What's better than a s'more?

 

A BIG MAC S'MORE!

 

A visit

On his way across the country, my brother stopped to see us.  We made sure that when he hit the road he had some Buckeyes and Fry Pies. 

Here's our Dickersons-by-the-car photo!

Cheese Road Trip

Nashville

We were very excited to see Greg's family!  They treated us to lots of fun, sight seeing and some amazing food!  Greg's brother got us both Nashville Hot Chicken AND fantastic BBQ! 

Even though none of their ages line up, the 6 of them get along great!

Statue commemorating Tennessee's help in getting the 19th amendment passed.

We also visited the Civil War sight, Fort Negle.  There were beautiful views of the city!   This is not our first visit to a Civil War sight together. 

 

 

 

They watched some musicals.

Hung out and played a lot. 

And of course there was Ukulele. 

We brought a puzzle to win of one cousin, fancy butter to win over another cousin, and various root beer and sodas to win over everyone else.

It was tough to say good bye!

More Bread

On one of our snow days I asked the kiddos to try something new.  Parker combined my challenge and a homework assignment for his Spanish class.  He made Dia de los Muertos or Pan de Muertos or Day of the Dead bread. 

It's traditional for Nov.1 & 2, but when we need yummy bread and we're stuck inside who cares what day it is!

He made an orange glaze that was amazing. 

It went very fast. 

 

Thanksgiving Weekend

 We kept it pretty simple and yummy.

Yoda made apple pie, Mimi made chocolate meringue pie, and Parker made 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. 

Greg made the turkey in our countertop turkey roaster, it's great because it frees up the oven!  We have it sitting here at Yoda's remote learning desk.  Greg did a fresh, local, fancy turkey, with a wet brine.   I made or assisted making the sides, we split the work on the gravy and I bought the rolls.  At the last minute Greg saw the white potatoes that I bought on a whim and he went for it. 

Apples and Peaches

We went to our favorite fruit picking place and came home with so much produce, it's been hard to eat it all.  

We've made: apple sauce, apple slump, peach syrup, peach cobbler, apple coffee cake, apple turnovers, pork chops with cinnamon apples, and probably something else that I can't think of since I'm all jittery from all the sugar :)
 

 

All the bread

French bread 

 With the help of my sister-in-law, I made a sour dough starter and made sour dough. 

I used part of the starter for crumpets! 

 This was my most successful whole wheat bread ever.

Cinnamon Roll Bread.  I need to try this one again to try to get it right. 

And as I blogged about before, I made English muffins and Artisan bread.  hmmm, what's next?!

Easter

Like most people, we kept Easter pretty calm.  Lots of video chatting, candy and like some of our neighbors, we grilled.  (We could smell it all over the neighborhood)

Inside

On the first day of social distancing, it snowed.  We made a list of goals to keep ourselves busy. (We're counting March 14th as the first day.)

There are oodles of lists out there of things to do to keep from going nuts.  One thing we saw was to learn something as a family.  For Mimi's birthday Sonya gave her a puzzle with pictures and this big sheet of bios of great American Sufferists.  (She already did the puzzle long ago.)  So each day we are reading about 2 of them.  It's been pretty interesting!  That should get us through about 3 weeks.  

Another day, this was the bread aisle, so I made bread. It kinda rose funny in the oven and exploded from underneath. Eek!

Thanksgiving Report

Tuesday: We washed some clothes and threw them in a bag.  Then we picked up each kid from school and drove off to NYC and NJ for Thanksgiving!

Wednesday: We ate our way around NYC. 

First Bagels by my sister's house.

  Then Cronuts.

 Amazing Pizza after a walk on the Highline

Then some Portuguese Pasteis de Nata

Later that night we had Chicken here, no photos though

Last was dessert ;) at the Milk Bar.  I can't find the photos from there, I'll get them in a bit...

 Greg and Parker had fancy ice cream, but Yoda, Mimi, Sonya and I custom designed our fancy cookie.  We were so full we waited until the next day to eat while we drove to NJ and my other sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. 

 

 On the Highline

 

 Then Sonya lead us to see the Macy's Day Balloons being filled.  Can you see them in the back? 

Here's a few more close up...

 This one was the one Parker was most excited about but it was still flat!

DragonBallZ!

 Thursday: Yoda, Sonya and I thought we'd seen enough of the parade so we decided to stay at Sonya's to bake, pack, Yoda got to play with his new birthday Legos from Sonya.

 Mimi and Parker were rewarded with free swag from Netflix for going to the parade early in the morning with Greg. 

 Green Eggs and Ham! 

 By some miracle we had wonderful clear roads for our trip to NJ!

 The kiddos had lots of fun with cousin H and her new dog. 

 We went on a long walk after dinner. 

 I have another photo with everyone, I'll get to that...
UPDATE:
Here it is!

That night we drove all the way home so that Parker could work on Black Friday.  Phew!  What an awesome trip, so happy we could see family :)