After being inspired by Cathy’s story about teaching her children to snowboard, I took my kids to Wintergreen for the last snow of the year and their first adventure in snowboarding.

One of the tips Cathy gave me was the importance of kids wearing helmets when they are snowboarding.  A doctor friend had told her that he could fix broken arms and broken legs but a head injury was a whole different matter.  Cathy let me know that the regular snowboard rental fee didn’t cover helmets, but that I could rent them from the resort. I thought I would save a bit of money and bring the children’s skateboarding helmets for them to wear, instead.   But as I was headed out the door my husband said that we should rent the helmets from the ski shop.  Boy was he right.

I now have a much better understanding of why different sports have different helmets.   The snowboarding helmet looks a bit like a motorcycle helmet. It fits snugly to the head and has a protective part that comes down around to cover the ears.  The back of the helmet is lower on the head and the front comes down to just above the eyebrows.  A skateboard helmet sits on top of the head, a bit like a bowl. A friend told me that a skateboard helmet should fit firmly enough to have a child lean over and have the helmet stay on – even when the chinstrap is not tightened.

Towards the end of our snowboarding day, my son was feeling more confident than his new skills allowed and he lost control, heading really fast down the slope.  He slammed into a wooden fence hitting his board first and then his head.  After the ski patrol had looked him over and sent him on his way, I saw the gash the fence had left in the very front of his helmet.  Had he not been wearing the snowboarding helmet, I would have met the ski patrol at the hospital.

I now fully appreciate that a snowboard helmet is for snowboarding and a skateboard helmet is for skateboarding.  The right equipment for the right sport!

My kids had been given kites for their birthdays over the years. We have quite a collection, but I admit that we have never really flown them. That is until now. All it took was one windy day, a nearby field, two kids and four kites and we had our own kite-flying day.

Now, this could also have been a tearing-streaming-down-the-face day, but luckily it wasn’t. Well it almost was when my daughter held up her beautiful box kite to take a good look down the center pole. That’s when the wind moved the kite and it poked the center pole right into her eye.  She wasn’t hurt at all and actually laughed at herself.  I was so glad, because I never saw that potential injury coming.

All in all it was a fun day. And if you are wondering why four kites. I thought if it wasn’t fun we would surely lose one or two and then…. ta da, all the kites would be gone. But instead, the kites came home with us to be enjoyed another day.  Maybe we’ll head to one of the nearby kite festivals and try our luck, again.

44th Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival

Annual Georgetown International Kite Festival

National Kite Month Kickoff

Go Fly a Kite at the Foothills Equestrian Nature Center

Southern Oregon Kite Festival

Check out these images courtesy of the 44th Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival!

I told you guys I would let you know how the snowboarding progressed.  Late last week we had yet another snow day and I took the kids up to our closest resort, Wintergreen.  Earlier we had purchased the learn-to-ski/snowboard package.  It included three days of lift tickets, rentals and lessons.  This was our second trip up and it was great.  The weather was again perfect and we were one of the only counties who had a snow day, so there were very few people there.  The kids had there own private instructor, made incredible strides and loved their cool instructor.  Most importantly, he was able to teach my youngest, who is not very tall, how to get off the lift when she has to jump off and he taught the oldest a few tricks and he now feels like he can keep up with his friends.  I think for the third lesson, I will plan to pull the kids out of school one afternoon and hope they can have private lessons again.  I was also wonderful that there were so few people there that I wasn’t concerned about the kids being skied into.

We have started to consider buying a family season pass for next year and with that, we have started to look at buying equipment.  So far we did buy the youngest a helmet that fits her very well.  I got some great advice from my Vail snowboarding friend on buying equipment for kids.  He suggested buying them a used board from a local shop and buying cool stickers to put on them.  Small boards aren’t going to have lots of riding time on them, you can get the board a good tune and you should be all set.  Kids outgrow their equipment and also don’t think it’s cool after a season or two.  Sizing is also important, they need to have a board they are comfortable with and can turn.  It’s hard to buy a board they can grow into.  On helmets, you just want something that fits well, protects their head and keeps them warm.  Try going to a local shop and ask what they have, a used helmet is fine and again that’s what stickers are for.  The fit is the most important part of the helmet.  It can’t come off during a collision, that defeats the purpose.  Many shops will also rent equipment for a season and you can usually rent much nicer equipment than you would ever want to buy.

Wish us luck, so far it’s been a ton of fun!

Now that winter has gone on and on, I am little over the heavy comfort foods.  I got this recipe from my wonderful foodie friend Emily after we had it at her house one night.  We loved it!  I have made it now myself and my kids even liked it.  They, of course, had no idea it was made with squash.  For my vegetarian friends, you guys can adapt this so many ways.  It would be great with shelled edamame, fried tofu and/or blanched veggies.

Rigatoni with Butternut Squash and Prawns

Prep Time:  20 minutes
Cook Time:  25 minutes
Serves 4-6

3 Tbs. olive oil, plus 3 tsp.
1 pound butternut squash, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces (I would try to buy the pre-peeled, pre-sliced butternut squash, it’s a pain to cut it up and make sure you get all of the peel off)
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 tsp salt, plus 1 tsp
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus ½ tsp
1 cup vegetable stock
1 pound rigatoni
1 pound prawns (or large shrimp), peeled and deviened (I use the frozen, raw, peeled and deveined shrimp—you can cut the tails once you thaw them before adding them to the recipe)
¾ to 1 cup whole milk ( I have used 2% and it seemed fine)
½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves (do a chiffonade to keep it from bruising, see image below)
¼ cup grated Parmesan

Warm 3 Tbs. of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the butternut squash, garlic, 1 tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper.  Saute until the squash is golden and tender, 5-7 minutes.  Add the vegetable stock, bring to a simmer, and cook until the squash is very soft, another 5-7 minutes.  Transfer the squash mixture to a blender or food processor and puree.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.  Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8-10 minutes.  Drain pasta.

Meanwhile, warm the remaining 3 Tbs. of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  Sprinkle the prawns with the remaining 1 tsp. of salt and remaining ½ tsp of black pepper.  Add the prawns to the pan and cook until just pink, about 3 minutes.

In a large pot over high heat combine the cooked pasta, pureed squash mixture, and ¾ cup milk.  Stir to combine.  Add the remaining ¼ cup milk if the sauce needs to be moistened.   Add the cooked prawns, basil, and cheese.  Stir until warm and serve.

We have had an incredible winter in Virginia this year, with unreal amounts of snow. I believe the kids are on their eighth snow day home from school. We have done all kinds of snow activities trying to keep everyone busy. We have built snow caves, made snow cones (which were a little gross), sledded and knocked down monster icicles with snowballs. The kids also made up a funny game called “Snow Mole”, were they dug tunnels all through the yard. They then played a game like hide and seek, only you crawled through the tunnels and got pounced on from above by whoever was “it”.

Sledding on a nearby driving range, both kids tried out a friend’s snowboard and really wanted to learn. I think it’s important that the kid really wants to learn, because it’s hard. Last Monday, I realized we could pay the midweek price at our nearby resort Wintergreen and get a lesson, lift ticket and rentals for one price and then you get two more days of lessons, lift tickets and rentals for a reduced amount.   At my resort, a helmet was not included in the rental and was another ten dollars. I would get the helmet, you can also buy a nice new helmet for as cheap as $30. It was a beautiful day out, I felt like I was back skiing on the West Coast. You didn’t need gloves or a jacket. The kids took the lesson and then my youngest stayed and I helped her for an hour and she was off with her friends. It was helpful for both of my kids to be with a friend who had also never done it before. My older child took off immediately with his friends, which turned out to be a bad idea. He came back very frustrated. But, after an hour with his mom, he was off. I think he was as shocked as I was that I could teach him.

The best piece of advice I can give is to try to make sure the weather is nice the first time you bring your kids out. Strong wind and freezing temperatures could make for a very bad first experience. I had watched this short video on teaching kids to snowboard, it turned out to be very helpful. It was also nice for me to be on skis and my husband to just have on boots when we first started. Explain ahead of time, yes, they will spend a lot of time falling and getting back up. No one started out as Shaun White, not even Shaun. The first thing I tried to make sure of was that they were looking ahead at where they were going, for some reason kids feel like they need to look down and watch their feet. If they do that, they just fall. I also explained that you do just have to let yourself go, as soon as you start to lose control, slow down and if you can’t do that, sit down. Ask them to try to go down the slope in wide zigzags, as perpendicular to the slope as possible. I would stay behind them the whole time, that way if they fell I could catch up to them.  There’s nothing worse than trying to climb back up hill to help someone who has fallen.  Last, but not least, before they start back off after falling, they need to look uphill and see who is coming. The only part that made me nervous the whole time, was that some huge person was going to ski into them.

I know there is a lot more to this. As we go more and more, I will let you know how we progress. It doesn’t look like the weather is letting up anytime soon.

My pictures are pretty fuzzy as they were taken with my phone.

We had one of those rare Virginia days where 8 inches of snow blanketed the ground and more was on the way.  My husband had recently purchased two big bags of oranges and he and my daughter enthusiastically squeezed fresh orange juice for breakfast.  I was then faced with dozens of orange skins and wondered what I could do with them.  Since I was happily trapped inside, candied orange peels seemed like a possibility.

I looked at multiple recipes, but couldn’t find any that used already squeezed oranges.  They all called for peeling whole oranges and I didn’t have any of those.   So…. I combined a few recipes, added my own new step and it worked!  Actually, it worked really, really well. Here’s what I did…

Candied Orange Peels (from juiced orange halves)

10 oranges – that have been cut in half and juiced

2 cups white sugar

1 cup water

1 cup white sugar for decoration

After you have squeezed the oranges for juice, cut the peel from the juiced orange halves into strips about 1/4-inch wide.  They will have bits of pulp and the white pith on them.  Put the orange peels in a large saucepan with cold water to cover, bring to a boil over high heat to blanch.  Then pour off the water. Repeat 1 more time and drain the oranges.

After the second blanching, use a sharp paring knife to cut the white pith from each of the strips of orange.  (Since the oranges have been cooked twice, it is easy to remove the bitter pith.)

Put the cleaned orange peels back into a large saucepan with cold water to cover, and bring to a boil over high heat to blanch one final time.  Then pour off the water and remove the orange peels from the pan.

Combine the sugar and water in the large saucepan.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 8 to 9 minutes.  (If you took the sugar’s temperature with a candy thermometer it would be at the soft thread stage, 230 to 234 degrees F.)  Stir in peel, reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes, stirring frequently.  Remove saucepan from the heat and transfer pieces of orange from the pan and roll, a few at a time, in remaining sugar.  Let dry on wire rack several hours.  Store in airtight container and enjoy!

Time Tip:  Since the kids were running in and out of the house and in need of help with all their snow clothes, I took breaks in between the blanching of the oranges.  The peels were able to rest in the sink in a colander.  The only step I really had to do from start to finish was the final step when you simmer the sugar, add the peel and then roll them in sugar.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, I am relying on my daughter’s photos to help me write about a long weekend we took to DC. I decided with this one that I should also have her help me write up her own review of the butterfly exhibit titled Butterflies & Plants: Partners in Evolution.

She said that honestly what she remembers most is that is was VERY hot and humid in there and we were really bundled up because of the extremely cold weather going on outside. She really enjoyed that the butterflies would come right up and land on you, so that you could really get a close look at them. She also liked that butterflies hold still long enough that you can take good pictures of them. When we were there we were also fortunate enough to be able to watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis and fly away.

Unlike the rest of the Natural History Museum, the exhibit is ticketed. Tickets are $6 for adults and $5 for children 2-12. Tuesdays the exhibit is free, but you do need to pick timed-entry tickets.

Here’s a few of her photos-

We spent a long weekend up in DC a few weeks ago and had an amazing time. I admit I was happy to be able to see so many of the museums with the kids and that I would be coming home with lots of material to write about here on the blog. Well, unfortunately my very nice camera will still allow you to take pictures with no memory card and so my hundreds of pictures are gone. I know, I know what many of you are thinking…user error.

Fortunately, my eight year-old had her camera along and took many photos in the Natural History Museum. It was really interesting for me to see what she photographed and what was important to her. When she found something she liked, she also photographed the placard with the item’s description.

The majority of her pictures were in the Gems and Minerals. She definitely gets her interest in this from her dad, who has a pretty nice collection.

She also took many pictures of the giant sloth fossil. She remembered years ago her brother bolted from that room in the museum because he thought it was the Wampa who captured Luke in the Empire Strikes Back. I wouldn’t be surprised if George Lucas based the Wampa on this Ice Age fossil.  She had a lot of fun teasing the now middle schooler about it.

I don’t know that I would normally take the time to look through each of her pictures and be able to see through her eyes what is important to her in a huge museum where there are so many subjects. I love that we were able to pass down our old digital camera to her and that she is capturing her favorites.

*Shortly after writing this, my son read it and informed me that I had incorrectly called the sloth a dinosaur, that he was just a fossil.  After looking up dinosaur on Wiki, I am still not sure.  Does anyone know?

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Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted to see the Lipizzaner Stallions.  I found out they were coming to town from A Day’s Outing’s weekly outings guide, Go Floyd. Even with all the outings that I review each week, I hadn’t seen this one and I was thrilled that my own Go Floyd guide let me know they were coming.

We went on a Friday night with our children and their grandparents. The horses were amazing and the music was beautiful.  I especially liked that the announcer told us about the history of the horses, their Spanish ancestry and the story of the royal stud farm were they were first bred, Lipizza, dating back to 1562.  The audience was also told about the finer points of dressage and the training the stallions undergo to enhance their natural movements. My son said that it looked like the horses were doing ballet.  While my daughter thought it was more like tap dancing.

Before the performance, I knew very little about the Lipizzaner Stallions accept that they were beautiful.  After everything I learned during the show, I now appreciate them so much more.

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Every year since I was very little I have LOVED making sugar cookie cut outs for the holidays. I mix the little decorated cookies in with other traditional holiday cookies and deliver them to my neighbors. The only ones I ever get comments on are the little decorated gems. As the years have gone on I have tried to get fancier and fancier, adding in gold and silver dragees, and taking more and more time to decorate them. I have never been able to find a sugar cookie recipe that rolls really well and an icing recipe that dries hard and tastes good. I think this year I figured it out and the recipes are below. This year my daughter and a few of her eight-year-old friends also came over and helped. It was so cute to see how serious and slightly competitive they were.

I also bought a decorating kit by Kuhn Rikon that uses squeeze bottles instead of bags. It made decorating really easy, especially with kids. To get the icing easily into the bottles, spatula the icing into ziplocs by color, snip the very tip of the bag, and pipe it into the bottles.  The plastic containers you get at any grocery store salad bar also work great for kids to take their cookies home in.  You need to wait about an hour to let the icing dry and then you can set a paper towel in between the layers if you need to.

Sugar Cookie Cut Outs
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
3 oz cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 Tbs. vanilla

Have all ingredients at room temperature.

Sift together flour and salt, set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the cream cheese and continue beating until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar, increase the speed to medium high and beat until fluffy and pale yellow, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg yolk, then add the vanilla.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, beating in each addition before adding more. Beat just until combined, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out on a floured surface. Using floured hands, form the dough into a smooth mound and divide into 2 portions. Shape each into a disk and wrap separately with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 2 days.

Remove 1 dough disk at a time from the refrigerator and let stand for 10 minutes. Place the dough on a floured work surface and roll out to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut out with cookie cutter of your choice and place on baking sheet. If you are having a hard time rolling out the cookies try making them thicker or allowing the dough to chill in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake until golden on edges, 10 to 14 minutes.

Royal Icing
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
5 Tbs meringue powder
1-2 tsp. of almond or lemon extract
1-2 tsp. of imitation butter extract (I didn’t even know there was such a thing)
1 tsp. of good vanilla
about a ½ cup water

Combine the sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Add 1 teaspoon and lemon or almond extract and 1 teaspoon of the butter extract and a quarter cup of water. Mix on low speed until you have reached the desired consistency and taste, about 7 minutes. If icing is too thick, add more water; if too thin, beat icing 2 to 3 minutes more. Add more extract or vanilla as you feel needed. The icing should form stiff peaks.

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