Well hello there friends. Happy New Year to you!

We got back from Arkansas this week and strangely enough it has been warmer in Scotland than in Little Rock. Go figure.

We had the most wonderful visit home, which was collectively documented thoroughly on the Facebook. I did not look at a computer even once, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My brain is brewing about what the Chino House will look like in 2015 but at the moment, I’m still giving thanks for the all the gifts of 2014. It was an incredible year for our family and I’m not quite ready to leave it behind. Maybe that’s why January is so cold and dark, to give me more time to think about the year that has passed and move intentionally into the one ahead.

Even though I’ve been absent from this space for a while, I did write a story about our last days with my Grandmother last month for my home church. I also wrote one more piece about Wainwright’s Coast to Coast for the Huffington Post.

Also! Sarabeth and I did a podcast about our home town of Little Rock with the Amateur Traveler. Too. Much. Fun.

A few fun linky links:

I made this cranberry pie and it was DEEE-VINE. I know it’s January and we’re all trying to be healthy and such, but if you happen to have a bag of fresh cranberries still lying around from the holidays, well, this is what you should do with it. Of course, you could also make cranberry mojitos. Yum.

I read Ruth Bell Graham’s biography on the plane ride home. Loved the glimpse into her world. Now I’m starting Anne Lamott’s newest, Small Victories. (What are you reading that you love??)

I don’t think you have to be a travel writer to appreciate this snark but it will help. (h/t SB!)

I’m not sure what it says about me that all my favorite New Year posts have been about NOT making New Year’s Resolutions. But this one from Jen Hatmaker was golden. I also enjoyed Satu’s honest year in review.

Or how about just doing something small every day? Yes please.

That’s what I plan to do this weekend. Small things.

Hope your weekend is full of good + small things.

XO

Alison

The post In The Pipeline + Happy New Year appeared first on Alison Chino.

Family Cycling

The Story Behind Our Video

Simon and I frequently watch a sweet series of videos that Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom introduced of her family called Olive Us. (If you’ve never seen one, watch How To Visit A French Bakery.  It might be my favorite.)  We watch them on my laptop at night in bed and often, the older kids wander in and want to watch with us.

So when I told Simon that Olive Us was having a video contest, he was determined that our family make a video and enter it. He kept telling us all that we needed to have a meeting about it.

Mom when is Cole going to be home so we can have our Olive Us video meeting? We really need to work on it.

Then Taido mentioned the project to his co-worker, Jonathan, who told us that he had just been praying about having more opportunities for filming.  He has a huge interest in film, but for several reasons, film school is not currently an option, so recently, while looking at film schools online, he found a syllabus for a class and ordered some of the books film students are reading right now.  I love that!

So between Jonathan, Simon and me, we had enough enthusiasm to turn this idea into a real project.

Jonathan met with our family and helped us come up with an idea. He asked us all questions about biking and took notes about our personalities in the process.

Then we made plans for shooting the video, which was actually really fun. Jonathan did all the hard work of planning the shots, filming, editing, adding music and producing a video that our family is going to treasure always.

I was afraid that Jonathan might be super relieved to be done with us at the end of this whole process, but we all enjoyed it so much that we’re already talking about making more videos.  So fun!

One of my favorite things about our Family Cycling video is that it incorporates several great, local spots.  The River Trail that runs on both sides of the Arkansas River is one Little Rock’s best treasures.  It connects a series of parks and four pedestrian bridges, forming 88.5 miles of trails for running, walking and especially biking. Also, at the end of our ride, we visit Argenta Market while the tulips are in full bloom on Main Street.  So beautiful!

You can watch our Olive Us Contest Entry video, Chino House: Family Cycling on Vimeo on a bigger screen.  Our entry is inspired by Olive Us Episode 6: Spring Cleaning, where the Blair kids clean their bikes and then take them for a ride.

Thanks for watching!

Did you enjoy this post?  Perhaps you’d like to subscribe to the Chino House via email here.

The post A Chino House Video: Family Cycling appeared first on Alison Chino.

Our friend, Josh, has been telling us for a while that we needed to come visit him and his family and take a walk up the street to this local produce market where they have a shrimp and crab legs boil every Saturday outside.  He has raved and raved about it, so we finally got ourselves over there a couple of Saturdays ago to see what the fuss was all about.

K. Hall and Sons produce is located at the corner of Wright and S. Battery in Little Rock, and it has been here for many, many years.  In fact, Mr. Hall’s son and daughter now run the place and their children (his grandchildren) all work in the store.

Mr. Hall’s grandson sets up a Shrimp Boil every Saturday outside the shop, and this is the main reason we came. They start serving it at about 11am and go until they run out or until the shop closes at 6.  If they have any left, you can buy it cold on Sunday.

They were also selling chili the day we were there, which they insisted we try.  It was cold outside so it hit the spot.  It was super yummy.

The kids thought the whole place was a treasure hunt.  They kept bringing me different things and saying, Look at this!  We bought some andouille sausage that we later used for gumbo and fresh pecans that we shelled and ate throughout the day.

We bought a piece of homemade sweet potato pie that we sold by the slice in sheets of wax paper.

We were excited that the meat case was full of local Petit Jean meats.

After we finished looking around inside, we bought our shrimp boil tickets.  For our family, we bought three pounds.  You take your ticket outside to where they are boiling the shrimp.

You hand them your ticket and they fix up your package of shrimp.

They add corn, hot peppers, potatoes, sausage, onions, garlic and a slice of pineapple.

This package is one pound of shrimp and crab with all the fixings.  It is $9.50 for 1 pound.

Here is Ben with our three pound package.

We could hardly wait to get into it!

In fact, everyone started in so fast when we got back to the house that I forgot to get any more pictures.  Our lips and fingers were burning from the spicy shrimp! We enjoyed every bite.  We didn’t have Cole with us, but we saved him a few shrimp that he ate cold the next day out of the refrigerator.  His shouts from downstairs were confirmation that they were still delish!

Mom, where did you get these?  These shrimp are amazing!

If you’re looking for a little Louisiana in Little Rock, K. Hall and Sons start adding crawfish to their shrimp boil sometime in March.  Go pay them a visit!

The post K Hall and Sons, Little Rock, Arkansas appeared first on Alison Chino.

After a couple of busy days in which we were all running different directions, we decided to spend Saturday evening together as a family.

Everyone wanted to watch a movie, but Taido and I decided we all needed to get out of the house.

The summer heat has given us a little relief the last few days in Little Rock, so we headed to the Big Dam Bridge for a walk.

Clouds plus a breeze on the river made it a perfect night for this outing.

We always stop on top for a minute to enjoy the view of the Arkansas River.

Then we venture over to the Little Rock side to play on the anchor.

The Big Dam Bridge extends in two directions on the Little Rock side, so we walked down one and then walked the trail that takes you to the other end of the fork in the bridge.

This trail also goes all the way out to Two Rivers Bridge near Pinnacle Mountain (which you can see in the distance from The Big Dam Bridge).

These walking and bike trails are all a part of the River Trail, which forms a huge loop around the Little Rock area.  There are now four different pedestrian bridges that cross the Arkansas River.  These trails and bridges make our town great for biking, walking and running.

Taido bikes these trails and bridges several times a week, but it’s nice to come out once in a while for more of a stroll.

It’s even better if we can catch it at sunset.

Hello pink streaks of cloud to the east.

After watching the sunset, we loaded up and headed to our local yogurt shop for a treat.

Such a great summer evening!

P.S.

I’m linking up with Design Mom today for Love The Place You Live.

Oh, and Whitney is posting today about another of our favorite Little Rock fun spots (and another bridge)!

The post Snapshots of Little Rock: Big Dam Bridge appeared first on Alison Chino.

Little Rock Zoo Days

This past fall I joined the Little Rock Zoo on one of our days out of school.  I realized I only had to come one other time to make it worth it to go ahead and join, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much we’ve used it.

Our favorite time to go is right after school.  I’ll pack a snack in the car and we head over there straight from the pick up line.

We arrive for the last hour that the zoo is open, which means it’s almost completely empty.

We have it all to ourselves.

We check on the penguins first when we get to the zoo.  The Little Rock Zoo added penguins just last year, so they are very novel to us.  We can sit and watch them swim for a long time.

Last week just Simon and I went to the zoo for a couple hours on a day he stayed home with an ear infection (the symptoms of which strangely disappeared once the carpool left for school).

Simon brought his notebook and spent a lot of time on benches drawing the animals.  He was very serious about this project, which was precious.  It was a gorgeous day so I was not in any hurry and just glad to be outside.

I’ve been glad for one more place to let the kids run after school before we settle in for the evening with dinner, baths and books. Yay for zoo days!

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