Murray Update

Yes, Murray is still dead. Last night, before the kids went to bed, David & I started asking Tyler how Murrary's doing. He said, "He's just hanging around in the water..."

We went to look at him with Ty. After a little examination and analysis of the situation, Tyler calmly said, "...he might be dead." He explained how sometimes tadpoles die soon after turning into a frog. He was so matter-of-fact. 

He did eventually get sad. Very sad. Poor buddy. He said, "I'm scared I will have a dream that I turned into Murray, and then I die." Oh dear. What finally made him feel better was that I said we'll sew a little frog stuffie. Now, I gotta figure out how to do that.

Keeping Busy & Sad News

After dropping the big boys off at camp, I took my littlest man to the $1 showing of Paddington Bear at Regal Theater up north. It's their Summer Movie Express. The last time I took him to the movie theater was last summer for one of these. We met up with friends, and I forgot my wallet. I ended up having to take him out of the theater periodically, as he was only a little over a year old. We did better today, but not by much. We stayed for 1 hour of the show. It was alright, since we were meeting friends for lunch, and I wasn't sure if we'd make it back in time if we stayed for the whole movie. Luckily, I only spent $1 on my ticket, he was free, and we shared a kids snack pack for around $6.

We made it back a little early, so we stopped at the playground. Crosby really enjoyed going for a ride of the zip-line swing.

Lunch was at Cactus with our friend who nannies two boys we met through karate. They have a pretty decent kids' menu. I ordered C the beef brisket flautas for $4, which came with sour cream and guacamole. He seemed to like it, but ate more of it in the car on the way home than in the restaurant. Go figure.

Before we picked up brothers from camp, I went to check on our frog, Murray. He was dead. I was really shocked and sad about this. We found Murray a few weeks ago, when he still had a bit of his tadpole tale, in Seabrook, WA. I was the one who caught him, but Tyler claimed him, and has been taking care of him since. I didn't tell him that Murray died, but he didn't check on him before bed tonight. He seemed so good yesterday. When I found him, it looked like one foot may have been stuck between a rock and the side of the aquarium. My guess is that he drowned. Good-bye, Murray. You will be missed.

When we first got Murray's aquarium, and crickets for him to eat.

What a cute frog.

Fava Bean & Shitake Risotto

It's been tough for me to motivate to cook when the house is so hot. But, we have so much wonderful, fresh produce in the house, I need to make use of it, and quickly. We are only in week 4 of 20, for farm fresh organic vegetables from Oxbow Farm. The last 3 weeks have brought us sugar snap peas, fava beans, fennel, garlic shoots, shitake mushrooms, lettuces, and more. This week's box shouldn't disappoint, either. This year, we are not hosting a pick up site, as we thought it would be less chaotic while the remodel is going on. It's the first time in several years (4 or 5??) that we'll have to pick up our box. We almost forgot last week! We do have the option of having it delivered, if we order a pizza from Pagliacci, where the boxes are dropped off this year. Dangerous.

Anyway, I digress. Back to cooking in this heat. Currently, it's 80 degrees F in our kitchen, a touch cooler than yesterday. And, it was pretty muggy yesterday. Basically, not very comfortable, especially when I was about to make it hotter with my cooking. I was determined to cook dinner and use up our fava beans. I had saved 2 weeks' worth of them. These babies were gorgeous, and delicious. Sauteed in a little browned butter, in the same pan I used to saute the shitake mushrooms, then added to creamy risotto. 

For the older boys, I left out the mushrooms. I wish they would like mushrooms. I think it's more a texture thing than a taste thing. 

I think it turned out nicely.