Month: April 2012

Someone’s turning 2…

/ Shane / 2 Comments

That would be Oliver.

A couple of weeks ago, I would say I couldn’t believe Oliver was going to be turning two. A lot has happened in the past few weeks. He’s talking more now (8 word sentences are no problem), and more clearly. He’s gotten a few new teeth. He’s wearing big boy underwear (more on that next week). He’s just suddenly a two year old. It’s surprising how quickly it all happened.

Two gives us a lot more freedom: he can do things on his own, like get his shoes (but not put them on…he still has no desire to try to get himself dressed (boo) or undressed (yay)), we can leave the house without as much stuff, and he can travel under his own power occasionally, rather than in the stroller. However, we’ve also been seeing hints of the stubbornness and anger commonly known as the Terrible Twos. He seems a little more easy going than Evie though, so I’m not sure he will be quite as frustrated at being a two year old than she was.

Evie is giving him her old tricycle for this birthday (shhhh, don’t tell him) and she had been busy “polishing” it up in preparation. I think he’s going to be pretty excited.

Happy Birthday big boy!

Halbachs Take the South, Part II – Smoky Mountains

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I have had the same reoccurring nightmare since I was a child: I am riding in the car and we have to cross a bridge that is so high, that the road is practically vertical (Is this because I am afraid of heights, or the reason I am afraid of heights? Chicken and egg.) I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the road up to our cabin was exactly the same grade as that nightmare road. Except the road to the cabin was also full of switchbacks and blind corners. I honestly did not know if my car could physically made it up the hill.

However, it was so worth it. The cabin was absolutely perfect in every way. It is indescribable how perfect it was, so I will therefore try now to describe it. It was a real log cabin, with chinking in between the logs and everything. It was rustic and luxurious all at the same time. It was on the tippy-top of the mountain, with beautiful views of the valley below. The bottom floor had a bedroom, bathroom and foosball table, and a porch with a hot tub that looked out over the mountain. The middle floor had a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a fireplace, as well as a second-level porch with a swing, rocking chairs and a table to eat outside. The upstairs had a huge bedroom with another fireplace, as well as another bathroom.

The place was so big that we didn’t even use the bottom floor; we all slept upstairs in the one bedroom. The cabin could probably sleep 10 in a pinch, so the 4 of us were no problem. Even though there were other cabins dotting the hillside with us, it felt very isolated. It was so amazing being up on top of the mountain, with clouds snaking through the valley below us and no sounds of trains or traffic or anything except nature. The view from the porch was breathtaking.

In addition to the hot tub (which the kids absolutely loved and Evie said was her favorite part of the trip), there was also the biggest bathtub I have ever seen and/or imagined in my entire life. It had an entire room to itself off of the kitchen, and it was as good as any swimming pool as far as the kids were concerned. It was easily the size of a queen-sized bed. And it had jets too! I’m telling you, bath time has never been so fun.

Fortunately/unfortunately, this was a log cabin, and there was nature all around. An ant colony decided to take up residence inside the enormous tub. The first time we turned it on, ants came pouring out of one of the jet controls. I was trying to mop them up with a washcloth, but they just kept coming and coming. Luckily (or unluckily as it turns out) the tub was so big that the kids got in anyway and just avoided that section of the tub. We didn’t really think about where those ants were coming from, so when we turned on the jets…well, lets just say the kids had a couple of extra hands (legs) to help scrub their backs that night. After the explosive armageddon of their nest, they wisely did not return, so future baths were a little less creepy crawly.

In addition to eating all of our meals at the cabin (we even had pancakes on Sunday!), we spent our days hiking in Great Smoky Mountain National park. In other words, cheap vacation spot! We never even bothered with Gatlinburg, other than a trip or two to the grocery store. The hiking was pretty great.

One day, Evie hiked about 5 1/2 miles, and Oliver made it about 1 mile. Not a complaint from either of them! I was very proud of Evie, but she was having such a great time, I don’t think it occurred to her to complain.

Every hike ended at a waterfall. I didn’t really go into it expecting to see so many waterfalls, but I guess it makes sense; that water has to make it down the mountain somehow. Still, some really fantastic waterfalls, including one we got to go underneath, and a really tall one we saw later on the Cherokee reservation. After finally getting to the end of a long hike, we were never disappointed.

The Smokies are known for having a lot of bears, and consequently the cabin was appropriately garbed in bear decor. We had read to Evie the literature about what to do if you see a bear, just in case. All of this was a little too much for poor Evie, who became so afraid of bears that she couldn’t even handle the decorations in the cabin. We had to hang a sack over the bear toilet paper holder in the bathroom.

Therefore, it was somewhat ironic that we did actually see a mother bear and a cub later in the trip, and Evie was sort of excited about it. The bear was pretty far away, so we certainly weren’t in any danger from it. I guess it was easier to see when it was moving around, because in most of our pictures it’s just a black spot. Still, it was pretty cool to see some true wildlife (with a cub no less!) and certainly the biggest and most interesting animal not named Sasquatch running around those woods.

Alas, too soon it was time to say goodbye to the Smokies and move on to (less) greener pastures…

Halbachs Take the South, Part I – Hitting the Road

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In order to make the trip more enjoyable, we started by upgrading Oliver’s car seat and turning him around to face forward. He was pretty excited about it, he kept saying, “NEW car seat! NEW car seat!” However, once he got a little tired, he started demanding, “Lean back!” and looking around for the recline button. It’s a little harder to get a nap in when you’re not facing up at the ceiling.

Our first stop was Cincinnati, and I must report that there were dead daffodils on 3/22 in Cincinnati. That’s right, spring had already sprung by March 22nd. We happened to arrive on Anna’s birthday, so we let her pick the dinner spot. She mentioned Benihana, and I have to admit I was pretty excited for the kids. I thought they’d really enjoy the show, and I thought that Benihana is like the original Japanese steakhouse, so it would be sure not to disappoint. I was wrong! No fire and no shrimp throwing, two things that you simply cannot have a Japanese steakhouse without! So the kids didn’t really care much about the show, but they still had a good time, because there was ice cream at the end.

We didn’t stay in Cincinnati long, but we also had time to visit an extremely beautiful park, where there were white and purple trees in bloom like crazy. And thus began my long nightmare known as “Southern Allergies”. Uuuuuuuuuuugh.

After driving for a bit, we saw a water tower that said, “Florence Y’All” and Sara said, “Well, I guess we’re in Kentucky now.”

(Side note, turns out there is a funny story on how that water tower came to be — check it out!)

By the time we got to Tennessee, we started really getting into the mountains. Suddenly, road signs started warning us of construction on a tunnel ahead, combined with an accident. We were advised to use a small state highway to avoid the mess. We decided to heed their advice, despite the fact that no other car seemed inclined to agree. We got off on the local highway and took a long, steep, winding drive through the back woods of Tennessee. It seemed very remote. Just as we started to hear strains of banjo music, a really bad noise started coming from the car.

Uh oh.

I thought maybe something was caught under the car, since it seemed to be a grinding kind of noise, but I got out and checked and there was nothing there. We didn’t know what to do. We were just coming into a little town, so the terrain was a little more level, and we figured out that the noise was related to the brakes (which we had been using fairly continuously on our little mountain adventure). Whenever I hit the brakes, it was like a grist mill chewing on a strip of metal.

Just as we were about to exit the town, I saw a shop that said “tire and brakes” on the side, and I pulled a quick u-turn and darted in there. Sure enough, the front brakes were completely shot — right through the pads and down to metal on metal (which is exactly what it sounded like).

LUCKILY, they were amazing and nice, and fixed us up in about an hour and a half, while we ate our lunch. I was prepared to pay the out-of-state-tourist tax and call myself lucky, but the whole thing cost less than $200. (A couple of my co-workers are considering driving down to Tennessee to get their brakes fixed from now on.) In fact, they said I didn’t really even need to replace the rotors, despite the fact that I had been grinding them directly, but if I wanted to replace them, it would cost “$25”. In other words, rather than being stranded in the middle of the mountains with a broken car, I got new brakes for probably less than half of what it would cost at home, and it basically didn’t even interrupt our trip. I said to Sara, “I hope nothing else goes wrong, because we just used up all of our luck.”

Justice did demand that Sara leave all of her shower stuff in the hotel in Cincinnati in retribution, but I think we came out on the winning side of that  karmic transaction.

Oliver’s phrase for the trip was “Oh, what is that?” He started saying it about 100 times a day about anything he could think of. Often is was about something he’d never seen before and wasn’t sure what it was, but sometimes it was about something like a door, or the spaghetti he was eating. This would have quickly gotten on our nerves, but something about the facial expression he used when he said it combined with the tone of voice made it more funny that annoying. He would just make a face and say, “What is that?” like he was just looking at the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen, rather than a ceiling fan.

We were staying just outside of Gatlinburg, and I knew that it was pretty touristy. However, I was totally unprepared for the monstrosity that was Pigeon Forge. The only thing I can compare it to is the Wisconsin Dells. It’s touristy, but like over the top, amazing touristy. Like full size replica’s of the Titanic touristy, or giant upside down Greek temples. Would you believe the kids slept through the whole thing? Thank god, because I don’t know how I would even begin to explain that place to them (although I have to admit, I’m pretty disappointed that Sara wouldn’t let me go to the Lumberjack Feud).

Finally, after a long, multi-day car ride, we arrived at our cabin…

Quote Monday has extra sensory perception

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Evie (about the hotel hallway): “It smells like champagne in here!”

Evie: “They keep smiling at me.”
Sara: “Who keeps smiling at you.”
Evie: “On the tv. I smiled and the lady smiled back.”

I guess we should have let her watch more tv after all. I wasn’t sure whether my daughter was a psychopath who thinks she receives messages from the tv, or if I should be creeped out that she really was receiving messages from the tv, ala poltergeist. Or, maybe tv news ladies just smile a lot.

Evie: “My tortilla tastes like carpet.” – This is what happens when you get used to eating food with no dough conditioners.

Evie: “Ollie, knock knock.”
Oliver: “Orange who?”

I guess her jokes are getting a little predictable.

Sweet Potato Tacos

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The Reason:

We had some ground turkey and we were looking for a recipe to use it up. It’s funny that this is the recipe we found because, although we did use up our ground turkey, this is clearly a sweet potato recipe, not a ground turkey recipe. (I guess technically the original recipe is a yam recipe, but we have only made it with sweet potatoes)

Anyway, this is sooo good, it might just turn you off regular tacos forever. Even if it doesn’t, it makes an excellent change of pace, and is a lot healthier than regular (ground beef) tacos to boot.

The Journey:

I know some of you will be tempted to leave out the jalapenos, but I assure you that it is not spicy, even with four jalapenos. “Yeah, but I don’t like spicy food,” you will say. “He likes spicy food, so he doesn’t understand how tender my palate is. I’m a delicate flower,” you will say. I know that there is nothing I could say to convince you poor folks, other than to physically trick you into eating it with four jalapenos and getting you to admit it wasn’t spicy before I reveal that fact. However, I can’t do that over the Internet, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Or not, I just realized, I really don’t care.

The thing you’ll notice about the filling is that it is orange. Very orange. Startlingly orange. Do not be startled, you’re doing it right.

The ground turkey is nice because it is so lean, but you can really use any kind of ground meat (i.e. beef). You’re mostly going to taste the sweet potatoes anyway.

Another thing I should mention here, is that all tortillas in our house are grilled over the open flame of the stove (we have a gas stove obviously). Just light the burner and set the tortilla directly on it. Flip it after about 10 seconds and do the other side for another 10 or so. It will seem like you are going to set the tortilla on fire. It will get little black burn marks on it. Do not be startled, you are doing it right. You can thank me later.

The Verdict:

Magically delicious.

The sweet potatoes make the filling sweet, which to me seems like it would be a bad thing, but it’s totally not.  (I do NOT like salty and sweet mixed together. It is almost pathological with me.) Also, the texture is a lot softer than ground beef, and it kind of mashes up around all of your toppings keeping everything in better.

The Recipe:

Adapted from AllRecipes.com

  • 3 sweet potatoes peeled and diced
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 pound ground turkey
  • 1 medium-large chopped sweet onion
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 4 jalapeno peppers, minced (you can reduce this to 2 if you are nervous about the heat, but it’s really not very spicy!)
  • 2 tablespoon chili powder
  • 2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup tomatillo salsa
  • 1/2-1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • warm flour tortillas
  1. Put the diced sweet potato in a microwave-safe bowl; cook in the microwave until cooked through and fork-tender, stirring every 5 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes.
  2. Coat the bottom of a large skillet with olive oil and place over medium heat;
  3. Cook and stir the turkey until crumbled and evenly brown, 5 to 7 minutes.
  4. Stir the onion, garlic, and jalapeno pepper into the turkey and continue cooking until the onions begin to caramelize, 7 to 10 minutes.
  5. Season with the chili powder, cumin, Cajun seasoning, and salt.
  6. Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher
  7. Pour the salsa over everything; fold the sweet potatoes into the mixture.
  8. Allow the mixture to cook until the excess moisture evaporates.
  9. Garnish with the cilantro.
  10. Heat your tortillas in the microwave if you’re a barbarian, or on the stove if you’re fancy pants like me.
  11. Serve with the warm tortillas and whatever else you put on tacos. I recommend fresh salsa (pico de gallo).