American Creme Oreos

When I went to the store last week I was excited to discover that Nabisco has taken a step to help my family's Memorial day tradition seem a little more patriotic and fitting for the occasion.  There on the shelf was a package of  limited edition American Creme Oreos.

How patriotic is that?  Of course those Oreos had to come home with me in preparation for the upcoming holiday.

Today I took my required "Oreo Day" photo.

Notice how I worked hard to get the reflection of the flag in my picture.  Double points for patriotism!

Then I ripped open the package and sampled the cookies.

While I give Nabisco a high five for a fun idea, the end result wasn't all I had hoped for.  The hubby's first question was "Where's the white stripe?" So I ask, "Why no white stripe?" I do think all 3 colors found in the flag would have added to the filling and made it look truly American.

 I also have never been a big fan of the golden Oreos.  I would have preferred the traditional "chocolate" Oreo encasing.  I wonder who decided that "American Oreos" should be light and not dark?  Probably in our overly politically correct society there should be versions of both colors and several hues in between.  

Happy Oreo Day to my kids!  I hope you managed to find some kind of Oreo to partake of today.  I also hope you took a few minutes to ponder the sacrifice of  those who paid the ultimate price so we can live in a free country where I can discuss the color of cookies without fear of being labeled a subversive and being thrown into prison or transported to a really cold place. (Perhaps I have been reading a few too many books about the Soviet Union under Stalin rule recently).

Today I am thankful

that I was born an American.
for those men and women who gave their lives so I can enjoy the freedoms I enjoy here.
for unusually moderate temperatures that made being outside today enjoyable.

Breathing Fire

This is why my youngest son shouldn't be allowed to play with matches.

According to him this is perfectly safe.

Strawberries

The grandson is a big fan of strawberries. At dinner tonight we had strawberry spinach salad. Yum! The grandson decided he preferred his strawberries straight from the package without all the embellishments.  He started saying straw-ber-ries over and over again as he ate them one by one. It was so funny the way he was saying it, with his tongue wiggling all over his face, so I decided to make a video of him. Of course, then he just started being silly, but I love the surprise ending of this little movie.

Last month when my sisters and I rendezvoused in San Diego for a week, the woman in charge of restocking our breakfast each morning at the motel was very friendly and told us she was going to Carlsbad to pick strawberries for her anniversary.  Since we were planning a trip to Carlsbad too, we decided that sounded like a fun adventure.  The daughter, the son-in-law and the grandson accompanied us to the strawberry fields.  We (read Kathy) paid a premium price for the berries and the experience, but it was fun.

Carlsbad Strawberry Fields - April 20, 2012

and we picked some very, very delicious strawberries that the grandson called pineapple about half the time.

Just One More Sleep

Almost every day I get a phone call from the grandson.  It goes something like this:

"Grandma coming home soon?"

"Not today"

"After night-night? After one sleep?"

"Nope, not for lots of sleeps."

"Youse come home after lots of sleeps?"

"Yup, I'll come to your house after lots of sleeps."

"OK.  Love you.  Bye."

Even though it doesn't seem to upset him much, it breaks my heart every time I have to say "lots of sleeps", so a couple of days ago when he called I was happy to change my reply to "After 3 sleeps."

"Youse coming to my house after 3 sleeps?" he asked for clarification and the daughter piped in "You're coming to my house after 3 sleeps?"

Apparently the e-mail informing her that her dad and I were coming to visit got lost in transit.  But she is very accommodating and decided we could still come.

At the hubby's work the culture department sends out a daily e-mail with a Pima (Piipaash) and Maricopa (O'odham) word of the day. Recently they have been focusing on words related to time. Today, when we only have one more sleep before we leave for San Diego, he forwarded the info to me.  We both thought it was rather interesting.

Prior to European arrival, the O’odham and Piipaash did not organize time into seven-day weeks. There was no concept of a week at all. Therefore, there was no specific name given to any particular day. If one wanted to plan attendance at a future event, others were told to, “Come after four night’s sleep,” or something similar.

His comment was "See, it's just the Pima coming out in our grandson."

Only 1 more sleep!