The Rest of the Week

I’m linking up with Conversion Diary again today.

My seven quick takes are pretty much all about what we’ve been doing this week with Grandma and Grandpa, in addition to the horseback riding and scavenger hunt that I’ve already posted about this week. That’s because I’m in the middle of nowhere and I have nothing else to talk about. But I do have a fabulous recipe for you that I’ve been meaning to share. So I’ll start with that.

1. Cauliflower crust pizza. Dee. Lish. Us. It is a great way to eat pizza if you don’t eat gluten or grains. You start by making cauli-rice (which itself is a good substitute for rice):

Then add a few ingredients to make it into a crust (recipe here).

Before baking the crust:

After:

It’s surprisingly easy, and my kids LOVE it. Get the recipe here. It really is good. You can even pick up a slice and eat it like regular pizza.

One tip – Don’t skimp on the step that stresses that you must get as much water out of the cauli-rice as possible before mixing in the other ingredients. I wrap it in a towel and squeeze the heck out of that stuff and still end up pressing a paper towel on it after shaping it into a crust (but before baking) to get out as much moisture as possible.

Try it. You’ll like it.

2. Okay, here’s where I’ll get into telling you all about what else we’ve been doing with G&G.

Swimming:

This pool sits on a hill in my parents’ yard. One corner of it has no water. The opposite one, the “deep end,” has only about 8 inches. Still, you’d think it was the best thing ever.

3. Another visit to the local nature center. This time we got to see all the animals.

The snakes were still the favorite though.

My big girls both chose $2 rubber snakes as their souvenirs. They have been sleeping with them. Are my kids the only ones who like to sleep with fake rubbery snake toys?

Lass has even named a new snake species for hers – “Jumping, Flying, Camouflage Snake.”

4. The beach:

Chasing butterflies:

The beach was awesome until a work crew of half a dozen adolescent boys showed up on their lunch break and decided to go for a swim. In their underwear.

We got out of the water at that point, but we had already had a great morning.

5. I was just informing my husband that we are going out to dinner tonight with my parents and the girls. The conversation went like this:

Me: “We’re going out to dinner again tonight”

Him: “Okay.”

Me: “We’re going to try to get there at about 5, because it’s a sit down place where they bring food.”

Him: “You mean a restaurant?”

Ah motherhood, where every conversation is affected by thoughts of your kids and you feel the need to clarify that the eating establishment you will be attending has wait staff who will bring the food to you instead of a buffet or order-at-the-counter arrangement.

6. Because you know you were dying to see pics of our parade yesterday:

7. And the grand finale:

My parents have some friends who were kind enough to invite us to watch the fireworks at their great lakefront house, which just happens to be right across the bay from the spot where they launch the show.

No battling traffic. No porta potties. No crowds. Nice.

They even had some pre-show home fireworks in the yard.

We tried to catch some fireflies, but it was too windy. We could only see them in the woods, and it was too freaking dark for me to go very far into the woods, even for fireflies for my kids. Plus Lass heard a boom from some fireworks and she turned around and took off running willy nilly into the dark and toward the water, so we had to abandon Operation Firefly promptly.

But the girls forgot all about the fireflies when the big fireworks started.

Have a great holiday weekend.