I live by the beach with my husband and 3 beautiful children. I have 2 girls ages 17 and 14 and a son aged 7. I work from home because my husband travels and so that I can run my children between their jobs and baseball and lacrosse. I spend any free seconds I can find reading or playing by the pool with my children. My husband and I both love cooking food on the grill. With our warm climate with cook outside 3-5 days a week year round. Our favorites on the grill are fish and all kinds of vegetables. We dont have too many cooking traditions but I guess we cook lots of Southern inspired foods. We always have a fried turkey at Thanksgiving and introduced this to some of of northern friends last year and they now too are fans. On each family members birthday, they select the menu for the night and have no kitchen duties. Since we moved 4 years ago and have acquired a whole new set of friends, most of whom are from up north and do not have much family in the area, we spend most major holidays with other families with children that do not have their immediate family around. This ensures feasts with a wide variety of dishes from many different ethnicities. My best cooking success had been getting at least 1 of the 2 of my older children interested in cooking. I am very obsessive about messes in my kitchen so I have learned LOTS of patience as she gets in the kitchen on her own to try making new things. I love the look on her face when she churns out somethings she can tell everyone loves. It is one of those priceless moments in lufe. The worst thing I ever tried was a recipe for slow cooker stuffing for Thanksgiving one year. Regretably I did not try out the recipe before the big day and I turned out a soupy runny mess.