Pollinating your ice cream!

Picture this:

We are driving home from the Chinese market, right at twilight, when traffic seems to be the worst, and I am juggling an ice cream cone, swerving to avoid sudden stops on the freeway, when Grace asks:

"Mom, is ice cream pollinated by air?"

HUH???

She continues, " Ms. Dunham told me that everything is pollinated either by air, bees, or something else that I can't remember. So is ice cream pollinated by air?"

I got an immediate vision of a beautiful pasture with ice cream cones populating the field like wild flowers and started laughing so hard I was afraid I would crash!

We went on to Annabel wanting to know if ice cream was made out of ice or cream or what.

I'm not sure that Grace understood or was convinced that neither ice cream cones or milk are pollinated by wind.

We have had such a great weekend, it is hard to see it end.

Saturday started with breakfast at Applebee's for a fund raiser breakfast for a friend's baseball team. Although Annabel was intent on not liking the pancakes, she ended up eating all of them, as well as the sausage. The rest of us knew we liked pancakes and sausages.

Annabel is going through a stage of not liking foods that she has been eating and not understanding the English words I know she uses and knows.

I remember Grace going through a similar stage about the time I thought she was getting comfortable here. Maybe they finally get comfortable enough to make more choices for themselves!

The rain that was supposed to end by noon kept on all day, so this limited outdoor activities, especially the new basketball hoop!

Late in the afternoon we headed to the Chinese market to stock up on noodles and look for any other delicacies. I think I am feeling guilty about being laid up again for a few weeks and wanting to make sure they have their favorite things. Plus it will make it easy on me to have plenty of noodles on hand!

We can spend a LOT of time looking through all the aisles in the Chinese market and always wish I had a guide to help me know what to buy and how to prepare it. More than one time the girls decided they missed a certain food but that I would not know how to cook it! I think they remember the noodles that I tried to prepare and they ended up molding before I could figure out how to cook them!

We toured through most of the other shops and stumbled on 2 books in Chinese that Annabel thought she would like, Little Women and a comic story she remembered. It is so difficult to find anything in Chinese that is appropriate for her age. We bought quite a few in China, but now wish I could fill up a whole suitcase full for her.

Since we had not had Chinese food in a while I was determined to remember which restaurant along the row was supposed to be the best. I think I found it since there was a wait to get in and the menu was written in Chinese so Annabel could recognize some things she was really hungry for! They ended up having spicy seaweed, some noodle dish, and then steamed dumplings. The dish I ordered for myself came with rice covered in a hamburger looking meat, with 2 varieties of green things on either side. I soon lost my dish too! That was just what they LOVED!!! Most people left with doggie bags, but we ate everything except my pork chop! The dogs enjoyed it for breakfast today.

As rainy as it was yesterday, the opposite was true today! It was a fantastic, glorious day. Dad had mentioned trimming our tree on the parkway since it is brush pick up week. With all of us involved in trimming the tree it made it a good time until I broke Dad's chainsaw! He creatively repaired it and we completed the job.

A friend had given the girls a basketball hoop and they had a great time with it today! They do very well and made up their own games, laughing and shooting baskets all afternoon. It isn't a standard size hoop, but it didn't affect the fun! Maybe it made it better since they could make a lot of baskets. I keep thinking I should find a basketball camp for them this summer, but the ones I found are very expensive! Over $300 each sounds like way too much just to learn about basketball!

Annabel continues to change, sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic. Today was the first day that she wanted to sit by me at church. We were also discussing whether I would need to be in the hospital 2 or 3 days, and she said she just hopes that I will stay until I feel better and can come home.

There are only 2 1/2 weeks of school and I hope that Annabel can find some relief for the last few days. They had hoped to have her "help" with one of the kindergarten classes, but last week it was storming during the assigned time.