"You Watch Out for that Fella--He's Not Normal!

We had a family reunion on my Mom’s side of the family last week, camping outside of Heber down in Utah. It was so good to see everyone, and I have come to the conclusion that our extended family is not normal (“You watch out for that fella--he’s not normal!” ~Mad, Mad Mad Mad World). As Grandpa would say, not only do we love each other, we like each other too! From my observations, there are few extended families as big as ours that are as close as we are. We all like to meddle in each other’s business, trade kids around on occasion, and offer lots of unsolicited advice, but by the same token, we know we could show up on any one of each other’s doorsteps unannounced and they would gladly let us stay and feed us if we needed it. We’ve got each other’s backs, I guess you could say, and what a wonderful feeling it is to know that any one of 60+ people are concerned about you and love you and would give you a soft place to land if needed. Few and far between are families like that.

One of the things I love about our family, is that everyone LOVES little babies. It was so neat to see all the babies being passed around from person to person. Our family believes that little ones are a special gift from Heavenly Father, and those little ones are definitely treated as such. I noticed though, that there were a few people that seemed to have a special gift with little babies. My brother, Joseph, has always been amazing with kids, and they all just love him. Nephi, Aunt Kristi, Eliza, and Nathan also seemed to have a special affinity with the little ones. Anyway, it was fun to observe….I feel like I am alright with kids, but my calling in life is with teenagers. (-:



Speaking of teenagers, I have to report on the Bajio's quesadillas. They were AMAZING! So delicious! I actually bought the uncooked tortillas from Bajios, and boy, are fresh tortillas good. If I were to do something differently next time, I would make a big batch of chicken, and a big batch of the chutney, and just have it in the freezer in small portion size baggies. Oh, another note, I peeled the peppers that went into the chutney, just like you would do for chillies rellenos. (Broil them 'til the skin turns black, then they peel pretty easily.) Anyway, I highly recommend trying this recipe, and make sure to load it up with all the toppings!

Oh, speaking of toppings, rather then buy a $4 bag of tortilla strips, heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a pan, cut some corn tortillas up into strips with a pizza cutter, and fry those puppies up. Sprinkle a little salt on, and MMMMM!