Mary's Spring Break Visit

Earlier this month our niece Mary had her spring break and spent a weekend of it with us! She arrived on the latter end of a Friday night. Before bedtime we had visited with her mom and brother, gone out for an ice cream cone, played with Uli and found out her new glasses are for "fashion".

Bright and early the next morning, the Uncle and Niece Chef Team set about making a delicious omelet breakfast using a half dozen of our backyard eggs with a side of potatoes and orange slices. Bon appetite!

The last time Mary stayed with us we did not have a dog.  Since we have Uli now, we had to do a little extra juggling of needs this time to make sure he got his energy out and Mary got her fill of our attention.  To help wear Uli out, we all took him to puppy playtime.

And, since visiting Minnehaha Falls was such a big hit last time, we went back to see it when it's frozen. Very shortly after we visited, the weather warmed up a good amount and the water started to flow again.

You can view the falls from above as well as take stairs down to see the bottom of the falls.  We wanted to do both, which gave Uli time to practice going down stairs.  He doesn't have a lot of opportunity to do stairs since we are not currently allowing him to go in the basement or 2nd floor of our house. Stairs are a little scary for a small pup but with a little encouragement from Paul, he got the hang of it quickly.

From there it was home to drop off Uli, back out to lunch, to the grocery store and then a stop at the library for crafting inspiration.  Mary and I spent a lot of time doing Shrinky Dinks together throughout the weekend. I have the kind that are blank pages so you can do whatever you want to with them, including tracing art you like from a book or making something of your own up.

We are wearing aprons because we were alternating between baking and shrinky dinking. We made a pumpkin pie together. I have a recipe that has become my super, duper, favorite one.  I should post it here because more people should be able to eat this pie. It has a ginger snap crust. Top notch!

This is one of my favorite activities to do with kids. I have a large assortment of colored pencils and funky scissors and hole punches and all sorts of things to play with.

Plus, the shrinking part of the process is fascinating, especially when you have never made them before!  We like to use our toaster oven for shrinking them but it requires a flashlight to see the process unfolding.  Paul joined in for some of the Shrinky Dink sessions, too! I have yet to meet someone who doesn't enjoy a little bit of the coloring/shrinking fun.

We also mixed in lots of Uli training time throughout the weekend. I think Mary had a good time learning how to be a good trainer and Uli benefited from learning that kids give him treats for doing the right thing, too! Mary did a great job managing the clicker and the treat timing.

And, of course, you have to fit in puppy snuggling time, too!

Mary told us that she really likes to cook so whenever she stays over we make sure to choose recipes that she can help make and food that she will enjoy.  Some of the things we made last time were memorable enough that she wanted to make them again this time....like popovers!  We also made an apple cinnamon mix and a raspberry lime sauce to go with/on the popovers.

Our last meal together was Sunday lunch and we made it a light, quick and easy one because we wanted to make sure everyone had time and space for one last big slice of the pumpkin pie with vanilla bean whipped cream.

Thanks for visiting, Mary!