College Football National Championship

You might have heard that the College Football National Championship is happening right here in our city! It's very exciting when something big like that comes here, and while we're not invested in either team, or rich enough to go to the game, we did get to enjoy some things happening around Tampa Bay this weekend. 

Asa worked New Year's Day, so he got a comp day to use later in the week. He picked Friday so he wouldn't have to go into the office, and so we could go to the Playoff Fan Central. 

On our way downtown, we just happened upon the Alabama team arriving. 

Fan Central was open all weekend, and we were trying our best to avoid big crowds, so we decided if we went at 3 on Friday when it first opened, we could avoid traffic, and long lines. (We were totally right, by the way). 

We got there a little before three and had to wait in a small line until the doors opened. 

The whole place was set up with the four teams who made it to the playoffs. I was bummed Ohio State didn't win, simply because I was hoping my cousins (one who goes to Ohio State, and one who graduated last year from Ohio State), would come visit me. But, it wasn't meant to be. It's the only time I've ever been sad to see Ohio State lose. Maybe Jake & Nate will come visit me sometime anyway. 

We really did pick a good time to go, as when we first arrived, we were one of the first people in the convention hall. Somehow I doubt we would have gotten a picture like this later. 

There were all kinds of games and drills for the boys to play, mostly the type of stuff they set up for the kids at Bucs training camp and such. But, this go around, anyone could do the activities, not just kids 12 and under. 

 So everyone got in on the fun! There were various throwing and catching games, the boys all got their shot at kicking a field goal, and there was some very serious competitions. But my favorite was the one where they had to get to the football while wearing these jackets attached to these bungee type cords that pulled them back. I took some videos, which are super entertaining, but I don't know... can I do videos on blogger? Hmm. 

Calib totally took it on that one drill, check him out jumping OVER the landing pad. He's the reason you have to sign those waiver things. (Don't worry too much, there was just a scraped elbow). 

They faced off in a couple of throwing competitions too. Asa beat Calib, and Hayden actually got more balls in the tire than Peyton. 

Goodyear was sponsoring a couple of jumping competitions, and they took this really cool slow motion video of everyone and emailed it to us. 

Asa was the only one to actual make a field goal, and Calib ended up with a bent toenail, and then blamed me for peer pressuring him into kicking. 

I'm not really sure in what scenario throwing a football should result in whatever Hayden is doing down there, but it makes me laugh every single time. His hand eye coordination is just not one of his strong suits. 

The real college football trophy was at fan central, somehow I missed it, but Peyton and Asa caught a glimpse of it. We did, however, get to see the trophy in lego form, and that was fun too. 

Mostly, it was lots of Alabama and Clemson stuff in the store, and like I said, we don't care too much about either team. But, I guess if we're picking one, we'll go with Clemson. 

And it's our city hosting, and we love our city! 

We did collect some giveaways, too! 

By the time we had made our way all around Fan Central, it was getting a lot more crowded, and the lines were growing, we snuck out the back way, and on to the riverwalk. 

There were some seriously big Yachts at what was apparently dubbed 'Championship Yacht Village'. 

 

And the Gasparilla ship was even parked out in the river, and all decked out for the Championship. 

 The whole town is decked out, really. We decided to walk to dinner, because parking is a bit hard to come by downtown these days, so we got to see all the Championship banners, and such on our walk through downtown. We never did make it down to Curtis Hixon Park, though. That was the hub for all kinds of free concerts and such this weekend, but I couldn't get anyone on board with going. (To be fair, Asa was working every night but Friday and that was country music night- blah.) 

We had dinner at Hog Barbecue, which is always a favorite for all of us. It was a little chilly on Friday, but not too bad, and eating outside was comfortable. 

It made for a nice walk back to the car, too. 

We even caught the Goodyear blimp a few times. 

Calib wanted to go by the stadium to see it all ready for the championship, so we did that. Traffic was already shut down on a few streets, which was kind of crazy. 

Saturday, Asa and I made a trip down to Trader Joes, and over to the Alessi bakery for breakfast. They had Alabama and Clemson cookies, but all the Alabama ones were sold out. Oh, and breakfast was delicious. It was VERY cold eating outside though (and Asa was not prepared for the weather). 

We were downtown again, this time by Amalie, to get the package pick up for the National Championship 5K. 

Things got colder between Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday morning we were blessed with the coldest day of the season. And not just Florida cold, it was in the 20s. So, Peyton, Hayden and I bailed on going to support our two runners. I mean, I was on board with getting up at 6 AM, but I was out when people started talking about windchills. I mean, look how miserable and cold they look! 

Even the USF band was all bundled up. Asa said they played the National Anthem before hand, and the Columbia restaurant was on hand with some salad, and  black beans and rice post race. 

The race shut down Bayshore Blvd for a few hours, while runners ran up and down along the bay. Calib beat Asa by a minute or two, but they both had pretty good times. 

And they got cool National Championship medals! 

In other, non-football news, we've been working on our Around the World project of the year. We've done Afghanistan and Albania so far. We're pausing tonight to for the National Championship,  but, we'll be back at it tomorrow. 

 

Tonight we are having southern food, in honor of the two southern teams. Asa made an Alabama barbecue recipe (white sauce, on the end), Carolina barbecue (mustard based, in the middle), and a classic sauce to keep our pickier eaters happy.

We also had some southern sides: creamed corn & potato salad, and some bread pudding for dessert. 

It never really warmed up on Sunday, and we were all freezing to death. I think it topped off somewhere around 45. (I know, we're going to die at the inauguration) Today is supposed to be a little warmer, and we should be back up near 80 by the end of the week. 

 I haven't reported anything since New Year's Eve. Asa had to work, until midnight on New Year's Eve, so we had a nice day at home, complete with one more holiday spread of food. 

We hung out, played some games, and watched TV, not a bad way to ring in the New Year. 

Oh, and we played flip the bottle. It's really more exciting than you might think. And Asa is way better at it than any of us. 

 We also had one last taco bar for the end of the football season. 

I'll miss plates of nachos, and Hayden thinking he made something amazing with his 'mega nachos' (which is really just a taco on top of nachos). 

And hey, it wasn't a bad season for the Bucs. They won their last game, finished 9-7 and just missed the playoffs. We can't complain too much after the last few seasons. 

On the homeowner front, I decided I could figure out how to get those ugly, builders grade toilet paper holder and towel racks out of the boys bathroom. One, I don't know who designed that with the wet towels hanging dangerously close to(and sometimes on) the toilet paper. Two, I wanted hooks for the boys towels- there's no where to hang three towels in that place, and I got some cute fish hooks at Kohls. So, I watched a youtube video and took them out.(I realized I didn't take a before picture, oops!) But, once you do, you're stuck with these holes in the wall, because apparently to put those things in, they cut into the drywall. Ugh. 

So, I collected my supplies... 

 And, I fixed the holes! Look at me! 

Unfortunately, I sent Asa to get the paint color, and it didn't match. At first I thought Lowes did a terrible matching job. But then I realized Asa took the paint can out of the garage for the paint in our room to have them match it, instead of the one that belonged to the bathroom. It's being remedied as a type though. (And to be fair, I should have checked for him, color matching is not his strong suit- when we were looking for the right color today, he kept telling me the bathroom AND Calib's room are the same color- but they're not.) 

Oh, and the big news is our brand new water softener, ta da! No more hard water for us. It's so bad here, you really need one to extend the life of your appliances, and keep the white build-up off your showers, dishes, and sinks. We love it. 

I leave you with some cute pictures from the Waterstraut pets. We got a catnip plant for the patio, and the cats were thrilled. 

That's it from here. 

Albania

Today we were on to country 2, Albania- our first European country. 

 Albania is coming around since it's communist days, and now you can go visit and enjoy some really nice beaches, and mountains worth a look, along with ruins that date back to prehistoric times. An interesting history, we learned about the bizarre King Zog who has the record of the leader who survived the most assassination attempts (and the only leader to pull out a gun and shoot one of those would-be assassins himself.) Kind of reminds me of that Andrew Jackson/assassin/cane incident, No?  On the other end of the spectrum, Mother Teresa was born in Albania, and she's the only Albanian to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Fun fact about the Albania language: it's unrelated to any other European language. And, it's kind of complicated. I mean, if there's more than a dozen ways to talk about mustaches, I think you've gone too far, but what do I know? The flag sports a pair of eagles, as Albania is known as the 'land of the eagle'. 

The boys took all their info they learned and made their Albania post cards. Peyton and Hayden's feature eagles. (You can't really tell but Hayden's people are wearing sweaters with the Albania flag, while Peyton's stick person is playing the gusle, a rather interesting musical instrument). Calib focused on the long coastline with some Albania's in a canoe (fun fact: He has them wearing Eagles Jersey, so that he would remember they are the land of the eagles.) 

Dinner tonight was Qofte Piqum, a bake of meatballs, red onion, potatoes and tomatoes. It was super easy to make, you just throw everything in the bubble and brown (the potatoes for a little longer), and ta da! Dinner. 

Salads in Albania are typically topped with tomatoes and red onions as well. (Tomatoes are big in Albania!) Feta cheese is also popular. 

Meals usually are accompanied with fresh bread (we, however, have never gotten down bread making, so we took some help from Publix), and for our fruit, we had figs. Albania's like their Rakia(grape brandy), so we had grape juice with dinner. 

This meal was MUCH better than last night, it got 5 spoons up from the Waterstrauts (well, forks tonight). We ate every last bit of it, with the exception of the figs. I was the only one that ate all of mine, and I did it mostly to set a good example. Calib claimed they were just giant raisins, and if you read last night's blog, you know how he felt abou tthat. 

We colored in our first European color. Again, Peyton did the honors, everyone else just claims they are going to mess it up. 

Albanians also like their evening walks, with a tradition called 'xhiro'. In the evenings, whole towns stroll down main roads, in many towns roads are closed to accommodate the evening walkers. Calib and Peyton had that activity covered with their 5K this morning. We were all going to go to cheer them on, and walk the 1K. But, did anyone else see those temperatures in Tampa this morning? It was literally in the 20s. Getting up at 6 am to go out in that was less than appealing. But, Calib and Asa stuck it out. Good job, guys! 

But, there was still an evening walk, because Ellie insists, no matter how cold it is. I love that Peyton took her in his onsie. Good part about having slip on sandals, you can walk your neighborhood in your onsie! 

2 down, 191 to go!

Next Up: Algeria 

Afghanistan

We're a couple days late on when we wanted to start our country project, but here we go. I'm going to try and do a blog for every country, but we'll see, there's not a lot to share with you all, so  I might put together a couple at a time. I mean, this is nowhere near the intensity of the presidents project, but there are nearly 4 times as many. 

So we started today with the first country alphabetically, Afghanistan. 

The boys basically get a lecture about the country, and these fun info sheets I put together. I've noticed how much more detailed they've gotten over time, this one is pretty simple. But, anyway, there's your snapshot of Afghanistan. The word of the day was 'Minaret', a tall slender tower, usually part of a mosque, where Muslims are called to prayer (in case you didn't know.) Honestly, I didn't until recently. it comes up a bit throughout the world. The Minaret of Jam is nearly impossible to get to, but the nearly 800 year old tower is impressive enough to make it on to our landmark. In later countries, I made sure to note if the Department of State has issued official warnings to visitors, but I wasn't quite there yet when I researched Afghanistan. We made sure the boys were aware it's much more than deserts and violence, there's lakes and mountains, and ruins of giant Buddha statues. It was a must stop in the 60's on the trail to India, and maybe someday it will be again. 

And in the first of all of our maps, we have our homemade Afghan flag, with Kabul written on the back, which we'll use as flashcards throughout the project to learn all of our flags and capitals. Peyton had already worked his way through most the world, so he knows a whole lot more of them, I'm hoping he can help his brother's out. 

We got out our books for pictures, and info, and breifly discussed Islam (which we'll get to more during religion week), and then the boys got to make their postcards. We put them up and voted, and I just realized I didn't take a picture of everyone's. 

Peyton got the most votes today, and has 30 cents in his jar, as Asa and I were a big fan of his 'Wish you were here' postcard  with the Minaret of Jam, and the yak on the mountain. Hayden and Calib both got a dime though, so they weren't left out. 

We scratched off our flag and our country on our board. 

And for dinner, Asa made the national dish of Afghanistan, Kabuli Palao (Ugh, spell check hates me lately, it wants to flag everything I type!) This dish is super important; a woman's marriage prospects depend on how well she can make this dish. Asa made it in the new dutch oven I got him for Christmas, and it was super pretty coming out of there, I should have taken a picture then. It's basically basmati rice, chicken thighs, carrots, almonds and raisins. Afghanistan is one of the leading producers of nuts and dried fruits, so not only did the raisins make sense, but we had dried apricots, too. Naan bread is a staple, so we added that to dinner as well. 

Our drink tonight was 'scalding hot green tea'. I love green tea, everyone else, not so much. (So I ended up drinking a whole lot of it, which is good- because I'm still trying to get over this cold.) 

So what did we think? The family as a whole, gives it 'One Spoon Up'. (Meaning only 1 out of 5 of us would like to have it again). 

It wasn't bad, but it was just ok. We decided we couldn't give 'half spoons', because that would be too much to keep track of, so a couple of us toyed with how to vote. Calib, meanwhile, HATED it. I didn't know how much he detested raisins until dinner tonight. We had a brussel sprouts type melt down. He did pick around them though, and do ok. Asa wouldn't be getting a ton of marriage proposals with that one, so he's lucky he already has me. 

After dinner, Peyton had the honor of coloring in the first country on the table. Nobody wanted to do it, because they were too worried about messing up the table. I did the outline around, and Peyton filled it in. 

Sometimes we'll have an activity, sometimes we won't, but today I had planned on having the boys go to the store and help me pick out some items we could send to the troops. But I am still dealing with this sore throat, and we had less than stellar weather today. After being out all morning picking up the 5K packets for Asa and Calib tomorrow and running errands, there wasn't any time before Asa logged in. So, instead we got online and donated to the USO. If you go online you can even pick what kind of gift you want to give.   Plus, we'll do other countries where US troops are deployed, so I'm sure we can send out a care package then. 

Anyway, that's it for our first country. There's not a lot for me to report, but I feel like if I let them pile up to do a few at once, it'll get to be a little much. 

1 down, 192 to go! 

Next Up: Albania 

Around the World in 365 Days

Most of you have probably heard by now about our big 2017 project. 2015 was the year of the presidents. 2016 was the Election & the Olympics. With no special events this year, Asa and I settled on the idea that we would spend an entire year celebrating every single country in the world, at least by UN standards. That's 193 countries to research, plan for, and find recipes for. No small undertaking, that's for sure. But, we can do it. Every country won't dominate our day, there just isn't enough time for that. But, I think it'll be worthwhile for a whole slew of reasons. I think we live in a world that could use a little more understanding of other cultures, and tolerant of other ways of life. Hopefully, between the geography and history of all of this, they get some valuable perspective. 

Anyway, we'll be doing most countries in alphabetical order. Asa and I have a giant spreadsheet of  every single country to keep track of things that we could do for that countries day,  food we could eat, and a tentative schedule for each one. I pulled out countries for our various theme weeks, and a couple to do when we are on our big trip to Hawaii (thank you, Polynesian Cultural Center). We'll be studying different religions, and different types of government and economies, along with some less structured weeks like Explorers Week, and 7 Wonders Week. I had to schedule all of those, pull out countries that fit, and try and keep an average that will help us finish on time. 

For the last couple of months, I've been working on making an information sheet for each country. I really wanted to finish them before we started, but that just isn't going to happen. I've finished 146, although I still have to print out, cut apart, and laminate a whole bunch of those. I'm actually taking a break right now to write my blog, because getting through all those 'Saint' countries in the West Indies sure was something. Anyway, the ones that are complete and printed out, and laminated are on rings for each month. You're looking at January's group right there. For the most part, this month we will be sticking to alphabetical order. Between the Inauguration and a trip to Disney, we don't really have time to sneak in a theme week. We wanted to kick this off January 2nd, but we had some seriously delayed shipments of things to get everything set up the way we wanted it, and now I've come down with a cold. But, we'll get there. 

So, I'll give you a tour of our set up for this big project. When we first decided to do this, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to paint a map on the kitchen table to color in the countries after we have a meal inspired by each country. Of course, I didn't know exactly HOW I was going to pull that off. But first thing was first, I had to paint my ugly, falling apart, IKEA kitchen table. The poor thing has been through so much in the six years I've had it, so at the end of this year it'll probably be time for a replacement. Anyway, I painted the top with paint I still had leftover from the Harry Potter dressers. 

Once it was painted, I had to figure out how to get the map on it. I toyed with the idea of a projection screen, but it just didn't seem like it would work for all those little countries. After some googling, I decided on carbon paper. I ordered some large sheets, and a gigantic map on Amazon and then waited (and waited..... and waited- seriously UPS!) for it to come. Once it did, I taped carbon paper to the table, then the map on top, and I traced the entire thing. 

You can hardly see it, but it did work. I was skeptical when I pulled it off, but there was the world map, on my table, in all of it's glory! 

Then it was time to trace those carbon outlines with some more paint (again, just a darker grey I had left over from the dressers). It took a steady hand for some of those small countries, and a finer paintbrush would have served me better, but when I was done, I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out. Using the clear coat I used on the pages of Harry Potter in the boys room (do you see a theme here?), I sealed the table. Hopefully it'll hold up ok. Your guess is as good as mine. 

Now to help the boys locate the countries, and to protect my table a bit, we ordered some placemats. Each of us has a different continent. 

So how exactly will we color in those countries? Well, this one was easy. Thanks to an art project gone a little wrong, I knew nail polish doesn't exactly come off of the table. I went and got all kinds of colors, and I won't even have to worry about finding a paint brush every night, or sealing it. It will be perfect. Russia and Canada might require something different (or an open window and a fan so we don't all die from the smell -- except for me of course), but other than that, it should work well. I'll keep my fingers crossed though! 

 But that isn't the only place we have to mark our countries! I also used my Christmas money to order a scratch off world map, complete with flags! We'll scratch off the countries as we go. Hopefully, doubling up like that, plus the place mats will help reinforce the locations of all the countries. We took the glass out of a frame to make it look a little nicer on the wall, and put it next to our dry erase calendar which keeps track of our tentative dates for each country. 

On the other wall, I have a chalkboard for our daily country, along with a cork board for the info sheet we're currently working on. Asa also bought me this awesome book that has a two page spread dedicated to every country in the world. We'll have that open to the current country's page as well. 

Now, I have these little clipboards with a 4x6 piece of cardstock attached to them. For every country, the boys are going to make a postcard of sorts. I have a little clip frame to hang them on when they're done too, so they can keep their most recent ones hanging up. 

Now, we toyed with what kind of incentive to offer for the best postcard. We came up with a cash payout. Everyday each of us will get a dime to put in the jar of our favorite postcard (and you cannot vote for your own). We told the boys they could cash out these jars only twice: once when we go to Hawaii, and at the end of the year when we are done with the project. So, why dimes? Well, quarters seemed like a lot, and pennies and nickels didn't seem like enough. 

I think I'm going to try and get a small blog up for each country. They won't be nearly as long or as involved as the presidents blogs, but it would offer everyone a little snapshot on each country, and they would be easy to find that way. I think overall, short blogs might be what I do in general this year. It just seems easier to keep track of it all that way. 

So, there's our kitchen now- the hub of our 2017 project. Pretty cool, right? Wish us luck! 

Up Next: The first country in alphabetical order: Afghanistan