January 6, 2012

Outside Temp: 19 F (woo hoo!  It's getting cold!  Although I'm reserving celebration, since I heard it would be back up into the 40's and 50's for the next few days)

What I cooked today:
Pancakes: I make Alton Brown's recipe for pancake mix, which is so much cheaper than Bisquick.  The kids love it, and I had to make a second batch, just so I'd end up with something other than Lucky Charms for breakfast.

BBQ Chicken: Since I was gone most of the day, I'd forgotten to take anything out of the freezer.  So, when I got home, I threw some chicken in the microwave to defrost, then tossed into a pan with some BBQ sauce and put into the oven for a half hour.  Since I was in a rush, I didn't wait for the chicken to totally defrost and I didn't marinate in sauce like I usually do.  The result was some pretty dry chicken, in a pan full of the water that should have remained in the chicken.  Ugh.  But it still tasted pretty good, so it all got eaten.  I'll plan better next time.

Update:
The high school basketball teams were playing at 'home' today, which means Stanford, but that's still closer than the away games.  There are 4 teams: Girls and Boys, JV and Varsity.  The games started with Girls JV at 3, then boys JV at 4:30.  The Girls Varsity started around 6 and the boys Varsity started at 7:30.

Patrick had work to do, so he gave everyone the option of going to the game or staying home.  We ended up with just Allen and I at the game, which was fine, since we stayed for 3 of the 4 games, or about 4 1/2 hours.  You would think that it was boring, but it was great!  The teams played well and we really enjoyed having an attachment to the team, which made us cheer all that much more. 

If I understand correctly, when you try out for the team, if you are good enough, you make Varsity.  Otherwise, you make JV.  So, there were some 11th graders on JV and there was even an 8th grader on Varsity.   They also had the pep band.  We figured that most (if not all) of the high school, and junior high, from Geyser was there, either to play basketball, or to play in the pep band, or to support their school.  This is why we don't have school on Fridays for the winter months!

We sat next to a family that I already knew, so we were able to chat.  And the concession stand was open the entire time, so we had plenty of popcorn and soda and candy.  The pep band played before and after the Varsity games, including the Star Spangled Banner, which was cool.  And in the practice before each game, they played current music through the speakers... which resulted in a group of 8-10 year old girls singing along with Lady Gaga's Poker Face... priceless.  The only complaint would have been my sore bottom from sitting on the bleachers for 4 hours.  Ugh.