A few months ago, I found out about a website called Ebates. I don't know why no one had ever told me about this before! Ebates gives you a percentage back when you shop online. There are over 1000 stores you can shop at and get cash back. As an incurable skeptic, I wanted to spend some time getting all cozy with Ebates before I recommended it to anyone else. I signed up for my account (easy) and placed orders at Land's End and Children's Place. At the end of the quarter, I was sent a check for a percentage of those purchases, plus a $5 sign-up bonus. Money back on things I needed to buy anyway, yay! I've done all of my Christmas shopping online this year and when one of the stores I was buying from was listed on Ebates, I made sure to take advantage of the program. $13 has already cleared my account and when the rest go through, I imagine I'll end up with about $20 total. No, it's not a fortune, but it's $20 I wouldn't have had otherwise.
And for the holiday, Ebates is running a referral special. If you refer 5 people, you get $50. There are bigger rewards for more referrals. Each link to Ebates on this post is a referral link, so I get credit if you click from here and join. If 20 of you joined through my link, I would get a Flip camera, which would just make my year, especially since it's something that's already on my Christmas list anyway.
Disclosure: In case it wasn't obvious enough, clicking on any of the above links and joining Ebates will earn rewards for me. My opinion on Ebates is mine alone, which is why I didn't post about it until I had joined, made purchases, and received a check
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Sweet Potatoey Goodness
Today, I made my children stand in the kitchen and re-learn the words to Santa Claus is Coming to Town as a discipline tactic. Okay, it wasn't actually today because I wrote this post a few days ago and scheduled it to show up now (I so love that feature). But nonetheless, I totally went for exploiting the love/fear of a jolly fat man rather than supervising one more stinkin' time out. Speaking of which...large man dressed as a magical elf that lands a small herd of reindeer on your roof, sneaks into your locked up house while you're sleeping and eats your food...and that's after he spends all year watching your every move, whether you're sleeping or awake. A bit creepy, no?
And while I was threatening small children with nothing but lumps of coal (against my own "never make a threat you're not willing to follow through on" philosophy), I was also holding a baby, washing dishes, and making sweet potato pancakes (more on those later). Because women, and moms especially, totally rock at multi-tasking. And whatever inborn skill you already have gets kicked up to the next level when you're pregnant with a second baby....that first time you puke while also holding back a small child that wants to know, "whatcha doing momma? Will you come play with me? But WHY do I need to go away? I want to stay with yoooouuuuuuuuuuu!" It's all preparation for the morning you find yourself nursing a baby while simultaneously wiping someone else's tiny rear end and wondering why you didn't wait just a little bit longer for the next baby.
But PANCAKES! We're here for the pancakes! We somehow decided it was a pancakes and scrambled eggs for dinner night. I still had a pan of sweet potatoes in the fridge though. We had eaten them two nights in a row and I didn't want to eat more, but I didn't want to waste them either. So I searched for a sweet potato pancake recipe. I found this one on All Recipes and then, of course, tweaked it.
So, first things first, I had already made the sweet potatoes a few days ago: I peeled and diced the sweet potatoes, steamed them, then mashed and added an embarrassing amount of brown sugar (enough to make the color darker), topped with marshmallows and baked until the marshmallows browned. These were the sweet potatoes I was using in the pancakes. I still measured out 3/4 pound, as the recipe calls for.
And then I looked at the recipe and thought someone was smoking crack if they were making pancakes without vanilla, so I added in a healthy teaspoon (or maybe tablespoon...it's one of those ingredients I never measure) of good vanilla (none of that imitation stuff). Then I saw nutmeg on the ingredient list and thought it was equally insane to have nutmeg in such a recipe with no cinnamon or allspice alongside it. So I added both of those in (again, I didn't measure. Just sprinkle some in until it smells good. If you're having a crisis of confidence, go with 1/2 tsp of each). Other than that and using freshly ground nutmeg, I followed the recipe.
These pancakes were a HUGE hit here. I put a little butter on top and dusted them with powdered sugar because I inherited a giant sweet tooth, but really, they don't need any topping at all. Definitely don't need syrup. They're sweet enough on their own and taste like Thanksgiving. This will be our standard meal the day after we have sweet potatoes from now on.
And while I was threatening small children with nothing but lumps of coal (against my own "never make a threat you're not willing to follow through on" philosophy), I was also holding a baby, washing dishes, and making sweet potato pancakes (more on those later). Because women, and moms especially, totally rock at multi-tasking. And whatever inborn skill you already have gets kicked up to the next level when you're pregnant with a second baby....that first time you puke while also holding back a small child that wants to know, "whatcha doing momma? Will you come play with me? But WHY do I need to go away? I want to stay with yoooouuuuuuuuuuu!" It's all preparation for the morning you find yourself nursing a baby while simultaneously wiping someone else's tiny rear end and wondering why you didn't wait just a little bit longer for the next baby.
But PANCAKES! We're here for the pancakes! We somehow decided it was a pancakes and scrambled eggs for dinner night. I still had a pan of sweet potatoes in the fridge though. We had eaten them two nights in a row and I didn't want to eat more, but I didn't want to waste them either. So I searched for a sweet potato pancake recipe. I found this one on All Recipes and then, of course, tweaked it.
So, first things first, I had already made the sweet potatoes a few days ago: I peeled and diced the sweet potatoes, steamed them, then mashed and added an embarrassing amount of brown sugar (enough to make the color darker), topped with marshmallows and baked until the marshmallows browned. These were the sweet potatoes I was using in the pancakes. I still measured out 3/4 pound, as the recipe calls for.
And then I looked at the recipe and thought someone was smoking crack if they were making pancakes without vanilla, so I added in a healthy teaspoon (or maybe tablespoon...it's one of those ingredients I never measure) of good vanilla (none of that imitation stuff). Then I saw nutmeg on the ingredient list and thought it was equally insane to have nutmeg in such a recipe with no cinnamon or allspice alongside it. So I added both of those in (again, I didn't measure. Just sprinkle some in until it smells good. If you're having a crisis of confidence, go with 1/2 tsp of each). Other than that and using freshly ground nutmeg, I followed the recipe.
These pancakes were a HUGE hit here. I put a little butter on top and dusted them with powdered sugar because I inherited a giant sweet tooth, but really, they don't need any topping at all. Definitely don't need syrup. They're sweet enough on their own and taste like Thanksgiving. This will be our standard meal the day after we have sweet potatoes from now on.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Back on The Road: Days 4-6
On the 4th day of our trip, we drove from Albuquerque, NM to Moab, UT. Originally, we had planned to stop somewhere around Durango and take the time to see a few more national parks, but we decided to shorten the trip by a day instead. Before we left Albuquerque though, we wanted to make sure we were set to drive over snowy mountain passes. We called a Discount Tire, but they didn't have chains in stock. They directed us to a Pep Boys close by and not only did they have the chains in stock, they also rotated our tires for free (and we didn't even have to wait). With that taken care of, we hit the road. On the way to Moab, we stopped at Four Corners. It was almost 5pm (closing time) and it was WAY cold. I don't remember the specifics, but something like 30 degrees with 20mph winds. We were the only insane people out there and we might have stayed all of 5 minutes...just enough to take a few pictures and run.
All the girls (Secora is inside my jacket to keep her warm)
Sierra made an attempt at being in all 4 states at once, but she didn't quite understand the concept (quite possibly because between our hoods, the wind and our chattering teeth it was hard to hear)
It was so cold we didn't even take a second to realize the camera was facing the sun and turn around to take the picture the other way. Oh well, this is what we got: Josh in New Mexico, Sierra and Sedona in Colorado and Secora and me in Utah and Arizona.
The rest of the day's drive took us through plenty of open range land, so we saw plenty of this:
And here I thought cattle alongside the highway was a Texas thing. I still maintain that cattle is safer than deer though, at least they usually move pretty slow.
We made it into Moab in the dark (which was a shame, we couldn't see the scenery) that night.
Day 5 we were driving from Moab to Pocatello, ID. We got an early start again and stopped by Arches National Park.
(I realize Secora is covered up in every picture...it was cold! I'll be updating with actual pictures of her soon)
I definitely want to visit this park again in the relatively near future. Maybe next fall we can make it back. I would love to have the time to camp for a few days and hike around the park. We started out in the visitor's center where the girls got postcards to send to people and explored the hands on exhibits
Then we drove up to the delicate arch viewpoint and that was all we had time for 
The rest of Day 5 was more driving. We headed up through Salt Lake City and then met up with a friend and her 3 kiddos for dinner in Ogden. There was a brief meltdown when Sierra had to leave the new friend she'd made, but she did okay once we got back on the road. We made it up to Pocatello that night and found a hotel room in our price range.
Day 6 we woke up to even more snow and cold weather. The parking lot of the hotel (through the car window) looked like this:
The roads were a lot more clear, thankfully. We checked out road conditions across Idaho and Montana and picked the route we thought would have the least snow/ice to travel over. We ended up only needing to cross one mountain pass with "bad" snow coverage and even it was pretty clear. We didn't need chains after all, just a slow and steady pace. As luck would have it, I was stricken with something (I've since decided a mild e. coli infection based on how the symptoms played out over the next 3 days) just about the time we got up to the pass. Of course there is no where to stop up there and you can't really go any faster than about 30mph and there aren't a whole lot of places to stop when you get down off the mountain either. The last 50 miles through the valley back to our town seemed to take forever and I think we stopped 4 times. But we did finally make it home that night. We found several inches of snow in the yard, covered in deer tracks. The girls acted like it was Christmas morning seeing all of their toys they'd forgotten they had. We had about 2 hours until the big girl's bed time and it took us that long to get the car unloaded, unpack the essentials, and for Josh to run back out to get some basics from the grocery store.
So now this Texas family is smack dab in the middle of a northwest winter. It hasn't been as bad as I expected, but then I haven't left the house all that much either...
All the girls (Secora is inside my jacket to keep her warm)
Sierra made an attempt at being in all 4 states at once, but she didn't quite understand the concept (quite possibly because between our hoods, the wind and our chattering teeth it was hard to hear)
It was so cold we didn't even take a second to realize the camera was facing the sun and turn around to take the picture the other way. Oh well, this is what we got: Josh in New Mexico, Sierra and Sedona in Colorado and Secora and me in Utah and Arizona.The rest of the day's drive took us through plenty of open range land, so we saw plenty of this:
And here I thought cattle alongside the highway was a Texas thing. I still maintain that cattle is safer than deer though, at least they usually move pretty slow.We made it into Moab in the dark (which was a shame, we couldn't see the scenery) that night.
Day 5 we were driving from Moab to Pocatello, ID. We got an early start again and stopped by Arches National Park.
(I realize Secora is covered up in every picture...it was cold! I'll be updating with actual pictures of her soon)I definitely want to visit this park again in the relatively near future. Maybe next fall we can make it back. I would love to have the time to camp for a few days and hike around the park. We started out in the visitor's center where the girls got postcards to send to people and explored the hands on exhibits
Then we drove up to the delicate arch viewpoint and that was all we had time for 
The rest of Day 5 was more driving. We headed up through Salt Lake City and then met up with a friend and her 3 kiddos for dinner in Ogden. There was a brief meltdown when Sierra had to leave the new friend she'd made, but she did okay once we got back on the road. We made it up to Pocatello that night and found a hotel room in our price range.
Day 6 we woke up to even more snow and cold weather. The parking lot of the hotel (through the car window) looked like this:
The roads were a lot more clear, thankfully. We checked out road conditions across Idaho and Montana and picked the route we thought would have the least snow/ice to travel over. We ended up only needing to cross one mountain pass with "bad" snow coverage and even it was pretty clear. We didn't need chains after all, just a slow and steady pace. As luck would have it, I was stricken with something (I've since decided a mild e. coli infection based on how the symptoms played out over the next 3 days) just about the time we got up to the pass. Of course there is no where to stop up there and you can't really go any faster than about 30mph and there aren't a whole lot of places to stop when you get down off the mountain either. The last 50 miles through the valley back to our town seemed to take forever and I think we stopped 4 times. But we did finally make it home that night. We found several inches of snow in the yard, covered in deer tracks. The girls acted like it was Christmas morning seeing all of their toys they'd forgotten they had. We had about 2 hours until the big girl's bed time and it took us that long to get the car unloaded, unpack the essentials, and for Josh to run back out to get some basics from the grocery store.
So now this Texas family is smack dab in the middle of a northwest winter. It hasn't been as bad as I expected, but then I haven't left the house all that much either...
Monday, December 6, 2010
Back on the Road: Days 1-3
After Thanksgiving, it was time to hit the road. We were sad to leave Texas again, but we needed to get back north before the weather got too bad.
The first day, we only drove to San Marcos. We stopped in San Antonio to have a late lunch with an old friend and her new hubby, then we stopped by the Columbia outlet to take advantage of the black Friday sale and get some more winter clothes at really low prices (seriously, sales plus 20% off the whole order. I got a snow suit and hat for Sedona; ski bib, fleece jacket and hat for Sierra; and two long sleeve layering shirts for me all for $90). We checked into our free room at Country Inn and Suites (still love them...and thank you gold points card for the room) fairly late that night and fed the girls mac and cheese before putting them to bed. It was actually really cold that night and Josh and I didn't want to get out again, so we decided to order pizza for us. The best option was Domino's, which we've never ordered from before. Did you know they let you track your pizza when you order online? It tells you who is making your pizza and when it is put in the oven, and when it's out for delivery and who's delivering it. We were skeptical it was real at first, until the pizza showed up and Josh asked the guy if his name was Gerry (as the order tracker had said). While a little creeped out that Josh knew his name, he confirmed it was indeed Gerry. I can't decide if this pizza tracking thing is cool or weird, but I'm leaning more towards cool because it seemed like a shorter wait when I knew exactly where my pizza was at all times.
Day 2 on the road was long and boring. We drove from San Marcos to Whites City, NM. The highlight was stopping at the Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg. Josh's brother and sister-in-law had visited it several years ago and bought me their cookbook (which allowed me to make many a yummy kolache on my own!), and I wanted to check it out for myself. We had delicious muffins for a snack and took some scones with us for later. Then it was time to hit the big open (and empty) spaces of west Texas. Now, the last time I was in Whites City was about 15 years ago and it was during the summer. What we found was quite different than what was there last time. There was one hotel (which had horrible reviews on Expedia, but I thought it was quite worth the $70 it cost...it was clean, the room was huge, and it's a lot closer to Carlsbad Caverns than anything else), and nothing else was open. I was glad I had picked up a loaf of bread at the last gas station and that we had a jar of peanut butter and some jelly packets with us. Otherwise, we would've had to drive an extra half hour (each way) to get dinner. When we checked in, we asked if they did breakfast and the lady confirmed that they had juice and snack cakes. Okay, snack cakes---danishes and stuff, right? No.....our children actually ate Little Debbie Christmas Tree snack cakes for breakfast that next morning. Oh well.
Day 3 after the kids were all sugared up from their cake, we left the hotel early and went to visit Carlsbad Caverns. Interesting travel note...if you get to Carlsbad Caverns at 9am on a Sunday in November, you pretty much get the whole cave to yourself. It's kind of cool and also very quiet and eery. Makes you think a lot about those Chilean miners that spent so long underground. Since we were short on time, had the kids, and I was still supposed to be taking it easy, we opted to take the elevator down and just walk the Big Room Route rather than going in through the natural entrance. Our National Parks Annual Pass got us in for free and we had expected a bit of a wait because they are renovating the regular elevators and only the smaller ones are being used right now, but we got an elevator to ourselves right away and zoomed down into the cave. Sierra was a little timid at first, but she warmed up pretty quick. Sedona kept saying, "I think Secora baby is scared". Since Secora was blissfully snuggled up asleep in the wrap, I couldn't resist saying, "hmmm....is Sedona scared?", but she insisted, "No, I not scared. I think Secora baby scared." I think we spent about 2 hours in the cave. When we left, there were definitely more people there, but it was far from crowded. I'd like to go back in the summer so the kids can see the bats fly out of the cave in the evening (that was one of my favorite parts when I went as a kid), but it was nice to spend some time in the cave without anyone but the rangers around.
At the entrance to the park
The girls in the visitor's center
At one point, the path curved around this arch, so I thought it'd be cool to take a picture through it. Very hard to take decent pictures in the dark though!
My favorite feature, the lion's tail
After some sandwiches and yogurt, we hit the road again, bound for Albuquerque (which I now know how to spell!). We didn't have anymore activities planned for the day, but we did drive through Roswell. We didn't stop, but I grabbed some interesting pictures on our way through town.
Alien light post
Aliens are welcome at the Roswell Arby's
And also at the KFC, apparently (and when you put this picture on facebook, it asks you to tag the colonel!)
When we got to Albuquerque, it was darn chilly! We checked into our hotel (another Country Inn and Suites...we paid $30 for this one, thank you again gold points!) and then headed out to The Frontier for dinner. When I had mentioned our route on facebook, one of the other moms from the girl's school in Texas told me I had to check it out. I've been craving eggs, so I got a breakfast burrito and Josh ordered a Mexican plate. We figured this was about our last chance to get good, spicy Mexican food (it's non-existent in Montana). The food lived up to the expectations and for dessert we had to try out the sweet rolls, which of course are famous for a reason!
Next up, Days 4-6!
The first day, we only drove to San Marcos. We stopped in San Antonio to have a late lunch with an old friend and her new hubby, then we stopped by the Columbia outlet to take advantage of the black Friday sale and get some more winter clothes at really low prices (seriously, sales plus 20% off the whole order. I got a snow suit and hat for Sedona; ski bib, fleece jacket and hat for Sierra; and two long sleeve layering shirts for me all for $90). We checked into our free room at Country Inn and Suites (still love them...and thank you gold points card for the room) fairly late that night and fed the girls mac and cheese before putting them to bed. It was actually really cold that night and Josh and I didn't want to get out again, so we decided to order pizza for us. The best option was Domino's, which we've never ordered from before. Did you know they let you track your pizza when you order online? It tells you who is making your pizza and when it is put in the oven, and when it's out for delivery and who's delivering it. We were skeptical it was real at first, until the pizza showed up and Josh asked the guy if his name was Gerry (as the order tracker had said). While a little creeped out that Josh knew his name, he confirmed it was indeed Gerry. I can't decide if this pizza tracking thing is cool or weird, but I'm leaning more towards cool because it seemed like a shorter wait when I knew exactly where my pizza was at all times.
Day 2 on the road was long and boring. We drove from San Marcos to Whites City, NM. The highlight was stopping at the Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg. Josh's brother and sister-in-law had visited it several years ago and bought me their cookbook (which allowed me to make many a yummy kolache on my own!), and I wanted to check it out for myself. We had delicious muffins for a snack and took some scones with us for later. Then it was time to hit the big open (and empty) spaces of west Texas. Now, the last time I was in Whites City was about 15 years ago and it was during the summer. What we found was quite different than what was there last time. There was one hotel (which had horrible reviews on Expedia, but I thought it was quite worth the $70 it cost...it was clean, the room was huge, and it's a lot closer to Carlsbad Caverns than anything else), and nothing else was open. I was glad I had picked up a loaf of bread at the last gas station and that we had a jar of peanut butter and some jelly packets with us. Otherwise, we would've had to drive an extra half hour (each way) to get dinner. When we checked in, we asked if they did breakfast and the lady confirmed that they had juice and snack cakes. Okay, snack cakes---danishes and stuff, right? No.....our children actually ate Little Debbie Christmas Tree snack cakes for breakfast that next morning. Oh well.
Day 3 after the kids were all sugared up from their cake, we left the hotel early and went to visit Carlsbad Caverns. Interesting travel note...if you get to Carlsbad Caverns at 9am on a Sunday in November, you pretty much get the whole cave to yourself. It's kind of cool and also very quiet and eery. Makes you think a lot about those Chilean miners that spent so long underground. Since we were short on time, had the kids, and I was still supposed to be taking it easy, we opted to take the elevator down and just walk the Big Room Route rather than going in through the natural entrance. Our National Parks Annual Pass got us in for free and we had expected a bit of a wait because they are renovating the regular elevators and only the smaller ones are being used right now, but we got an elevator to ourselves right away and zoomed down into the cave. Sierra was a little timid at first, but she warmed up pretty quick. Sedona kept saying, "I think Secora baby is scared". Since Secora was blissfully snuggled up asleep in the wrap, I couldn't resist saying, "hmmm....is Sedona scared?", but she insisted, "No, I not scared. I think Secora baby scared." I think we spent about 2 hours in the cave. When we left, there were definitely more people there, but it was far from crowded. I'd like to go back in the summer so the kids can see the bats fly out of the cave in the evening (that was one of my favorite parts when I went as a kid), but it was nice to spend some time in the cave without anyone but the rangers around.
At the entrance to the park
The girls in the visitor's center
At one point, the path curved around this arch, so I thought it'd be cool to take a picture through it. Very hard to take decent pictures in the dark though!
My favorite feature, the lion's tail
After some sandwiches and yogurt, we hit the road again, bound for Albuquerque (which I now know how to spell!). We didn't have anymore activities planned for the day, but we did drive through Roswell. We didn't stop, but I grabbed some interesting pictures on our way through town.
Alien light post
Aliens are welcome at the Roswell Arby's
And also at the KFC, apparently (and when you put this picture on facebook, it asks you to tag the colonel!)When we got to Albuquerque, it was darn chilly! We checked into our hotel (another Country Inn and Suites...we paid $30 for this one, thank you again gold points!) and then headed out to The Frontier for dinner. When I had mentioned our route on facebook, one of the other moms from the girl's school in Texas told me I had to check it out. I've been craving eggs, so I got a breakfast burrito and Josh ordered a Mexican plate. We figured this was about our last chance to get good, spicy Mexican food (it's non-existent in Montana). The food lived up to the expectations and for dessert we had to try out the sweet rolls, which of course are famous for a reason!
Next up, Days 4-6!
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