Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day!

Today started off lovely, got better from there, took a bit of a nose dive around dinner time, but corrected itself into a pretty good day.

Caleb is cutting his last canine tooth, and as a result wakes up 2-4 times a night screaming and hasn't slept past 5 am in at least three days. Ugh. My husband was very kind this morning and took that early morning shift with Sir Crabby Pants while I slept in to the luxurious hour of 7 am. (Seriously. Remember when sleeping in didn't count until you had slept till at least 11, preferably 12?)
Caleb and I were ready for church early, so we headed to the playground while Tommy got ready.


By the way, for grins and giggles, here is Caleb on Mother's Day last year. What a marshmellow!

After church, we went to downtown Thetford to enjoy the beautiful weather and to have lunch at Red Pepper, a delicious Thai Food restaraunt with fantastic Pad Thai. Caleb enjoyed his chicken skewers. I love that he's still at an age where he'll try almost anything (when he feels like it.) I hope he stays this way.
Then we stopped by Argos to order some things we've been eyeing for a while. There's really no good US comparison for Argos. It's a store front with very little on display. Instead, you leaf through their latest catelogue, present the cashier with the item numbers for whatever you want, and then wait until they bring your item to another counter.

We picked up this awesome pot rack. I had seen one in my friend Tina's house and have been wanting one ever since. Now it's not so darn crowded in my cookware cabinet! I seriously love this thing. Hooray for creative storage options!

We also picked up a grill. We actually have a grill that we like, but we've had so many issues getting it sorted with a British propane tank (you have to use a really annoying adapter for US grills that never seems to work), that we decided it would be best to get a cheap British grill for the next two summers. Tommy took a nap, so Caleb decided to help me put the grill together. As you can imagine, he was more of a liability than a good assistant, but at least he was cute.




All of the hard work really knocked Caleb out.


I was super impressed that I managed to assemble the grill all by myself (well, with Caleb), but disappointed to realize the tiny propane tank we had for the American grill was out of gas. No sweat! I hopped in the car and searched Thetford for a gas station that sold propane tanks. Four gas stations later, I found a tank! After a quick stop at Tesco express for some cheese and rolls, I was on my way home, eagerly anticipating burgers!

Unfortunately, a new grill + a new propane tank did not = burgers. The propane tank doesn't seem to fit the grill valve! I seriously don't get it. Do we have the wrong tank? Do we need some sort of adapter? Why won't this fit?! By this point, I was so irriated. I had been craving Pioneer Woman's Favorite Burgers, and it seemed like nothing we did could make our Summer of Grilling dreams come true.

In the end, I finally just fried up the burger in a skillet. And they were good. But not grilled good. Still good, though.

So here's my trouble shooting section. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! We have a British grill and British propane tank. Here is the tank, just after we purchased it. Is it odd that there's no valve to turn it on and off? You just remove that orange cap (which was a bit trickier than I thought it would be).
Here is it with the cap removed. I wish I had gotten a better picture of the inside of top, but it's too dark now.
And here's the valve from the grill. That black switch on the left turns to lock the valve in place.
No matter what we tried, though, we can not get the valve to latch and lock. It feels like it just doens't fit. Should we buy a new tank and hope that it's the right kind? Or should we search for some kind of adapter? Or should we just throw our hands in the air and realize our fate of non-grillers as long as we're in the UK?

HELP!