It felt like a pretty pathetic Family Home Evening tonight. We didn’t have it at home, didn’t talk about anything meaningful or deep, and we only had part of the family there. Ah, well, carry on.

Mr. Hot Stuff headed out early this morning for a flight to Costa Rica on business. At his transfer in Houston, he got upgraded to first class. The perks of being a frequent flyer. Anyway, this little jaunt of his meant he wasn’t around to last-minute-genius a lesson together. As a result, our FHE went something like this:

Me: What to have for dinner?

Miss Sassy: Make pasta salad. But don’t put beans in it, Mom. It’s really weird with beans in it. Use some other protein.

Me: Okay, pasta salad it is.

Later, Me: What to do for Family Home Evening?

Me: I know, we’ll go buy some food to make sack lunches for school.

So that is what we did. We had an exciting time (great exaggeration) walking up and down the aisles of Macey’s grocery store, looking and hoping that Casi would have inspiration strike her and she would magically find something that appealed to her for lunch at school. Yes, we are aware that the school sells lunch, but if you were vegetarian, how many days in a row would cheese pizza appeal to you? U.S. schools are not equipped to deal well with vegetarians. The Department of Agriculture is pretty convinced our kids could die if they didn’t eat meat at every meal. Thus, we made a trip to the supermarket.

We found:

• Museli
• Activia Yogurt
• Frozen Toaster Strudel
• Pink Lady Apples

I realize this is not much of a list, but please realize, we’ve only had about a week to learn what she likes and dislikes. Sandwiches are quite a ways down on Casi’s list of desirable foods.

Creamy Macaroni Salad (our dinner tonight) is also Very Far Down on that list. No, no, keep going. A little lower… Yes, way down there. But she liked yesterday’s brown basmati rice and beans. Ha! Win!

I’m going to make muffins in the morning, maybe those will be winners too. I know my other kids will like them, so either way, I won’t consider it a fail.

After we did a little lunch shopping, we got a fresh peach shake from our favorite taco shop. FHE should always have refreshments. Remember what I said before? Refreshments rescue the most dismal or boringly mediocre family nights. Thank Heaven.

So nothing really profound about tonight, but I hope these kids see the “I love you” in their chance to choose the foods they like. I know I see the “I love you” when they are willing to try new things. At any rate, tonight was a good chance to laugh together.

Casi is starting to loosen up and voice her thoughts more and more. It’s so much fun to see her sense of humor and strong will come out. I look forward to more and more of it.

winner-winner, veggie dinner 🙂

Note: It’s past midnight now, so I guess tomorrow is technically today, but whatever. Good night.