Chicken Little {{Graphic}}, My birthday, and 12 years of wedded bliss

So once again, two weeks has gone by and I'm not sure how. There's been lots of activity around here...

As promised, here is a visual account of our adventurous chicken slaughter a few weeks back.
My brother and I really had no idea what we were doing. We watched some tutorials online, but there's no real understanding until you've actually done the deed.

We were a bit worried that he wouldn't get the head cut off with one swoop, but in the end, he did a great job...

I just couldn't keep my eyes open. It's like how eyes automatically shut when you sneeze...it was just an automatic reflex. But, as you can see, he cut clean through!

People always use the term "running around like a chicken with its head cut off," but I really underestimated just how much she would be flopping around. She was flopping so much I couldn't hold her down and had to take off running!

Yes, she made it all the way over there all by herself...and with no head, to boot!

Airborne!

Finally done.

Draining.


Placing her into a scalding bath to loosen the feathers.

She was only supposed to be in there for 90 seconds, but it ended up being close to 3 minutes...I think that may have played a role in the toughness of the meat.

Plucking the feathers was actually quite a bit easier than I thought!




All the icky stuff.

My bro with his finished product:

Aw, she was a good little chicken...


My 32nd birthday was on July 1st.

We spent the morning picking blackberries and got $1 large sodas (which our kids never get!) at McDonald's.

Miss G just got water. Shh, she doesn't know!

My running partners gave me a gift certificate to a local cupcake shop. You know what these are? ROOT BEER FLOAT cupcakes! I kid you not. Seriously divine. I threw my "no sugar" vow out the window for my birthday. I figured I'd enjoy it while I could.

Superman's grandparents were really generous and gave me some spending money for my birthday. I decided to get a food dehydrator with some of the dough, and it's my new best friend (aside from my Kindle). =) We've dried some plums, and I'm making plum/blackberry fruit rolls as I type.


Kids eat free at Carrows every day for the summer, so we decided to go out one night. You get one free kids meal for every adult entree purchased, so Mr. C decided to draw a mustache on himself so he could pass as a grown up. It must have worked, because the waitress didn't even question us. He is pretty convincing, afterall...

And being that yesterday was 7/11, it was free Slurpee day at 7-11. It's become a tradition that every year for our anniversary (which just happens to fall on that day), we really splurge and go get the whole family free Slurpees. Mmmm....watermelon.

I'm really excited about a speaker who we are flying out to speak to our adoption network in November. I'll share more about her next week!

Life Flies By, So I'll Do A Giveaway!

Superman has already been on summer break for two weeks. Tell me, how did that happen? I think having kids makes time go faster. And I really mean that. There must be some sort of crazy quantum physics/time warp thing going on. Because I'm sure that the last two weeks have only been two days.

At any rate, since we just had a time warp, I've missed blogging for a few weeks.
Superman and I had an incredible trip to San Francisco to celebrate our upcoming 12th anniversary. It's amazing what a little over 24 hours away from children can do for the soul.

We saw "Wicked" and even though Superman was asking if we could leave early before we even sat down, he ended up really liking it!

We took a tour of 'Cisco on Segways. Seriously worth the $70/person. It was probably one of the most fun outings we've done together. I was a little worried that my uncoordinated self would fall off {ungracefully}, but I made it through without any incidents.

We walked Fisherman's Wharf and hung out at Union Square and just really enjoyed each others' company.

Mr. C was the proud owner of our family's first black eye. He got a good shiner after running full speed ahead into a metal gun that shoots balls out at a birthday party.


I mean, really, is that not the prettiest shade of purple you ever did see?


Mr. C was pretty proud of his eye for a few days, but he got a little tired of everyone asking what happened. Luckily, he had his seventh birthday to look forward to! Can't believe he's already 7...


We celebrated the first day of summer vacation by doing...what else? Eating!

We spent all last week at our church's Vacation Bible School. There were over 800 kids there, and Superman and I were in charge of handing out Otter Pops. I don't think I need to cut anymore wrappers any time soon...although I do have quite the system down. The kids had a blast.


And Father's Day was a success at our home. The boys made daddy a card that truly spoke to his heart:


...And I gave him a mandarin tree to plant since his last one was a casualty of a big wind storm a few months ago. I did, however, make sure he knew that I loved him by displaying my undying affection for him on myself:


I finished reading "In Defense of Food" and "Farm City." The latter of which, I must say, is now one of my favorites.

And so, that brings me to my giveaway! After being gone from my poor little blog for a few weeks, I noticed I've passed the "50 followers" mark! Amazon has become my new co-best friend (shared with my Kindle). I wanted to share a little of that love. To celebrate, I'm giving away a $20 gift card for Amazon.com!

Just leave me a comment and you're entered! I'll be drawing a name on Friday.