Feeling Nostalgic...

Remember this blog guys? It's been two and a half years since our last post!

T minus Sixty Minutes...

Until we leave for the Hyderbad airport! MAN was this day a long-time coming! I am looking forward to seeing what Italy is all about.

As I reflect on my time here, having this time to focus on the kids has been fantastic. I have had to take breaks in the evenings and Natalie has been so keen to want to give me them after she gets home, which is awesome. Overall we have enjoyed a wonderful and well-balanced family time here, which is nothing short of being God-breathed and it is to his credit.

Natalie has also really benefitted professionally. She told me earlier that she really has a feeling of accomplishment as a result of her time here.

We are a stronger family because of this trip.

I was walking out by the pool earlier with Lillian and I was explaining to her that I would miss swimming with her and Delaney here. It's true. They will not be this small for long and it has been such a gift to have had this time. One of my favorite things to do during the day is to just lay down and have Delaney crawl over me. We could play like that for what seems like hours. I definitely think my heart is bigger, which again is to God's credit.

Well, after writing this I am definitely feeling more melancholy about leaving because I know I won't have this kind of time again... BUT a little tuscan vino will rub that right out!! Just kidding.

So I am going to close down the computer now and start the process of continent-hopping. In a few hours I am going to plunk my butt down in a business class seat and hopefully catch some Z's. The time is 11:15PM.

Tax Da Panty

Booyakasha! Chiggity-check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Good morning everyone! Mark, great photos! I am really looking forward to getting you guys back home. You and your family are WAY too close to Pakistan right now and need to come back home now. What a God-awful mess that place is.

Jennifer, I really enjoyed seeing you, Enrique and the girls last weekend. You all look wonderful. And I really enjoyed your last post and, as you could tell from Courtney, who's busily turning into a young woman before my eyes, I can also relate to your angst about the kids growing up. The mental "photo" I keep in my heart is one of Courtney at about 4 years-old. Well, being that she'll be a teenager in another half year, she ain't a little girl any more. Oh well, I may have to accept that but nobody says I have to like it.

But just remember this; no matter how big your little jellybeans get, they will always have their silly Tio Jaime around to holler "no me dices no!" at them!

I have not tried your soup recipe yet but probably will this weekend. This past weekend I made a chicken & andoille sausage gumbo that, even though I was afraid would come out horrible, actually turned out pretty well. It was a real complex recipe though, especially for me.

In your missive to Mikey, are you talking about Polly Esther's or Club Antro?

West side . . . .

-J

Carmen is a whole hand!

Hold onto your hats- Carmen's fifth birthday is today! Can you stand it?!
I know I'm having a spot of trouble with the whole idea! Her birthday is always filled with such mixed emotions- I'm so happy for her, and she's so happy for herself. Yet at the same time I'm a little sad because she's my BABY, and she's growing up sooooo much.
She attended a party last night, and for the first time she offended me by asking when I would leave! She's becoming so very independent! So I had to leave her, and we were way up in north Austin, so Clarita and I went to a bookstore and read and had coffee and hot chocolate and sat together for a good while (which was another first), then went back to get Carmen. I think Clarita and I both were a little miffed by the whole thing- it's also the first time Carmen wanted no part of her sister's shadow around!
Carmen is no longer the youngest out of any group. In fact she's one of the eldest in her pre-school, so her confidence has really increased. She gets annoyed at feeling like she's always in Clara's shadow, believe me the message has been received loud and clear!
Sometimes I cradle her in my arms and tell her to "Be the Baby!" and she just wriggles and giggles and wiggles her way out. And I pretend to cry and I tell her again- "You're my baby, now be the baby!" And she thinks it's so funny... She is so delightful.
And, man, is she ever ready for Kindergarten! She just can't wait till she gets to board that bus with Clarita. She knows it's official now- she'll definitly start Kinder next August, now that she's five.
My two little babies are two little kids now. I really didn't think I could love anyone as much as I loved my newborns. Now I find that the love only gets bigger with age, and more personal, if that makes any sense.
James- wonderful to see you again. Speaking of grown-up children, Courtney sure is a gorgeous girl! Did the Italian Wedding Soup work out?
Mark- we can't wait to have you back stateside again. I can't wait to get some of the stories first hand. And I want to at least get on your list for a visit- we want to see those babies!
Mikey- remember the dance club we all went to in San Anton? Well they opened one up here in Austin! So I need for you and Molly to come back and shake a tail feather here real soon- k?
Robbie- how's the healing process coming to the hand and the ego? Heh. Hope you're feeling lots better! And you, too, we'd love to have you and the kiddos come back when you're all mended.
Love to you all, Jenn

T Minus One Week and Three Days...

Until we take off to the Tuscan Hill Country of Italy! Being here has been a great experience but we are ready to get outta dodge!! I'm tired of turning on the news and seeing political unrest in diferent areas of India as well as Pakistan. I know bad things happen at home too, but at least they are not burning someone in effigy on the news every night with wild-eyed mobs of people with megaphones who have the appearance of being the last humans on the planet who wil listen to reason...

Anyway, enough about that. Here are some pictures of the girls from around the hotel. Delaney is standing on her own two little feet! I hope she starts walking in Italy. That will be cool in the baby book.

Marinara and other FOOD- my favorite subject

5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch of salt and some pepper
5 Tbsp, Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sautee these gently for about 4 minutes, maybe 5.

Add to that:
1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
1 Can Tomato Sauce

Cook these together for ten minutes.

That will give you a very basic marinara. As is, it would go well with some eggplant parmesan, as a pizza sauce, or perhaps for bruchetta, cheese sticks, or other appetizers.

This recipe is easily amped up to make some really great food:

Spaghetti, Lasagna, or Baked Mostaccoli (my favorite!) Sauce
Start instead with browning some sliced italian sausage (mild or spicy- whichever you prefer), then after that is cooked, drain off most of the oil and take the meat out of the pan. With the remaining oil start your onion and other aromatics (I'd add some basil and pepper flakes to what I've listed above), then add back the meat and proceed as above.

A word about adding in vegetables: this recipe can handle some zucchini, bell peppers, canned diced tomatos (DRAINED), or even a bit carrot and celery, but they must be uniformly chopped-small and added in after the aromatics have had their chance to flavor the oil. Of course this will increase the cooking time a bit, and it will tend to water down your sauce, so take care not to add too much volume of fresh veggies. Plus I'd up the tomato paste a bit. (Salt will draw pure H2O out of any vegetable- and water doesn't add any goodness to marinara). Also if I'm adding veggies, I'll typically add just a bit of chicken consumme to combat that water situation- say 1 tsp. Be sure to reduce the first salt, because the chicken consumme does have some salt to it.

James, I'm sorry I didn't get this to you sooner! I hope this goes well for you- be sure and let me know how you adapt the recipe to your own taste. I'm always interested in hearing about good food! Oh yeah- and one other thing I love to do with this is to get a crusty bagette, slice it real thick, place them on a baking sheet and top with a bunch of that marinara and a little cheese (parmesan or asagio both work well), and bake for 15 minutes at 350- yum yum!

Let me amuse myself by imparting to you (all) my latest culinary adventure, a dish I'm calling Mexican Dumplings for now.

I haven't seen this in any book, just came up with it out of necessity. I was planning taco-meat, then discovered we didn't have any tortillas- a rarity in our home. I love challenges like that! My best cooking always is inspired by having to use leftovers or having other problems like missing ingredients. It's easier to start with something (ideas and inspiration are often the single hardest ingredient to come by- ask anyone who cooks daily) than it is to start with nothing! So with the desire to share my enthusiasm, and to spark interest and inspiration I'll share this and (if you wish) other recipes that our family has grown to love.

What's so great about it? I'm seriously into healthy cooking, and this is one of those grand slam dishes that delivers all the nutrition I want with the flavor everybody else expects. Also I really like 'free-style' cooking, where you can do wide variations on a dish and come out with different meals each time. The list I'll make here assumes four hungry people are waiting, but any of the ingredients can be adjusted to what you have on hand or who you're cooking for (ie one person doesn't like something- leave it out) One other plus: one-pot meals reduce clean up time, I'm big on that. ( Look out Rachel Ray- heh heh)

Let me preface one more aspect before launching into the ingredients list: use of frozen greens. We all know that eating dark leafy greens is paramount to good health. But they're bitter, take forever to cook, and generally don't arouse much delight with children or anyone who isn't specifically looking to improve their nutrition. I've found that you can slip frozen greens (mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens, kale, and the like) into many (marinara among them) dishes with no-one the wiser. I do tend to take that opportunity with almost any strongly flavored dish, as well as using the fresh kind for side-dishes- that's another recipe you'll need (see below).

Mexican Dumpling Casserole

Ground Turkey- 1 Lb,

Get that browning in a (fairly large) pan which will be able to go into the oven. Also turn on the oven to Bake - 400 degrees. When the turkey (or sub ground beef, of course) is close to done add

1 onion, chopped
5-6 or even 7 cloves of garlic, minced
2 celery stalks (optional- does add fiber)
a few dashes chili powder
a few dashes ground cumin
a few dashes paprika
some hot sauce (Valentina only in our house- say no to Tabasco!)
1/2 tsp pepper flakes (I'd leave that out for my girls, but I'd put it in for you all)
1 cube of chicken boullion
1 cube tomato bullion
1or 2 tsp Worchesterchire Sauce
Either a dash of Soy sauce OR a pinch of salt, not both.
Enough water to cover all that, say 6 cups or maybe a little more. The sauce will be thin- don't worry about that.

Bring this to a rolling boil. Add

1-2 cups Frozen corn
1 Can of Diced Tomatoes, juice and all
1-2 cups Frozen Mustard Greens (or collards, or...)
2 Zucchinis, chopped
2 Jalapenos, sliced (Optional)

Let all that boil together.

Here's the kicker, ready?

In a small bowl, mix one box of Jiffy corn muffin mix according to package directions (of course if you'd prefer to make your own corn muffin mix, be my guest, it'd be even better, but alas, I'm usually in a hurry). Once your veggies are pretty much softened, turn off the burner, and take that muffin mix and drop it by large spoonfuls onto the boiling mixture. This doesn't have to be pretty, uniform, or even completely covering the turkey mix, just drop it on there.

Take that whole thing and put it into the oven uncovered for 20-25 minutes. Voila!! A quick one-pot meal they always rave over, and it's well balanced in terms of nutrition, so I feel good about giving it to them.

And you can do so much to it! Like the muffin mix- make that chili-cheese corn muffin mix, and at the expense of just a few calories, you've got some really great 'dumplings'. Or use a mixture of meats (but you'll have to drain excess fat). Or use your own vegetable blend based on what you like best, just be sure to do the corn, that's kind of important for the dumpling-part. And the spices are particularly variable- use what you like and omit what you don't. Also next time you're in the soups part of the store, pick up a box of Chipotle Bouillon, and put one of those in there (you won't need any other spicy stuff if you use a whole one of those)- so good!

Ok just one more meal idea we've come to use almost weekly, now that the weather is changing. I finally figured out how to broil steak- just be sure to marinate it in some combination of the ingredients above. I never was much for red meat, but I've gotten to where I do use it some. So make sure you can broil (or grill) a steak. Use 3 or 4 sweet potatoes, fork them a few times and put them on a paper towel in the microwave for 20-25 minutes. Then the greens I've been speaking so much about: cook up either fresh or frozen greens with some onion, garlic, and chicken broth. Steak, sweet potatoes, and greens- it a regular meal in our house these days, and soo good for you! The sweetness of the potato really takes away from bitterness of the greens. Really! Try it out and tell me what you think.

Trust me you won't need any 'cleansing' remedies anytime soon! And I have honestly had people commenting that I look like I've lost weight. I absolutely have not lost weight (freakin stubborn scales!), but since I've been using lots of greens I think it looks like I have? Who knows... there's magic to the greens, that's all I'm saying!

Well this is probably the longest post I've ever done- eh? Hope you all like it and try out some of my ideas. Let me know how they go if/when you do try a recipe or two, and also I'm always glad to discuss other oprions, and to hear about what your family likes to eat. I know Rebekah in particular can cook really well. (I always look forward to eating with her!) To this day no one can top her chili-cheese breakfast biscuits!

Love to you all!

Dil Mahambala

That's Hindi for "matters of the heart". It's also the first two words in this cool song called Mast Kalander. I'm thinking about burning all of you a copy of some of this music. It's some of the new stuff coming out of Bollywood. There was a movie that came out last month and this song, among others is on it. There seems to be very little seperation between the movie industry and the music industry here. In fact, music videos are often sections of the movie in which they appear...

Anyway, enough about that. We had our first Indian trade market experience. It was cool! Here are some pictures. There are some mean hagglers here. It's expected. I had to pretend to walk away from the shoes that I wanted, which I did, until the guy said "wait a minute waitaminute... sitdownsitdown!". Anyway, I got these cool leather sandal/shoes for about 6 bucks (US).






I think I heard the guy in this picture below saying "OK, nobody sneeze!!"


So anyway, we are all doing fine. We are in a solid routine. We have about 4 and a half weeks left. It was 5 and a half. Why is it shorter you may ask? Well I'm glad you did. We're goin to ITALY!! That's right. It's official (well, almost official. We have the flight change on hold pending a quote). Deloitte is cool with Natalie cutting the trip short and extending our layover in Europe. We have to downgrade to coach, but so WHAT?! At least we aren't flying halfway around the world all at once anymore.

Anyway, we're super pumped about it. Mike, thanks for the info. We are definitely going to spend a lot of time in Florence.

Oh yeah, Dan and Judy are going to meet us there. How cool is that? It's probably not cool if you're Mike and Molly and you have no kids... but we gots em!!

So post already people! Time for a Coopbro PING?!?

My little Tigerina!

I'm sorry, but I am giddy about my little Emily deciding that she wants to play golf. How cute are these photos.

Whew!!

Hello Bloggers-

What a proliflic bunch of writers you are! I love it! Sure seems like you're all doing so well! Mikey- I don't doubt for a second that you're very important! Good for you!!! Kudos! When're you going to come back and let me buy you a drink for your wonderful achievements? We'd love to have you back here again...

And the trip to Galveston seemed eventful! Go James! I can't eremeber a time when I didn't make it to bed, but I've sure seen it happen- just think how lucky you were that it was Robbie that found you-eh? It could have easily been some pranskter (read: Christian!) dropping a hermit crab in your ear- that would've gotten you up in a hurry! Robbie your carpentry and plumbing skills have improved it seems- you wouldn't have even tried that last year- good for you! Haha

Gosh well it's just been one giant whirlwind here since you all left, hence the title. My birthday was last Thursday, and we had a friend come into town for ACL that same day. Well it turned into a four day marathon-party! It was sooo fun! We went out to dinner Thursday, and a bunch of friends showed up for that, and my Mom, so that was great. Then I worked all day Friday (Enrique took the day to go to ACL with our friend, KJ), and met up with the boys at Zilker right after work. We saw some bands, none of which I really loved, but still it was just the first day, so that was ok, plus having KJ in town made it all so much more fun. So we got hung up in this traffic nightmare trying to get home and we were starving, but Enrique wouldn't stop. I thought, well, that's ok I guess, I'll eat at home... Yeah. Got home and at 10:22pm about thirty five of my closest friends shouted Surprise!!!!!!!!! Enrique had planned a giant party and tons of people showed up. It was so sweet of him to do that, I was totally blown away. So we did that until like 3:00 am, and then had to get up to go again Sat am. So we did, we took the girls to Zilker with us ( they got their hair painted like punk rock stars, awesome!) and we just saw tons of music, ate tons of food, and relaxed that night. Sunday same thing. ACL was great this year!

Oh man- I just looked at the clock, I need to run, but I'll get some photos uploaded so you can see, it has been a blast! WooHoo!

James I keep intending to get you that recipe, it's on the list, sorry for the delay!

Love to you all,

jenn

Not a Bubble Bath, a Bubble Butt Bath!

Gotta love these photo opps!

Recient updates

Hey everyone! CoopBro #4 in tha House! Its Thursday morning and the first one I'm not up and out the door before 6:30am, so I thought I would enlighten you all with my recent updates. Work is keeping me pretty dang busy right now. Last week I had my divisional manager ride with me on Wednesday and my Regional Manager the following day (my bosses boss). My DM, Jennifer rides with me every quarter, but this is the 1st time Rick (RD) has rode with me. This always creates a pretty stressful situation.

He's checking me out because I'm up to get promoted to Field Sales Trainer. Basically what that means is that when new reps get hired and go to training, I go up to NJ to co-teach sales training to the new reps. Also, I would have a new rep come and ride with me for 2 weeks at a time. Any how, I thought I would know if I was going to be promoted later on this year as the RD has the final say so. Rick asked me when I was riding with him if he could take Molly and I out to dinner that night. When we sat down, he ordered a bottle of champagne and congratulated me to the "trainer ranks"! So I'm going to trainer school in October. " I don't know how else to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal".

In case you were wondering, the job with Intuitive fell through. The rep that was leaving apparently decided to stay in Houston. I'm at least relieved now that I know that door for now is closed.

Thats all I know for now Coop Bros.. OUT

Delaney's First Birthday!

It's hard to believe my little one is one! Here are some pictures from the party we had at the hotel earlier today. The whole hotel staff is smitten with Delaney!

Some photos from last weekend

Sorry, guys. I just wasn't in much of a picture-taking mood. Still, here they are. The one of Rebekah and Aunt Dorothy is horribly back-lit, I know, but you can see them if you click and enlarge it.

Dodged another bullet!!!

Hello again guys and girl. Well, we dodged another storm in Galveston. As some of you may know, yesterday a hurricane formed in the gulf right off the coast of Texas. This is unusual because most tropical storms form in the southern Atlantic and move westward. Anyway, I thought that I was going to be in for another massive clean up (I've done it 3 times now), but we escaped unscathed.

I also had another adventure with home repair last week when I finally broke down and bought a new dishwasher. We've needed one for at least 5 years. I don't know why we put it off for so long other than neither of us get any enjoyment out of spending money on appliances. Anyway, back to the story. The salesperson at Sear's tells us that delivery is free, but it will cost $75 for installation. "Well, F that" I say. I'm capable of connecting a couple of hoses and a plug.

Four hours later and two trips to Home Depot to get the plug and hoses needed that should have been included, but I found out when I opened the box, weren't, the dishwasher was in. Hooray! I was feeling muey macho until the next morning when we woke up and went into the kitchen to find water was everywhere, including the carpet in the living room.

Come to find out that it's a good idea to use plumbers tape when screwing in hoses that are going to be transporting water. My AllState adjuster wrote me a claim for $2600 minus a $1000 deductable. He also assures me that he low-balled the estimate and that I should have a flooring contractor call him after they look at the problem and he will adjust the claim.

Needless to say, Rebekah hasn't thanked my yet for getting the insurance company to partially fund a new floor. My opinion is that we needed one anyway since it was already warping around the refridgerator and back door. But then again, I'm a glass half full type of guy.

Work is good I guess, the last weeks of a quarter are always stressful, this one is no different. I'm a little frustrated that my company seems to be severely lacking in supporting customers after they have purchased our software. This leads to some really pissed off people and I'm their designated neck to choke. That's sales though.

That's all for now. Mark, I hope that I was able to provide you with a small diversion to your day.

Observations from Mom's house

Okay, okay, dude. I’ll post something. Ahem . . .

“Something.”

Only kidding. Mark, you have by far the most fascinating life of all of us right now. I can’t speak for anyone else but me but my life, since I returned from Florida, has been nothing so much as just a lot of work. That’s not a bad thing but honestly, I don’t know how Mom and Joe handled this beast by themselves. Mom is definitely not bullshittin’ with the sauce when she says that she doesn’t run the company so much as it runs her. I am serious, dude, it’s not set-your-hair-on-fire stressful, but my consumption of Aleve has gone up measurably since I got here.

One good thing though about being back at home and working in this house has been that I am eating a lot better and exercising a lot more too. I decided to make a change from my crazy early 5:30 am workouts and pushed it to the other extreme, going to the gym around 10:00 pm on my weight-training days. The good thing about that is that you still have all of your calories in your system from the day and so you can really ramp up the intensity. Thus, I have really been able to jack up the weights on the iron and hopefully begin to whittle myself back down from my size 40 to 42 waist I currently lug around. The bad thing is that it is really hard to go to sleep when your body is aching from a 90-minute bomb session on the iron. You’d think otherwise, but that’s not the case.

But back to working with mom, it’s fine. I have been doing a little of everything except statements. During those hectic few days (her “monthly kidney stone” I call them) she would look at me as if to ask me to help her and Joe and I would scream out at the top of my lungs “AHH! Danger Will Robinson, Danger Will Robinson!” and run down the stairs. Today, she and I went to a new office party for the Coldwell Banker office in Memorial and I got a chance to meet a lot of the realtors who send work our way. It was nice but if you want to know the truth, the whole place was a Cougar’s den, with the average age of the attendees being around Mom’s age.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Mom! (in case you’re reading this)

I swear to God, guys, there was more botox in that room than a plastic surgeon’s medicine cabinet. But even though I would love to tell you that all the women there were looking at me with sly, lustful glances, the truth is that unless I was standing next to mom, I was invisible. I therefore spent most of the time hitting on a couple of cute young 20-somethings from a title company who looked like they felt as out of place as I felt. I kept plying them with wine and almost had them talked into a threesome when Mom walked up and said it was time to go.

I had a nice time this past weekend. On Friday, I drove to San Antonio for Megan’s 21st birthday. BTW, Mark, Meg really appreciated the email and photos you sent her. I took her, Court, Erica and Andrew to dinner at this local burger joint Megan chose and, despite the presence of the ex, had a nice time. I then drove to Austin, crashed at Aunt Gay’s house and went to Galveston the next morning. Aunt Dorothy looks good, a lot better than she did last Thanksgiving, for which I am very grateful. She seemed to be in higher spirits too, but that may simply be because she was around us, cutting up and drinking and cursing. We all spent a great evening on the deck just bullshittin’ and looking at the stars. Every time I turned around, Rebekah was pouring wine into my glass so I got really drunk, more so than I have been in a very long time. Thank God I didn’t have to drive anywhere, too, because I was no shape to anything like that. I was so drunk that at around 2 am, when I decided to go get my bag out of my truck, I was struck by the notion that it would be a simply marvelous idea if I just dropped and lay down right there on the deck. I think Rob woke me up about a half-hour later and sent me to bed.

And that’s about all that’s happening on my end. I will prod the lazier members of our troupe to post something. Until then, Coop brizzle one is out!

Indian Zoo

We took a trip to the Zoo today. It was quite an adventure! Right at the gate, they tried to pull me aside with Delaney and give her an oral Polio Vaccine. Hello!? No thank you. Not into Indian street vaccinations thank you very much!

It kind of freaked me out. I was thinking that there was some outbreak among the animals or something, but apparently it was a normal periodic public health event. They were pretty persistent about it but we assured them that she had all the vaccinations she needed at the moment.

Anyway, we went on in and had a good time. Here are some pictures. The kids in the group photo are Lillian's friends from the hotel. There are two expatriate families here with whom we have become fairly good acquaintances. The kid's names are Jake, Kirin, and Derek D'Souza; and Sophia and Jaden Pedersoli.

There was a big sign at the ticket counter that said "beware of pick-pocketers on the train". See those guys behind Natalie in the first picture? I was eye-balling them. In all seriousness though we are really warming up to the culture around here. For the most part, the Indian people are very mild-mannered and seem quite content in whatever circumstance of life they find themselves. I haven't been out of the hotel much, but of the teeming masses that I have seen I have yet to see a really sour disgruntled expression on anyone's face.

Nevertheless, we are still cautious (probably overly so) when we go out and we always pray before we go anywhere. We spray tons of "off" and we keep taking our weekly malaria medication.

Hey, post something for Pete's sake! I check the blog often (I got spare time). Look you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it "guaranteed" I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, you might want to buy a quality product from me.

That's the seecond time I've quoted Tommy Boy on the blog. Yes I brought that movie.

Indian Wedding

In the Indian Culture they go all out on weddings. Even not-so-prominent families will go to huge lengths to put on an extravagant show. So far since we've been here there have been two huge weddings in the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (attached to the hotel). After dinner earlier tonight we took some pictures of one that was going on.

Everyone was extremely friendly as well! They pretty much ushered us in and allowed us to take whatever pictures we wanted to. Natalie took Delaney up on stage where the bridegroom and the bride were sitting and "blessed" them. They were in some major Indian garb... I have video of that. I can share it with you Skype users.

Check out the pictures.

Hang On a Minute...

Delaney is doing this a lot now (with her little index finger) so I thought I would take a picture of it.