Starting Anew

Here we are, coming to a close of the first day of 2012 (at least in my time zone).  In my efforts to update this blog more often, here's what today has been like.

The main goal of the day was to get Youngest out for a driving lesson.  It had been my intention to take her to a nearby mall to practise in the empty parking lot.  Alas, the mall was open today, and quite busy, too!  So we went on a route march to find someplace else.  We ended up at the park we used to go to weekly park days with a local home school group.  It was actually busy, too, though there was a section of parking lot that was largely empty. So we went there and I got her do to some parking.  Just backing in and out in different directions and moving the van to different spots to park in.  I'd thought to let her drive on the road through the park, which has a 20kph speed limit and is one way, but there was a remarkable amount of traffic.  After she practised in the parking lot a few times, we were going to go somewhere else where she could do some straight driving.

As we went around the loop to the exit, however, I noticed that all that traffic we'd been seeing disappeared about half way around, and people pulled into various parking spaces.  The second half of the loop was pretty much empty.  So we went around again, then I pulled over and we switched places.

She was nervous driving, of course.  She was also following the speed limit. Which meant that we soon had vehicles coming up behind us, which made her more nervous.  Most people take the drive at 30-40kph rather than 20kph.  I have to admit, I usually do, too.  It's surprising hard to drive that slow.  Anyhow, she pulled into an empty parking area for a while to let cars go by, then we continued on.  Near the end of the drive there are three little parking areas in a row, and I got her to pull into the first one.  That wasn't done particularly well, so I got her to do it again and go into the second parking section.  That was a bit better.  We switched off and I demonstrated to clarify for her by pulling into the third section.  She'll need to get used to the feel of the van and where the tires are, and the more she drives, the more confident she will be.  For now, she just wants to do short little drives like we did today.  Will have to make a point of taking her out often.  She's got a minimum of 1 year on her beginners license to practise before she can take the test for the next level, so it's no hurry, but I still want to give her plenty of opportunities.

Besides that, it was a quiet day.  We were all up quite late with our New Year's activities.  The BBQing mostly worked.  Despite soaking the skewers for the kabobs, the first batch started to burn, so Eldest took them in and did the second batch under the broiler.  Then, just to be safe, she put the first batch in for a bit, too, as the shrimps were still looking a little blue.  They turned out great.  They were a real group project, too.  Youngest pre-cooked bacon half-strips.  Eldest cut up the veggies.  I wrapped scallops in bacon while Eldest put them together - each kabob had a piece of bell pepper, a prawn, a section of onion or shallot, a bacon wrapped scallop, and a chunk of mushroom.  Because the food tends to spin on the kabobs once they start cooking, we used two skewers per kabob.  When a few were ready, I started brushing them with olive oil; a job Youngest eventually took over.  That was all we did with them - not even salt or pepper was needed.  My goodness, they were tasty.

Though the kabobs on the bbq didn't quite work out, the steaks sure did.  Unfortunately, by the end of the day, only Dh was hungry enough for steak!  We'd had a cheese fondue earlier, as well as other small appetizer type snacks throughout the evening, and he'd had less of those than we did, so he was the only one not stuffed by the time the kabobs were eaten.  Then, before we could go to bed, the leftover scallops, shrimp and veggies needed to be cooked.  Eldest broiled the seafood, and the veggies were pan fried in the leftover bacon grease.  Soooo tasty!

Which meant that today, there were stacks of dirty dishes waiting to be done! *L*  Ah, well.  It was worth it!

With so much steak left over, however, I didn't bother cooking the turkey I was intending to do today.  Will have to do that tomorrow.

Looking forward to it! :-D