Lentils and quinoa are hip.

Bleh.

I dont really hate any particular food. Sure there are foods where I would say, "I'd rather not." But I would eat them anyways, but lentils and quinoa are one of those things I really struggle with. Lentils much more so than quinoa. Usually when I share this with people though I get a response like, "oh really?! I love lentils!" Or "I just love quinoa!" Proceeding there declarations of love they will continue to share with me all the ways they use it and where I can find it made really well. Dont get me wrong, I have had good quinoa, but nothing which has been produced by my own two hands.

I've begun to get the impression that it's "cool" or "hip" to like quinoa. As a result I almost feel embarrassed to tell people I dont like it. I've begin to wonder if admitting I dont like quinoa is like telling people you don't like fluffy cute bunnies.

Really I want to like it but... EEK GAG! It's disgusting.

The first time I found quinoa was at Costco, in a really large bag. Matt and I thought we'd take it home and try it. We did and after 3 years that bag is almost gone and I promise you I haven't eaten more than a couple spoon fulls from that bag of quinoa and most of what we made got chucked. (I am thinking about those poor kids in destitute third world countries. I'm sure they'd eat it.)

For the record, I have tried to like quinoa! I promise! So how have I tried to make quinoa??

One week I thought I'd make some quinoa breakfast with fruit. However, when Day 1 hit no amount of sugar was going to make the quinoa taste any better with my blackberries.

I've tried cooking it like Brazilian rice, which gets it's delectable flavor from garlic, salt, and sometimes onions. Not even my Brazilian rice recipe could make it taste better.

I tried to imitate the Whole Foods black bean and corn quinoa salad recipe. It's actually pretty good. It's flavored with a red wine vinegar. It tasted great at Whole Foods.... not in my kitchen. 

Matt & I are turning into those parents. The kind that read labels and count how many things we can't pronounce or how many things look strange and decide we are not going to give our child THAT. We haven't given our child any candy and we waited until he was one to give him fruit.

There's a specific brand of baby food I really like. It's called Ella's kitchen.

It is "organic" but they have fun mixes of veggies and when Calvin was only eating veggies and no fruit they had lots of fun selections. They had a LENTIL and Rutabaga one that I loved. I'm not sure if Calvin loved it.... but I did! :)

In order to be a good parent I once decided that I needed to love lentils and quinoa for Calvin's sake. So one week I sat down and planned what meals I would eat that would involve lentils or quinoa.
Day 1 lentils with sweet potatoes. Gross.
Day 2 quinoa black bean salad. Whole Foods makes it better.
Day 3 pizza. No, that's not quinoa crusted pizza or pizza covered in lentils. It's the regular kind with cheese, tomatoes and whatever else you'd like to throw on it. We really didn't make it to day 3. :)

I still make lentils now, but I just feed them to Calvin. 

Anyways, when people say their children are like garbage disposals.... I KNOW WHY. Because they will eat anything. I'm sure people mean to say that there child will eat paper, little plastic tidbits, zippers, dirt, little rocks, etc.  Calvin will eat our QUINOA and LENTILS!

When I made red lentils with sweet potatoes on Day 1 that Matt and I struggled to eat, I gave it to Calvin. I told some colleagues at school what I made and they said it sounded delicious. (bleh)
And to Calvin, it was absolutely delicious.

This kid eats better than I do! I blend up parsnips, eggplant, zucchini, and beets cooked in vegetable broth and puree it and he eats it all with brown rice. :)

Logan

I really ought to post more. :)

Two weekends ago it was UAE weekend. I know the U stands for Utah and the E probably stands for Education but I'm not sure what the A could be. All I know is that it means NO SCHOOL! It's a popular time for National Parks in the state to be filled up. I know we made that mistake once. Finding a camping spot was difficult.

Matt has been working out of town and racked up a lot of reward points so we got a "free" place to stay in Logan a the Holiday Inn Express. Wahoo!

On facebook I put up a post asking for a list of cool things to see in Logan. It was really helpful and we got to do quite a few of them. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

 Silly that I noticed the signal at the crosswalk. I wanted to look at Logan as a "brand new" and maybe even a "foreign" place. So when I saw something I hadn't seen in SLC for a while I thought, "hey! This is new!" *click*

We walked downtown and visited a few bookstores and candy stores. We bought some super yummy Bluebird Chocolates and looked at some pretty historic houses and sites. 

 We visited the First Dam and my son LOVED the ducks. He would look and pause at the ducks in such reverence. After hearing the ducks quack and make their own little sounds Calvin at one point perked up and chimed in, imitating them in his own way. 

The Zombie Walk

We weren't sure what it was going to be like. We just saw something posted on the City of Logan's Event Page and figured we'd check it out.  I think it was some type of food drive, I'm not quite sure. We just wanted to see some zombies walking.  More people were zombies with fake blood and torn up clothes but a few them decided they would be the ones who would save us from the Zombie Apocalypse!

I thought it would be really cool if I could get a photo of all the zombies crossing Main Street.... but that is obviously not the case in the photo above. I mean look how politely you see them crossing between the white lines at a designated spot and at an appropriate time but there's my husband in a bright blue jacket smiling like nothing is the matter. "Honey! Watch out for the zombies!!"

We ended the evening with getting "good" food. We got pizza at a place near USU, got appetizers at a Brazilian restaurant, and got Aggie Ice Cream at the creamery on campus. For the record I think it's pretty much equal to the creamery in Provo. So good! :)

The next day we hit up the farmer's market, visited the Logan's little zoo, and went to Bear Lake.
We had Bear Lake Raspberry shakes which were delicious! We also went up to Paris, Idaho to see the Paris Ice Cave. It was pretty anticlimactic, but at least we know that from experience, right?!

Love the explanation of this species! "Rock".

Yup that's the ice we have found Paris Ice Caves.

 Of crouse Matt wanted to see if Calvin could climb up all the rocks by himself. What we failed to realize is that Calvin took great pleasure in sticking his hand in small dark holes whenever he saw one and popping rocks in his mouth like skittles. I can't even believe how thoughtless he is about just throwing rocks in his mouth. It's like we're watching a movie and the natural thing is just to, you know, pop a rock in your mouth and continue like it's no body's business.  I'm sure if he wasn't distracted by all the little dark holes and small rocks he could have done fine climbing up.

 

This was pretty much the end of our trip, really. 

On the Map we saw that there were some roads that could take us from this location to Preston, Idaho which would be a straight shot to Logan, Utah. That way we wouldn't have to go back to Bear Lake, down Logan Canyon and back into the city. It would save us a lot of time. Besides we had a "Haunted Logan" tour to go to. I love Utah history and I love the ghost stories associated with this state! 

So we tried one of the small roads that were suppose to go to Preston. Well, there was a split in the road and we choose one way because the other way had a big sign that said: "Road Not Maintened for Passenger Vehicles". Personally, it seems to me to be pretty clear that we shouldn't go down that road, so for the time being we don't. However the road we do choose thins out and we decide to turn around and head back up to Bear Lake and down Logan Canyon. 

We see a bunch of ATVs and Matt stops one of them and asks if he thinks our car could make it on that forbidden road. Uh....? 

The man assures that although some spots are tight we should be fine. I shake my head and tell the man no, but Matt just pats my lap and assures we're going to be alright. Except that we're not alright because after almost making it to a better road our car hits a knarly pointy rock and our tire goes flat. After flattening the spare tire we decide that we'll probably have to find a new tire and put it on our car in order to get out of that tight, steep, and rocky road. Oh geez. 

Look at those rocks! A super jagged one got our front tire.

So in short, the ATVers give us a ride down, we get a ride to Preston (45 minutes away) and then we call Matt's parents in Pocatello to come get us. Matt gets the tire store owner to open shop at 8pm to sell us a tire, and Matt drives off with the Tow man that our insurance provided for us. 

Calvin and I go to Pocatello with Matt's parents and Matt joins us Sunday morning around 2am. :)

The best part of this whole escapade was the fact that Calvin got to take his very first ATV ride. We latched on the carseat and rode away. Calvin at one point seemed pretty excited. He would talk make sounds as we went over bumps and smile big. However as a result of his distaste of keeping his hands covered from the cold wind he started to get fussy. Even after his hands were icy cold he refused to let me hold them or keep them warm from him. I dont get it.