When we went to bed last night it was a typical chilly November evening, but when we awoke it looked like Christmas!

The first words my boys said this morning: “Did they cancel school?”

They were crushed to learn that they would have to go to school instead of building snowmen in the backyard. After a frantic hunt for snow boots, gloves and hats, the kids climbed in the pick-up and we set off for school.

Very slowly and in four-wheel drive.

On the way to school we were reminded of another typical winter event around here. Rocks bouncing down the canyon walls and landing in the middle of the road.

Although the snow was unexpected, it was business as usual on the ranch. Cowboys spent the day feeding and checking on calves.

My husband hauled a load of protein block out to the cows on the desert.

And I was Mom. My daughter was home with a fever and by noon my three year old had a fever of his own. I spent most of the day holding my little ones, reading them stories and bringing them applesauce.

There is still a lot of snow on the ground, but the sun came out and we enjoyed blue sky for a while this afternoon. I am hopeful the kids will be on the mend tomorrow so we can get outside and back to our usual chores.

(And maybe build a snowman or two!)

My family and I spent a few days this week at the Idaho Cattle Association’s Annual Convention. We look forward to this event each year. We spend time visiting with friends we don’t see often enough and attend meetings that provide relevant information about our industry.

This year we brought the kids with us. All of the kids. They took it all in, the trade show, all of the people and the beautiful setting (Sun Valley, ID). My husband and I (in yet another amazing display of parental wisdom) thought it would be fun to take the kids to the Baxter Black performance the first evening of convention.

The entertainment was scheduled to begin at 8pm, which happens to be the same time my youngest children are tucked into bed. They were surprisingly quiet and well-behaved, but only because I surrendered my phone to them to play. Fortunately the battery held it’s charge and lasted through the entire performance. Phew!

My older boys enjoyed Baxter’s brand of humor and laughed throughout the evening. They went up afterwards and asked Mr. Black to sign a couple of books for them. I decided to call the evening a win; the younger kids survived without getting us ejected from the auditorium and the older kids got new books and met an author. I had to re-think that decision a couple of days later when I overheard the older boys pretending to be veterinarians. They were assisting a cow with a bad case of “the runs”. (My husband assures me that small doses of boy humor is acceptable…I’m still reserving judgment on that one!)

The next day, the kids and I were fortunate to spend time visiting with Dane Rauschenberg, the featured luncheon speaker.

Dane is an elite athlete who ran 52 marathons in 52 weeks and continues to accomplish amazing goals in his running career. Dane is a spokesperson (spokesrunner) for the beef industry. As a beef producer, I greatly enjoyed hearing the message he delivers to consumers around the country.

It was an excellent convention and although I didn’t attend as many meetings as I would have liked, it was worth it to give my children this experience. They witnessed beef producers from each segment of our industry come together to create policy, hear governmental updates and discuss the cattle business.

Well, I’d like to think they witnessed all of this, in reality they spent most of their time wandering through the trade show stockpiling free pens and discussing what they learned from Baxter Black. Heaven help me!

Late yesterday afternoon.

Kids are home from school.

Homework is being avoided attempted.

Younger kids are playing a wild game of chase through the kitchen and living room.

The phone keeps ringing.

The typical controlled chaos that is my life. Thirty minutes before our normal dinner hour I realize that, once again, I have failed to plan out dinner. Ack! Why do I do this? Throughout the day the thought flashed in my mind that at some point I would have to place dinner on the table for my family and I would simply remind myself that I had a package of steaks in the refrigerator. Beyond that I had no plans.

Before I hit full panic mode, I grabbed my go-to cookbook The Healthy Beef Cookbook. I thumbed through the pages looking for anything that could be made quickly and involved steak. Szechuan Beef Stir-Fry caught my eye because of this one line: Total preparation and cooking time: 15 minutes. Score!

I started the water boiling for rice, grabbed a bag of stir-fry vegetables and started slicing the steaks. Between hollering out spelling words for my older boys to practice and holding my daughter’s injured stuffed teddy bear, I had dinner ready and on the table in 15 minutes!

The recipe calls for shoulder center steaks (aka: Ranch Steaks). The steaks I had sitting in my refrigerator were sirloin tip steaks. Did I let that stop me? No way! Sirloin tip steaks are a great cut to use for stir-fry (tri-tip or strip steaks also work well) and this recipe was no exception. It was delicious!

Enjoy!