Week in Review: Captains, Smarties, Shows and Food

Happy Friday!!  

I forgot to take a picture of my doormat sitch from July 4th week, but isn't it cute?  Door mat from Kohl's, rug here and flower planters here.  I hate spending good money on outdoor items because they always get beat up and need to be replaced often.  

When your toes match the flowers :)

Congrats Are in Order

We had two reasons to celebrate this week.  

The first one was that Maggie (16) and Darian (Andrew's girlfriend) were made Captains of the Varsity Volleyball Team!  Darian is undoubtedly the best player on the team and will be a Senior, and Maggie is following in her volleyball shoe steps on the court and was made a Captain as a wee little Junior.  I'm just so proud of them!  The team votes and the coaches discuss and the administration at the high school approves, so it's a big decision.  

How do they look cute even at this angle?

Not to be forgotten on this blog because he's rarely around the house, but Eamon (17) is also the Captain of the Varsity Soccer team in the fall!  He's a Senior and they announced captains at their awards night last year, so we've known for awhile.  Eamon's been playing in a soccer league this summer, which is the same league where he broke his wrist last summer, so we are praying the refs are able to control the players a bit more this summer.  

The second reason to celebrate was that Eamon's AP Scores came back and he got two 5's on AP Biology and AP Language!  If he attends Franciscan, this means he doesn't have to take a whole year of Biology plus Labs (8 credits) or an English class (3 credits) so that's a sweet deal!  Every college has different requirements for scores and how many credits it earns, depending on your major, etc. but this should free up his college years for sure.  He will be taking four AP classes in his Senior year so that's a tough schedule but the kid is such a hard worker and gifted with brains for sure.  He's also reeeeealllly humble and will be mad at me for bragging but I'm just a mom with a blog so it's not my fault :)

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Declan (10) and Brendan (7) have been at camp this past week, at our town's rec center with a fun field trip to Water Wizz yesterday:

Water Wizz - 30 minutes from our house and I've never been!

Somehow Brendan came home with the wrong crocs on and hopefully they will figure it out today because he was basically binding his feet all day yesterday in crocs that were a size too small.

Smile through the pain Brendan!

Xan the Man (12) has been working at The Cottage in exchange for an ice cream :)  He is learning to make waffle cones, change buckets, and clean clean clean.  He can't be employed by us until he's 14 so he's just volunteering for now.

5th children are gifted in waffle cone making ;)

Whatcha Watching?

Declan and Brendan both finished reading A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is a series of 13 books, and we watched the Netflix shows with them after.  It was my second time watching these shows (I did it back with Maggie and Xander a couple years ago) but it was just as fun.  Phil really enjoyed them too.  If you have kids aged 7-13 it would be a fun summer "project" to read through the books and watch the series.

Phil and I have been watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo which is very unique and interesting and also on Netflix.  I'm not sponsored by Netflix but if they want to - hit me up Netflix!  On the show, the attorney is autistic and her name is Woo Young Woo which reminds me that I bought some protein ramen by Chef Woo to grab for work lunches and they are good!  Definitely a heartier noodle than normal ramen but for 20 grams of easy protein I really like them!

Old Fashioned Recipe

I can't remember where I read about this recipe from the seventies (sorry if it was your blog!) but I made the Cobb Salad for dinner this week and it was delish.  The dressing is not very diet friendly (unless you're Keto) because it starts with bacon grease but yum, what a filling salad.  I used shredded rotisserie chicken from Aldi's and any veggies we had in the fridge (including some leftover corn on the cob) and made some cheesy garlic toasts to go with it.  Just a nice easy summery dinner.

Chicken Cobb Salad

Ingredients

6 large eggs, boiled

4 oz. bacon (about 4 slices)

2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. sugar

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

8 cups romaine lettuce

½ rotisserie chicken, meat pulled from bones and shredded (about 2 cups)

2 large beefsteak and/or heirloom tomatoes, cut into wedges

Directions

Place bacon in a dry medium skillet and set over medium-low heat.

Cook, turning occasionally, until brown and crisp, 8–10 minutes.

Transfer to paper towels and let drain.

Add vinegar, mustard, sugar, and 1 Tbsp. water to rendered fat in the skillet and whisk until smooth and emulsified.

Gradually stream in oil, whisking constantly until a thick dressing forms; season with salt and pepper.

Arrange lettuce on a large platter and season with salt and pepper.

Drizzle about half of warm dressing over. Arrange other toppings and drizzle remainder of dressing.

Tonight we are headed to have dinner with a family friend - as in our whole families are friends - so we are all looking forward to that, minus the kids who are working.  We had another family over for a cookout this week which was also a nice time and now my social bucket is full until next week.  Two social events per week is pretty much my limit :)  

Have a great weekend everyone, be as social or anti-social as you want!!