Dinner at the Veggie House, and Thar She Blows (whale watching pics)

How's that for a title? You are intrigued, no?

I sat down today to make a menu for the week. I am feeling decidedly anti-meat this week, so I chose lots of dinners that involve good flavors, lots of veggies, and some alternate means of protein. This evening I chose to make a vegetable lasagna with white sauce instead of red. I lovingly chopped red peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and onion and sauteed them in olive oil and garlic. I added in spinach and seasonings. Then I made a beautiful creamy bechamel sauce, to which I added a blend of 4 Italian cheese. I layered everything, including a ricotta mixture, into a pan and baked it until it was bubbly. The table was set, the bread was crusty, and I brought the plates over, laden with my lasagna of love. The reaction? Jillian declared herself "not hungry" and hid her head. Hayden asked for more bread, and more bread, and more bread. Kara, bless her little palate, ate hers up quite readily, but spit some spinach out. I ate my portion, excused myself from the table, and went to my bed to read a book. That left Kyle to deal with the whiners and help them to finish the dinner they clearly didn't want to eat. In the end, they ate it just fine. They may have even liked it. Am I discouraged? No. And, no April Foolin', I'm serving black bean burgers tomorrow night. Let's see how that goes over. Ha!

Whale watching was fun and funny. We got to the spot where there were volunteers to help you find the whales. It was a slightly overcast morning, but the ocean was pretty calm and it wasn't too cold. We quickly spotted sea lions basking on rocks, and a few swimming out to go fishing. The kids thought that was pretty cool. Then Kyle and I took turns with the binoculars, trying to spot whales. The people in the know said that several had been spotted that morning fairly close to shore. We were optimistic. Then, about 20 minutes later, the woman sitting next to us kept saying, while looking through her binoculars, "Yep, there's one. I see a spout. Another spout. A tail. There's a back. Another spout. Yep." Meanwhile Kyle and I are frantically trying to figure out exactly where in the VAST ocean in front of us she was seeing this. This happened two or three times before we finally spotted a spout. "A SPOUT!" I yelled. Hey, I couldn't help it. It was exciting and reassuring. After that we had several spout and back sightings, but the whales were pretty far out. You could see them with the naked eye, but nothing too specific. Luckily later, while we were visiting an lighthouse, a gray whale was swimming by incredibly close to the rocks below us. We saw its spotted back as it swam. That was cool. I can see us going back again and again to spot whales, now that we know how to find them. We don't have any pictures of the whales, but here are some of us enjoying our day. It was fun to have Shauna and her girls come too. I think everyone had a great time.

Amy