Cameron's Infamous Apple Crisp

One of Cameron's elective classes is a foods/nutrition class, he says he's in the class because nothing else would fit in his schedule, his girlfriend is also in the class...hmmm.  The class made a Thanksgiving Dinner for their class, a guest of their choosing, and the school administration.  He had to find a recipe and he chose my (also my mom's) Apple Crisp.  It really is the best there is.  They had to grocery shop, the works.  He did a trial run at home the other night and it turned out pretty good.  However, when he made it at school yesterday, it must have turned out extraordinarily fabulous because everyone ate it until it was gone and he got several compliments.  He came home and told dad that he "tweaked" the recipe and it was a lot better than mom's.  I asked him this morning what he did to "tweak" it and he said "dad told you?"  Cameron said "I don't know, it just tasted better".  I said "maybe you had better apples" :P

The pictures below are of my Apple Crisp...there are no pictures of his...muhahaha!

I'm a Man

Christian turned 18 years old...he likes saying things like "I'm an adult".  We were going to have an airsoft party in Springfield with lots of his friends but just like Cameron's, they all fell through, had to work, etc.  We still went and had a blast with the Harrison family, it seemed appropriate since they, Ethan and Joel, introduced our boys to airsoft in the first place. We had a great time but I was kinda bummed that both my boys' birthdays weren't as epic as I had wanted them to be and on Thursday I learned that a lady at church had received two tickets to a Chiefs vs Broncos NFL game.  I went online to see how much tickets were, they went from ridiculously priced to cheap nosebleed seats.  Before purchasing, I discussed my plan with James.  I called my friend from church and asked her about her gift of tickets and if she would mind a couple of stowaways.  She said "Sure, they can come with us!"  That night, James and I got online purchased a couple of cheapo tickets and put them in envelopes for the boys.  Friday morning, November 2nd, we told the boys we were bummed that their birthday plans had went awry and so we had thought that this would make up for it.  We handed them each an envelope, they looked inside and were shocked!  Super excited and couldn't quit talking about it all morning.  That night we celebrated with another crazy cake...

Another Driver

It was a bright, sunny afternoon, on Christian's birthday.  I picked Cameron up from school early so he could attempt the driver's test and get that coveted driver's license.  I got him plenty early so we could take a mock test around town.  Come to find out, Cameron had never driven in Warsaw at all, just Lincoln and Sedalia.  Fortunately, since we lived here so long he knew his way around pretty well.  He was getting a little irritated with my instructions, I was trying to prepare him well for his test.  Okay, he was more than irritated, he made a left hand turn in town that I hadn't instructed him to take and I asked where he was going.  He said he was just going to go take the test, he could drive better "alone".  I said, that's fine.  I thought to myself that if he fails...who cares, it would serve him right.  He had never even attempted parallel parking which we would have practiced if he wouldn't have gotten mad at his mama and thought he could do better without her words of wisdom.  We pulled up to the community building where they give the test and there were the parallel parking cones.  I told him orally how to parallel park, lol, makes me chuckle thinking about it.  And then we went in.  He left with an instructor and I sat there rather amused and not nervous at all, probably because I didn't care whether he passed or not.  When I waited for Christian I felt like I was going to throw up.  He was gone a while so I thought maybe that was at least a good sign that he hadn't hit a car right away.  He returned with a PASSING score of 70!  Barely passed...the good news is that I don't have to take him there again. 
We then headed over to the license bureau to get the real deal.  When they called for the next person in line I started to stand up to go to the back with him, he raised his hand and said, it's okay mom, I got it.  I said, alright.  He got his picture taken, etc, and then I heard the lady say "that'll be $7.50", he turned and looked at me.  I said in probably a much louder voice than necessary "oh, ya want your mommy now".  He got out his wallet.

A "Special" Duet

Christian has a friend, Lerin.  She is a lovely girl, we've known her since she was in grade school.  She sings and plays golf and mostly gives Christian a hard time, in fact, they are relentless at giving each other a hard time.  She was asked to sing a special at church and she asked Christian if he wanted to sing a duet.  He said, "With who?"  He gave in and they sounded great together :)

Cameron is 16

My baby boy turned 16 years old!  Wowee, he still seems younger, he always will.  We didn't get our epic birthday party like we wanted.  He wanted something similar to Christian's 16th but it didn't turn out.  Instead we went to Springfield the night before, went shopping, out to dinner, and to a movie.  The next day, he went to his girlfriend's all day volleyball tournament.  Fun.

I did make him a ridiculous cake though.

A New Car...sort of

Since the "man van" died, James and I had to share our vehicles with the boys, or Christian.  It was a real inconvenience so we decided to buy ourselves a junker older yet reliable vehicle for the boys to drive.  Our associate pastor happened to be disposing replacing a 1984 Chrysler New Yorker for a reasonable low price.  You may be thinking...wow, that's old but it sounded just right for our purposes.  Rumor has it the miles are original with only around 65,000; a little old lady had it in her garage a long time ;)  It is all leather interior and it talks to you.  It really was "top of the line" in its day.

What a beauty...

I drove it the other day and thought...I wonder if I could trade out these seats with the ones in my car?

A Football Player???

Since moving our kids to Lincoln High School, Christian decided he wanted to play football again.  He played in 3rd grade and then in grades 7th and 8th.  Christian is not an enormous fellow but he wanted to play and we didn't stop him.  He absolutely loved it, he stunk really bad after practice, and endured two concussions.  Dr said that's it after concussion number 2, much to my delight.  Now, I really love watching football but it's too distracting worrying about your kid getting hurt during a game to really enjoy it to the fullest extent.  Since he's a senior, he was a team captain, now that was fun...he walked out to the middle of the field with three other seniors, no risk of injury ;).  Lincoln only started a football program a couple years ago so they were still getting into the swing of things, this year was a year of firsts.  They won their first game ever and won many more after that.  It was a great season.  Cameron has no interest in football whatsoever...I suppose that's okay.

"I love you, Nurse Nancy"

Christian had to have a tonsillectomy this summer. 

He was so brave...

looked a little silly...

and woke up a little loopy...

 

He told his nurse, "Nurse Nancy" that he loved her and when asked if he was in any pain, he said he couldn't tell if he had pain or not.

 

It took him a good couple weeks to recover completely but hopefully we won't have any more problems with strep, at least not 4 times in 2 months again.

Epic Hoagland Family Vacation - Part 4

After we had exhausted all the fun Bennett Springs and the surrounding area had to offer, we decided to go to Springfield to enjoy the rest of our trip.  We got a fabulous deal (Priceline!) at an amazing hotel right next to Hammonds Field (Springfield Cardinals play there), we could see the fireworks from our window that Friday night.  We started with the zoo, went to a Springfield Cardinals game, played a couple disc golf courses in Springfield, and played a little tennis.

From inside our lovely hotel...with free breakfast ;)

Disc Golf at Evangel University

 Springfield Cardinals!

 

A disc golf course in a shady neighborhood...we came upon some bullet casings and small liquor bottles.  I also threw my disc into peoples yard, I'm really terrible at this game.

 

Epic Hoagland Family Vacation - Part 3

Some of the odd things we found to do were go to the largest puzzle store, they really had a lot, see the largest root beer bottle, go to an antique mall/flea market, and we spontaneously stopped by the Home of the Tornado Turtle.  Nothing was there, it was abandoned, I don't know what the tornado turtle did or was but it was a fun sign to take a picture in front of.

The antique mall had cheese...don't they all?

Laclede county was also having its annual fair....this is one part of the trip I could have done without.  We watched a ridiculously long horse pull thing...

The boys didn't ride anything at the carnival but they did play some of the carnie games, Christian won this eagle on his first game, Cameron played two or three different things, blew all his wad and only came away with this tiny little duck.  Quite comical or devastating...

depends on how you look at it.

Epic Hoagland Family Vacation - Part 2

Float Trip!!!  This was a part of our vaca that we were all really looking forward to.  We let the boys get ride-on kayaks and James and I shared a canoe, I paddled, he fished, we ran into trees, banks, rocks, he fished, hee, I love to paddle and I sometimes steer, hee hee.

 

Cameron had this brilliant idea to make the Superman logo on his chest and then apply sunscreen.

The tape ended coming off right away and his "Superman" logo ended up pink instead of just untanned.

 

They jumped off logs and fallen trees...

 

 

James caught his first fish...

 

 

 

I even jumped off...once.

 

This was a very long float trip...seriously, we were so exhausted and

ready for it to be over but it was a blast.