September 1st, 2010
Last Saturday, we took our son to go to the Annual Balloons and Tunes Festival at Beulah Park in Grove City. Grove City is located in the south side of Columbus, about 40 minutes away from our house. This would be the first time we went there and I was pretty excited to go. I really wanted to ride a tethered hot air balloon. Yes, I imagined I would be scared to death flying across town with a hot air balloon. So I settled with a tethered balloon. I didn’t think my son would want to ride it considering he’s pretty timid. But who knows?
We arrived there at dusk, a little late than what we planned since we got stuck chatting with our neighbor. I was so worried that we didn’t get a chance to enjoy the festival. We still had plenty of time to enjoy the festival, checking out some balloons, taking pictures, and enjoy the kids activities. They had lots of inflatables, food, live music. My son was extremely excited looking at those colorful balloons. However as we got closer to the balloon, he got really scared by the torch. I knew that was going to happen. We couldn’t ride the balloon anyway since it was getting too dark and they wouldn’t allow us. The weather was so perfect, which made us pretty happy about the fact that we got there late.
Once it got dark, everybody gathered around the field to see the balloons being lighted up. I didn’t realize it was extremely hard to make all 20 balloons to be lighted up at the same time. In fact, there were always a few that didn’t lighted up, or got lighted after other balloons were out.
Grove City holds this event every year and I highly recommend it. Admission is free and you only pay $5 parking. For more information, visit http://www.grovecityohio.gov/.
August 30th, 2010
It was Saturday afternoon, I just woke up from my nap with this incredible thirst almost choking my throat. As I walked down the stairs, I heard my husband talking to a man with foreign accent in the kitchen. I was thinking…. this is Saturday afternoon. It can’t be some type of service guy because nothing is broken in our house. My husband also didn’t tell me that he’s expecting a company. Who is he talking to? When I walked into the kitchen, my husband introduced me to this young man with bleached blond hair. My husband said he’s here selling educational books. This young man is from Eastern Europe selling books with his broken English. He seems like a very nice guy, but I just don’t get it. I could feel a frown up on my forehead, since when we are having door to door salesman who actually walked inside our house?
This young man went on and on about the books. I wasn’t interested at all, especially after he said the whole set costs $400. Seriously, who in the right mind would possibly be buying these books? There are tons of books we can get from the library. School aged kids can also get these books for free.
After we told him that we’re not interested, he excused himself to use our powder room. I said to my husband, why did you even let him in? He said this is his second attempt to come to our house. The first one was when my husband came home from lunch and he was just about to go back to the office. When he opened the door, he actually thought it was his sister who was supposed to come to our house that afternoon.
After this young man got out of the powder room, we walked him out. We saw our next door neighbor in the backyard and went to see him to talk about this door to door selling. My neighbor didn’t even let this salesman in. He brought up some really good points:
- This salesman has made several attempts to come to our house, obviously he knows when we are or aren’t home
- The fact that Southwestern Books hired this poor Eastern European kid to sell books are just pathetic. They don’t know our school system, he doesn’t know that we can actually get these books for free. I hope to God he didn’t spend any money to buy initial inventory or anything like that to get started
- Door to door selling is just a big no no these days, both for the sales people and the homeowners safety. For the homeowners: you don’t know what kind of creeps you opened your door to. For the sales people, you don’t know what type of crazy people these homeowners are
Message to all my readers, don’t let anybody come inside your house no matter how nice these people look. These people might be genuinely nice but you’ll just never know. Besides, the whole system is just wrong. Unless you are boys/girls scout selling treats accompanied by your folks, I welcome you at my doorstep. Anybody else, no solicitation!!!
August 29th, 2010
Nothing is better than a homemade meatballs for our toddler. It’s healthier than those frozen processed meatballs, more delicious, and you can make it into tiny meatballs that fits into those tiny mouths. My son likes to eat meatballs dry without mixing it with spaghetti or thick Swedish sauce. So here’s my creation:
Ingredients:
- 1 lbs lean ground beef
- 1 medium size onion
- 1 cup of Italian breadcrumb
- 1/4 cup of KC Masterpiece Hickory Brown Sugar BBQ Sauce
- pinch of salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Mix all ingredient together
- Make little balls about walnut size
- Bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees
When cooking, I typically don’t use measurement. The best way to make sure you have the right taste is to make 1 tiny meatballs and heat it in the microwave until it’s cooked. Give it a try and add some more ingredients until you get the right taste. This meatball recipe is not only delicious, you can freeze it too. Serve it with homemade mac ‘n cheese, mix pasta, or even rice. Don’t forget to add a portion of steamed veggies to complete your child’s balance meal. Enjoy!
homemade meatballs with homemade mac 'n cheese, mix veggies & grapes. Yum!!
August 28th, 2010
Everybody knows I heart H & M. It’s chic, trendy, perfect for young women, and most importantly, very affordable. I put together a look that’s suitable for a date night, happy hour or simply weekend shopping.
August 26th, 2010
One of the hardest things of being a parent for me personally is watching what I say in front of my son. I have to be honest, my hubby and I cuss a lot! Not to each other of course, but we do have some serious road rage issue that we need to address.
This conversation happened just a few weeks ago during a fine evening dinner.
Son: “Old F***er”
I was about to fall off my chair when I heard him saying that.
Me: “Where did you hear that?”
Son (looking at me with his innocent eyes): “Daddy say that”
Me: “I will talk to daddy later, but you are not allowed to say that. Don’t ever say that to anybody, do you understand?”
Son: “Ok”
Right after I said that, my husband walked in.
Me talking to my son: “Tell daddy what you just said!”
My son didn’t want to repeat what he said earlier, all he said was “Daddy said that”. So I told my hubby what he did and told him to watch what he said. I was blaming him for this one since the “Old F***er” is his word when addressing people who drives very slowly. Although I do have some curse words too, just lucky enough that my son didn’t catch it yet.
I can’t imagine what’s going to happen if he ever say that word again in public, or even worse, in school. I would be in so much trouble. Oh what it takes to be a parent!
