Road Trip: A Museum and the Pool!

Today was a very exciting day in our nation's capitol. We started the day with a riveting ride on the DC Metro to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This is the "dinosaur museum" as my cousins call it. Mark and I took the two middle cousins with us. We had to stop for lemonade before we made it into the museum. Of course, the girls took full advantage of the free Metro newspaper:

And here we are, in front of the museum, drinking our lemonade:

And yes, in perfect tourist form, I wore my I "heart" Tulsa shirt and Mark wore his Eskimo Joe's shirt today. All we needed was a fanny pack. (-:

After we wore ourselves out at the museum and ate lunch at the local mall's food court, we loaded up all the kiddos in the minivan and headed to the neighborhood pool for some swimming and pizza.And it was just Mark and I, with 5 kids, all between the ages of 3 and 10. Are you impressed? I was impressed. Here is a video from the car ride in case you don't believe me (their mom got a migraine, so we were without her):



And here is a picture of me with the youngest at the pool. Note the awesome new shorts I have on. I know you can't see them completely, but I got them at Urban Outfitters, and I love them.

And there you have it. A day of swimming, eating, nap taking, and museum visiting. Pretty stinkin' awesome.

~Kathryn

Road Trip Video Blog: Day 2, Part 2: WE MADE IT!

Okay, everyone! Here is the final portion of our video blog on our way to DC!

You should get very excited about these videos because they include me singing (duh), a dramatic story involving ice cream, and our almost arrival at our destination. So how can that not be cool?

So, here's the first one, with us coming upon Morgantown, West Virginia, which happens to be in a song by my girl, Joni Mitchell:



And this is after we were charged an outrageous price for some Ben and Jerry's, so I opted for another brand:



And finally, here I am, about to explode with excitement as we are pulling up to the house!




And there you have it!

We are here and so enjoying ourselves. We spent today getting the shopping out of the way. (-: We went to Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie mainly, and Whole Foods. I got four shirt and a pair of shorts and a skirt.But, I decided I'm taking the skirt back because it doesn't look as awesome as I thought it did at first, plus it was was $20, and that's kind of expensive. And I'm kinda cheap. What can I say? I want a house.

Anyway, tomorrow we are going to the museum of Natural History. So that should be fun!

Catch you guys later!

~Kathryn

Road Trip: Day 2, Part 1

Well, we have made it to our destination. (-:

And of course, we did some video blogging on the second day. There is more singing by Mark, and lots of commentary by me. I know you are so excited. We have six videos, varying from 30 seconds to one minute in length. Unfortunately, they are taking forever to load, so I'm doing three in this post and three in the next post.

Here we are, four hours into our drive, and me about thirty minutes in. Yes, I slept from 4:00am to 8:00am while Mark drove.



And here is what also went down during the trip:



I know you all love to hear Mark sing on the road. You will love this. The memory stick gave out at a rather crucial point, but I think you will enjoy this:



More to come...

~Kathryn

Road Trip Video Blog: Day One!

Hello from the road! We finished our first leg of our trip and have survived, but it only took us about 5 hours and 20 minutes. I guess you could call it a warm-up. We are in for a rude awakening tomorrow.

There's really not much need for me to chat on here, I'll let the videos speak for themselves. They are pretty priceless. Oh, and here's a picture of what Mark looks like while he's driving holding his cassettes:

And here I am, in the passenger seat:

Now that that's out of the way, we will start the video blog. There are five videos, approximately one minute long each.

This first video is right after we left. We were fresh and excited for the trip!



This second video is after I woke up from my nap and Mark talked a little. My apologies that I didn't realize I couldn't turn the video camera on its side. Ha. Oops., but don't worry, I fix it party through the video:



This next video is of our pit-stop. Very thrilling. (-:



This next video involves Mark's cassettes and the joy he experiences with them:



Impressive, eh? And here is our final video after our arrival on the first leg of the trip. We got this hotel off of priceline.com for $50. So now you can see what we got with us!



And there you have it. Do you feel like you were with us in the car? I bet you wish you were in that backseat with the cooler. (-:

Until tomorrow, Ciao!

~Kathryn

The Great Hair Debacle of 2K10

Do you all remember how I discussed that my hair experienced a tragedy of mass proportions while I was on the choir tour? Well, those pictures have been recovered and are crying out to be shared.

So. I decided to let my friend, Emily, do my hair. Everyone always says how great she is with hair, and I need something great to happen to my hair, so I was all in.

Unfortunately, the photos don't start until AFTER the first hair disaster. Yes, I let her do my hair twice. The first time it was supposed to be loosely curled. After searching google images, I could not find a picture to really fully grasp Disaster Number One. So, imagine you or your mother's seventies style feathery hair with some 1990's curls and a little of Kelly Kapowski. And imagine the majority of the curls being on the bottom half of the hair. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Emily and the other girls decided it was absolutely necessary for me to wash and blow dry my hair so they could start over. And so the pictures begin.

Here is Emily, in hair washing process, immediately following Disaster Number One:

Notice here that hint of craziness in her eyes. I should have known.

Here I am, innocently believing that what was about to happen would be great, and would make Mark glad he married me.  Again, notice the crazy eyes.

So. After the hair washing, which actually went smoothly, I blow-dried the ole locks and then let Emily try again on my hair. How does that saying go... "Fool me once..." hmmm... anyway..... The look that was tried was the "wavy look" except when Emily described it to me, it sounded really cool. She took that Chi and "waved" my hair and I sat, imagining that Rapunzel herself would be jealous.

I knew something was going wrong when the girls didn't want me to look at the mirror. I mean, really, how is that a good sign?

Then, my hair stylist's sister, Elizabeth, was brought in to try to "undo the damage" of Disaster Number Two. Apparently once you've styled your hair with a Chi, it's really hard to undo it without frying your hair. The undoing didn't really undo. So, do you want to see what my hair looked like?

Yes, folks, that's my awesome hair style. "Wavy". And the best part was that there was no time to change it. So, I pony-tailed it, and sang my little heart out in the choir concert. By the end of the night, I gave up on my vanity and took down the ponytail and embraced Disaster Number Two. Here I am, with Elizabeth, emotionally recovered from said disaster, but clearly not physically recovered:

And so, I think it may be safe to say, Emily has "lost her touch".

~Kathryn

Cooking with Kat: Potluck Potato, Ham, and Cheese Casserole. YUM!

This is one of my favorite meals to eat. You could definitely consider it comfort food. (-: It's a perfect meal for having people over, because pretty much everyone likes it, and it's pretty easy to make. I had two sweet girls come help with the cooking, so we had a fun time and everything was really yummy.

Here are the ingredients:
2-3 lbs potatoes, cubed
1 lb ham, cubed
1/4 cup onion
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbls butter
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8 oz sour cream
1 teas salt
2 cups cheddar cheese
2 cups stuffing

So. Here's whatcha do:

First, you cube the potatoes and then throw them in a pot to boil.

While the potatoes are boiling, you chop the onion and saute the onion wiht the salt and the butter until the onion is soft.

While that is cooking, you mix the can of soup with the sour cream. Karlie is rocking that here:

Once the onion and butter are done, you mix them in with the soup mixture.

Then, you drain the potatoes that are cooked but not falling apart and put the potatoes back in the pot and pour the soup mixture on top. You also add the cheese and the ham and stir. Here's Emily, stirring with her whole heart. (-:

And me, too:

After everything is mixed together (try not to destroy the potatoes), you pour the mixture into a casserole dish. And finally, you pour the stuffing on top and coat it with the final tablespoon of melted butter.

And then you look at the beautiful dishes:

And then you cook it in the oven at 350 degrees for around 45 minutes, or until bubbly. And then you serve it up and eat it:

Oh yeah, don't forget to poll the taste testers:

See? They all liked it. Because it is AWESOME. And you will like it, too. Seriously. You need to go and make it now and tell me how much you love it. (-:

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Oh, and Mark and I leave for our road trip on Sunday. We will be video blogging and regular blogging the experience. So, buckle up, it's going to be an exciting ride. (-:

~Kathryn

Prayerfully Remembering

(To read more of Cohen's story, please visit Megan's Blog)

~Kathryn