Sidetracked: Kelsey's English Project

So this weekend I spent the majority of my time creating this video for my Honors English class. For you regulars, sorry it isn't food, but I promise that'll be up soon! The video is intended to be a humorous visualization of the themes present in The Great Gatsby, so I guess having read it might help. But in any case, its supposed to be a mock-reality type show, Enjoy!

~Kelsey

BUGZ Part 2

This post is a "Grandma Request". The rest of you may or may not be interested. Saturday afternoon Grandma joined me at the last home football game so she could see the band. The football game was really ugly; I think they lost 40 - 0, but of course the band was amazing. (Do you think I'm just a bit biased?) The field was very muddy so the band did not march; they needed to save their uniforms and ankles for the competition in Effingham that evening. I've got a little video of that performance.

The band loaded up four charter buses and left soon after halftime. Saturday evening they competed in a competition at Effingham High School. Joe & I loaded up our van with a few of our friends and followed the buses down I-70 east towards Effingham, IL. It was early Sunday morning when we returned home, but we were so excited we didn't care. The Belleville East Band was crowned Grand Champions of this contest. This next bit of video is from Saturday night in Effingham.

It's a little sad to think we only have one more competition left this season. This coming Saturday we will be competing at the Greater St. Louis Marching Band Festival at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Good Luck Belleville East!

~ Terri

It's a Long Way from Chicago.......

but Chicago style pizza is right down the street! Tuesday night we decided to try out a new place right down the street from us. Jonny's Pizza and Pasta recently opened in an old Cecil Whitaker's store. Terri, Kelsey, & Joe were all present and eating pizza. All three of us agreed that Jonny makes better pizza than Cecil.

We started off with their Italian salad. The salad was iceberg lettuce with pepperoni, ham, onions, cheese, olives, pepperoncini & tomato. It was pretty typical pizza place salad, pretty good, but not outstanding. I didn't really care for the Italian dressing, but I didn't hear any complaints from my table companions.

Then we moved on to pizza. We ordered a medium Chicago style pizza and we could not finish it. Joe & Terri really enjoyed the change of pace from regular pizza. Their pizza sauce was very good. I'd really like to go back and try some pasta; I imagine it would be pretty good too. Kelsey did not enjoy the Chicago style as much as St. Louis style. She prefers her toppings on top. In her defense, they are called "toppings". But, she didn't hate it either. So, all in all, it was a pretty good weeknight dinner.

We did take a peak at some of our fellow diners' thin crust pizzas and they looked pretty tasty too. I think we'll be back again and it will be hard to decide what to order. Jonny definitely makes better Chicago style pizza than the Cubs play Chicago style baseball.

~ Terri

BUGZ

Tonight the Belleville East band performed their 2009 show "BUGZ" at the second home football game. I was able to catch a little video of the second movement when the butterflies come out. Kelsey is playing the marimba and is second from the right in the front row. I'm one of the few band parents who always knows where my child is. Tomorrow afternoon they host their own competition at Belleville East where they will perform in exhibition. Then tomorrow night they will compete in their first competition of 2009 at O'Fallon, IL. Good Luck Lancer Band!!!

In case you're wondering Belleville East won the football game 28-26.

Please Don't Fire Us!

We know we've been neglectful of the blog and we're a long way from reaching our goal, but we have a long list of excuses. I'd say the dog ate my post, but I don't have a dog. Guess that excuse won't work. I won't bore you with reasons why our lives have been just too full to find time to visit a a new restaurant and write a blog about it. Actually, we did find time to visit a new place almost two weeks ago; I'm just now sitting down to blog about the experience. So, if you're keeping track, we are now up to FIVE new restaurants this summer. As you may recall, our goal was 11 new restaurant this summer. Obviously, we're going to have do some tweaking to our definition of "this summer". For the purposes of this blog, summer ends when we say it does, even if there's snow on the ground.

Our fifth new restuarant was the Acropolis in downtown Belleville. We visited there two weeks ago Friday night. Joe & Todd were our guests for this dinner. This is a restaurant that all of us had heard about and had been wanting to try for quite some time. Finally, on this Friday night we were able to get the whole family together for a Greek dinner.

The Acropolis is a small, Greek restaurant located about a block off the square in downtown Belleville. There is outside seating, but this evening we chose to eat indoors.

Joe's choice for dinner was Plaki which was baked cod on a bed of rice with vegetables. He thought it was pretty good.

Kelsey and Todd both opted for the gyro. Both of them thought it was just what they expected and they would order it again.

My dinner was basically a Greek grilled cheese sandwich with eggplant. I don't remember what they called it. It was very rich, and I was not able to finish it. All of us were served a salad with our meal. The salads were very good, and we enjoyed them quite a bit.

We enjoyed our visit to the Acropolis and will probably return in the future. We did learn one very important lesson: if you wait too long to blog about your experiences you forget too many details.

So, we apologize that we're not able to provide a full account of our visit to the Acropolis. We will try to learn from our mistakes and do better in the future. At least no one is giving us a grade on our blog.

If you're going back to school in the next week or so, we hope you have a good year at school. And don't follow our example - get your homework done on time!

~ Terri

Luke is a Lucky Man

And if you were at Boys Week at Camp Ne-O-Tez last week, you're giggling right now. It's hard to see in the picture, but the vanilla wafers in the pudding spell out "I "heart" Luke." This was only one of the many special memories we will take away from this week at camp.

Kelsey & I are back from a week working in the kitchen at Camp Ne-O-Tez. Today we want you to meet Luke & Monica. Luke was a Bible teacher and Monica was a cook last week. They are engaged to be married in October. We sat down with them Friday afternoon in the gazebo where they graciously agreed to talk to us about their first ever week at Camp Ne-O-Tez.

T&K: Had you heard of Camp Ne-O-Tez before? How?

M: Yes. My great-grandmother was Dorothy Spencer who used to cook at camp.

L: Yes. I heard about camp through Joe Taylor. He promoted the food.

T & K: What was your favorite meal?

L: Hot dogs with chili becauase it combines some of my favorite foods - hot dogs, chili, cheese and bread.

M: Grilled cheese sandwiches with chicken fries because cheese and chicken is the best combo.

T&K: Least favorite meal?

L: The bacon was too crispy. I prefer it chewy.

M: Hamburgers. I just want CHICKEN.

T&K: What was the hottest meal to cook? Personally, I felt the tator tots were hands down the hottest meal we cooked.

M: Mashed potatoes and chicken tenders.

T&K: What was your favorite dessert this week:

M: Chips Ahoy cookie dessert (Thanks to Sherri's friend Wendy for this awesome recipe. The boys loved it!)

L: Banana pudding

T&K: Did you feel you got enough butter in your diet this week? (You don't even want to know how many pounds of butter we went through this week.)

L&M: No, you can't ever get enough.

T&K: What was the funniest thing that happened this week?

L: Eating lunch with Dalton and Isaiah. They make me giggle.

M: The day every kid came through the line and said to me, "Luke is a lucky man."

T&K: If you could change one thing at camp, what would it be?

L: Bottled water in canteen.

M: More sugar in the kool-aid.

T&K: What was your favorite quote of the week?

L: MC saying, "You must have gotten drunk on coffee. You're crazy for getting married."

M: Aaron in the amphitheater asking if flash photography was allowed.

T&K: What was your favorite campfire song?

M: Beaver song

L: I've got confidence

T&K How about your least favorite campfire song?

M: Tarzan song. It's obnoxious and annoying.

L: The same.

T&K: Monica, how did you enjoy your trip to the Ne-O-Tez spa?

M: 5-star experenience. It surpasses the Four Seasons. It had a great massaging rock and cool, running water.

T&K: What was the best thing about camp?

L: Watching the kids do yuck games. And the scenery is awesome; there are so many different beautiful things in one area.

M: The scenery: Crystal Falls, the bluff, the cave. All are awesome.

T&K: What was the worst thing about camp?

M: bugs and insects

L: No PDA

T&K: Did you make new friends this week?

M: Yes, some of the new friends I made this week were Ellen, Sandy and Valerie.

L: Yes, I made friends with Ed, James, Dalton and Marcus.

We really enjoyed working with Luke and Monica this week and we're so happy they are as excited about Camp Ne-O-Tez as we are.

~ Terri & Kelsey

Tuesday Lunch at Camp Ne-O-Tez

Kelsey & I have just returned from Boys' week at Camp Ne-O-Tez where I was a cook and she was a dishwasher. Like always, the week included plenty of sweat, hard work, new friends, good food and lots of fun. Tuesday at lunch I had my camera handy and took some behind the scenes pictures of what goes on in the Ne-O-Tez kitchen.

Here's Director Joe "tasting the corn". I think he decided it was fit to eat.

Melissa makes amazing lemonade.

The diswashers get to enjoy a little down time before the campers start bringing them their dirty dishes . Our dishwashers were Melissa, Sydni, Kelsey & Laney. Beka is not pictured.

Hey, where are those campers anyway?

They are lining up outside. Before you can eat lunch you have to listen to the cabin inspection report.

Today, Cabin 2 was declared the winner and they get to eat first. Here they come!

Lunch today was chicken nuggets which are a camper favorite. The chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorites on the camp menu.

Even lizards get to enjoy a Ne-O-Tez lunch.

Jimmy knows how to clean his tray for the dishwashers.











We had a great week in the kitchen, but now we're looking forward to trying out some new restaurants. I think we deserve it.

~ Terri