Missoula Children's Theatre-Robinson Crusoe

This is the fourth time I have written about the Missoula Children's Theatre.  Twice a year they come to Green Lake Wisconsin.  On Monday, they auditioned children from the area for a play.  This summer it was for Robinson Crusoe or a loosely interpreted version of the story.  Then all week the children practice.  They learn the story, songs, and practice their lines. By Saturday afternoon, the show must go on.  It always amazes me how two or three young adults from the Missoula Montana theatre group can come to a strange town and organize and teach a cast of almost sixty children of all ages to be ready to give a performance in five short days.

Our granddaughter participated in Robin Hood (http://www.thecabincountess.com/2015/02/enjoying-another-missoula-theater.html),
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (http://www.thecabincountess.com/2013/06/missoula-childrens-theatre-snow-white.html) and
The Secret Garden (http://www.thecabincountess.com/2013/01/missoula-childrens-theatre.html).

It was a great experience for her and led her to having acting parts in two middle school plays and eight high school plays.  Now it is our youngest grandchild's turn.  He is nine and auditioned for the first time.  He was part of the Very Hairy Frowny-Face Tribe.

Ewan was excited and really enjoyed his experience.  It was a big commitment and a lot of hours.  They practiced from 4:00pm until 8:30pm each day.  The next show will be The Snow Queen next January 20-25, 2020.  I wonder if he will want to participate in that show.

Here are a few pictures of Ewan as a Very Hairy Frowny-Face.  Sometimes he frowned but he also smiled.

So that's a wrap.  Big brother Dylan was able to get off work in time for most of the evening performance.  The day was a big success.

Our Grandchildren's Graduation From High School

The last two weeks have been full of proud moments for grandparents.  We had our two oldest grandchildren graduate from high school.  Our oldest is a girl named Melissa.  She loves to sing and act.  It started when she was young.  She participated in the Missoula Children's Theater and has been in school performances since 7th grade.  One of the ladies who does the costumes for all the plays, made this pillow.  It has eight pictures on it, one for each play she was in during the four years of high school.  They did one musical and one drama per year.  It is a treasure.

This year was especially fun for her.  She got a first rating for a solo at the State Solo and Ensemble competition.  She sang 100 Ways to Lose a Man from the musical Wonderful Town.

She also sang a solo (When I'm 64) and duet (Cover Is Not the Book from Mary Poppins Returns) at the final performance of the choir she was in.  Then came graduation day.  She is ready and her parents are ready but for me it's hard to accept she is done with this phase of her life.  Hopefully there are good times ahead with college and work and friends.

Our second oldest grandchild is Dylan.  He is 10 months younger than Melissa, but also graduated this year.  Dylan plays in the high school band and the saxophone group he was in won a first rating at the State Solo and Ensemble competition. 

This spring he  played Ali Hakim, a Persian peddler, in Oklahoma the Musical.  He's posing afterward with his little brother Ewan.  Ewan dressed as a cowboy for the performance.  I also see acting in his future.

Dylan's real love, however, is Math and Physics.  He is a person who uses both sides of his brain.  He has the artsy side and the math and science side.  Within the past year he has traveled to Cal Tech to work with NASA on a project and to Seattle to work on an Astronomy project.  He was valedictorian so he got to spend the day at Lambeau Field in Green Bay as part of the Best of the Class sponsored by a Green Bay television station.  Various kids will be featured on this station throughout the summer.

Leading up to graduation was a band concert, awards ceremony, tennis banquet and other finales to an awesome high school career.  His mother isn't quite ready to let him go off on his own, but I believe he is ready.  Fall will bring many new adventures and opportunities in college.

Then last weekend my daughters had the graduation party.  It was a combined party on a beautiful day and many people came to celebrate.

This spring has been very busy but fun.  It was a new experience for my husband and me.  Hopefully we will be healthy enough to experience this with the rest of our grandchildren.  My one regret is that I didn't get pictures with us and the graduates.  So much was going on, we missed that photo opportunity.  We did, however, get pictures of the M & M's.  It's all about priorities.

  Now it's time for everyone to enjoy the summer before they are onto their next adventure.

Baking Bananas For Extra Sweetness

Are there times when you want to make banana bread, banana muffins or something else with bananas?  Many times we don't have any bananas on hand or they are much too green.  Bananas freeze very well for baking.  If you have some bananas that are past their prime for eating, freeze them.  You can either peel them and put them in a plastic bag or freeze them with the peel on.  If you do this, you will always have the main ingredient for baking.  The very ripe bananas are the sweetest and make the best baked goods.  If you have bananas that are too green, there is a way to make them suitable for baking.  My example bananas are almost ripe enough but I wanted them slightly riper.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Put the bananas on a baking sheet covered with foil or parchment paper.  You need the paper because as they bake, the bananas give off a sticky liquid which sticks to an unlined baking pan.

Bake for about 25 minutes.  They will turn completely black on the outside.

Let the bananas cool before peeling.  They will be very hot inside.  When cool, peel the banana.  It will be very soft inside and can be used to bake your banana bread or muffins.

I had to ripen my bananas because I had a recipe to try.  I often watch Kelly and Ryan in the morning.  Recently Kelly made banana pancakes.  They are gluten free, and I am always looking for easy recipes for my daughter.

Banana Pancakes

3 bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond butter
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
a dash of sea salt

Mix these ingredients together to make the batter and make the pancakes as you do any pancake.  They turned out fine, and they looked like a pancake.

I have to say they were good.  I can understand if a person can't have a "real" pancake and has to be gluten free, this is an excellent option.  It's similar to the pumpkin pancakes I wrote about five years ago.  http://www.thecabincountess.com/2014/09/pumpkin-pancakes-and-crockpot-pumpkin.html

As for myself, I like pancakes made with flour, oil, sugar and eggs.  Maybe that's why I weigh what I do and Kelly Ripa weighs the same as I did as a small child.  Even if you don't like the pancakes, the method for baking the bananas is an excellent one.

A Mother's Day Buffet That Was For The Birds

It's Mother's Day weekend.  It's time to celebrate mother's of all kinds.  Some women are mothers to their dogs and cats, some to human children or some women just take the day to celebrate themselves.  Many of us are going out for brunch to a restaurant, are going to someone else's home or just staying home to relax.  Some mom's stay home and their children cook for them.  It's a sweet gesture, but sometimes it's more work for the moms cleaning up but she will never tell the kids that.

Although I didn't have to cook and my son-in-law's mother Beth made a delicious brunch, I set out a buffet for my feathered friends.  I put out a dish of grape jelly and made a special birdseed bundt cake made with meal worms, sunflower seeds, peanuts and regular birdseed blend.  I had many varieties of birds enjoying either the jelly, the cake or both.

My first visitors were the bluejays.  Papa took mama out to eat for Mother's Day 

 

A Catbird which liked both the jelly and the cake.

A Downy Woodpecker 

 

A Hairy Woodpecker

A Red Bellied Woodpecker

 

A Red Winged Blackbird

 

A Tufted Titmouse

 

A male Rose Breasted Grosbeak

 

A female rose breasted Grosbeak

 

A Chickadee

 

A male white breasted Nuthatch

 

A Red Breasted Nuthatch

 

Mr. and Mrs. Northern Cardinal

 

An Immature Orchard Oriole

 

A male Baltimore Oriole

 

This female Baltimore Oriole and soon to be mom showed up with some nesting material.

 

She had to put down the nesting material to eat but soon was on her way.

 

We had several different birds at other feeders.  I saw finches, woodpeckers, a variety of sparrows, blackbirds and starlings,  but this is a sampling of those who ate at the buffet.  We all, including myself, had a great day.

Crocheted Market Bag

Recently I heard on the news that some grocery stores in our area are going to phase out the use of single use plastic bags .  People will have to bring their own bags.  They may offer paper, but I'm not sure about that.  It's a good idea because plastic bags can take 10 to 1,000 years to decompose, and every year 100 billion of them end up in landfills around the country.  Aldi has always had a no bag policy.  If you don't use one of their boxes or bring your own bag, you have to buy their bags.  We just take it for granted that all other stores provide bags.  I try to remember to use reusable bags if I do big shopping, but we all manage to accumulate more plastic bags than we need.  They can't be recycled by our local waste management people and have to be put in the regular garbage which really clogs up the landfills.  Many stores have bins to bring the bags to, but it's hard to remember.  I used to bring my bags to a local store, but they went out of business.  Most people don't want to go to the trouble so they just throw them in the trash.

Recently I was packing up my extra bags and saw this written on one of them.

"Please reuse or recycle this bag" sparked a memory of a blog I wrote a few years ago.  I made things out of plastic bags, but somehow I got out of the habit.   Here is the blog from 2013.  It has the step by step instructions for cutting the bags and making the "plarn" so you can knit or crochet it just like yarn.  If you want the instructions, just click on this link.   http://www.thecabincountess.com/2013/08/coaster-doily-made-from-plarn.html

I thought this would be a good time to make a more permanent shopping bag out of the flimsy plastic bags I have accumulated.  I organized my bags into colors.  I had a few gray bags from Walmart, green from a local grocery store, yellow from Dollar General and Festival foods, orange from Fleet Farm and a lot of white bags with different colored writings.  I hope my instructions are understandable.  I'm not a pattern writer and make most things on the fly.

Crocheted Market Bag

Chain 51 stitches from your prepared "Plarn".  Single crochet, with a size "H" hook, in the second stitch from the hook and in each stitch until the end.  Turn and crochet two stitches in the first and last stitch of the chain.  Then single crochet on the other side of the chain crocheting two stitches in the first and last stitch.  You now have 52 stitches on each side making 104 stitches in total.  Place a marker and single crochet on these 104 stitches around and around changing colors as you see fit.  You can make this bag as long as you want.  Mine is about 15 inches long.

When you get to the top, it's time to make handles.  I chose short handles but you can make them any length.  I crocheted in 16 stitches, chained 32 for the handle, skipped 20 stitches, and continued in single crochet on the next 32 stitches, chain 32 again and crochet in the last 16 to the marker.  The next row single crochet around including the 32 handle chains.  There is no sewing together.  This bag is all one piece and very sturdy.  It took about 60 plastic bags to make this one bag.  I may put a zipper in the top or some large snaps, but it isn't necessary.

The finished Market Bag 

 

Close up on the single crochet stitch

Here are a few more I have made.  I have learned to make the handles at least 4 rows to make them sturdier.  I have even used a strand of yarn with the plastic to make them more colorful.