This is going to be an epic week, as we prepare to kick off my wife’s birthday. Birthdays in our family are celebrated the entire week. The person gets to decide what food to eat, activities to do, movies to watch, and obviously, if we need to prepare a special breakfast.
My wife needs to feel spoiled this week. She spends many hours online with her job, make sure the little fluffball does have accidents incident, and push kids to get homework done.
As such, we will be kicking off an awesome week for her, with apples, pies, peaches, concerts, and all the food she likes. It’ll be a damn special week!
Apple Picking
Each year since moving to the area, we have gone apple picking. We live within a 20-30 minutes drive of some of the best orchards, offering excellent choices of a variety of apples.
The kids get to sit in the back of the truck with the dogs. They jump down when we park, climb the trees, and pick a large bag full of delicious apples.
The weather was perfect for our apple picking adventures yesterday. Mid-70s Fahrenheit, clear blue sky, and no wind.
Our dogs were excited to run around (on a leash) among the trees, smell a bunch of new smells, and spend time with us.
The Great Pyrenees puppy, aka fluffball or cottonball, received a lot of attention.
While we are looking forward to this week, I also know that I’m going to be exhausted. Age is not on our side anymore when we have late-night activities on school nights, and still have to be up by 5.30 am to get the kids ready for school. I need my 7-8 hour beauty sleep!
Concert Mayhem – A state of disorder; chaos.
OK, chaos or mayhem might be a little exaggerated. But, it’ll be mad busy this week. We have four concerts lined up over the next six days. It’ll be awesome to see all the music live, but I dreed the late nights and early mornings.
20 years ago, heck even 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have been concerned. Back then, we got no sleep with the babies and yet worked full days. We got energy from coffee, and. At times we had coffee injected into our veins … that’s a joke of course.
The Naked Vikings concert tour
Three concerts are mid-week, which means less than 5-6 hours of sleep. I might have to break my decaf coffee vow and go full-on caffeinated. Perhaps even mix Red Bull with Black Rifle’s ‘Beyond Black‘ coffee. That stuff is powerful and may give you night vision.
More updates will be posted about my sleepless week, once I get caffeine into my system.
Meal planning – busy week calls for easy food
Easy food does not mean cheap ass store-bought meals, frozen pizza, and other junk foods. Just because we need to serve dinner rather quickly, we can still put in a little effort and cook good stuff from scratch.
Meals this week have to be easy for the kids to reheat. I don’t fully trust their culinary skills, and we rely on the microwave when the kids are home alone. I’m less worried when I know they don’t have to use the cooker or oven, as I fear they forget to turn off the appliances.
This week calls for simpler dinners, but I spend a little more time creating nice lunches for the younger kids. My 17-year-old can fend for herself when she comes home from school.
Fire up the Traeger. Ready your Dutch oven. Go shopping, and let’s start cooking—another Sunday in the Kitchen with music on the magical Demerbox and wonderful aromas filling the room.
| Weekday | Snacks n’ Breakfasts | Lunch | Dinner |
| Monday | Homemade granola bar | Roll with grilled teres major steak, spinach, mozzarella | Chicken meatballs with peaches, basil, and white rice. |
| Tuesday | Fruit cups | Buffalo chicken in a wrap with spinach and celery | Taco Tuesday – organic beef taco mix with coleslaw |
| Wednesday | Veggie sticks | Banh Mi sandwich, with carrots, grilled pork loin rubbed with five spices | Homemade lasagne with organic beef |
| Thursday | Fruit cups | Chicken salad; corn, grilled chicken, black beans, and shredded cheese | Homemade lasagne with organic beef |
| Friday | Homemade granola bars | Mini pepperoni pizza | Smoked tomato soup |
One day, I might get so organized that I will link the meals below to my recipes. We can only live in hope!
Have a fantastic week, my friends. I hope you enjoy these meal plans. It is so much easier to make food in advance, although you need to invest several hours during the weekend to prepare the meals.
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