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Cathy: Once a month, we go and do a very enormous shopping,
where I am buying a bulk amount of everything.
Now that we're in this big house,
I've got pantries that I can put the groceries in,
we've got our linen closet upstairs that I put our
extra paper goods in.
Of course, we've got our two freezers downstairs
and our extra refrigerator downstairs.
Mary-Elizabeth: When we go shopping,
Mom and I organize this list.
She gives me this organized one, like
separated into freezer foods, office supplies,
seasonings -- everything.
And I just go around and check to see what things
we need and what things we don't need.
Cathy: During the month, the boys and Mary-Elizabeth
are always adding to my list on the -- by the computer.
They'll actually put stick 'ems and tape them to my monitor
of things that they're suggesting that could be needed.
Rick: Things have been tight over the years --
a real challenge -- but somehow,
through timing, and being resourceful, and just
really good people skills, finding good deals,
finding the right timing for our purchase,
or to decide not to make a purchase,
she's just navigated the treacherous rocks of a
tight budget, and brought us to this point.
31 years of marriage, a household of 16.
Seth: All right.
Are we stopping by any hardware stores?
Cathy: Not with the trailer, we're not.
Why would we do --
Seth: Because we need to buy a piece of hardware --
Luke: Oh, the ceramic tiles?
Seth: Yeah.
We need unglazed ceramic tiles.
Cathy: These guys are scaring me.
Luke: For the longest time,
Seth has been on a quest to create the perfect pizza.
Seth is going to use some unglazed tile that was cut
to size to fit in the oven,
and he's going to build the crust,
which is supposed to be a very -- the perfect crust.
He's going to try it out for the first time on this
new tile -- on this pizza tile,
and he's hoping for good results.
Cathy: I love having the trailer.
The trailer is like a giant walk-in closet,
so it's wonderful.
It makes packing the whole load of groceries so much easier,
but it is a bear to drive, because of course
I can't see out my back windows,
and I'm not used to that.
And the trailer's wider than the van,
as if the van wasn't wide enough and big enough as it is.
So I kind of feel like I'm driving a train.
But it's doable.
It's a little intimidating,
but I can handle it.
We end up with six carts, usually.
And usually, it's two flatbeds and four of these
good-sized carts, or three flatbeds and three carts.
We'll just have to see.
I don't have a real idea of how big it's going to
be yet today.
Seth: I've been told my job will be to basically
get the heaviest stuff we're getting and tug it along.
Nato?
Nathan: Yes?
Seth: Why don't flatbed wheels -- why don't the
back ones stay on the ground?
Nathan: Oh, you want me to tell you why?
Seth: Yeah.
Nathan: Well, I don't know.
Seth: I would guess it's for stability,
but why not just have them always on the ground?
Cathy: I usually start in the business supply area,
and get whatever it is we're needing for the business,
and then head toward the paper goods and
the dry goods. And then we head toward the water,
which we're about to go to,
and the cereals and the oatmeal,
and we usually get a lot of that.
If you can put two on top, like this.
Cathy: Well, people ask me how many boxes of cereal
we're doing weekly or monthly.
Now, we -- when we go shopping for a really big
shopping time, we usually get boxes that are big
enough to be like three boxes at a time,
so -- and this is a cheaper way for us to buy them,
but that ends up -- oh, those very large ones,
probably about twenty boxes a month,
and then we'll have a lot of shopping in between
during the month at a local store,
where we'll fill in the different varieties.
At the speed that we eat the cereal,
nothing ever isn't fresh, so it doesn't hurt to buy
things in bulk, because we eat in bulk,
so it works out well.
Rick: After all these years,
she knows the inside layout of the stores,
she knows exactly, almost to the penny,
how much something costs, and she knows the needs of
her family.
Cathy: The idea is not to backtrack.
It's, again, a big enough job.
We don't need to make it bigger.
So if we can be efficient, we don't run out of energy
before we run out work.
It seems to me you guys ought to be able to
compact those two flatbeds.
Why don't you bring your toilet papers up here?
And then you get rid of the flatbed, and bring back
one of these, okay, Seth?
Seth: my job is to return this full flatbed -- wait.
Where do I return this to?
Nato?
Nathan: What?
Seth: Where do I return this to?
Nathan: Oh. I know where.
Seth: Where?
Nathan: Over there.
Seth: Over there?
Where over there?
Nathan: I could just take it.
Seth: Okay.
Nathan: I've got to put this away instead of Seth,
since he doesn't know where to put it.
When we're done picking up everything,
we'll go grab it and check out.
Cathy: Now with the milk. Who do we have space?
Who wants to do milk?
Seth: Eight.
Mom said fourteen?
Nathan: Yeah.
Cathy: Now we're about a third of the way through
our shopping, so we're actually making good progress.
I'm through the first column here,
and I've gotten almost everything on that.
Caleb, go ahead and get six of the turkey burgers.
We normally get lean proteins along the line of
chicken and turkey, because a lot of our guys
are on high-protein diets, trying to build up muscle
and trim down the fats, and so we go through a lot
of boneless, skinless chicken,
and then quite a bit of turkey, too.
Rick: The guys and I prefer foods that are nourishing,
high-protein, low-calorie, if possible.
And high-protein has really been helping the
team do -- to perform better on the field,
because people are lighter, but stronger.
And everybody's been getting in on the kick.
Cathy: Chicken. Why don't we go with ten packs of
that for now?
Rick: I think this has been a real spur for me to try
to stay in shape, too.
If you can stay away from things that damage your
body, and then do some things that help your body,
you're really tilting things in the
direction where you can stay active for a long time.
And my goal is to keep playing a long,
long time into the future.
Especially, I'd like to be still there when David
comes aboard, and that's creeping up.
Six-and-a-half years from now, David, our youngest,
will be on the team.
Cathy: So we need two of these mozzarellas, guys.
Seth: The cheese is for what cheese is best used for -- pizzas.
We plan to make some homemade pizzas sometime
soon, and we're trying -- we've been trying to
perfect some sort of a recipe that'll give you a
light crispy crust.
We've made homemade pizzas before,
but they've -- while they've been decent, they've never been exceptional.
That's what we want -- exceptional pizza.
I want to make the best pizza this world has ever seen.
I want to eat the best pizza this world has ever seen.
Cathy: Now, with the milk. Who do we have space?
Okay.
Who wants to do milk?
Nathan, why don't you do milk on the bottom of yours.
Over here -- get this skim milk --
get fourteen of them, okay?
Seth: Eight.
Mom said fourteen?
Nathan: Yeah.
Eleven.
We have fourteen gallons of milk here,
and we usually keep one in the upstairs fridge and
put the rest in the downstairs fridge until we
need them.
Cathy: You ready to hop in line?
Nathan: You got messages from dad.
Cathy: From daddy? What is it?
Nathan: He's asking you to get some stuff.
Cathy: It never seems to fail that when I'm out shopping,
I get text messages from different
people or phone calls of another item they just thought of.
And of course, we're just about to check out,
and Rick just thought of some cereals that are way
over on that end of the store.
So once we get everybody in line and get all --
kind of reserve a line for us and get I started
checking out, Nathan's going to run over there and
grab them.
So that's why I bring these young legs with me.
We ended up with three very full big carts and
two flatbeds, and I'm surprised we fit.
Seth and Nathan have gotten to be good packers.
This would normally take six,
so I'm really impressed.
So now we'll see -- I think we're going to go a
little over budget, but we're okay.
We're kind of planning for it,
and I got a lot more shopping done than i
thought I would, so I'm glad.
Nathan: I could go order the pizza now so it'll be
ready in time.
Cathy: Yeah.
The boys are making sure I don't forget that,
for doing all of this work,
that they get paid off with a pizza here at the
store to bring home with us.
So they're going to order a whole pepperoni pizza.
>> $1,957.89.
Cathy: No matter what I do, my hand always shakes
writing the check.
Even though I've got the money in there, just barely,
it's just -- I don't like writing
checks for that much money.
Well, I don't mind receiving checks for that
much money, but I mind writing them.
But we've got saved up for it,
we've been prepared for it,
and it's what we've got to do monthly.
And I'm glad the guys are such good eaters.
They're so healthy.
I mean, we could be doing this in doctor bills and
we're not, so I'm very grateful.
Okay. Thank you.
So go ahead and get all you can, and bring them back.
While the boys get the rest of the carts out here,
I'm going to go get the van and the trailer
and pull it up in this loading zone,
and that gives us kind of an out-of-the-way area to load.
But it -- the trailer's a blessing.
When it gets to this point,
I'm very grateful I have the trailer.
Why don't you just for now get the milk in here,
and maybe in the next tub if you want, okay?
Seth: Okay.
Cathy: And you can have guys pass things in to you.
Just kind of boss them around how you want, okay?
Seth: Sounds good.
I'm basically just putting the freezer stuff with the
freezer stuff and fridge stuff with the fridge stuff.
It's not really an exact science or anything.
Cathy: The whole idea is to make this easier,
when we get home, to unpack it and put it away,
because that's the biggest part of the job.
Even though this is a good-sized part,
we've got to find a place to put everything and put
it in its place so that we can tell in a heartbeat
what we're missing.
Okay. Do you guys -- I guess,
get the carts put away.
And did you guys get your payoff -- your pizza?
Nathan: Yay.
Caleb: Pizza.
Cathy: So was it worth it?
Pizza a payoff for anything?
Seth: Almost.
Cathy: Almost?
You'd do about anything for a pizza?
Seth: Depends on how much pizza and what kind of pizza.
Cathy: There's something about teenage boys and pizza.
It's like you can get them to paint a house for a
piece of pizza.
They've got more work in them and not enough pizza
in them, huh?
My top priority when we get home is to get the
milk in the refrigerator and get the freezer foods loaded.
Philip: This should last us a while.
A little while.
Cathy: Ah, helpers!
Could you be in charge of getting the milk in first?
It's in the very front-right corner.
Mary-Elizabeth: What is this?
Cathy: This is Daddy's stuff.
And then the freezer stuff.
But first milk.
Philip: First milk.
Cathy: My top priority when we get home is to get the
milk in the refrigerator and get the freezer foods loaded.
Philip: I have the job of having to organize
everything, and make sure it all fits in the fridges
and freezers.
This should last us a while -- a little while.
Cathy: The cheeses, the lunch meats, and all will go here.
The canned goods will go here to go into our canned
good cabinet up here.
David and Peter have gotten to the point where
they handle the canned good cabinet all by themselves.
I'm surprised.
It wasn't that long ago where it was only Wizzy and David who did it.
Mary-Elizabeth and David were the ones who would do
it and David was the younger,
and now here Peter and David are doing it by themselves.
I'm really proud of them.
They're doing a good job, too.
Peter: This one?
Cathy: Yeah.
You have to take something else out, but does it fit?
Don't drop it.
Scoot it way over to the left.
Scoot it way over. Does it fit?
Peter: Yes.
Cathy: Okay. You can put them there. Here's one more.
This kitchen is my dream come true.
Just to -- for one, I just love the color of the
cabinets, the island -- just all the colors,
but it's just got so much storage space.
That's wonderful.
It used to be that we were so squished in our old kitchen,
I'd barely have enough cabinets just to
store the most minor things.
I'd have to use what closet space we had.
Rick: In the old house, which was a big, old,
drafty house that kind of reminds me of the Baileys'
house on "It's a Wonderful Life,"
we had a kitchen that really wasn't very large.
As the family grew, the kitchen shrank.
There just wasn't room.
Cathy did just an amazing job stretching out the
space -- the little space that was in the cabinets.
Now that we've built the new house, and she designed
it after almost a quarter-century of being
a mom, we knew, -- and she knew especially -- almost
to the cubic inch, what she would need
in terms of kitchen cabinets, pantry space.
So when she shops, she's actually thinking ahead,
"Where will this box fit?"
And it's an amazing ability.
A combination of her natural gifts and wisdom,
and just years of experience on the job of
being a mom.
Cathy: It has made such a difference being out in
the new house now, because now I've got cabinets, and
closets, and extra freezer, and just all so much more space,
so now I can be as organized as I wanted to
be all before.
Rick: You know, one thing I've realized is that even
though the old days kind of saw our family living in
a kitchen that was very tight,
we were happy, and didn't know we were missing anything,
because we compared it to, "Well,
"what if we didn't have a house?"
And there's an old saying, but it's true,
that it's more important to have a home than a house.
I really think our home was the relationship
between all of us.
The house happened to be the place we lived -- the
four walls around us.
So I really think that if we had to ever go back to
that old house and be crammed again,
we'd make it, one way or the other.
In fact, that would be a challenge to see, "Hey,
"how could we do it?"
But I am really glad we're out here.
It just seems to have -- just having this elbow space,
and especially seeing Mom in the kitchen,
after all of those years at the other place,
I'm just so happy for her.
In fact, every day -- a day doesn't go by that I
look at that kitchen, and I just celebrate the fact
that she's got that kitchen now.
It's always a good feeling to me to have the pantries
filled up again, and to know that if I get busy
with something else, everybody can still eat.
So it's good news to me.
Luke: For the longest time,
Seth has been on a quest to create the perfect pizza.
James: I'm going to have to sacrifice some of my cheese.
[laughing]
Seth: I like pizza, like many Americans.
But the pizza we always made -- the homemade pizza --
wasn't always that great.
Luke: It has been hard to perfect the crust.
Whenever we would make a crust,
sometimes it would turn out all right,
but they would tend to be dense,
and he really wants a cracker-thin-crust pizza
like you would find at a pizza joint.
Seth: We found that one essential part of making a
good pizza is to cook it on a pizza stone.
It sucks the moisture out of the crust,
making it light and airy and crispy,
like a crust should be.
Luke: Instead of using pizza stones,
Seth is going to use some unglazed tile that was cut
to size to fit in the oven.
James: I cut them -- I cut a few inches off of them
so they would fit into the ovens,
and then cleaned them off, got all the dust and stuff
off of them, and I think they're all ready to go.
Seth: This is a completely new crust,
a completely new way of cooking pizza,
at a completely new temperature.
Everything's new.
I have no experience in this situation.
James: A lot of things can go wrong.
Seth: A lot of things can go wrong,
and I'm just trying to use common sense to try
to make a good one.
Mark: You should toss it up like you always see
people doing, James.
James: Yeah, I tried that earlier.
Seth: Mama mia, I make-a you pizza.
Mark: You can do it. Higher.
James: You're going to hit the fan.
Mark: Yeah, watch the fan!
Seth: That would have made good TV.
Mark: That would add some flavor.
James: Mmm. Dusty.
Mark: I don't know.
I think it takes a special touch to get the pizza right.
I don't know if they're just going to get it by
winging it like this.
Seth: I'm not quite sure how we're going to
transfer these big, floppy pizzas onto a pizza stone
in there, because those have to be preheated.
They have to be up at 475 degrees,
and so we can't just put them on a pan as we
normally do.
So I guess we'll -- just like everything else,
we'll just have to wing it.
James: Wing it, fly by the seat of our pants.
All sorts of things.
Seth: Yeah.
James: It appears to be hot.
Seth: I don't see how James is going to transfer
that pizza, especially since he put no oiling or
anything underneath this.
James: Hey. Now you listen.
We made mistakes.
Okay, I might -- I'm going to have to sacrifice some
of my cheese.
[laughing]
Hey, it's okay.
Hey, I never said I thought this through.
I'm going to have to clean up that cheese on the floor.
I admit this could have gone better.
But really, I'm not upset.
It's fine.
Seth: I'm just trying to avoid James' problem of
his pizza falling apart as he transferred it.
Could you open up the oven, someone?
Seth: I'm eager to see how your pizza turns out, James.
James: Here we go.
Seth: There.
It's not the prettiest pizza, but it might work.
Philip: Bravo.
Luke: I think it will be tasty,
but still kind of soft and gooey.
Seth: Hey!
Look at that!
That's a good sign.
It's not even -- it's white,
which it -- it should be darker.
But it is standing up by itself, to some extent.
Listen.
Luke: Crunch?
Seth: A slight crunch.
Philip: This has potential!
Luke: Why don't you cook it longer?
Philip: I think this is going to work.
Seth: I think this is surpassing my expectations already,
and that was only the first pizza.
I'm eager to see how mine turns out.
That's looking good to me.
There we go.
Okay.
Never had so much pressure in eating a piece of pizza before.
Nathan: What's your verdict, Seth?
Seth: Well, that's definitely a crispy crust.
I think this pizza stone really does work.
Luke: This is definitely crispy. I mean --
Seth: I think we got the crispiest crust
we've ever gotten, which is really what this was
all about.
I think we need to fine-tune it,
get a better crust, get better sauce,
better cheeses, but I am happy with the results.
Luke: They've come a long way when it comes to the crust.
The crust is much better.
They got that thin cracker crust they were shooting for.
Mission accomplished.
The pizzas still could use a little improving,
although it's good.
It's definitely a step up.
So progress is being made, and I look forward to the
next round of pizzas.