You Haven't Lived Until You've...

WON THE CHILI COOK-OFF!

Here's John III, cooking his award winning chili for our neighborhood chili cook-off '07.

What? You've never seen someone cook from a bar stool before?

And here is the finished product! John's secret? He went on the website myrecipes.com, looked at all of the chili recipes and took interesting ingredients from several different ones and put them together for his creation. And, guess what? He had NEVER tasted chili before! He does like to cook though, so I thought getting him to enter the contest would be a great way to get him to taste chili, and it worked! Except he did taste around the beans. Since a couple of folks wanted the recipe I decided to share it here. Just keep in mind, this was a 14 year old cooking, so there weren't really exact measurements. I asked him to name his recipe, but in true teenage fashion, he said to just call it "Chili".

CHILI

2 lbs. of lean ground hamburger meat

1/2 lb. of ground sausage

1/2 lb. of mesquite bacon

1/2 can of kidney beans

1/4 bottle of mesquite flavored BBQ sauce

1 can of Rotel

1 can of beef broth

1 can of V8

about 1/4 cup of white zinfandel wine

2 oz. of unsweetend bakers chocolate, melted

lots of salt

lots of chili powder

2 heaping teaspoons of Cumin

a couple of shakes of Italian seasoning

2 spoons full of minced garlic

Cut the bacon into bits and stir-fry it. Then, drain it onto paper towels. Crumble and cook the ground beef and sausage, and drain any fat off. Add the bacon crumbles and remaining ingredients and let simmer as long as you want. Hint, you may need a bar stool! =)

You Haven't Lived Until You've...

Won 'Most Patriotic Bicycle' in the neighborhood bike parade!

Here's John on his Stars-N-Stripes creation! Here he is, 4th of July 2007, accepting his prize and brother Eric in the green striped shirt is proudly grinning! We are very fortunate to live in a neighborhood that affords us these kind of "Norman Rockwell" moments.

You Haven't Lived Until You've...

STOOD AT THE EDGE OF A GREAT LAKE AND SEEN AN OCEAN!

John III at Lake Erie - age 4 1/2 Big John at Lake Michigan - 2007 Eric at Lake Superior - 2007 A quick stop at Lake Huron - 2007

Just one more to see and that's Lake Ontario! Words can't express the expanse of these great lakes! Which Great Lakes have YOU been to?

You Haven't Lived Until You've...

FINALLY GROWN TALL ENOUGH TO RIDE A GO-KART!Here's my Nephew Ethan delighted that he can join in on the family fun! Summer 2007 in Pigeon Forge, TN - our favorite place to race!

You Haven't Lived Until You've...

Been buried in the sand!

In honor of summer, I chose a beach activity this week. The top photo is Eric at Panama City Beach, Florida (Prettiest beach we've ever visited) and that's John in the bottom photo at Tybee Island, Georgia (a great beach with lots of local flavor and a good place to watch the fisherman on the pier in the evenings). What beach have YOU been buried at?

YOU HAVEN'T LIVED UNTIL YOU'VE....

CANOED IN THE RAIN !

Here we are summer 1998 on the Harpeth River just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. We tried first to ride it out alongside the banks, but eventually bailed out of the boat and took shelter under the trees. We had too much rain that week and we could actually hear large trees losing their grip along the banks and falling into the water upriver. It was a frightening but exciting adventure.