!
Grabbed pizza on our way out and we were off to see Don Kelly!
We got our wristbands
Meijer was giving away snacks, too.
Meeting ANOTHER Tiger!
Don Kelly was SO nice to them
2 Tigers, 2 locations, 2 VERY happy kiddos
They even got some fun stuff from both radio stations sponsoring the events
Totally did it!
Working on the Campbell's soup cans
They had a visual just in case
Noah's finished can
The Bean was still working
Adore her
Green Bean Casserole
Not a Pork Roll at all, but it was in its honor tonight :-p
Oreo Fluff!
A explanation as to how a phonograph works
Making their cones
Putting on the needle
Trying it out
Each of the kids got to try it out with their own cone, too
