SparkDad

This morning I attended a funeral for a 8 year old Scout. Alex Vasquez. I did not know Alex, but a friend of mine that runs another Cub Scout pack did. Fifty Scouts and leaders were at the funeral. It was very sad indeed. He had contracted brain cancer six months ago. The disease took him quickly. At the memorial service some great music was played and wonderful stories told. He was a great little boy that lived his short life to the fullest. He touched many people and taught them more about God and love in his eight short years than some learn in forty. The experience will not quickly be forgotten by those in attendance. Young Alex had a peaceful journey here on earth.

With that I segue into Stickman and Pork Chop. They both entered the school district Rodeo Art competition this year and they both made it to the district finals! Neither of them made it to the actual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo but they both did great! Stickman’s art “Eight Seconds” shown to the right was a finalist. He did a great job on it!

Pork Chop’s work won first place but did not advance. It was very nice for a first grader. It was appropriate for this post because of the title of the work was “Peaceful Journey”. Those of you who know Pork Chop know that he is anything but Peaceful. He is a rambunctious little boy who is full of energy! He is constantly in “trouble” but that is OK. He is just all boy!

Now on to the controversy! I will admit when I look at our son’s art I am a bit biased. Everything they do is wonderful to me. But the winners that beat our Stickman’ art I would have to say that I would not have chosen over his. The cow on the left was chosen over Stickman’s awesome bull. What do you think? Comment on this post and let me know which you would have chosen : )

Be honest, I want to see if I am being totally biased and blinded by parenthood.

- Spark Dad

I think that I am a fairly productive stay at home Dad. I make sure the beds are made. I trudge through never ending hordes of laundry. I sweep and mop, dust and even occasionally clean the windows. But sometimes I sit down and the computer and let it consume my time, aimlessly searching the internet for something interesting.

Yesterday in my search for nothing I found a really cool site that sells sun dials. Now today they do not have much function but man they are very cool.  This one I found on www.1001sundials.com and at a great price of only $86.99.

I have a fascination with globes so the one that it pictures beside it on the link which is called an Armillary Sundial. Now if you are wondering what a Armillary is you can find a definition of it at Wikipedia here. Basically it is a “model of the celestial sphere, consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features such as the ecliptic”  I posted a photo of a armillary sphere to the right of the sundial. 

Sundials are often placed in gardens as decorations. I think they would be a classy edition to my new patio and fire pit.

Well I am off to take some continuing education classes for my insurance license…so boring!

- Spark Dad

There is one thing that is for sure, Stickman and Porkchop love Asian style dumplings. For the past six month I have, off and on, looked for wonton wrappers so that I could make some at home. Finally yesterday I found them at Wal-Mart. So I embarked on my first dumpling recipe.

I had 2 pounds of pork in the freezer so I decided to make pork dumplings.  ( This was WAY TOO MUCH! It mad almost 100 dumplings )

I used the recipe at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Chinese-Dumplings and the recipe was pretty good, although is called for sesame oil in the ingredient list but never used it in the recipe : ( I used their triple boil method for cooking the dumplings which worked very well.

A couple of tips:

- Do not over pack the dumpling wrappers because they will bust open.

- Do not under pack the dumpling wrappers because they will bust open

I know! Confusing! You need just the right amount in there or they will be saggy or they will pop open! It just takes practice! We will be having these very often because the boys love them!

Lastly my new BBQ pit is wonderful but it is also stressful! It is very nice and I want to take good care of it so we bought a cover for it. Now this cover was a cheap one for sure but it protects it from the weather. The only problem with this cheap cover is that it keeps blowing off! In addition it is a light plastic and when we returned the holiday I noticed that it had become brittle and has a foot long tear in it, which is probably a result of it continuously blowing off.

So I set out to find a nice grill cover. I searched and found many sources for the covers but this one stood out.  It seems that the best ones have a heavy grade polyester on the outside and a plastic or PVC lining. They also have velcro adjustment straps instead of those cheap drawstrings. They are higher than I paid for my $14.99 plastic grill cover, but my $300 grill is worth it!  They even had a smaller one there in the same design for a smaller BBQ pit or kettle style pit.

I really like the chili pepper design so Mama if you are reading this post you can add this to my wish list.

- Spark Dad