The House On Canary

Au Revoir

2010-03-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

Today seemed like a good day to post this. The sun is finally shining here in the desert and for once it's not going to rain this weekend. It's also time for me to say goodbye to this blog. Now before my two readers get all bend out of shape, know this...I am starting a new blog! It's still in the construction phase, but I am hoping to have everything up and running in the next week or so. I'll go ahead and give you the address now so you can add it to your favorites :) Ready??? Its The Deutsch Girl.

You can go ahead and click to add, but as you can see, it's pretty much completely blank. There will be a few recycled posts, so sorry for my two readers again for that. BUT, I am hoping for some new photos and such to add so they will be a little bit new at least. I'll probably leave this blog up for another month or so, but then it will be gone for good. If you have any posts that you really want me to switch over before I close, let me know. Thanks!

Almost There.

2010-02-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

We are now almost all the way out of the old house and into the storage units and my parents house. It's been extremely hectic and tiring, but in 2 days we turn over the house and so it will be over. I meant to take pictures of the whole moving event, but let's be honest, I was way too busy to be sitting around taking pictures. I barely sat down all weekend as it was. The house is being cleaned today, and Chris and my dad are finishing up taking odds and ends to the storage units. And yes, that's units with an "s". We have two - one for stuff that Chris needs immediately and the other is stuff that will go out east eventually. Let's just say we have a lot of ~~crap~~ things. And while most people say that the girl side of the duo has more stuff, I can safely say that Chris has way more things than I do!

We also still have a lot of organizing to do at my parent's house. Trying to fit all of our stuff is proving to be a challenge, but I am slowly but surely getting it done. So in light of everything, I will be taking a break from blogging until that's done. And then I'll have pictures to show everyone of my (our) new space. Stay tuned to see my new little slice of life!

*Hahaha I say all this like I have a ton of readers and my posts will be missed :)

The Countdown Begins

2010-02-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

So we are officially at one week until we are out of our house, and the renters take over. I've been full of mixed emotions the past week or so, realizing that we are really moving out the house and home Chris and I have shared the past 3 1/2 years. Ok, technically we only "shared" it for about 2 1/2 years, but you know what I mean. I'm so happy that we found renters without even trying, and even though we were hoping to have a little more time in the house since we don't HAVE to lease, we know it's the right thing to do. We are moving into my parent's house, and into my old room. It should be interesting. For one things, there's a full bed in there. For anyone who hasn't met Chris, he's a big guy. Not big fat, but he's 6ft tall and pretty muscular. And the room isn't particulary large. But we are hoping that he will find a job soon back east and he will only be there for a month or so.

Here's a little pro-con list of our move. Not that it changes anything of course, but don't they say that it helps to write things down?

PROS

4 mile roundtrip commute to work instead of a 50 mile roundtrip commute
My mom's cooking! This should probably be 2 or 3 pros b/c it's really good stuff
No more utility payments
No more yardwork and pool maintenance
My grandparents 3 houses away with their gorgeous resortlike backyard
Closer to downtown Phoenix which means more sporting events
Beach cruiser rides to breakfast, coffee, and pretty much anywhere with my mom

CONS

3 cats and 2 dogs in one house. And the cats aren't too keen on one of the dogs
Very little space to ourselves
Sharing a bathroom with one sink, and a very little counter
No big screen TV :(
Sharing a small walk in closet. Great for one person, not so much for two

You can probably see that the pros outweight the cons for the most part. We may feel a bit cramped, but it will just take some adjusting. I've already started bringing my clothes to my parent's house, and the computers will be next. That's pretty much all we are bringing with us besides the animals and their necessities.

I'll conclude with some pictures I took last weekend when we worked for three straight days around the house. So much for my President's Day Weekend! Our biggest project was the pool. We had to drain the pool, powerwash it, and refill it. We had let it get really bad, and it looked like a pond. The only way to fix it was to drain it, and then clean up everything. I haven't taken an "after" photo yet, but let's just say that the after is beautiful!!!

Getting the hang out this

2010-02-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

*Note that I originally wrote this on February 1st, so I'm a little behind on actually posting. Oh well!

This weekend I reached huge strides in my freezer project. But before I tell you about those items, let me tell you about my meal creation from last week. One of the items I had was Steak Umm. When Chris bought this a while ago, I had no idea what it really was, but that it was used to make cheesesteak. I thought it was thin slices of meat you cook. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. I mean it is meat you cook, but it comes in a super thin rectangle. I guess you do the slicing yourself. I have seven, yes seven, of these steaks to eat. So far I've eaten two, simply because I've eaten this meal twice. I went on their website for ideas, because I didn't want to make cheesesteak. Chris makes way better cheesesteak and I didn't want to be disappointed. So I decided to go with a gyro recipe. Of course when the time came to make it, I ended up skipping a lot of steps. I was tired and didn't feel like putting a lot of effort into my dinner. It worked out well though.

The ingredients...sandwich thin, steak umm, tzatziki sauce, and cucumber.

First slice up the cucumber paper thin. You can do it any way you like, but I'm a paper thin kind of gal.

Then I fried up the steak ummm. Doesn't this look god awful? It really tastes much better than it looks.

After that was done, I layers the tzatziki sauce, then the cucumber and then the meat. This is final before the meat. I guess I forgot to take an after.

I also made blueberry banana bread this weekend, which used up the frozen blueberries and bananas, and invited my parents to dinner which used up the filet mignon. Slowly but surely I will do this!

BIG Changes Coming...

2010-02-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's official. We are moving out of our house in two weeks and the house on canary will no longer be ours. Well I guess that's not totally true since we own it still (at least half of us does) and we will be renting it out to a family. Which leads me to another issue...this blog will no longer be relevant. Part of me wants to keep the name for the sake of keeping it, and part of me wants to change it to something a little more relevant. Not that anyone will really know the difference, but I feel like I could use a change. Plus, once the move is complete I should have a lot more time to blog. I keep saying that, but this time, it will really be true. I won't have the yard work to do, the housework to do, and the commute.

Oh and did I mention we are moving in with my parents??? It's a temporary gig until Chris can find a job back east and we find out if I got into grad school. Once those two items are checked off the list, I will either stay with them during school, or head off to the east coast with Chris. I will find out between March 1st and 15th and the wait is killing me.

So what does everyone think??? Should I keep the name and just do a site revamp, or do a name and site revamp all at the same time? Let me know (if anyone is actually reading this. but that's a whole other issue).

First Item Gone!!!

2010-01-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

I finally did it...one item is officially gone from my freezer. And that first item is...naked chicken nuggets! The final six made it into my lunch for today, and I was able to throw the bag away. I must admit this has been a lot harder than expected. First of all, b/c I keep forgetting to take things out the freezer to defrost. Take today for example. Last night I thought "oh I should take out a steak tonight and defrost it for tomorrow night". Of course then I fell asleep and didn't do it, and didn't do it this morning either. Now it looks like steak will have to wait until the weekend. Secondly, because I'm really not home very much to eat. I don't eat out, that's not the problem, but I really am not a huge eater most days. When Chris is home, I will cook full meals every night. But the minute he's gone, I am happy with eggs and sausage for dinner, or cereal. My goal for this week is to make actual meals every day. I still haven't blogged about my freezer meal from last week, but I promise I will do that this weekend. I will have to see what I can come up with this week. I'm anticipating some pasta, or maybe a quesadilla. I need to have people over to help me finish off all this food!!!

Starting the Cleanse

2010-01-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

The pantry/fridge/freezer cleanse is under way, but not as productive as I'd like it to be. It looks like we will be moving out sooner than later, so I feel like I really need to get a move on. The biggest challenge, as most of you know, is that I'm a bit of a health nut. Not the kind that eats only organic (although I try whenever possible) or shudders at the thought of chips or cookies (totally not me!), but more the kind that doesn't eat a lot of fat or bad carbs, and works out every day. And a lot of the food that we have in the pantry is "junk food", or baking goods. Most of the junk was bought for Chris, because let's be honest, he doesn't share the same sense of health that I do. And I can't stop buying baking things. I have a whole bin of various chips, sprinkles, and the like.

I'm trying slowly but surely to get rid of a lot of the food. Not all of it will travel well to it's new, yet unknown, destination, and I don't want to waste precious storage space with food. My other problem: I KEEP BUYING FOOD!!! I really need to stop, I know there is more than enough food to last me the 40 days we expect to be in the house. I haven't had a chance to make a recipe worth photographing, but I think that will change after tonight. I also haven't completely rid myself of any one item. In the meantime...here's a list of some freezer items I've managed to eat in the past few days.

Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage - Great breakfast food!
Texas Toast - One slice as "dessert". Yes I have a warped view of dessert.
Frozen Corn - added it to a salad for a nice crunch and sweet flavor.

I'm hoping I can do much better soon, between baking cookies for the boys, and making some good recipes. Wish me luck!

Let's start with the cast of characters...

2010-01-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today I went through my freezers (both the inside and garage) and wrote down a list of every item in there. All I can say is this is going to be quite the challenge! At first I wanted to photograph every item, but once you see the list, you'll see why I opted not to. Instead, I'm putting the complete list on the right side of my blog, so you can see the progress I've made. Here are a few photos and descriptions of some of the things I found.

This is pineapple upside down cake. I made it at one of those places where you make dinners ahead of time and then freeze them. I am not eating sweets right now, but once I am, I think I will bake this and see how it turns out. It's been in there a while, so I'm not too hopeful.

These are some of the fruits and veggies we keep. I usually give these to Chris, because he's kind of a picky veggie eater. The blueberries are usually used for pancakes, so I guess I'll be making some of those soon!

I'm not sure why I photographed these together, but here are two more items. Chris bought the Steak-ummm, but I don't think it will be too hard to use up. Same for the fettuccine, I'm hoping to make a fantastic pasta with it.

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo Eggo! I hear there's a shortage of these, but not in my freezer. I actually bought these on a whim, and have only eaten two. I highly recommend them though. Add a little peanut butter and you have yourself a waffle PB&J.

These are my secret problem. Tastykake is only found on the east coast, so when I would go visit Chris I would bring a box home. I will have no problem finishing these off, that's for sure.

And you can't forget the steak. These are quality bacon wrapped filets from Omaha steaks. I completely forgot about these until today. Sorry Chris, I think you'll be missing out on these!

And then I will admit I threw a few things out that were so gross looking, I wasn't going to use them no matter what. I managed to realize that this was gumbo, probably from a while ago. Sorry gumbo, I will not be eating you again. I also threw out some chilies, and some chorizo. Oh and some incredibly freezer burned pineapple. Oh well, can't eat everything.

Well folks, there you have it. That's a recap of my freezer. Take a look at the list on the side, and I'll let you know when I cross things off, and what meals I manage to make from all of this. Hope you stay to follow along!

Operation Clean Freeze

2010-01-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

We have a garage freezer. I realize this isn't uncommon, but the common thing to do is to move it from house to house. And we are not common. That freezer is going straight to storage, which means one thing...we need to empty the darn thing! And by we I mean me. So I am embarking on a new project I have lovingly decided to refer to as Operation Clean Freeze. Ok, the name needs some work, so suggestions are appreciated.

My goal: 1. To use everything in the freezer in a quality meal by February 19th. 2. Document those meals on this blog. 3. Take some fun photos of said quality meals using my new photo lights.

I will be introducing the cast of characters this weekend, after a wonderfuly frozen food photo shot. I did manage to use up a partial bag of frozen peas in my lunch today, so that's already one thing off the list!

Starting 2010 with a BANG!

2010-01-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

Happy New Years everyone! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season and spent some quality time with family and friends. Chris and I had a very busy holiday season, but I will blog about that once I have my photos ready.

But a few other things have been going on since a few days before the New Year that have caused our world to be a bit topsy-turvy. I've known about most of this for a few months now, but have been waiting to share everything until we had a few more solid details.

I guess the biggest thing of all is...we are moving. I wish I could say where, but honestly we don't know. There are quite a few factors to deal with. Chris is now based out of Maryland, USMC-wise, and has to report once per month. It's too much to fly across the country every month, so we are looking into areas a few hours around Maryland, so he could easily drive every weekend. He also must find a new job. He left for more training in California this morning, but is already starting to apply to some places back east. Those are the Chris-based factors. Now onto me. I have applyed for a grad school program at ASU, which would start in the fall. I will find out if I got in in the next few months, and if I get in, I will most likely stay here until school is finished. I chose to apply here b/c the program is great, and the in-state tuition is hard to pass up. If I don't get in, I will find a job wherever Chris does, and just move at the same time.

WHEW...wasn't that just daunting? That's how I look at it. Lots of unknowns and ifs, but I know that it will all work out in the end. We've spent the last few days packing up the garage and books, and stuff we don't need right now. Well Chris has, I don't touch all those tools for fear of his wrath:). We've also done lots of decluttering, and I've been cleaning up the house all at the same time.

Since Chris left this morning for 7 weeks at Camp Pendleton, I have time to pack up the house slowly and go through my stuff and try to weed out. We are going to rent the house for now, and we have already had 1 person look. But, this also gives me some more time to blog since Chris is usually ready for some human interaction by the time I get home at night. I guess the animals don't make the best company day after day. But speaking of them, here's a teaser picture about our Christmas vacation. More to come soon!

Feeling Neglected

2009-12-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that's how my blog is feeling right now. I have completely 100% ignored this baby of mine. But in all fairness, it's been a busy, and sometimes stressful last few month or so. Let's see if I can put this into a condensed version although I'm sure I'm leaving out a LOT!

1. Chris got layed off - This certainly isn't what you expect to happen when you return to your first day of work after a year of Military Leave. It's been very rough for him. I think he is getting pretty sick of sitting at home all day. Thank goodness he was given a generous amount of severance pay, so money-stress isn't really an issue yet. He's started looking, but he has to leave again in January for more training, so that's a major hurdle in trying to find a new job.

2. We have a new baby in the house - Chris brought home a new kitten with him when he came back. He rescued her from a flood after Hurricane Danny came through New Jersey. She's adorable and he named her BAMCIS. Yes, its bizarre, but it's an Marine Corps acronym and it fits her perfectly. I usually just call her Bam for short. It was an adjustment for the other animals in the house, especially Hawkins bc he was the only kitty, but now they are best friends. She makes me laugh all the time, and she makes the funniest noises. It's kind of fun to have a "baby" in the house.

3. I took the GRE and actually did well! - I had basically been studying like a madwoman every day after work. I was pretty worried about it, but since you get part of your results right away, I already know part of my score. I will post the results is a separate post!

4. I'm applying to graduate school - I'm only applying to 1 program right now, at ASU, because of the instate tuition. I'm applying to the Walter Kronkite School of Journalism program for a masters in Mass Communication. The main application is in, now I'm just working on getting in some supplemental materials.

I am really hoping to kick this back up again. I love blogging, and now that I have Photoshop on my desktop, I can edit photos much easier than on my 13" laptop. I'm hoping to do 2 quick posts of October and November as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

Playing Catch Up

2009-10-22T11:22:00.001-07:00

It's funny how time off flies by. Chris and I spent some great time together, and he's actually on his way back to Maryland now for his monthly drill. He'll be back Monday afternoon, so I'll be doing some fun activities while he's gone with my mom.

In the meantime, I'm trying to play blog catch up. Before Chris came home, his older sister Jennifer had her first child. His name is Richard Jackson and will go by Jack. He was 10 days late, and they finally had to induce her, because he was in no hurry to enter the world. Chris was able to spend a few days on his cross country drive with them in Houston and see Baby Jack. As a gift, I "made" burp cloths out of cloth diapers. Now I saw "made" in parentheses, because I'll admit I did none of the actual sewing. I did pick the fabrics and borders, but my wonderfully talented mother did all of the sewing. Here's a few photos of the finished project. Jennifer and her husband chose not to know the sex of the baby beforehand, so we were working with a gender neutral palette. And she loves penguins, so I always try to include something that has penguins.

Here's the six that we made.

A closer view of the six.

A close up of my mom's handy work. Adorable.

Sorry for the bad photos. I was putting them in the box at that very moment and was trying to beat the mail deadline for the day!

I can finally breathe...a little

2009-10-08T12:17:00.002-07:00

Well the day finally arrived...Chris is home! He drove in yesterday a little before 5pm. I left work early so that I could be home with he got there. I'll admit it was the best feeling in the world to have him home again. He hadn't actually set foot in our house since December 2008 and he had been on active duty since October 3, 2008. I also hadn't seen him since May, so there was a lot of rejoicing in the house last night.

Last night after he got home, I went to the gym while he napped. I came home and we had a "gourmet" dinner of defrosted baked spaghetti and french bread. We watched all the episodes of Modern Family and then I made homemade pizookie for dessert. My parents bought us our own individual cast iron skillets and I broke them out last night after a long hiatus in the cupboard. After that we crashed since I had to go to work today :( It was hard for me to leave, but I am taking all next week off from work, so I just have to get through the next day and a half.

We have some fun things planned for the next week or so, so I'm hoping to blog A LOT since I won't be working. Stay tuned!

Me + this + that...

2009-09-15T10:55:00.003-07:00

*Note that today (Sept. 16th) I realized that I forgot something. I've added it. Please reread.

Obviously I haven't had time to do that blogging I was talking about. And this week is no exception. I was actually taking a much needed break from work and blog hopping and came across a cute idea of expressing exactly why I am going to have to take a break from blogging for the next few weeks. This pretty much explains why I've been so busy...

Me + work + two-a-day workouts + studying for the GRE + writing/editing a cookbook + finishing up painting the entire house + putting the newly painted rooms back in order + getting ready for Chris to come home (hopefully!!!) + taking care of a house and pool by myself + having a new "friend" around the house + all the regular weekend chores = One Exhausted Me!

I'm hoping to return to the blogging world the beginning of October so stay tuned!

The past few weeks

2009-09-09T13:37:00.003-07:00

have been crazy busy! And of course, because of this, blogging has taken a back seat to everything else. I am hoping that this weekend I will have time to post an update of everything that's been going on around here lately, and of course post some photos. Between an array of new "activities" that I've taken on the past few weeks, I am exhausted on most days. Hopefully I can figure out a better schedule that will accompany the many tasks I'm trying to accomplish. I'll give much more detail this weekend, so stay tuned!

30 Days of Photography {Week 3} and then some

2009-08-26T21:25:00.004-07:00

Well we are at week 3 now, almost 4. I'll admit I've slacked a lot, mostly due to being sick last week, and still working on gaining full strength back. Here are a few more photos I've taken and edited throughout the past week and a half.

August 15 - Elk Antlers. Edited in Gimp. This elk skull and antlers are sitting in my grandparents' backyard as a decoration piece. There's actually two sets of interlocking antlers. If this grosses you out, stop reading now. But my gramma and grandpa are both hunters, and these were their trophies from 2007. They are HUGE in person, this photos doesn't show them justice in that manner, but I loved the color I was able to achieve.

August 19 - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Edited in Gimp. Last Wednesday, when I wasn't feeling too hot, I made these out of desperation. I was craving a fall treat, even though it was at least 105 here. I also happened to have some leftover pumpkin in the freezer and so these were made. They might have been the best thing ever, at least for that moment. I'm pretty sure I ate at least 8 that night. No joke.

August 22 - Dessert Plates. Edited in Gimp. Saturday night I hosted a girl's night dessert party at my house. Since we only have Corelle dishes at our house (don't cringe please) I had wanted to buy some dessert type plates for the party. I ended up finding a great deal on a set of mismatched plates at Marshalls and they were only $1 a plate! I bought 12 total. I'm not sure it's really a set, but they are different patterns of off white and I love them. They are more like small dinner plate size, so I hope to get some good wear out of them.

August 26 - Desert Tortoise. Edited in Gimp. My parents' backyard has a few of these guys that call the place home. This is either Samantha or Goliath, I can't ever tell them apart. They are the biggest, and are probably 40 years old or so. They've had a bunch of babies over the years, much to my mom's dismay, which results in lots of baby tortoises. The backyard and laundry room are full of these guys. It's illegal in Arizona to sell them, but sometimes they give them away to family or friends.

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Tonight will make for some good photos I hope. My mom is helping to host a party and she's hired me to make sure all the food and drinks stay replenished throughout the night. I'm happy to do it, and plan on taking lots of food photos before the guests arrive. I'll also be taking some guest shots and working on my "people" skills. Wish me luck!

30 Days of Photography {Week 2}

2009-08-16T20:00:00.004-07:00

So here we are...week 2. While it's hard to take photos every day, basically due to lack of subjects, I'm still getting 5-6 quality photos per week. I'm still having a lot of fun with it, but if anyone has a subject idea, please let me know! It's so hot here that doing anything outside is pretty torturous, I wish it was cooler so I could take a field trip or two around town to get some good shots. But without further adieu, here's week 2!

August 10 - Peanut. Edited for color in Gimp. Peanut is my almost 5 year old Chihuahua. This photos captures his beautiful eyes perfectly. Those eyes get me every time. That and his ears. He positions his ears different ways and each time he resembles something different. My favorite is the Yoda look.

August 12 - Raw eggs. Unedited. I was looking for something other than my parent's animals to photography one morning and my mom was making breakfast. I love the color of the egg yolks, although according to my mom, nothing beats the color of fresh egg yolks. The blue bowl contrasts nicely with the yellow yolks.

August 13 - Failed cookies. Edited for color in Gimp. These cookies were from the first batch of a new recipe. As you can see here, they didn't turn out so well. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't get eaten anyway, they just didn't make it into the gift boxes I was making. The recipe is courtesy of Pioneer Woman if you are interested. Note that I meant to upload the cropped photo without the cord in the background, so picture it that way.

August 14 - Roxy. Unedited. I love this picture of my parent's cat. She was sitting on a bench in their living room. I love the contrast of the bench with her fur.

August 15 - Cherry Pie. Unedited. Oh cherry pie, how I love thee. This pie was from the weekend's birthday festivities. We did a multi-birthday celebration with my dad's family and my mom and I brought this pie along as her birthday desert. I will admit that we both messed it up a little, me with the crust and my mom with the filling. Didn't stop us from eating it though, or photographing it for that matter!

Sleepless (Weekend) in Seattle

2009-08-10T21:20:00.008-07:00

Friday morning I headed to Seattle for a dear friend's wedding. Being that Chris couldn't attend, I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to fly in Friday morning, attend the wedding Friday night and return to Phoenix Saturday evening. Of course, as soon as I hit that 60 degree weather, I really wished I had sucked it up and stayed another day! Anyway, before I headed up there, I did a lot of food research, as always. Cakespy is a fantastic blog based in Seattle, so I managed to find a donut tour that she did a while back. I was extremely happy to find a donut shop that was close to where I'd be traveling. So as soon as I had landed and gotten my rental car, I was off to find Top Pot Doughnuts. After a minor issue with my GPS system (thank goodness I'm good with navigation) I found it. I kept telling myself that I was allowing myself ONE. However, the minute I stepped in there, I couldn't make up my mind. Thank goodness there was a line so I could take a while to figure it out. In the end though I couldn't decide and had to choose 3. Yes 3. I couldn't help myself. I settled on a maple bar, chocolate cake and a glazed old fashioned. As soon as I got in the car I couldn't contain myself and ate the chocolate frosted cake immediately. Once I got to the hotel I pulled out the camera and snapped a few photos of the old fashioned before consuming that one as well. I did manage to save the maple bar for the next morning. This is also the same company that supplies Starbucks with there doughnuts these days, but I can't guarantee they taste the same. No matter what, I wish they had them in Arizona so I could eat one every day.

After the doughnut incident, I managed to get myself ready for the wedding. The wedding was for my friend Megan. She and I have known each other since Freshman year of college. Not only were we sorority sisters, but we also lived together in Germany during our sophomore year and were roommates our junior year as well. She is an amazing person (and now attorney) and I was so happy to be able to share the occasion with her. The wedding was in Woodinville, Washington at the Willows Lodge and it was incredible. Below are a few photos I took of the wonderful evening.

Megan and her dad walking towards us in order to walk down the aisle. We had a nice long glimpse of them, which was a great opportunity to take some photos.

The archway where the minister stood and some of the floral decorations. This photo is a little dark, but the sunset was frustrating me and my camera.

My friends Lauren and Carin and me. Lauren was in Germany with us, and Carin is also a sorority sister of ours!
Megan and her new husband Scott cutting the cake with his marmaluke. He's a Marine Corps JAG and he wore his uniform instead of a tux. How handsome!

Sharing their first dance as husband and wife.

Megan and I at the reception. That guy in the cowboy hat behind us is the best man.

The next morning, I met my grandparents and cousin at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. My grandparents were visiting my cousin Rainy who goes to school in Olympia, so we decided to spend the day together. After a horrific parking ordeal (let's just say that parking in downtown Seattle is ridiculously expensive) we started the day off with a trip to Daily Dozen Doughnuts. I was in serious heaven here. They serve 3 kinds of cake doughnuts, powdered sugar, sugar and spice, and frosted sprinkle. They are small and come in 1/2 dozens in paper bags. I think I could have eaten an entire dozen by myself.

After breakfast we hung around the market, taking in all the sites. The place overwhelms the senses, in a good way. The sights, sounds and smells are amazing. It makes me wish I could live near a big market like that. I would make the best food with fresh produce like that.

After the market tour, we headed to the Seattle Aquarium, which was really fun. They had all kinds of touch tanks, and seals and otters and such. I recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in downtown Seattle. After the aquarium we headed to lunch at Pike Place Chowder. I have one word for their food...AMAZING! I had a 1/2 crab roll sandwich and a cup of clam chowder and the chowder was possibly the best I've ever had. My cousin recommended it because she had been there on a previous trip, and I'm glad she did. After lunch we headed to the Space Needle, which was another must-do just to be able to say that we went there. After that, we headed back to the market for a snack before I headed back home. I could have easily eaten more, although my stomach couldn't have handled it. I guess that means another trip in the future!
These two photos are of me with famous pigs they have around the market. There are a series of pink pigs directing people to the market and the bronze pig is at the front of the market.

30 Days of Photographs {Week One}

2009-08-09T09:40:00.016-07:00

So here we are...week one! I've had a lot of fun with this project so far. So here we are...week one! I've had a lot of fun with this project so far. Since I really had no idea about my camera, I did a lot of reading online during the week, taking notes and printing tutorials. While I still have a really really long way to go, I think that I've started to understand some of the basics. I decided the best way to do this is show the picture with a little description underneath each photo. Some are raw, and some are edited. Right now I'm using Gimp, which is a free downloadable photo editor. I actually have photoshop 7.0 for Mac, but it doesn't have near the photo editing ability that the newer CS3 or CS4 editions have. I'm working towards purchasing that, but it's pretty expensive. And until I figure out a way to know which mode it was in, the f/stop, etc. I'll be leaving that part out. PLEASE feel free to comment or critique these. I want all the feedback I can get!

Oh, and yes, I already slacked and missed a few days, but I had a crazy week and not getting home until dark doesn't make for very good photos! Plus my subjects are limited, you'll see that later.

August 2 - Gulliver. Edited to black and white in Gimp. This is my parent's 11 (I think) year old yellow lab. Gulliver is pretty special to me. He is actually a retired guide dog for the blind. We raised him as a puppy and I took him to high school with me once a week. Almost a year and a half ago, my dad drove all the way up to San Francisco to pick him up when he was retired. I don't think there's a person in the world who doesn't love this dog. He made a great first day subject because he doesn't move around, literally. He will go 8 hours sleeping in the same spot. Thanks Gulliver for being the perfect model.

August 3 - Hawkins. Cropped and filtered in Gimp. This is a horrible photo, I know, but this is the kind of subject I get to deal with at home. And this was the best photo of the night. I think that should tell you something right there. He literally does not stay still for me. Chris manages to take the most amazing photos, but me? Oh no, I can't manage to take one good photo of that darn cat. I still love him though, even if he makes me look like a failure.

August 4 - Salt. Unedited. For some reason, I really like this picture. My mom was making dinner at her house, and I was looking around for different subjects. I actually bought this salt for my mom for Christmas and since I want to improve my food photography, I figured this was a good start.

August 5 - Roxy. Cropped and edited for color in Gimp. This is my mom's new cat, Roxy. I haven't blogged about her before, but my mom rescued her from going to the pound about 6 weeks ago. She is still pretty shy, but when she came out one morning I was at their house, I jumped on the opportunity to take her picture. She doesn't move nearly as much as Hawkins, so I took about 20 photos of her. This one is one of my favorites.

August 7 - Wedding flowers. Unedited. On Friday morning I flew up to Seattle for a college friend's wedding. That is a whole other post in itself, but I had some great opportunities to take photos. I wish my best photo for the day had been of people, but with the Seattle clouds and sunset, the lighting wasn't super spectacular. I don't know how I managed to get this shot, but I was pretty proud of myself for managing to get some good field of depth.

August 8 - Space Needle. Unedited. I'm sure that some of you are cringing at this photos right now. Yes the lighting is way off but I love this photos. It shows that I took the camera off auto and while I might have failed with the exposure, I tried. I love the greenery against the washed out Space Needle.

30 Day of {Blank} Revisited

2009-08-01T17:46:00.002-07:00

Since it's officially August 1st, today starts my first day of 30 Days of Blank. After a lot of consideration, I've decided to do...30 days of Photography. For a while now, I've wanted to work on my photography skills. Of course, my goal isn't to become a professional photographer by any means, but I would love to be able to take better "everyday" pictures. People, animals, food, and events are areas I would like to improve.

The camera I'll be working with is the Nikon D70. First let me say I know almost nothing about this camera. It's Chris's and while I have used it a number of times, I don't know anything about it except how to turn it on and snap a photo. Oh, and I also know how to change the lenses, because it does in fact have two. I'm looking forward to the next 30 days of learning about the camera and taking photos. My goal is to snap one picture each day that I am proud of. I will post the pictures weekly, since we all know I'm not good at posting every day. If anyone has any ideas about this camera and photography, let me know! I am literally going to just starting reading and hope I figure it all out. Thank goodness for the interest these days!

30 Days of {Blank}

2009-07-29T16:19:00.003-07:00

Today I came across a new blog via the great Pioneer Woman. It's called Room 704 and the author has proposed a new something called 30 Days of {Blank}. You can see her explanation here, but the point is to do something everyday for 30 days. I would love to participate, and write something here every day regarding said blank, but as of now, I can't think of anything to do. I have 2 days to think about it, so hopefully something will call out to me. Ideas are certainly welcome. I encourage everyone to try it too. After all, it's only 30 days!

Twitter huh?

2009-07-15T17:27:00.002-07:00

So I finally joined Twitter after my cousin, who also happens to be my co-worker, said that it would be a great way for me to network with other marketing/pr professionals. I was pretty against it from the beginning, but am starting to find my way around and figure some things out. I don't follow many celebrities, with the exception of Paula Deen, her boys, and Pioneer Woman, but have started trying to network. You can now see my Twitter updates in the right hand column, with a link to follow if you'd like. Just an FYI, names are already so picked over, I didn't want something cheesy, so I went with MsJanelleRene. I figure it will last me a while, unlike those aol names from the early 90's. Remember those???? So anyhoo, I PROMISE I will do some major blogging this weekend, probably like 10 posts worth. It's so hot here, there really isn't much else to do. 110=me staying inside. YIKES!

So question...do you twitter and who do you follow?

All Better

2009-07-06T21:29:00.003-07:00

That's how I feel about my living room and kitchen these days. After a weekend of painting, and another weekend of redecorating, it's officially done! I am so thankful for my parents who did almost all of the painting. I can say that I helped with some of the prep work, but that's about it. My dad even did some work on Father's Day! Both of my parents also took a day off from work to finish the kitchen. So a big thank you to you both! I can't believe how much nicer everything looks now that there is a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The counters do have to be recaulked, but that is the only thing that's left. I wish I had taken a picture of how bad the caulking looked, and my dad agreed,which is why he started stripping it off right away. I had tried to cover it up with items on the counter, but part of my goal was to have a cleaner look, so a lot of counter items found homes elsewhere in the process. Here are a few "after" pictures. I forgot to take pictures of the archways I painted a different color, so I will have to take some and post them another time.
Our living room. I love our Entertainment Unit! And all those red books are cookbooks...gosh I love to cook :)

The kitchen. I love all the cabinet space and counter space. I do wish all of our appliances matched and the cabinets were different, but oh well.

See the curtain over the window? My mom and I created that using cloth napkins. The whole thing cost me less than $20. And please excuse the garbage in the corner, recycle needs to go out and I've been a little lazy.

I LOVE these new items. They are actually screens that have been painted. I got them during our weekend in the mountains, and I got all 3 of them for $12.00!!!! The spice rack with the house (don't even want to know what else they left behind) and the dried stalk came from Kirklands for $8.00. Another great improvement for around $20.00.

Stay tuned for a holiday weekend post. My mom has some pictures so when I'm at her house tomorrow I'll download them and do another, slightly longer, post.

A Few Disasters

2009-06-25T09:56:00.003-07:00

Remember back to when Hawkins ran away last week? In that post, I mentioned briefly that I fell and hurt my elbow while trying to let him in. It's finally time for the full recap. As you probably remember, I had been sleeping on the couch for the nights he was gone in order to hear him when he came home (I was obviously very positive he was actually coming home). Incidentally earlier in the evening, my dad had come over to help move all the furniture from the walls of the living room because we were scheduled to start painting. Because we have such a big unit with our big screen TV on it, we can only move it away from the wall about 3 feet. Because of that, everything was scrunched together against our couch, including our shag rug.

So anyways, the rug was now smack against the couch, so when I woke up to scratching at the door, I sprung up and started to run around my couch to get to the back door. At this point I'm not exactly sure what happened, but all of a sudden I was literally air born and landing on my left elbow. I was so full of adrenaline that I didn't seem to notice how bad it hurt until about 15 minutes later. The next morning though, I had quite the knot. It's been a week now, and the swelling has gone down significantly, but it still hurts to the touch. Hopefully in another few days I'll be as good as new.

The second disaster is my house, particularly my kitchen. This is a photo of it before painting the kitchen, and the ladder is outta here, but I still have nothing on the counters and my kitchen table is the catch-all for everything else. Stay tuned to see what it becomes!

Home Makeover Part II

2009-06-23T09:56:00.003-07:00

This past weekend was spent on home makeover part II. Part I was the "front room" as I like to call it, since we never can really decide what it is, only that it's the room at the front of our house. We painted and finally got around to decorating it in the fall. That was one of Chris's surprises when he came home for Christmas. Luckily, he really liked it.

Part II consists of the living room and kitchen. Because of our open floor plan, the front room, living room and kitchen all run together, making it necessary to paint the entire space one color. You'd be amazed at how much a coat of paint changes the look of the room. The rooms already look much warmer and inviting without those harsh yet dingy white walls. I will post all the before and after pictures once we are done putting everything back and adding a few more decor items. Luckily these rooms were pretty much done decorating-wise, so there won't be very many more additions. I did buy a few things on our trip to the mountains last weekend, and I can't wait to add them to the mix. And a HUGE thanks to my parents, who did all the painting. It wasn't that I didn't want to help, but they have a pretty good two person system, and I don't really have a spot to help. I stayed busy though, cleaning out my refrigerator (I found items that were best by 2006, I really needed to do this) and reorganized my pantry and cleaned that out as well. I also spend time on our pool and laundry and such. Stay tuned to see how everything comes together!

Just monkeying around

2009-06-19T14:30:00.004-07:00

During the whole Hawkins ordeal, I decided I needed to do something to keep myself busy while I was at the house waiting and hoping for his return. I didn't have a lot of ingredients for things that popped into my head and I wanted to do something more than just cookies. Then I remembered that my Gramma had given me a kit for Monkey Bread for Christmas. I had thought about making it another time, but it had steps that required a lot of time, and until today I hadn't had the amount of time it required. But given I wanted something that would take a while, I knew this was perfect.

The kit came with most of the ingredients, and the things I needed I had on hand. This is a yeast bread, so I was overjoyed that the box said the dough could be made in the bread machine. I put all the ingredients together and hit dough and I was set. Once the dough came out, you roll it out and cut it into little pieces, form balls and roll them in butter and a cinnamon sugar mix. From there it all goes into a bundt pan and I made a sauce with butter, maple syrup, and more cinnamon sugar mix. As you can see butter and sugar are a huge part of this, definitely not low cal! After you pour the sauce over the pieces, you let it rise for another 30 or 45 minutes before baking.

I will say it right now, I might just be obsessed now. I love how you can just pull apart the pieces. I am going to try to make it from scratch since I'm sure the mix was a little more expensive and I most likely have the ingredients at home in the pantry. Here are a few photos of the finished product. There are various recipes out there, including ones made with refrigerator biscuits which seem much less time consuming. Enjoy!

A Huge Ordeal

2009-06-18T13:50:00.004-07:00

That's what I've been dealing with since Monday night. A quick rundown of the events...Monday I came home from the gym, let the animals outside, talked with Chris, let the animals inside, went to the grocery store and came home. At this point I was going to start making dinner because it was already pretty late but Hawkins was dying for more play time outside. It was still light outside so I let him out and started dinner. It was almost dark so I decided to call him in and he didn't come. This isn't much of a surprise really, sometimes I have to call him a few times and shake his treat container for him to come. But still, nothing. Sometimes he can be really stubborn so I decided to just go inside and wait a little while and try again. He also comes to the door and scratches by himself, so I still wasn't too worried.

Hawkins at the door a few weeks ago. Please excuse my dirty glass door, the animals are constantly getting it dirty and I've pretty much given up.But he still didn't come home, it was getting pretty late and he'd never spent a night outside. I decided to nap on the couch for a while, waiting for him to scratch at the door, but still nothing. I slept on the couch all night long and that morning when he still hadn't come home, I really started to worry. So much in fact that I skipped work that day, worked from home as best I could, and spent the majority of the day doing my rounds of the neighborhood on either my bike or in my car. Later in the afternoon I even made some signs (really crappy looking ones b/c we don't have a printer at home) and hung them up around the neighborhood.

After a second night on the couch, I decided that I had to go to work yesterday. As much as I could barely force myself away from the house, I decided to put food and water out and just hope for the best. My dad came to check the backyard around noon and still nothing, so after work I headed home for another round, this time set with color posters. Oh, and I had to tell Chris that night. He had been out training on some boats and was incommunicado so he had no idea what was going on. It broke my heart to tell him that his cat was missing, this cat is as close to a child as he's ever known. But I refused to give up the entire time and once again last night after my usual rounds I camped out on the couch for the third night. I'm sure some people think I'm crazy for the couch, but it's right by the back door and I wanted to guarantee I could hear him. I am an incredibly sound sleeper, so I needed all the help I could get! At about 3am I woke up and looked outside and noticed that the food bowl I'd put on the table was moved. I got up and saw that the food bowl was empty. I couldn't get myself too excited because the food could have easily been consumed by another cat or bird. I looked outside, didn't see anything, and went back to the couch.

All of sudden I was woken up to the sounds of scratching at my door! I bolted off the couch and saw our precious kitty at the door, standing on his hind legs and scratching with the front two. I literally ran to the door, slipped on the tile and fell right on my left elbow (that story is for another post) and let him inside. I couldn't believe that he had come back, after more than 52 hours of being gone. He still had his collar on, was totally unharmed, and pretty much acted like nothing ever happened. I of course was sooo relieved. Apparently our little guy was pretty tired from his adventure because he crawled in his bed for a little bit of sleep.

I really wish he could tell me where he'd been all that time, but I'm just glad to have him back safe and sound. I think he'll be staying inside for the next few days, or at least under some close supervision in the backyard!

Someday...

2009-06-10T15:22:00.003-07:00

I will post about my fabulous trip. However, I've been too busy with other things to sit down and really write about it. Most of those items have been house related. I created an extensive to do list for each room of the house and am slowly working on getting everything done. My goal? To have everything done by the end of August. The reason? Can't really say just yet, but wait for some potentially exciting news in the near future. I know...people might "hate" me for holding out, but there's a good chance you might have already guessed. And NO, it does not have anything to do with marriage or pregnancy, so you can get your minds out of those two gutters right now! Haha just kidding, those aren't gutters, but aren't the reason for my to-do list craziness.

This weekend I am headed up to our cabin in Northern AZ with my parents, and possibly my grandparents. I am looking forward to getting away from the city, even though the weather here has been quite mild so far the past week or so. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a must try recipe. And I really must must try. As in if you don't try it in the next week or so, I might try to harm you. Just kidding!

A few weeks ago I went to a pool party hosted by a guy who I work out with. I'll have to go into more detail about the gym I've started going to another day, but anyways, we were all invited over to his house for an afternoon pool party. I knew that I wanted to bring something, and of course, something sweet was requested. Only a few days earlier I had seen this recipe and thought to myself that I had to make that, the only problem being that of course living alone at the moment, I would have to eat the whole thing. This pool party was the perfect excuse to have a little bit, and dump the rest on other people. It's called the Cookie Cake Pie and comes from the fabulous blog CakeSpy. The whole concept is amazing, and I really hope everyone has the chance to make it. You can make it with any combo you can create, and I really encourage everyone to try this at some point. I chose the following combo:

Homemade pie crust
Chocolate chip cookie dough from a mix
Golden butter cake mix
Fudge frosting from a can
Round rainbow sprinkles

The reason I used all the pre-made, mix type items was two fold. One was to save time, and two, because I had all these mixes sitting in my pantry. I did manage to make homemade pie crust because for me, it's neither difficult nor time consuming, but I was perfectly happy using packaged items for the other components. Feel free to go above and beyond and make everything from scratch, if I hadn't had all the other ingredients in my cupboard and wanted to use them up, I probably would have done so.

I also didn't get a single picture. I really should have taken a few at home, but I was in a rush, and it didn't last long enough at the party to get a good shot. You'll have to use your imagination this time around, but trust me, it was pretty. I have another combo in mind, so maybe I'll make that for the next pool party and I'll share that with you, making sure to take a photo!

I'm Back...Sort Of

2009-06-02T13:51:00.002-07:00

Ok, I know I didn't get to blog once during my trip. Mainly because the wireless internet at the hotel was spotty and my mac didn't respond well to their wired connection, but also because I was just plain tired at the end of every day. That's the sign of a good vacation right? So while I spend a few more days decompressing from the events of the past few weeks, take a look at the new section in the right hand column I've added...the book section.

The summertime is really when I do all my reading. With the Arizona heat, we aren't left with very many options of things to do. Swimming, reading, and holing up in my house are usually at the top of the list. Also, because I can go through a book in a few days, sometimes even less, I tend to rely on the library, not the bookstore for my constant stream of books. I'm going to post what I am currently reading in case anyone needs any ideas of their own. Right now I am reading a culinary mystery series. The first one is posted now, although technically I just finished the last few pages earlier at work. I recommend it. Anyone have any good book ideas? If so, post them below and see you in a few days for an east coast recap!

East Coast Bound

2009-05-14T16:16:00.004-07:00

As of tomorrow morning at 7:10am, I will be on vacation for 10 glorious days. My parents and I are headed to Virginia and Washington DC. Here's a rough outline of the trip...

Friday - Sunday: (Fredericksburg, VA) My mom and I are doing the Marine Corps Half Marathon on Sunday morning so we are spending our first weekend there. Visiting with Chris and doing all the race stuff will certainly keep us busy.

Sunday - Friday: (Washington, DC) My parents and I are going to DC!!! I am so beyond thrilled as I have never been to DC other than to the airport. My Dad and I are first timers, while my mom has been there at least 2 or 3 times already. I planned out a day by day itinerary so we could squeeze in as much as possible. I can't wait to see the sights, and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous. Chris is in training all week, but might be able to drive up for dinner one night.

Friday - Monday: (Jersey Shore) Friday morning Chris and I are dropping my parents off at the airport and we are going on the New Jersey to spend Memorial Day weekend at the shore. I think the beach might be a bit too cold for this desert diva but we shall see. Either way I'm looking forward to going to the shore during the "season" aka when everything is actually open. Definitely different than our trip there in February. As long as I get Duffers ice cream, I will be a happy camper, or beacher I guess (hahaha).

I'm hoping to blog every day since I have my computer, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. I may end up just doing short recaps instead of longer posts this time around. Thank goodness for free Internet at both hotels. We don't have Internet at the shore, so that will have to wait until I get home.

~~~~~~~~~ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT NOTE~~~~~~~~~~~

Not sure if anyone knew this, but back in October Mother's Cookies closed their doors. I was pretty much devastated that I would no longer be able to enjoy those famous pink and white frosted circus cookies with the non-pareils. Seriously, they bring back a ton of memories. I remember buying them at convenience stores as a treat when I was younger, and my mom and I would eat them, not looking at the nutritional label, as those things could not possibly be good for anyone. I hadn't had them in a few years, but when I heard the news I was crushed. I even went around to stores seeing if they had any leftovers.

But this month the most marvelous thing happened...they reopened!!! Actually Kellogg's' purchased them and their recipes and started re manufacturing all their cookies in the original packages. I found this out earlier this week and yesterday I actually went to the store specifically looking for my circus cookies. Low and behold I found them, bought a bag, and opened them the minute I was handed my receipt. I was overjoyed to find out that nothing had changed. I am pretty sure I could eat the entire bag in one sitting, but I did manage some self control and stopped at 3. Conclusion: Thank you Kellogg's for saving my cookies!

How can you resist one of these little guys?

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-11T10:24:00.005-07:00

***Note that I wrote this Monday, but due to my busy week is just getting posted today***

I know that Mother's Day was yesterday, but I was so busy yesterday celebrating that I forgot to write anything, so this is more of a recap than anything else. Yesterday was great, and I enjoyed spending time with some of the mothers in my family. I was in charge of planning it, so I tried to make it as low key as possible. We decided to have a late lunch/early dinner at my grandparents house. Unfortunately it's been way too hot here to eat outside, so we settled for indoors. We also went with a simple meal consisting of pork loin with strawberry-avocado salsa, roasted veggies, sliced tomatoes and sesame bread. My dad and grandpa grilled the pork, I made the salsa, my aunt Janis made the roasted veggies, my mom brought the tomatoes from her garden and my aunt Julie made the sesame bread. Everything was so good, and everyone loved how healthy and light we made it.

After dinner we opened up some Mother's Day presents and cards and then had dessert. For dessert I made Hummingbird Cake. I had seen the recipe a while ago and thought I had to make it, but was lacking an occasion and I certainly didn't need a two layer cake to eat myself. It was actually the first time I've ever made a layer cake, which was very shocking considering the amount of baking I do. I give it a 7 for looks, but a 10 for taste! Everyone loved it and my uncle even proclaimed it his new favorite cake. The recipe is from Southern Living magazine, and is a very popular southern recipe, choc full of banana, pineapple and pecans. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a easy recipe for an amazing cake. My grandpa also made homemade ice cream which is possibly the best thing ever, and a wonderful surprise for the moms since its usually something we reserve for Father's Day and 4th of July.

Last but not least, Happy Mother's Day (again) to all the moms out there. I am lucky enough to be taking a vacation with mine starting on Friday to Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. We are very excited to get out of this 100 degree weather and do some sightseeing and seafood eating. I love you Mom, thanks for everything you've done for the past 26 years, and especially the last 7 months!

It's still spring...right?

2009-05-04T21:04:00.005-07:00

I realize that I've gotten behind on the blogging, but really, Easter is the only big thing that I've failed to blog about that was of any real importance. I'll give a quick recap with some good photos. When I was younger, even when I was in college I think, my whole family would go out for Easter brunch. I am a huge fan of both brunch and buffets (good ones of course, not shady ones) so I always loved this. I can eat, and I mean really eat, when I go to a good brunch buffet, so when the family decided to stop going for expensive brunches and instead opting for home cooked meals, I was a little bit disappointed. I quickly got over it though, and this year was probably our best homemade Easter celebration. It was small, my grandparents, parents, Aunt Janis and my Aunt Julie and her husband Mike. Nevertheless, the selection of food was one for a giant crowd. The menu consisted of the following

Lamb
Honey Roasted Turkey
Quiche
Fresh garden salad
Fruit salad
Scalloped potatoes
Hot cross buns
Sunflower cake
Butterscotch nests

I think that sums it up. Oh and candy and chocolate...a lot of it. I ate all day long and felt pretty overstuffed that evening. We had a great time, sitting outside and enjoying the beautiful Arizona spring. Here's a few pictures detailing the festivities.

The beautiful table. Each place setting had candy and a cute Easter lollipop.You can't tell but mine was a marshmallow flavored bunny.
My parents. The shadows disfigured them a little :)
The bunny bread. How cute is he! Tasty too
My mom's scalloped potatoes. They are full of mushrooms and amazing.
The beautiful sunflower cake made with Peeps and chocolate chips. Inside was yellow cake.

The whole family enjoying the day outside.

I am going to talk about the butterscotch nests and quiche that I made in a different post so I can post both photos and recipes. Stay tuned!

Welcome Sophia Jane

2009-05-03T21:06:00.004-07:00

This weekend was super fun and super busy, and one of the highlights was getting to meet the newest addition to the Bryson family, Sophia Jane! My friend Jessica had her little one a little early, 5 weeks actually. No one expected her to quite make her entrance so soon, including her Mom!, but that's a whole other story. The sex of the baby was a secret until the big arrival, so I was so happy to finally find out with an early morning call from my mom. She was born last Sunday and yesterday my mom and I went to see her. My parents got to see her last Sunday evening in the hospital, but they weren't able to hold her because she was under lights because of some Jaundice problems. She's still a little yellow (sorry Jessica, I know it will go away) but she is the cutest thing I have ever seen. My mom and I were joking that I hadn't actually been around a newborn baby in over 10 years. We have had a big drought in our family, which is probably a good thing since I am the oldest of the cousins! Here are a few pictures to show off her cuteness. At first I wasn't sure about holding her because she feels so small, but I got used to it after a while. Congratulations Jessica and Matt!

Day 3 - To Richmond and Back

2009-04-16T14:40:00.003-07:00

It was nice to wake up Saturday and see nothing but sunshine. Chris let me sleep in, even though I am pretty sure he'd been awake for a while. Oh and by the way, sleeping in was about 8am. I am not a sleeper. For those who know Chris, the Marines have made him less of a sleeper, but he's still one of the best nappers I know. So we woke and up and got ready for the day and then went for Breakfast. Chris decided that he wanted to go to Sheetz. It's a hard place to explain, but basically it's a convenience store that serves some of the best food. EVER. And if I'm saying that it's good, it really must be. After all, I do not usually venture to a convenience store of any type of hot meal. The place is neato because you order at these touch screens listing all the items and all the toppings/sides/etc. things you can get on your meal. For breakfast we went with sandwiches. I opted for the Sheetz version of an egg mcmuffin and Chris got something with pretzel bread. After that, we headed over to the barracks. Chris needed to do a few things, so we hung out there for a while and talked with his roommates and then we decided to head to Richmond.

The counter at Sheetz. See how fun it is???

Neither of us had even been, and we wanted to check it out. Its only an hour drive from Fredericksburg, so we headed out without any kind of solid plan. That was our first mistake. First we had to stop and make a pick up midway. Chris had ordered a part for a gun (don't ask, it's a Chris thing) and it had arrived and we had to go and pick it up. That took a little while, and then we continued our trip to Richmond. We were hungry before we got there and we stopped at another Sheetz for an afternoon snack. It's a good thing we don't have either Sheetz or it's close cousin Wawa here in Arizona, or I would gain a few pounds. We finally got into Richmond around 4:15. We had no idea what we were doing. Initially we had wanted to go check out the suburbs and maybe see some houses and then check out the downtown area. We finally got to the tourist bureau and found where we could see things downtown. Then it all went downhill. Chris decided to start driving around to find some suburbs, and we ended up in the wrong part of town. Let's just say I'd never seen parts like that in person, only in the movies. Even during my 3 year stint in LA, I'd never wandered into something like this. It took us forever to get out of it, and back to the downtown area, and at that point we just wanted to go back up North. Originally we were going to do dinner down there, but decided we'd just go back and eat in Fredericksburg. And that's exactly what we did.

The evening ended up pretty chill. We ate at the Olive Garden thanks to a gift card we had gotten for Christmas 2007 that I had remembered to bring, and after that we went back to the hotel and had a drink and birthday cake and watched tv until we both fell asleep. It was certainly an adventurous day in the land of Virginia. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos that day. I had wanted to take some of the ghetto we landed in, however I feared someone might try to carjack me for the camera, so I didn't. Stay tuned for Sunday's recap!

Day 2 - Virginia Rain

2009-04-11T16:57:00.003-07:00

Day 2 started out very very early. I didn't go to bed the night until 11:30 or so Virginia time, and only after forcing myself to try to fall asleep. The alarm rang at 3:25am! Yes, you read that right...3:25am! Chris and I had to drive to the base so that he could start his Friday bright in early. Except that it wasn't bright. It was pitch black and foggy. For those of us desert rats, fog isn't something we are too accustomed to. Of course, back when I lived in California, I was used to the fog, so I wasn't too worried about having to drive back to the hotel by myself in it. All I did was brush my teeth and we headed off on a 20 minute drive or so to the base. I had to take directions, on a chinese food takeout menu, on how to get back there later in the afternoon for the company picnic. Luckily I had been to this part of the base once before, so it wasn't too bad. We almost were to Chris' barracks, when I realized something. There were deer on base! For most people, I'm sure hitting a deer while driving never crosses their minds. This however is one of my biggest fear while driving in the dark in deer country. Glad to report though, that I managed to get back to the hotel in one piece, through the fog, without hitting any animals.

I went back to sleep until 8:30 or so and woke up to rain. Pouring down rain. I looked out the window in the hotel and saw a minor flood in the parking lot. This alone made me question why I was going to run errands in that weather. Luckily by the time I made myself nice enough to be able to appear in public, the rain had stopped. I went to Caribou Coffee, something we don't have in Arizona, and then I moved onto Target and Costco. My plan was to buy Chris a birthday cake at Costco, but I was really disappointed in their selection, so I had to head over the a grocery store and get something. I got his favorite, angel food with strawberries and whipped cream. After that I headed back to the hotel and got ready to go to the bbq. By that time, the sun had managed to come out and the rain looked like it had moved on other locations. I was pretty happy about that, since a bbq in the rain didn't seem like any fun at all.

The bbq was a lot of fun. I met a ton of people that I had heard Chris talk about. The grounds were really muddy and it was really windy, but other that that I loved it. We hung around there for a few hours, eating, drinking, and laughing a lot, and then we had to go to the barracks. I actually got to go inside and see what it was all about and let me say that I officially feel sorry for him. Each group of 6 has two rooms, a sleeping room and study room. Both are incredibly small, with little space for anything. It also smelled really bad when I walked in, but I give them credit because they had gone on a 12 mile hike in the rain that morning and all their gear was wet and in their rooms. It was also literally damp. I mean I walked in and it was wet in there. But I am happy to report that it was incredibly clean. They have room checks for cleanliness and I'm glad. We hung out with the roommates and then went back to the hotel. Chris slept and I hung out and then we met 4 of his friends in downtown Fredericksburg for dinner and drinks.

We had a ton of fun that night. I was excited to finally get out and have a good time. We went to the Capitol Ale House and had some dinner and beers. They have 70+ beers on tap, and it was fun to try different things. I also had this incredibly good sandwich of sausage and sauerkraut on pretzel bread with cheese. I can't wait to go back in a few weeks and have another one, it was that good. The place stuck us in the basement and that's probably a good thing, because we were all really loud, there was a lot of laughing that night. After dinner we headed over to an Irish pub, very interesting place because you can still smoke in Virginia in bars and such. I was not a fan of that part, because I was afraid that my hair and clothes would smell like smoke. Luckily we didn't stay too long and I came out unscathed. We headed home after that and went to sleep.

Here's some photos of Friday. Sorry for the long post, I forgot how much I can write and it just all started spilling out. Stay tuned for Day 3!

Us at the bbq. You can see how windy it was.

The lake where we had the bbq. It was really pretty, and I look forward to coming back.

The sleep room. Can you see what I mean about lack of space?

The "closet" in the study room. You can see that they really don't have space to put much, so it seems to kind of spill over into the room.

Chris' desk. This is where he spends a lot of time, eating, studying, and talking to me on gchat!

And I'm back!

2009-04-10T10:35:00.002-07:00

Technically I've been back since Monday night, but I've been too drained to blog. For those of you who might have seen my facebook status, my trip home Monday was not nearly as easy as my departure. I will blog in more detail about it later, but lets just say that I ended up coming home 10 hours later than planned, and missed a day of work. That part wasn't a big deal, but I sure was glad to finally get home. I've barely been home at all this week, so I have to yet to download the few pictures I took.

In short, the trip was great, and as sad as I was to leave, I know that I'll be back in a month or so for a 10 day visit. Tonight should be pretty relaxing, and I can finally sit down and blog the rest of the trip. In the meantime, happy Easter Weekend!

I arrived!

2009-04-02T19:44:00.002-07:00

Well today was certainly a busy day. The good news? I arrived safely in Virginia! I will say that the whole flying standby thing was certainly an adventure. I arrived at the airport less than an hour before the flight, flying standby doesn't require the whole 2 hours before deal for normal flights. Going through security was a little bit of an adventure, because of course, at least according to the TSA, I can't follow directions. Apparently even though they have changed the rules for laptops and have ambiguous signs, it's my fault that the sign isn't more direct. Oh well, I won't make the mistake of not taking my laptop out of my bag, even though the sign says you don't have to if it's in a certain type of case, one of which I have. I must admit I haven't flown with a laptop in a really long time.

So after I got to the gate, I was told that the flight was full, as in everyone had checked in, however not everyone had claimed their seat yet. They had 10 minutes to take their seats or the standby passengers would get them, and let me say it was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I kept hoping that each person walking by wasn't getting on my flight. There were probably 5 or 6 people that came after me, and I was getting really worried. However, when I felt like I wouldn't get a chance this go around, they called my name and the name of another standby passenger to get ready. There was only one seat left and I got it! I was so incredibly relieved, as they opened the door and I pretty much ran down the ramp. I even had an aisle seat, not so much of a big deal for me, since us 5ft folks don't need much leg room.

The rest of the travel was pretty uneventful. I dosed a little, listened to some music, and watched The Rocker with Dwight from The Office. Chris was actually close by the airport when I landed, and I was pretty surprised, because I wasn't sure that he would be released so early in the day. He brought me Subway which was awesome because they only thing I had eaten all day was the chocolate cake I ate for breakfast. Yay, I know, totally unlike me, but I couldn't resist another piece.

The drive to the hotel was incredibly long. If you think traffic where you live is bad, I swear DC traffic is some of the worst. I think it took us close to 2 hours to get to Fredericksburg, where we are staying. We just hung out, Chris did a little bit of work, and then I went out and grabbed some dinner while Chris took a nap. I went to Sonic, a little adventure, but thanks to Tom Tom, I found it and a grocery store and came back in one piece. Now because of the time difference, Chris is sleeping and I'm wide awake. We have to leave here at 3:30am tomorrow to take Chris back to base and I can have his car, which is only 4 hours or so away. At least I can come back and sleep for a while.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow. I forgot the cord to transfer photos to my computer, but I'm thinking that Chris might have one that I can use so I'm going to see tomorrow. For now, enjoy some posts without photos. Stay tuned for (hopefully) daily posts on my trip to the East Coast!

Today is my Friday

2009-04-01T13:32:00.002-07:00

And I'm pretty darn excited about it! I'm actually blogging from work at the moment. I've been finishing up projects since I'll be out of the office until sometime Monday, so I have a bit of free time. Last night was a loooong night for me. I worked out at my new gym (on a side note, I dead lifted 95lbs and benched 65 lbs, big feats for little ole me, but more about that later) and then came home, scarfed down some dinner, and got to work on my to-do list. I did a ton of exciting things like resetting the pool timer, laundry, packing, putting dishes away, packing up the animals' things and most importantly, getting my ticket.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned before, but I'm flying standby on an employee pass, so I never had to actually commit to a flight until last night. Technically I didn't have to last night, but I needed to give Chris an idea of my plan since he'll be picking me up from the airport. We figured out the flight and then went to book. *This is where my lesson comes in. Listen up all you peeps in relationships that involve sharing things like credit/debit cards. I still have to pay the taxes, so I was giving my aunt my credit card information over the phone, and for some reason it wouldn't take. I couldn't understand why it wouldn't accept our zip code. Now, over a year ago the Post Office changed our zip code, so sometimes databases don't accept our new one, but they take our old one, so I just move on. But this time, my aunt must have tried it half a dozen times. This specific card is linked to Chris' account, but has my name on it. Then all of sudden it hit me, he must have changed the billing address to his address in VA when he was having trouble proving temporary residence a month or so ago. HOWEVER, he never bothered to tell me that I would need to use that zip code for it's billing address. I actually had to go onto the card's website and verify what he had done, and yup, I was exactly right. Of course when we tried it with the new zip code, it worked like magic. The moral of the story...don't forget important financial details! I can only imagine how embarrassed I would have been if I had been at a store buying something and asked to put in the zip code, only to be turned down. Not that a lot of places do that, but some do as an extra security measure. So after over an hour of trying to booking my flight, I did it.

Of course, it doesn't mean I'll get one. I'm trying to think positive, but something in the back of my mind keeps saying, "what if you don't get on?" There are 3 non stop flights tomorrow, and I'm trying to get on the earliest one first, so I have at least 3 chances, not including the flights with stops. So any little travel prayers you'd like to send my way, I'd really appreciate it. It might sound trivial, but going 6 weeks (or even longer as we have before) without seeing your best friend is hard, especially when it's still not a sure thing.

Oh a completely separate note, I'm headed to the Suns game tonight! The third time in a month! I'm going with my Grandpa, Dad, and three guys that my dad does business with. I'm sitting with my Grandpa in his seats, and the other four are in my Grandpa's firm seats. I'll try to fill you in more about that either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm sitting in Row 7 (Yes, I am that cool) so I should get some really good pictures. They are playing Houston, so I'm hoping to get some good photos of Yao and the gang. Go Suns!

Going way back to February

2009-03-30T21:36:00.006-07:00

So...I told you that I would eventually finish blogging about February, and really the only part left is my visit to see Chris. Since I'm leaving again on Thursday, I figured I better get on that! It all started the Friday before Valentine's Day. I got on a plane to fly to Baltimore, where Chris would pick me up, and we would head to New Jersey. The flight over was pretty darn interesting, because I ended up sitting next to a girl whose boyfriend was in the same school as Chris, just a few months ahead. We ended up talking for almost the entire 4 hour trip.

After Chris picked me up at the airport, we headed to Chap's Pit Beef. It really does belong on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives...it was in the parking lot of a strip club! I would have taken more pictures, but let's just say that we were a little out of place and I didn't want to draw attention to us being there. The food was pretty darn amazing though, I recommend it if you are ever in Baltimore. I did manage to get one picture of Chris eating his sandwich. Think a really good homemade version of Arby's...they even have their own version of Horsey Sauce.

From there, we started the trek to New Jersey. I never realized how much toll roads really are everywhere in the Northeast. We must have taken at least 4 of them. At one point I had to start driving because Chris was so tired, luckily I was still on Arizona time, so it wasn't a big deal. Plus, we were already in New Jersey, and with the help of Tom Tom, I managed to get us all the way to the house. We got inside and pretty much went to bed...we were both exhausted.

We woke up the next day and got around to finally eating breakfast. That was an experience in itself. For those who have ventured to the EC before, you might have been fortunate enough to visit Wawa. Wawa is this amazing convenience store where you can order your food from a touch screen at a giant counter, and they have people making it for you. The food was soooo good too. Not your typical convenience store taquito or anything. I ended up with a breakfast sandwich on a baguette, and Chris got a breakfast sandwich, and a breakfast bowl. We also got a box of Enteman's donuts and ate the entire box in one day. It was bad, but oh so good. After that we ventured to the library, which has the best selection of DVD's ever. Basically, the library gets a ton of money from the state, and they spend a lot of it on DVDs. We probably watched 6 or so while we were there. We also went grocery shopping, and finished off Valentine's day with Buffalo Chicken pizza and Valentine's Day cake. It's our own little tradition, but each year Chris makes me a heart shape cake. We certainly had a debate over the flavor, but I ended up winning, going with strawberry cake and cream cheese frosting.

Sunday we headed out for pancakes at Uncle Bill's. It was crazy how many people where there. It's one of the few places open there in the winter, so it seemed like everyone in Avalon was there. I had peanut butter pancakes, and was pretty happy, although it only came with pancakes, no sides, and the price wasn't super great. Still good though. After that we hung out until the afternoon and headed out to Stone Harbor and Wildwood. Stone Harbor is a neighboring town, where we did some window shopping, and then headed to WIldwood. We had intended on going to Duffers, my ice cream place of choice, however, it turned out they were closed :( I was very sad, so we ended up going to another diner that Chris used to frequent since we were both pretty hungry. It wasn't the the same, but the food was good. That night we hung out, watched movies, and I made lasagna for dinner.

Monday we just hung out and went to the beach until it was time for us to leave. We had another dose of Wawa on the way back to Maryland, and I had a pretty uneventful flight back. That pretty much sums it up. I did manage to go running once, and we walked on the beach twice. It was amazing how many people were bundled up walking on the beach. Here's a last shot of us on the jetty.

PS. This time around, I am bringing my computer, so I should be able to stay up to date with this trip.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2009-03-27T09:26:00.005-07:00

An official Happy Birthday blog-style to my dear Dad, James Richard Schroeder (known to everyone as Jim, or Jimmy if you are one of the few). Yesterday was the big day, celebrating number 52 in style. My parents and I went to a new place for dinner, The TexAz Grill, for some chicken fried steak. I must admit it was probably the best chicken fried steak I've ever eaten. I'll post the pictures from dinner when I can get home and download them. The portions were monstrous!

Happy Birthday Dad from your only child! You've always done so much for me, especially over the past 6 months. I am overwhelmed with how much you've helped me out, from my 6:00am call about a "crisis" to coming over to mow my lawn, to walking my dog almost every single day at 5:00pm. And I certainly can't forget the countless weekends you and mom were at our house helping us shovel thousands of pounds of rock.

What's The Weather?

2009-03-25T11:28:00.005-07:00

That's been my question the last week or so. More specifically, what's the weather going to be like in Virginia when I go visit Chris next week. Normally I know its just going to be cold, so I pack up my sweaters and uggs and jacket and call it good. This time around is going to be a little more stressful. First, I am only taking a carry on. That's right, no checked bags for this notorious over packer. The reason? I am flying on an employee pass (thanks aunt cathi!) so I am essentially flying standby. I don't want to mess with trying to check a bag at the very last minute. Second stresser, the weather there is wacko. It was 85, then it snowed the next day. Now, thanks to http://www.weather.com/, it's saying that its going to be in the upper 50's and lower 60's during the day. I'm sorry, but it hasn't been in the 50's and 60's during the day here in Arizona for at least a month or so. I don't even remember what the 50's feel like. What did I wear during that time? So needless to say, I spend way too much time thinking to myself about what I'm going to pack. I want to look cute but casual, after all, I'll be spending a lot of time with Marines, not a whole lot of fashionistas there. I am going to a big bbq though for all of the men and women at Chris' school on Friday, and it's the first time I'm meeting a lot of his friends and instructors.

Any ideas of things I should bring? I bought these shoes yesterday, hoping that I can get away with them and a pair of flip flops and heels for the entire 4 days. Seriously, I take any and all suggestions!

Seriously

2009-03-17T21:15:00.003-07:00

I think this picture pretty much sums up what happened when I returned to my parent's house last week...

I found my Ralph Lauren heels sitting nicely on the dresser, yet one seemed to be a little "different" than the other. Needless to say I was not thrilled. My mom kept trying to blame Gulliver, their 11 year old yellow lab who is a retired seeing eye dog and who probably never chewed on anything in his life. We don't know who the true culprit was, but it was either their (my) beagle Jack or Peanut. Or a combo of both. Either way, the incident required me to buy some new shoes this past weekend, since I wear brown heels at least 2-3 times a week. Glad to report I found some new cute ones at DSW for $20 on the clearance rack! So I guess I can secretly say thank you Jack and/or Peanut for forcing me to buy some new shoes, when just last week I commented that I could probably use some new ones.

Oh and Happy St. Patrick's Day to all! I just got home from a nice Irish meal with family, but will have to blog about that later. Time to get ready for bed, since I have an early wake up call tomorrow!

Shamrocks and Cat Burglars

2009-03-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend was pretty uneventful. I did all the usual...laundry, a few workouts, and of course, baking. Lately I've been having this huge urge to bake, which isn't the best since no one is home to eat these things but me. On Saturday, during a trip to Wal-Mart for some pool chemicals, I walked down the baking aisle, just to see if they had mini m&ms in a bag, something I've been searching for ever since I made some cookies a month or so ago and couldn't find them. Well low and behold, they had them! I actually didn't buy them, dumb I know, but I saw the ever tasty Andes mint baking bits and started to have a craving. I had them at home, and I actually went home and made Andes mint cookies. They were so good! I made one tray, ate a few, and then put the rest of the dough in the fridge. It was for my own good at that point! I also made some enchilada casserole that night, but I'll save that recipe for another day, it's definitely one worth writing about.

Sunday was filled with more baking. I wanted to send Chris something to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I know that they won't be celebrating since it's during the week and they are in the middle of a really intense schedule, but I thought he might like something baked. I went round and round about what to make, first starting with brownies, and then ending up with shamrock sugar cookies. They were super easy to make. Sunday I cut out the shamrocks and baked them.

Last night (Monday) I finished them up by frosting and adding some sprinkles. I frosted them with a method I hadn't exactly tried before...dipping. You create a frosting that's a little on the thin side, not runny, but something that is more than spreadable, and you actually dip one side of the cookie in the frosting. I was somewhat skeptical, but they turned out great! As you can see, the frosting ends up looking really smooth. I think you are supposed to dunk them further and then let the excess frosting drip off while the cookies are on a cooling rack, however, I only have one really small cooling rack, so I tried to eliminate this step, and just let them cool on wax paper and didn't dunk them as far.

Before the frosting dried completely, I added a variety of sprinkles. I promise they don't look so 3rd grader in real life. I was really pleased overall with how they turned out.

========================================

Now onto the second part of the title of this blog. Last night after a long night of frosting cookies, watching the Dancing with the Stars premiere, and some other odds and ends, I was finally going to bed at 11. I rarely stay up that late to begin with, and I had to be up at 5:00 this morning for my workout, so I was really ready to hit the sack. Just as I was getting comfy (literally, I had just tucked myself and Peanut in bed) I heard the most horrific crash of cans and glass coming from the kitchen. Most people might have been scared to death, especially being solo in the house with the 7 lb. chihuahua, not much of a watch dog, but the second it happened I knew exactly what it was. Hawkins had managed to jump onto the kitchen counter (something I highly frown on) and ran into my stash of empty coke cans. The whole reason for the stash is that I crush them and cash them in, but I usually only do it every few weeks. In the meantime they sit on the counter above the dishwasher. Well it just so happens that last night I had put a drinking glass on the counter, and not in the dishwasher, thinking I'd just do it in the morning. Side Note: I HATE when Chris does this. I get so frustrated with him when he takes his dishes and puts them on the counter immediately over the dishwasher, and not IN the dishwasher. So the one time I do it, disaster strikes. But back to the story. I guess when he ran into the cans, he knocked the glass onto the tile floor, and of course it shattered into a million pieces. Needless to say I had a fun time at 11pm cleaning up glass and soda cans, all while trying to keep two animals away from any glass shards. Thank goodness for that new Dyson vacuum (a Christmas present from my parents)!

Award Please / February in Review #1

2009-03-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

I think I win the award for the worst blogger lately. It's been way too long since I've written anything, but to be honest, I haven't been all that motivated. I'm going to try real hard to get all these updates done, along with the other stuff that's going on in my life. Enjoy my first February Review in the meantime!

February in Review #1

Alright, so in hopes of getting everything posted before next February, here is my first review for February...my birthday. While my actual birthday is on the 10th, the celebration started on the 6th with my family party that I posted about here.

I guess my birthday started even before then if you count the fact that I got to open a gift early. Chris had told me he had ordered me something online and that it would be arriving at the house. I had no idea what it could be, and then the week before the big day, it showed up. I was so completely shocked to find out it was a video camera!!! I have been wanting one for a long time, and I can't believe that he remembered enough to make it a gift. I was on the phone with him when I opened it and I was probably almost screaming with excitement. It's small and records in HD which is perfect for us! I can't wait to use it a lot in the coming years.

On my actual birthday, my parents and I went to a local restaurant called Cowboy Ciao. We had never been there before, but since I was pretty apathetic this year about my dinner choice, we decided to give it a try. Classic me, I had already checked out the menu online before we ever went to dinner. There were a lot of options, so I figured that I would wait until we got there. The place was really cute inside, sort of a southwestern upscale shabby chic type of thing going on. The first thing we checked out was the wine menu. It was a HUGE book, with wines from tens of dollars to literally thousands of dollars. I don't think my dad would have gone for the $$$ bottles, so we found a reasonably priced bottle, which was very good. So good in fact, I took a photo to remember the name.

The food was just as great. For an appetizer we had the chicken and waffles, a little more upscale take on some of my favorite soul food. On a side note, if you are in the Phoenix area, I suggest going to Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles. If you ever need a sidekick, I'm it! But I digress...after the appetizers we dug right into our main course. In an effort to mix it up, we each ordered something different. I was not disappointed in the least with my choice, a pork ribeye, which is is the same cut as a beef ribeye, just with pork. It was so juicy and tender and pretty much the best pork I've ever had. It came with a side of crispy mac and cheese, which was sooooo tasty. Here's a recap of our meals.

My mom and her short ribs.

Me and my pork ribeye
My dad and his stuffed pork chop

After dinner, we checked out the dinner menu, but nothing was calling my name, so I requested to go to the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl is an old time ice cream parlor in the heart of Scottsdale, that's been around since the 50's I believe. It's even been featured in the Family Circus cartoons because the cartoonist was from Arizona. I don't think I really even needed dessert that night, but I insisted on ordering the brownie sundae, which is my favorite thing to eat there. I pretty much consumed the entire thing. Hello calories!!!! But they were birthday calories so they didn't count :)

Overall it was a great day! Next up...my trip back east!

Go Suns!

2009-02-25T10:14:00.004-07:00

Last night I was lucky enough to go to the Suns game with my parents and grandpa. My grandpa's law firm has season tickets and he had given them to my dad for last night's game. He also has his own tickets, but only 2, so the 4 that we had last night were great! We ate at a sports bar across the street from the arena before and they were having a 2 tacos for $2 deal. They were pretty tasty, not as good at mom's, but still good. The game itself was fun too. We won, which always helps, and it was a good game throughout. Here are a few photos of the action. I had forgotten my camera at home, so I snagged my mom's before we left for the game. Her camera doesn't have the zoom that mine does, so it was a good thing we were in the 14th row!

During a time out. Shaq is on the very right.

My mom and I. Not a very good self portrait but oh well!

They dropped Subway Sandwiches from the rafters. When they said they were going to do this, I got a little scared and thought that sandwiches would be dive bombing us! Good thing they had parachutes and were inside plastic cases.

This is a blurry photo, but it's one of my favorite parts of the game. It's this person in a blow up gorilla suit that comes out and dances around. It looks really funny in person. They have a big one too and they come out together and dance. Their names are Harriston and 1/2 Harriston.

And finally a little video for you. This is my all-time favorite part of the Suns games, besides the actually playing part of course. Ever since I was a little kid they've been doing this between 3rd and 4th quarters. It even helped to get the Gorilla names the NBA's top mascot. Enjoy!

Confessions

2009-02-23T13:40:00.004-07:00

I have a few confessions to make...the first being that I've been a bad blogger lately. I haven't blogged about anything worth while since before my birthday. I PROMISE that will change this week. There really hasn't been any reason for me not to, other than I download all pictures to our home desktop, a computer that I am rarely on, so I tend not to think about it. My second confession is that I have a lot of recipes that I haven't blogged about, or even bothered to take pictures of. I'll work on fixing that right now.

Before I left to see Chris, I wanted to bring him some kind of baked good. I guess I feel like he should have something from home, even though his waist line probably doesn't agree. Well for some reason a guy on my team and I started discussing our love for butterscotch, which got me thinking. I looked around online and found a recipe for chewy butterscotch brownies. These appealed to me for a number of reasons, most mostly because they would travel well and I love butterscotch. They turned out amazing. I used a combo of white chocolate and butterscotch chips and loved the flavor combo. They were honestly chewy too, something a lot of recipes boast, but fail to deliver, even days later.

A photo from the website. I was in too much of a hurry to do my own photography. In a hurry to eat them!

And my third confession of the day. This one is totally random but I thought I'd share. I couldn't care less about the Academy Awards. I'm sure that some people are reading this and cursing me, but I really don't care about any of it. Sure the fashion can be nice, and the speeches touching, but it's never managed to suck me it. Plus, I just realized that I haven't seen a single movie that was a winner in any category. I was totally content watching my recorded episodes of Grey's Anatomy and NCIS instead. So there. Those are my confessions for the day.

Happy Valentine's Day / President's Day Weekend!

2009-02-13T10:14:00.002-07:00

I haven't had a chance to blog about my birthday yet, and I wasn't able to download the pictures before I left the house last night, but today I am leaving to see Chris for the first time in 2009. My flight leaves this afternoon and I fly directly to Baltimore. Chris is picking me up and we are heading directly to Chaps Charcoal Restaurant. I saw this on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives and it sounded soooo good. Every time I watch that show I am drooling. Well I found out that it is on our direct route to Avalon, NJ where we will be spending the weekend. I am so incredibly excited. After our dinner stop we will continue our drive to New Jersey. We are staying at his family's beach house for the weekend. I've been there once before and am looking forward to a very quiet weekend. I'm pretty sure most of the weekend will consist of eating and cooking. Since Chris doesn't have a kitchen in the barracks, I am planning on making him some things that he can take back and heat up in his microwave. He's requested enchiladas and lasagna so far. There are also a few places we are planning on eating at, including a pizza place and ice cream parlor. I hope everyone else has a good weekend too and look for some long posts the beginning of next week!

Mexican Food and Chocolate

2009-02-09T14:58:00.006-07:00

Friday night was my family birthday celebration. I am turning 26 tomorrow and am going to visit Chris this weekend, so we decided that Friday was a good night to celebrate with my family. There were 17 of us, including family from both my mom and dad's sides. My mom was amazing and made a Mexican feast fit for a king. She made green chile chicken enchilada casserole and a make your own taco bar. The food was beyond good, and I ate a ton. For dessert my mom made fried ice cream. The best part is that it's really not friend, but it tastes the same. Not only did it go with the Mexican food theme, but it's one of my new favorite desserts. She got the recipe from a work friend and it's probably a good thing I don't have it. My mom even decorated the house with Mexican themed decor. A few years ago we did a huge Mexican themed 50th birthday party for my dad, and we bought a ton of decorations. They've been used so many times since that we have gotten our monies worth and then some! It was really nice to see my family, I hadn't seen my dad's family since the holidays.

The spread. My mom did such a fabulous job.

*Unfortunately all the people pictures are on my mom's camera. I will post those tomorrow!

Early Saturday morning my dad left for our friend's winery in Southern Arizona to help with some construction, so my mom and I had planned a full morning. We started with a speed workout for our half marathon training program. That was a pretty interesting situation since we needed a track and it took us 3 schools to find one we could use. We ended up running at my mom's old high school! After that we went to a farmer's market that my mom has started going to. It was great b/c there were quite a few vendors, and they love giving samples. I didn't think I would buy anything, but I ended up with some focaccia bread, hummus, and a fat free organic muffin. Oh and we got breakfast burritos. I can't wait to start making it a weekly thing.

After the farmer's market, we decided to head over to the Glendale Chocolate Affaire. It's been going on for years, but I've never been and we decided this would be the year to go. It ended up being a lot of fun. There were probably 30 chocolate vendors, arts and craft vendors and non-chocolate food vendors. Some offered free samples, which we took advantage of, and we oohed and aahed a lot at all the different chocolate items. It's a good thing we had already eaten breakfast. My mom and I ended up sharing a nutella crepe, which reminded me so much of my days in Germany. We got to sample some wine and chocolate pairings which was really cool because the winery is based here in Arizona. I also bought some fudge made in Michigan to take back east for Chris. Overall, it was a really fun experience and I think I could stand to go again next year. Hopefully Chris and my dad will be able to join!

Our nutella crepe, I used to eat nutella daily when I lived in Germany

YUM!!!

My mom and our crepe. It was her first taste of nutella, but I'm guessing not her last!

A Busy Week

2009-02-05T22:42:00.005-07:00

This week has been pretty busy after work for me. Tuesday was my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. Congratulations Mom and Dad! I love you both very much and you are the best parents...EVER. My parents, my gramma and I went to Donovan's, a swank steakhouse by their house to celebrate. The meal was amazing, my mom and I shared a crab cake appetizer and then I had filet mignon smothered in bleu cheese and a port wine reduction sauce. It was honestly one of the best steaks I have ever had. To top it off, I insisted that I needed dessert and ate an entire brownie with ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and strawberries. It was worth every calorie.

My parents before the big dinner.

Tonight I went over to my friend Colby's house to make dinner at her new condo. She got married a few weeks ago, and I hadn't seen the new place, so we decided to hang out and cook dinner. It was just the two of us (and their dog) and we made buffalo chicken pizza and bread, and then made dessert. It was very fun because Colby likes to chop stuff, so she did all the chopping, while I took care of the assembling. We also had some wine that they bought during their honeymoon in Napa. Here's a few photos of our creations.

The Buffalo Chicken Pizza. Very simple to make and oh so good.

Our dessert creation...layers of graham crackers, white chocolate pudding and strawberries.

Their puppy Sarge. I couldn't resist, he's adorable!

Super Weekend

2009-02-03T09:46:00.003-07:00

This weekend was pretty darn busy, and it didn't exactly start off on the right foot. Over the course of the week, I had a few small disasters at the house.

1. I came home one night to a sprinkler leak, but didn't realize until the next morning that our bubblers had never turned off and that I had possibly been watering the sidewalk and street for up to 36 hours. I managed to get all the water off, but that resulted in having no landscape watering at all.

2. The ice maker in the fridge stopped working which wouldn't have been so bad except that I'm an ice freak.

3. I opened a fabulous letter from our HOA informing me that the front yard needed to be cleaned up within 10 days or we would be getting a fine. And by cleaned I mean deweeding the forest that was growing in my front yard.

So needless to say I was a little stressed going into Friday. I took Friday afternoon off and came home, bought some weed killer, and started deweeding until it was dark. Saturday morning I got up for an 8 mile run with my mom and then she and my dad headed over to help with problems #1 and #3. My mom and I worked in the smaller weeds while my dad tried to find the problem with the bubblers. After a while my mom left to do some shopping (lucky her!) and my dad and I continued. He wasn't able to find the problem, even with help from a sprinkler store. He was amazing however and finished all the weeding and even mowed my lawn while I was getting my hair done. I couldn't thank him enough for all of his efforts, it saved me so much time and worry.

Sunday was my day to enjoy. The Cardinals were finally in a Super Bowl! My parents and Gramma came over and we had queso dip, spicy bean dip, pigs in a blanket, various snack mixes, buffalo chicken sandwiches, tater tots and cupcakes. I ate waaaaaaaaaay too much food and was hurting by the 4th quarter. Oh well, it was totally worth it. Here's what our super bowl party looked like...

My cupcakes decorated with sugar footballs, Cardinals helmets and pom poms. They were butter cake with buttercream or fudge frosting.

Peanut and my mom in their Cardinal Red!

My Gramma was working on one of her quilts while watching the game and Hawkins was one very interested kitty. He liked to watch the needle move around.

Oh and I saw on my friend Megan's blog that she had fun super bowl facts...I have one too. Three years ago I was invited to Chris' house for a Super Bowl party by my friend Emily. I barely knew him, I'd met him once a few months before, but we ended up spending a good portion of the party talking and joking around. Apparently her and her friend Erin were trying to set us up, unbenownst to me. Who would have guessed what 3 years later would bring? Thank you Super Bowl!!!

Yoga and Peanut

2009-01-26T11:15:00.010-07:00

A few people have asked me how yoga is going and I must report that it's not going too well. I went the first weekend and was very gung ho about it, but I've realized that the times at this particular location aren't really working with my schedule. I had intended on going on both Saturday and Sunday since I couldn't do any weekday classes. However, because I run Saturday mornings, I had this awkward lull between running and yoga that prohibited me from starting the rest of my day. Sunday is also hard b/c it didn't start until after 10, when I am usually already up and in my routine. I am going to make myself go this Saturday though, so I'll reevaluate after this go around. And Jessica, I'm still having a hard time with the whole downward dog thing too! It's more comfortable that it used to be, but my hand keep slipping, even with the mat. I look around and seem to be the only one with the same problem, so either I am just weird, or because I'm not flexible enough, I put too much pressure on my hands. I'm afraid to ask. Maybe we need a remedial downward dog lesson :)

Onto the second part of my post's title...Peanut. This weekend I happened to have my camera in hand when Peanut started this little move. I was actually trying to take a picture but realized it was on movie mode and just let it go. For some reason when I rotated it on my computer and imported it here, it went back to the original. If anyone knows how to fix it please let me know! I hope you enjoy the show!

Thanks Megan!

2009-01-22T15:50:00.007-07:00

My friend Megan gave me this really fun blog award. Megan and I have known each other since Kindergarten, and probably a little before. She's my oldest friend (20+ years!) and no matter where we've moved and what we've done, we always manage to keep in touch. Oh and to prove it, here's a picture of us when were were 8 and 9 at Halloween.

Along with this award, I have to answer some questions with ONE WORD ANSWERS. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't answer anything in 1 paragraph never mind one sentence. Here's my best shot at this.

1. Where is your cell phone? Computer

2. Where is your significant other? Virginia

3. Your hair color? Blondish
4. Your mother? Supportive

5. Your father? Hardworking
6. Your favorite thing? Cupcakes
7. Your dream last night? None

8. Your goal? 1:55

9. The room you are in? cubicle

10. Your hobby? Running

11. Your fear? Iraq
12. Where do you want to be in six years? NorthCarolina

13. Where were you last night? Postinos

14. What you are not? Tall

15. One of your wish list items? Gardener

16. Where you grew up? Southwest

17. The last thing you did? Phone

18. What you are wearing? Workclothes

19. Your TV? HD

20. Your pet? Snuggly

21. Your computer? 3

22. Your mood? Content

23. Missing someone? Always

24. Your car? Detailed

25. Something you are not wearing? Flipflops

26. Favorite story? SquirrelTurnovers

27. Your Summer? HOT

28. Love someone? Verymuch

29. Your favorite color? Pink

30. When was the last time you laughed? Lastnight

31. Last time you cried? tear

Weekend Recap

2009-01-21T16:06:00.008-07:00

The past weekend was full of fun activities. I love three day weekends because not only do I get a day off from work, but then the following week (when it's a Monday) is a short week! My weekend started on Saturday with a morning run with my mom and her friend Kathleen. I love Saturday morning runs b/c we run around Tempe Town Lake and we get coffee afterwards. That's one run I don't mind waking up early for! Saturday night was my friend Colby's wedding. She was an intern at my office for almost 2 years and she started right before I did, so we worked together for a while. I went to her bachelorette party last weekend which was really fun, and her wedding was a blast as well. Since Chris is gone my mom was my date, and we had so much fun together! The wedding was at the W Hotel. The ceremony was outside by the pool and the food was wonderful. Here are some photos...

My mom and I before we left for the wedding.

They had flower petal-filled cones to throw when the Bride and Groom walked up the aisle after the ceremony. Bad news was no one actually threw them.

The beautiful tables. The menu acted as a place card, with each person's name printed at the top. Colby's mom made all the centerpieces, can you believe it?!?

Their gorgeous cake by Tammy Coe. Those are fondant rose petals on the top! My mom and I were really wondering how they were going to cut it, but of course they whisked it away to the kitchen so we never saw. It was some of the best tasting cake I've ever had. I wanted more!

Me and Colby. She was such a beautiful bride.

My mom with the favor, a homemade chocolate carmel nut cup things that the Groom's mom made. There was even a fancy P (their last name is now Pool) etched into the white chocolate on the top. I can't believe she made them!

Sunday morning my mom and rode our beach cruisers down to the race course of the PF Changs Rock and Roll Half Marathon course. We knew quite a few people running, so we went down to watch. The wedding prevented us (or at least it prevented me, my mom was skipping a year) from running so we wanted to go watch and cheer people on. We woke up early, threw on some clothes, got breakfast burritos and biked 3 miles to the course. It was really fun to see everything. We were at the mile 6 mark and got to see all the super fast runners, including my co-worker Allison's husband! We also saw my friend Emily, some co-workers and my aunt Janis.

My mom and I at the race. It was certainly a glasses day after a late night!

Sunday afternoon I watched the Cardinals win!!!!!! I've been around Arizona sports my whole life and never have we seen something like this. For those who aren't into the NFL, the Cardinals are pretty much the laughing stock of pro football and they haven't won a championship in 61 years, before the NFL was even around. I am really excited to see them play the Steelers in two weeks. While they played I made an apple coffee cake. I must admit it wasn't one of my best looking cakes, so it wasn't worthy of any photos.

On Monday I went to lunch with my mom and then we saw Bride Wars. It was a cute movie, I definitely recommend it. Not sure men would like it, reason why my mom and I went and left my dad to work. I didn't get a lot of stuff done around the houseduring my 3 days off, but that's the plan for this weekend. Wish me luck!

Another Race Another Place

2009-01-14T10:40:00.003-07:00

Before I start, I've been slacking on my Christmas/new years updates but I PROMISE all the photos and such will be up by the end of the week. Ok, now back to your irregularly scheduled blog...

Last week I signed up for my first half marathon of the year! Normally I do the PF Changs Rock 'n Roll 1/2 here in Phoenix which is Sunday, but I'm going to a wedding the night before so running 13.1 miles the morning after is definitely out. After thinking long and hard (well not too long, and actually not too hard) I've decided on the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon! It's May 17th in Fredericksburg, VA, which is only 30 minutes south of Quantico, where Chris is currently training. The best part? My parents are coming and my mom is running with me. Chris is going to spend the weekend with us and then my parents and I are going to D.C. for the week to tour the city. I start my race training on the 26th of this month and I'm actually really excited to start running hard again.

I'm now looking for any tips on DC from anyone who's been before. Our flights and hotels are already booked, so we just need things to fill our days. Any tips of any kind are greatly appreciated!

I've always wanted boots

2009-01-07T10:31:00.002-07:00

It's true, those below the knee ones that people have been wearing for years. I've always struggled to find the right ones at the right price. I have muscular calves so a lot of time boots don't zip up or I feel like circulation is being cut off to my feet. Either way it's not a pretty site. I did manage to find a pair of equestrian style boots earlier in the year, but I ended up taking them back b/c they were pretty pricey and I didn't feel like I would get much wear out of them.

Last night my mom asked me to go to the mall with her because she wanted to buy some silver shoes at White House Black Market. Her friend Jessica had been in there the night before and told my mom that they had silver shoes and a velvet wrap, two things she wanted to wear to a wedding that she's attending as my date next weekend. The silver shoes were very comfortable and very cheap...$17! While she was debating about which size to go with, I found this pair of boots in with the sale shoes. Now I have very small feet, so I can almost always try on the display shoe. I was surprised that they still has a small size left in said boots and slipped on the display for, if nothing else, a little entertainment. I loved them. They were black, almost to the knee, with a chunky heel. Mind you I was wearing gym clothes with them, so the whole ensemble left much to be desired. The guy helping us told me that they were $39.99 and another 40% off. That pretty much sold me right then and there. I forgot my camera last night or I would have taken some pictures of the boots and the outfit, but I am now the proud owner of $24 boots. Go me!

Christmas Recap #1

2009-01-03T18:25:00.003-07:00

On December 23rd, my parents, Chris and I celebrated Christmas with my dad's family. We usually do something with them either before or after Christmas since we traditionally spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my mom's family when I was growing up. It was a nice chance to see everyone together. My dad's family all live on the other side of the Valley, which means an hour drive from our house. At least this time around my dad was down by our house so he picked up Chris and I had to work that day so I was already halfway.

Everyone was there to celebrate, which includes my 3 aunts, 1 uncle, grandmother and 7 cousins in addition to my parents and Chris. We used to all live here in the Valley, but now one of my aunts lives in Minnesota and I have one cousin going to school in Delaware and another in Northern Arizona. We've had our meal catered for the past few years and it's nice to not have to worry about cooking anything, we just have to show up! Actually, my mom usually brings dessert and this year she made a delicious Candied Apple Cheesecake. You can get the recipe here. I don't think there was any left by the end of the night! The rest of the meal included baked ham, green beans, roasted potatoes, salad and rolls. I was good and didn't overeat at all, but enjoyed a little bit of everything.

After dinner we opened some presents. It was a lot of fun to watch everyone open gifts. It takes a while since there are so many of us, and the cousins have to open according to age. I always find this funny since I'm the oldest, but at least I get to go first:) Here are a few photos from the evening. We didn't get back to our house until almost midnight, but it was worth it to be able to spend some time with the family.

My bag looks just like Peanut!

Chris playing Go Fish with my youngest cousin Karson.

All of the cousins...Me, Karson, Megan, Michelle, Melanie, Mark, Ryan and Austin.

Yoga Challenge Day #1

2009-01-03T12:41:00.002-07:00

Day #1 is officially complete. As scheduled, I went to my first yoga class this morning after a 5 mile run. It actually went pretty well! As I wrote in my last post, the class was titled Yoga for Runners/Hikers. There was no chanting or other odd yoga related activities so I didn't laugh at all, first thing accomplished. We started off with some pretty easy stuff, easy in that I could actually do it without making a fool of myself. The only thing that was difficult was that darn downward dog position. It was better than I remember, but my hands and feet kept slipping on the mat. I am going to ask next time if it's just me, or if that's a problem for a lot of people. The good news was that we didn't go into that position for long periods of time.

Our instructor reminded us that yoga is not about competition with others, which is exactly the opposite of my personality. It was hard for me to not look around at each person and see whether or not I was doing better or worse than each of them. Of course this was only in my own eyes, and since I'm not exactly a yoga pro, I can't be any kind of judge. It's not that I judge anyone else, it's that I judge myself. I think I'm going to go back tomorrow for a New to Yoga class and see if I can lower my own standards.

Stay tuned for a holiday update!

January 2009 Challenge

2009-01-02T09:47:00.004-07:00

Well we've officially made it to 2009 and I'm resuming my blogging. It's been quite an eventful two weeks for us, most of which I will be filling everyone in on later once I download photos and get more photos from my mom. That means actually downloading them for her because she keeps saying she doesn't know how to download photos, no matter how easy I tell her it is. I know you are reading this mom, and yes, it really is that easy, but don't worry, I'll do it for you.

The biggest thing going on is that Chris has come and gone. He actually left before the New Year, so I am starting out the New Year alone. Don't worry, I'm not sad about it and I don't expect a pity party :) I'm actually putting my time alone to good use...I've decided I need some challenges. Most everyone who knows me knows that I am a workout fanatic. Not in a weird way of course, but I really do enjoy working out. I go at least 8 times a week, both before and after work, and my workouts consist mostly of weight lifting, running, and cross training. That's been my routine for the past year and a half and I love it, at least I used to. I think I've finally gotten bored of the same old routine. I've done half marathons, and even a triathlon, but I keep thinking I need something completely different to master.

My chosen challenge for January 2009....YOGA! Here's the thing about yoga, I hate it. I've done it a few times over the last 5 years and every time I feel like I either want to laugh during the whole thing, or my shoulders are killing me due to that darn downward dog position I can't seem to manage. But everyone needs a challenge right? I found a brand new yoga studio in my neighborhood that is offering free classes for the entire month of January. My goal is to go twice a week for the entire month and see if I can make myself like it. My first class is tomorrow and is a yoga for runners class. I'll fill everyone in on how I do tomorrow. My goal for the first few weeks? Master my yoga nemesis, the downward dog without making my shoulders burn. Wish me luck!

P.S. Look for my holiday updates either later today or tomorrow!

Best Day Ever!

2008-12-22T10:03:00.002-07:00

He's officially home safe! Thank goodness the winter weather cooperated enough to get him home safe and on time. I will probably be taking a break from blogging so I can spend some quality time with Chris for the short time that he's back in Arizona, plus we have an array of Christmas activities planned in the next few days. Hopefully it will finally feel like Christmastime for the both of us.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A Little Slow

2008-12-18T15:13:00.002-07:00

For everyone who was wondering, I'm back safe and sound. I've simply been too busy getting ready for Chris' return/Christmas to write anything. I have photos from the trip, which was great, but I am in the process of making a video surprise for Chris, so I will post it here when I'm done. It will help to explain all the photos and get a better idea of what he's been up to the last 10 weeks. I've never done one before, so I hope it turns out ok. I'm using iMovie on my mac, so my project for tomorrow night is to create the whole thing before Chris comes home Saturday night. If anyone has used this and has any pointers or tips let me know! I'm guessing I'll have a long Friday night, so hopefully lots of caffeine will help me out :)

A Deer for my Dear

2008-12-08T16:50:00.003-07:00

Only two more days until I leave for Virginia to see Chris! Technically in less than 48 hours I am leaving, and in less than 72, I'll be hanging out with him! As you probably can guess, I am very excited. I've been doing a lot of stuff around the house to prepare for his arrival. Unfortunately his arrival has been delayed until the 20th, but nevertheless I am now 99% done with my projects. Below is one of my greatest accomplishments. I guess it wasn't my accomplishment, it was Chris's last November. However...I was the one who picked it up and hung it on the wall. Actually, I didn't even hang it, my dad did, but you get the point. He was very anxious to see it, so I actually had to send him a photo of it all hung up. While it's certainly not every one's dream to have something like this hanging on the wall, I'm no stranger to such decor. In fact, this is nothing compared to my grandparents' house. I will be putting up the rest of my changes to the house little by little, but here's a taste of what's to come. Enjoy and meet Jim Bob, the newest member of our family...

My Two Cents

2008-12-04T10:47:00.002-07:00

Why I'm happy...

Gas was $1.53 when I filled up at Costco last night, meaning that I filled my whole tank for $25.01 exactly! Even if these prices don't last long, it is certainly saving me money in the meantime. Much better than the $60+ I used to spend every time I filled up. Considering how much I drive each week, me and my wallet and enjoying the break at the pump.

Why I'm not happy...

According to www.weather.com, the HIGH, yes the high, for Thursday and Friday in Virginia is 37 and 36! I think the world is playing a cruel joke on me. I am not cut out for this kind of weather. The worst part? The morning graduation is outside on bleachers. And no they don't move it inside because there is a military parade as part of the ceremony which cannot possibly be held indoors. I have not been in weather that cold in 3 years, since I spent a week in Atlantic City, NJ in January. At least they are no longer predicting rain for Friday, but seriously? In the 30's as a high? I might have rethink this whole moving to the east coast thing.

One Week!

2008-12-03T14:52:00.003-07:00

That's right, one week from today I am leaving the warm Arizona weather to fly to Northern Virginia for Chris' graduation and commissioning ceremonies. I can't wait to see him on Thursday, which is family day. His parents and sister are also coming for the occasion so it will be nice to see them as well. The weather is the only part I'm concerned with, I'm going to be going from 70's to 40's and even colder at night. Being an desert rat, I barely own any heavy sweaters, so that's a whole other issue I'm contending with at the moment.

I'm bringing the not so good camera, but am planning on taking the nice Nikon D60 as well, so I should have a TON of pictures from the events. My one big goal is to get a nice Christmas card photo of the two of us. I'm not sure they will make it to people by Christmas, so maybe they'll end up as New Year's cards, but you get the idea.

One more week!

Black Friday Success

2008-11-28T19:20:00.006-07:00

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I know that mine was wonderful. I got to talk to Chris for 20 minutes or so, which was amazing. The feast was just that, a feast. I don't expect anything less from my family. One of the biggest parts of yesterday was looking at the ads for the next day's Black Friday. I think my mom was the most excited about the ads. All week she talked about it and she even went online the day before Thanksgiving looking for pirated versions of them. We looked at them at least twice yesterday, once before dinner and once after. The "after" was the most important. My mom, dad, gramma and I sat around the kitchen table and looked through each ad carefully making detailed notes of what was on sale and store/sale hours. After that we labeled each of the places we found items we needed/wanted so that we could make a big loop in the proper order. This is what we ended up with...

Woke up - 4:15am
Gramma came over - 4:45am
Started our shopping - 5:00am
Returned home - 2:30pm

Here's a list of the stores we hit (in this order roughly)...

Macy's (multiple purchases)
Michael's (multiple purchases)
Joann (multiple x2 purchases)
Pier 1 (purchase)
Bath and Body Works (purchase)
Old Navy (no purchase)
J.Crew Outlet (multiple purchases)
Gap Outlet (no purchase)
Nike Outlet (multiple purchases)
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (purchase)
Ann Taylor Outlet (no purchase)
Reebok Outlet (purchase)
Luggage Store (no purchase)
Sports Chalet (purchase)
CHIPOTLE ...finally a food break!
A different Macy's (purchase)
Express (no purchase)
Papaya (purchase)
JC Penny (no purchase)

At this point we came home and dropped all the stuff off. I went back to my house and my mom called again and said that she was coming down to the mall by my house to look for something. I met her at the mall where I had to return something at Forever 21 so I also went there and then to return something at Target. So overall, we hit up 20+ stores. My dad also helped us out a little bit by going to Wal-Mart and Tuesday Morning. I can't believe everything we bought. Here's a few photos of what my mom's car looked life after our 9 1/2 hours of shopping!!!!

My mom's SUV with the third row folded down!

We even had some Santas in the back seat with my gramma!

Here we all are...my mom, me and my gramma after a hard shopping day!

Pumpkin Creme Pies

2008-11-26T20:09:00.006-07:00

Tonight is the night before Thanksgiving and I've been hard at work since leaving the office around noon today. The one thing I needed to make before tomorrow was the second dessert, pumpkin creme pies. I came across this recipe on a wedding blog of all places. The purpose of the post was to say they would make a great midnight snack at a wedding or as a dessert at a bridal shower, but since I wasn't having either of those, I really didn't have a reason to make them. That is until Thanksgiving came around, and since no one coming this year is a huge pumpkin pie eater except my dad (sorry dad, but you know it will be around at Christmas), I decided that our dose of pumpkin would come through these.

The recipe seemed easy but complicated at the same time. Most of the complicated-ness came from how you made the cookie part, using a frosting tip. I was unsure how this would work out, and with little room for error, I decided to just go for it. Actually, I cheated a little. A co-worker of mine made them last night after I mentioned the recipe and she brought a few into work today. Hers looked nothing like the recipe, she said that the cookie "dough" was really thick and therefore was hard to spread. I'm not sure how she made her circles, but mine turned out just like the picture. Her story did however make me think long and hard about how to make the circles work out. Here's my tip if you are planning on making these...cut individual parchment paper squares and turn the paper as you are squeezing the pastry bag. It really works great that way. Here are a few pictures from my endeavors. PS these pictures will make you realize why I want a new digital camera for Christmas (hint hint mom, I know you will read this!)

Here's the cookie on it's individual parchment square. I know it doesn't look that appealing, but it's tasty I promise!

The finished cookies before they were frosted and sandwiched.

The finished product!

You can find the original blog post here with the recipe. And like I said before, the only thing I suggest is using the parchment squares. It really made it so easy to make the circles. Enjoy!

What's On Your Table???

2008-11-25T09:40:00.004-07:00

Now that Thanksgiving is only 2 days away, I am finally getting into the whole holiday spirit. It's been so warm here that I still feel like it's September or early October. Today is the first day it feels like fall---it's cloudy for once and it's only in the 60's at the moment. We are actually supposed to be getting rain on Turkey Day, which is fine with me, except for the family turkey trot we are supposed to do in the morning. I will really need to exercise so I can eat whatever I want!

So my question is...what are you in charge of for this year's Thanksgiving? We are having a small gathering for our family, only 9 this year, but somehow our menu didn't shrink at all! I am in charge of the following

- Mashed potatoes

- Pumpkin creme pies

- Apple pie

- Dinner rolls

The last two are with the help of my mom, and we already made the apple pie. I will hopefully remember to take pictures of everything so I can post them and the recipes after the big day. For now, check out the photos of our apple pie. We actually made the pie last Thursday and put it in the freezer until Turkey Day. The recipe is the same one from the Apple Pie Party I posted about earlier. The best thing about this pie is that you can bake it from frozen and it tastes exactly the same! It saves time on the actual day of festivities, but you still have a great homemade pie.

The making of a Marine

2008-11-21T10:39:00.003-07:00

Today is officially 3 weeks until Chris' graduation ceremony. I am more than excited to see him again. It's crazy to think that I haven't seen the person I've lived with for over 2 years in 2 1/2 months. I've been blessed to be able to talk to him the past few weekends and I can't believe everything he has been doing. Here are a few reasons I am so incredibly proud of him.

He managed to get through the first few weeks with a horrible chest cold and cough.
He was chosen to lecture to the rest of his platoon when his platoon commander couldn't be there.
He passed both the land navigation and night land navigation tests with a %100 score.
The commanding officer of OCS told him that during his team lead exercise, he did nothing wrong.
He has yet to fail any academic test (you can fail 4 and still pass, other candidates have already failed 5).

Here's a proof of a photo that was taken during the past few weeks. I just hope he didn't forget how to smile!

Recap #1

2008-11-20T14:01:00.003-07:00

So I know that I've been meaning to keep everyone updated, and I haven't even posted pics from Halloween! I am officially a month behind, but I'm going to try my darnedest to catch up. Since I have my Halloween photos on a different computer, I'll start with a little recap of the Apple Pie Party. I had a lot of fun, as always, and my mom and her friend Barb did an excellent job of setting everything up. I also have to report that my pie making skills have definitely increased over the past few years. The first year, and probably the first time I'd ever made a pie from complete scratch (no pre-made pie shells this time around), I needed a lot of help from my mom and gramma. I couldn't roll the pie crust out correctly, etc, etc. This year, I did it all by myself! The only thing my mom helped me with was peeling the apples, and only because I was getting lazy and she wasn't making a pie herself.

Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos. Wait, I didn't get any photos at all. See what I mean about being the worst photo taker ever?!? Check out our friend Jessica's blog for some good photos and some more about the party.

Back to Baking

2008-11-10T14:08:00.002-07:00

After trying to curb my sweet tooth by eliminating sweets from the house (considering I'm currently the only one home to eat them), I am officially back on the wagon...I have officially started my fall baking! I'd say Friday kicked off my desire to have something baking 24/7 due to the Apple Pie Party. I haven't baked my pie yet, but I'd say it turned out pretty well. I'll be sure to post a photo of it (unbaked) shortly. I also started making my portion of the Christmas cookies my family hands out every year. We usually make between 30 and 40 kinds, and I think we end up with somewhere around 3,500 cookies each December. The only way we can make that many is to start in October/November and freeze them as we go. It always works out great, you can't tell they've been frozen and everyone raves about them year after year. Yesterday I baked chocolate crinkles and I have to finish them tonight.

I also want to try a bunch of new recipes I've found. So far I'll be debuting something new at Thanksgiving, but that's about it. Maybe I'll try some things just for fun. My stomach will be happy, but my scale won't be :( Either way, I'll be posting more photos and recipes (if they aren't too secret) in the coming weeks!

Bringing back memories

2008-11-07T10:48:00.004-07:00

This weekend, as bizarre as it seems, is bringing out a lot of memories and reminding me of the differences between this year and last year. I think it's kind of a fluke that these two events are happening again this year, just as they did last year. This weekend is quite busy for my family. We have my mom's annual Apple Pie Party and my dad's deer hunt. Last year, this was considered an extremely successful and happy weekend for my family. Last year my dad, grandparents and Chris headed down to Southern Arizona for the big deer hunt. In Arizona you are considered extremely lucky if you get a deer permit because of our limited herd numbers. They were all so excited to get drawn, especially Chris, because that was his first hunt ever. Today (Friday) was the first day of their hunt last year, and it's the first day this year. This day last year, Chris called me, so excited with the news that both he and my dad had gotten their deer on opening morning. I remember the excitement in his voice and how proud he was of himself.

When he called I was at the pie party. My mom has been doing this for the last few years, and it's always a hit. Friends and family gather and each person actually makes an apple pie to take home and bake at your leisure. We eat mac & cheese and drink caramel apple martinis and just have an all around great time.

But this year I won't be getting that happy phone call from him. In fact, I won't be getting a phone call at all. We are limited to talking on weekends, and only during that 24-36 hour period that he is on leave. That was certainly not the case last year. This isn't meant to seem sad, just a reminder of how much has changed. I will still have fun making pie tonight, and my dad and grandparents are still hunting in Southern Arizona. But someone is missing from that equation, and that someone that is missing is the someone I miss the most.

*I'll be sure to post photos from the party and from my trip to California later this weekend. I'm still working my red eye magic on most of the photos. Darn my blue eyes.

Happy (almost) Halloween!

2008-10-30T14:37:00.002-07:00

This is my first weekend away since Chris' departure and I must say I need this more than anything. I'm heading off to California tomorrow to see my best friend of 9+ years! Kim is a 3rd year law student at Pepperdine (also our undergrad alma mater) and she is possibly the most involved law student in the world.

In order to break from the real, and sometimes harsh world, we have mega plans for the weekend. Halloween will be filled with a fun night at a party and the bars. Saturday will be breakfast at our favorite place, Lilly's and then a nice walk on the beach. Sunday is Malibu Kitchen and Pepperdine stuff. I'm sure there will be a mixture of other fun things in there as well, but that's what we have planned for now. I hope to be a busy picture taker this weekend (I am currently contemplating taking the good camera) and I'll post some stuff when I get back!

I Think This Says It All

2008-10-27T10:01:00.004-07:00

Hot Tamale!

2008-10-20T10:13:00.008-07:00

Saturday was quite the day as it was the annual Haug family tamale making day! Every fall for the past 30+ years my mom's family has made tamales. Years ago when my grandfather owned a lodge in Northern Arizona, our family would sell the tamales at their annual rodeo. I was a little kid when they sold the lodge, so I don't remember much of that, but I guess they sold out every year. Pretty good for a 100% German family!

This year, we exceeded many expectations by making approximately 400 of these things. We started at 2:00pm and with 7 of us (my gramma, grandpa, mom, aunt, great aunt, mom's cousin and myself), we stopped around 6:30. The best part was eating them at the end and having 24+ tamales sitting in my freezer waiting for consumption. Here are a few photos of our tamale making process.

The Right Stuff!

2008-10-14T11:31:00.003-07:00

Last night was something I had been waiting for for months...the return of New Kids on the Block! That's right, in concert, right here in Arizona. I will admit that I am a huge dork, but last night was so much fun! There is of course a story behind the reason why I went. When I was in the first grade and NKOTB was super popular, a bunch of my friends and their moms bought tickets to the concert. Well of course, my mom said no and I was bummed beyond all belief. After all, they were my world! So fast forward 18+ years or so...they are back and in action and coming to Phoenix. My mom calls me up and says that she is finally going to make it up to me and get us tickets! I was so excited, and last night was definitely worth the wait!

I'll post some pictures later on tonight hopefully, but I must say I was impressed by their dancing and singing. After all, they aren't spring chickens anymore :) They sang a combo of old and new hits, but my favorites were still The Right Stuff, Step by Step, and Hangin' Tough!

Down for the count

2008-10-07T15:44:00.002-07:00

The House on Canary is officially down one member! Friday morning Chris officially left for OCS. I was very proud of myself for not shedding a single tear before, during, or after his departure. The days have been very busy since he left. Saturday I spent most of the day with my mom and family and Sunday was spent decorating for Halloween and picking up the house and running errands.

I am now able to write him letters, which I've done every day so far. I can't ever call him, and he can't call me until at least week 3 I believe. So for now, I just rely on my writing to keep me connected.

There are two issues that I'm having right now though, and I almost had a fit (the only child syndrome was setting in) last night. One is that the Tivo remote is acting up, and by acting up I mean not functioning. I'm sure you're thinking, who cares, but because of the way it's hooked up to the TV, it's the only way I can turn the TV on and off and change the channels. Well technically I can turn the TV on, but it won't change channels without the remote. And it's not the batteries, I checked. So no tivo and no TV on the big screen until I can get the problem solved. Problem #2 is that I can't find the DVD player remote, ANYWHERE. I've looked around the entire house (well where it could possibly be) and can't find the darn thing. Why do these things have to happen when he's not here? I'm in charge of making sure his favorite shows get recorded so he can watch them when he gets back, and I can't delete the unnecessary things and watch my stuff b/c of this darn remote. Hopefully I am able to solve both problems soon. I have a list from Tivo of things I can do to try to fix the remote before I have to buy a new one. Sorry, that's my rant for the day.

Birthday Brownies

2008-10-01T13:17:00.006-07:00

I FINALLY had a chance to do some baking this weekend! As much as my body probably needed a break from the sugar, I was really happy to be back in the kitchen. This past Sunday we invited some friends over before Chris' impending departure, and it was also our friend Emily's birthday. I've known Emily since college, and thanks to her, I met Chris. I searched long and hard for something that was not simply brownies. Then I found it...Smores Brownies! They sounded really good, and the picture that went with them made them look mouthwatering delicious. I did make one giant detour from the original recipe, instead of following the recipe for the brownie part, I used a mix. In all honesty, I really like brownies from a box, and since it saved a lot of time and the combining of different ingredients, it was the perfect idea.

Results? Not anything like the picture. They were hard to cut with the marshmallow on top because the knife kept getting stuck on the gooeyness of the mallows. Taste wise...2 thumbs up! Rave reviews all around, and no one minded that they weren't the prettiest things. I still recommend making them, but maybe not for a bake off :)

Ingredients
Crust:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch fine salt

Brownies:

1 box brownie mix (for 8x8 pan)

Topping:
4 cups large marshmallows

Directions
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8 by-8-inch square baking pan with foil so it hangs over the edges by about 1 inch.
For the crust: Lightly butter the foil with some of the melted butter. Stir the rest of the butter together with the crumbs, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Press the crumb mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the brownie.

Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the top is crispy and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean, with a few crumbs, about 40 to 45 minutes.

Remove from the oven and carefully position a rack about 6 inches from the broiler and preheat on low. Layer marshmallows across the top and toast under the broiler until golden, (keep an eye on it, it can go quick), about 2 minutes. Cool on a rack, gently removing the brownies from the pan using the aluminum flaps. Carefully separate any marshmallow from the foil and fold away. Cut into 12 (2-inch) squares.

Saying Goodbye

2008-09-26T14:26:00.003-07:00

That's what this weekend is dedicated to...saying bye to Chris. This afternoon his friends from his office are having a get together at BJ's Brewery. I love that place, so I'm pretty happy about their decision. Their pizookie is to die for...it reminds me of my college dance team. We ate a lot of that stuff. Saturday night Chris and I are going out to dinner. It's a surprise location, but I think he's already figured it out. We are doing dinner one place and dessert at another, so I'm excited to spend a night out with him. Sunday early afternoon we are having some friends over for one last pool party. I'm guessing it will be the last time I get in the pool for the summer. Even those it's still in the 100's here temp wise, it's not much fun to go swimming by yourself. And finishing off the weekend is dinner with my parents and grandparents Sunday night. We are going for pizza, Chris' favorite! I'm hoping to take lots of photos of the events, but knowing me, that might not happen. I also made Chris a little something special, but I don't want to share that either until after the weekend in case he decides to sneak around.

I must admit something feels a little weird about all of this. I was making my grocery list and realized that after Thursday I didn't even know what to plan to make for dinner. I think I'll be eating a lot of cereal over the next month!

No Recipe Wednesday

2008-09-24T15:13:00.003-07:00

So unfortunately I haven't been cooking anything new lately. Since Chris is leaving next week, it's been mostly old favorites. He's also been working on his fitness so I don't want to have a bunch of sweets around the house. I figure that the holidays are coming soon, so I'll have plenty of time to be baking our normal holiday variety. I'll make sure to take lots of photos and share the recipes that aren't secret in the next few months!

In the meantime this week has been fairly crazy. We have a very busy week to finish up everything that needs to be done before he leaves. Here's the 3 most important things.

Finish cleaning the office. Chris works out of here on most nights and he just set me up with a new computer, so the other computers we have (6 in total, I know, we are crazy) are scattered around with an assortment of techie related things.

Finish constructing my garden. We are finishing an above ground garden on the side of the house and need to finish the wall and watering system.

Clean out the garage. We haven't been able to find the appropriate shed for all of the yard equipment and since Chris has a ton of "manly" things like tools, saws, etc., right now we can't park a single car in the garage. There's also a grill waiting to be installed in our outdoor kitchen (whole other issue) that's still in it's box. We need to move everything to fit at least 1 car in there.

Wow, we will be busy for the next week! And since I don't want to leave without some kind of visual appeal, I bought this the other day upon Chris' request...

Finally!

2008-09-22T10:00:00.003-07:00

After two years we have new hallway lighting! I'm sure that most people don't really care about the lighting in their hallway, but this was honestly something that had been bothering me since we moved in. Ok, to be honest, since we looked at the house. I actually noticed these lights and mentioned that they would have to be changed. They are simply not my style, and in fact, they scream Southwest! However, hallway lighting was on the back burner to many other things, especially when I hadn't found any replacements that I truly loved. UNTIL...I found some at Home Depot on clearance for $9.00 a piece! At this point I couldn't turn them down, they were nice and neutral and not anything that looked like it belonged in a Southwestern museum.

I had planned on putting these up when I painted the hallway, most likely while Chris was gone. Yes this weekend, Chris surprised me by putting up the lights on Saturday afternoon. They are incredible! Thanks so much to my handyman, you are the greatest :)

I do still have to do some spackeling where the old light was, and repaint of course, but this is it! There are two, but I only took a picture of one.

Things to look forward to

2008-09-17T15:31:00.002-07:00

With Chris' departure soon upon us, I've been trying to stay positive and think of things that I can look forward to while he's gone. We are now 15 days away, and it still seems unreal. I'm certainly not ready to "live alone" again but it will certainly be an experience!

Less laundry to do, and certainly no boxers and undershirts to fold.
I can watch whatever I want on the big screen.
The food/electricity/water bills should be smaller.
When I get ready for work I can have all the lights on.
I don't have to blow dry my hair in the guest bathroom.
No one stealing the covers.
A break from the Military Channel.
Earlier bed times.

On another note, I am planning on doing a few projects around the house, mostly small things such as painting and replacing fixtures. I'll make sure to keep everyone posted on my progress!

Loves To Run

2008-09-11T13:29:00.012-07:00

That should be my bumper sticker, if I wanted a bumper sticker that is. I really do love to run. I'm sure a lot of people think I'm crazy. My weekly routine as of late consists of running 3-4 days a week for a total of around 20 miles. Of course that will increase as I run longer to prepare myself for the San Antonio 1/2 marathon. I also get up at around 4:15 every Saturday to run at 5:00am with my mom and aunt. This turns most people off automatically. How can I run at 5:00am? If you lived in Arizona you'd surely understand. In the summer it does not cool off, ever! In the winter its better, we start around 6:00, 6:30 and sometimes even 7:00. Considering I get up at least three days during the work week at 4:40 to lift weights before work, sometimes it's considered sleeping in...haha. Ok, that might be a little sick, but it's been my routine for over a year and I make it work.

Based on a post by my friend Megan, who is running the San Antonio race as well (her first one), I've created my own version of my "Top 10" for running.

Running shoes - The only shoes I've ever worn since I started running, well the only style. I've gone through quite a few pairs over the years. Asics Gel Kayanos.
Headband - Since I had bangs for quite a while, I'd either pin them back or wear one of these. They are quite handy and stay in place better than most. Goody Sport No Slip.

iPod - I try to run with my iPod, especially if I'm on the treadmill. It keeps me going and I am always changing the music selection so I don't get bored. Plus it's so small I barely notice it!

Gu - When I run 7 miles or more I bring one of these for a snack during the run. I've gotten really good at running and eating! Oh, and I will only eat the Chocolate.

Heart Rate Monitor - So I must admit that I don't use the actual heart rate part, only the watch. To be honest I don't want to know that I could be dying while running!

Water bottle - Even though I rarely race with water, I use this for my outside training runs. I love it and my mom and I have the same one! No photo available for this one, but it has an elastic strap that you put your hand through and it hold the water bottle to your hand.

www.runnersworld.com - Where I log all of my miles. I love my training log, it tabulates things like pace, miles run per week, month, year, etc. and you can even log how many miles you run in one pair of shoes. It's free and awesome.

Sunglasses - Since Arizona has so many sunny days, sunglasses are a must. No photo for these either, but I bought them at a pre-race expo for $20 and they are polarized and work great.

My mom - It might sound cheesy but she's the one who makes me do my long runs. And I say "make" in the nicest way possible. We almost always meet up for a run, she figures out the route and I follow along. I'm fine during the week, but the though of running 6+ miles alone stinks.
Clothes - Haha, don't think that I forgot this one. I really can't say anything particular about this, because I really just wear whatever I feel like. I have a lot of running stuff, although I'm at the point of needing a few new things. My latest purchase was a pair of shorts from Old Navy (below) that I'm really liking.

A Weekend Away

2008-09-08T09:50:00.006-07:00

All summer Chris and I have been trying to get to my family's cabin in northern az. We've been so busy with things around the house and Chris' crazy work schedule that every weekend was deemed "unacceptable" for a trip to the pines. This weekend was to be no different, we had planned on going until Chris found out he had to work Saturday night and since he needs both the Internet and a land line, the cabin was officially out. I must admit I was pretty bummed until Friday afternoon! I got a call while at the office from him telling me that his work on Saturday night was cancelled and we could still go up for the weekend. Now I am usually too worried about being ready for a trip that it's hard for me to make last minute changes to a plan, especially when it involves an entire weekend out of town, but I sucked it up and said "let's go!" I left work early, did some last minute grocery shopping, came home and packed up.

The weekend was great. Saturday morning we took a walk with Peanut. He was loving his walk until he decided he was too tired to continue any further which meant that Chris carried him for a good 1/4 mile until Peanut regained his strength. In the afternoon we ventured to Tonto Natural Bridge, the largest natural Travertine bridge in the world. We hiked all of the trails and had a great time. Here are some pictures from the trip.

The rest of the weekend was full of reading, eating, and watching college football. I was so happy that we had the chance to enjoy the mountains before Chris heads off to Virginia.

And as soon as I get those wedding photos I will elaborate on that trip too!

What a Week!

2008-09-04T09:44:00.003-07:00

That's really all I can say to the week we've just had. It all started Thursday night when we found out that Chris got into OCS! He is thrilled that he was accepted into the program for October. October 3rd is his leave date and he will be at Quantico Marine Base until December 12th.

We also spent the weekend in Denver for our friends Erin and James' wedding. It was a lot of fun and everything was beautiful. Unfortunately I took all of three pictures so I don't have any to post, but our friend Jeremy took about 500 so as soon as he sends those over to me I will post a few. A few highlights from the wedding included doing the polka, the photo booth, and eating chocolate covered potato chips.

I'll be sure to elaborate on the wedding as soon as I get those photos!

Just a quick little note

2008-08-29T11:54:00.003-07:00

It's Labor Day Weekend and we are headed up to Denver for a friend's wedding! We are very excited for the trip. We fly out tonight and plan on going on in Downtown Denver with some friends. Tomorrow is the wedding and we fly home Sunday. The weather should be beautiful, and I'm looking forward to it.

On another note, we had a horrible horrible storm last night. In parts of the valley it looks like a tornado went through. My mom's clinic was closed today because they don't have electricity. On my drive to work I saw a giant metal billboard bent down and sitting on a car. It was unbelievable. Trees are down everywhere and it's actually quite sad. Hurricane winds were reported around the valley and hail pelted some parts of the city. Luckily our yard was somehow spared and we didn't lose a single tree, which is a miracle considering how small some of them are.

I'll be sure to post a few photos of the wedding. I'm trying very hard to be a better picture taker, now if only I had a new digital camera!

Better Late Than Never

2008-08-28T21:51:00.002-07:00

Ok, so I'm a bit late with this, but it's a totally worth it recipe so I recommend making something just to try this week's recipe... the pie crust. Every November my mom throws this Apple Pie Party and the point of the party is to make your own apple pie over the duration of a few hours. We first used this recipe for these parties, and to this day, it's the best pi crust I've ever made. it does require a food processor, but if you don't have one, it's probably worth buying one. This is the crust I used to make the cherry pie I posted a few weeks ago. Note that this recipe is for a filled and covered pie. If you only need a bottom shell you will be able to make two shells. I hope you enjoy this!

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 cup ice water

Directions:
To make the crust, mix flour, salt and sugar in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture and toss lightly with your hands to coat the butter. Blend together with short pulses until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, with pea-sized butter bits. Drizzle in the water a tablespoon at a time, pulsing continually, until the dough comes together. Be careful not to over mix. Divide dough in half, form into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

What a weekend...

2008-08-25T16:47:00.003-07:00

Here's a photo of what we would have liked to be doing...

But instead, we finished about 95% of our backyard "remodel"! Yup, for those of you who have been reading for a while, we've been working on this since the end of April. There was a lot more work than we originally though, so along with our blistering heat, its taken us quite a while to get things done. Over the past two weekends we hauled 12.5 tons of rock from our driveway to the backyard. I honestly never want to look at rocks again! The only thing we have left is the above ground garden that needs to be built along the side of the house. I'm guessing it will be finished in the next few weeks. My parents came over last weekend for two days to help in the process, and my dad showed up again on Saturday to help Chris take the last load of dirt to the dump. Thank goodness for the dump! We had so much dirt in our backyard that had to be removed and we can take things to our city dump for free!

I'll post pictures soon. I was going to take some this morning, but we are having dreary weather due to Tropical Storm Julio and I wanted sunny photos of our "new" backyard!

P.S. The above photo was taken about three weeks ago after Chris worked in the yard for most of the day, and yes, he is wearing shorts if anyone was wondering!

It's Official!

2008-08-21T10:35:00.002-07:00

I have run over 400 miles this year! It seems weird to say that, on one hand it seems like a lot, and on the other it doesn't really seem like that much at all. Some people who knew me in high school and college might be amazed to hear that I'm running period. I was never a runner, I hated running, and wanting nothing to do with running. I was completely satisfied playing tennis, dancing, or swimming. However, during my last semester of college I was home for Easter and my mom suggested that I go on a run with her. She had started running about a year and a half prior when the P.F. Changs Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon came to town. I decided to humor her and go. Well I guess somewhere between high school and that day, running had become easier. I managed not to do too bad and decided that I too could do the 1/2 marathon. After all, it was 10 months away. I trained and trained and trained and completed my first 1/2 in January of 2006.

Now I am a complete running addict! Here's a list of 1/2 marathon race that I've completed so far. I JUST signed up for the inaugural San Antonio Rock 'n Roll race, so Megan I'm coming to see you! I usually refuse to do any races that are in the summertime or early fall because of the extreme heat here in the desert. I'm not good with running 12 miles in the heat. So far this summer, my longest outdoor run was 6 miles, and we start at 5:00am in 90+ heat!

PF Changs Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon (Phoenix) - 2006, 2007, 2008
Country Music 1/2 Marathon (Nashville) - 2006
Disneyland 1/2 Marathon (Anaheim) - 2006
Shamrock 1/2 Marathon (Virginia Beach) - 2008

The "Best" Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-08-20T14:23:00.002-07:00

This week's recipe was something I found off a blog that I frequent regularly called Bake Or Break. I really like this site because of the photos they take. One day I hope to photograph my good half as well as they do. This recipe intrigued me simply from the title...My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies. I'd been wanting to give these a try for a few weeks, but hadn't had a good reason to until my parents graciously spent their whole weekend helping us to finish the backyard. They LOVE chocolate chip cookies, and I must say, they were pretty tasty. Not your typical toll house cookie, but overall very good. Chris especially loved them as they were coming out of the oven and I ate more than my fair share as well. The best part was that they are still soft and chewy the next day. I think that I will be making these again. Try them, you won't regret it!

Click here for a copy of a printable copy of the recipe.

Stay Away Fay!

2008-08-18T09:37:00.003-07:00

Not from us, since we are safely in the desert thousands of miles away, but from Chris' parent's house in Islamorada, FL! For those not familiar with South Florida, Islamorada is located in that popular chain of islands known as the Florida Keys. See below for a map of exactly where they are located. We have been out of touch with the news the past few days, but yesterday I read that the Keys were under evacuation notice for tourists because of tropical storm Fay. Then this morning I read that Fay is expected to become a full blown hurricane in the next 24 hours! Fay has already killed more than 7 people in Haiti and right now the National Weather Service is predicting more than 10 inches of rain and and storm tides more than 5 feet their normal size.

The only good news is that Chris' parents are spending their summer in New Jersey, like they do every year for this exact reason. Their house was fully hurricane proofed before they left in case of an event like this. While their house might not be immediately affected, their yard is especially vulnerable to storms. A few years back, their yard had severe damage after hurricane Rita hit. His parents spent countless hours trying to bring their plants back to life. Some things survived, but many did not. I just hope that this won't affect them like Rita did. Their home in Florida has brought me so many great memories over the past few years, and I know how much they love living there. I will post again once I have any updates, but for now I thought I'd post a few photos from our most recent trip.

Recipe Wednesday Is Back

2008-08-13T10:22:00.005-07:00

Even though I've reformatted the blog, I still want to keep Recipe Wednesday. This week's recipe is dedicated to summer...Cherry Pie! My mom's birthday was July 3rd, and since she is usually the birthday dessert maker in our family and I didn't want her to make her own birthday treat, I volunteered. On the cover of her Cooking Light magazine was this recipe and that's what Mom wanted, so I went with it. The only thing I did differently was that I used homemade pie crust and didn't have a coffee grinder for the tapioca so I skipped that step. Everything else is the same. I guarantee this will be one of the best cherry pie's you've ever had. I highly recommend buying the cherries at Costco/Sam's Club too to avoid the high price of some grocery stores.

Instead of typing the recipe, just click here to get a printable version of the recipe. One more thing as well, I highly recommend buying the cherry pitter they suggest. I did and it was so easy to use. It only took me about 20 minutes to pit all the cherries. This is a messy process though, so be aware of flying cherry juice!

Big News!

2008-08-11T14:19:00.003-07:00

Well it's been ongoing for a little while, but pretty hush hush until recently. A few people probably already know but Chris went to OCS (Officer Candidate School) for the Marines when he was in college. He passed, but didn't take his commission, which means that he didn't sign and had no further obligations. Well after a lot of though and discussion, he has decided to try again! However, this time he is applying to be a part of the USMC Reserves, not active duty. What does this mean you may ask? Well here's a little breakdown...

He's put in his application to go back to OCS in October. We don't find out if he is accepted until the beginning of September. If he does, then he will head to Quantico, VA for 10 weeks of intense training.

Following his graduation he would then go back to Quantico after the first of the year (the date is TBD) for 6 months of TBS (The Basic School).

After graduation from TBS he will head to another base (location unknown) for an undetermined amount of training for his "job".

He'll then be required to go to his home base one weekend a month and two weeks a year (just like in the commercials) to meet with his unit and train.

A lot of people have questions for us such as are we moving and will he be deployed. Some answers are clear (no we won't be moving, he can do his job from anywhere as long he travels to his home base once a month) and some are up in the air (we don't know anything about a potential deployment considering he would be about a year out from being able to be deployed and we don't know what state the war will be in by then) but we are asking for every one's positive thoughts and well wishes. Right now we are just waiting to find out if he's been accepted to October's class. I'll update everyone once he gets an answer, so stay tuned for more information!

Silly Rabbit, Trix Are For Kids!

2008-08-08T10:31:00.004-07:00

This morning as I was going through my breakfast routine I had a thought which made me laugh to myself. Every morning I pour cereal into a plastic cup, add the milk, grab a spoon and walk out the door to the car where I enjoy my morning meal. As I was pouring my cereal and looked at the box I wondered 'When will I grow out of the "kiddy" cereal stage?' In my hand I had a box of Trix! Yes, Trix, the cereal that for years stated it was strictly for kids. And I am a 25 year old standing in my kitchen wearing dress slacks, pumps and a nice sweater pouring miniature multi-colored cereal from a bright red box. Then I thought about the other cereals I had bought on my last few trips to the store: Golden Grahams, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Corn Puffs and Fruity Cheerios. WOW! I guess I might never grow out of this stage of my life; after all, my dad is over 50 (sorry Dad but it's true) and still gets excited with my mom buys Frosted Flakes. And sugary cereal is hardly a dietary issue. It's not like I'm pouring from a box of doughnuts for breakfast. I am almost tempted to try really hard to buy adult cereal like Special K or Fiber One tomorrow when I head to the grocery store, but let's be real. It won't taste as good and the milk won't turn fun colors, and really, how much fun is that?

I'm Back!

2008-08-02T15:31:00.003-07:00

I'm finally back in the blogging world! As you can probably see, I've created a whole new look for the site. After much thought I decided that I wanted to use this site to keep everyone update on our lives, as well as doing my usual recipes, helpful hints, etc. I'll still be doing Recipe Wednesday, I still have lots of recipes to share with my readers. I hope that everyone enjoys my new format. Over the next few days I'll be updating and finishing the formatting so stay tuned for the final results. I'm certainly happy to be back to blogging on a regular basis. Oh, and happy August!

The Vacation Is Almost Over

2008-07-16T14:11:00.003-07:00

So if you haven't figured it out already, I've been taking a little vacation from blogging. I haven't done it intentionally, the summer has just been much busier than expected. There are quite a few things to blog about and I have some good pictures waiting on my camera so no one worry! Hahaha but seriously after we get back from H-Town (Houston, TX that is) I should be back to my regular blogging self. Cherry pie is coming up soon...

Cake Mix Cookies

2008-06-26T14:39:00.007-07:00

So I don't honestly know if this even counts as recipe, but it was too easy and too tasty not to share. This weekend my friend Colby came over b/c she wanted to bake cookies with me. She asked me if you could make cake like cookies using cake mixes and I told her that I didn't know but I would look into it. After a quick Internet search I found that this was a quite well known thing. So Sunday afternoon we went to work making cake mix cookies. I chose cherry chip cake mix adding white chocolate chips and Colby chose chocolate adding semisweet chocolate chips. They were the easiest thing and they really have a cake-like texture. Perfect if you are really in a bind, or just want quick cookies! Below is the recipe and some photos. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 boxed cake mix

Oil

Eggs

Any additional mix ins

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix cake mix according to directions on box minus any water. Add anything extra such as chocolate chips or nuts. Scoop onto cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes or until edges are slightly brown. Remove from oven and let cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet before moving cookies to cooling rack. Enjoy!

It's finished! (almost)

2008-06-26T14:06:00.009-07:00

The guest room is finished! I actually can say almost because we are waiting on two things, shelves to be bought and the cable to be rerouted from the ceiling. Yes, that's right. Our previous owners have the cable coming out of the ceiling. I'm sure most homeowners notice weird things that the previous occupants did, but I think we have more than usual. Anyhoo, everything is in place. The painting went well, and let me now say, Benjamin Moore paint is the way to go! We did have to end up using two coats in order to cover marks on the wall, but it went on so smoothly I didn't mind at all. With my dad's assistance, we painted the room in 6 hours, including some prep and cleanup. I'm very happy with the overall results. Here are a few reasons why I suggest painting for a easy new look.

Paint cleans up the dingy factor a room might have. You might not realize how dirty your walls really are until you have a new coat of paint.
Its relatively cheap. My one room used 1 gallon of paint, costing me a whole $33. I'd say budget $50 if you need supplies as well.
You can change it! If you don't like the color, its the easiest thing to change about a room.

The cost ended up being a little higher than I wanted because of all the frames I had to buy, but thankfully a gift card came the day I need to buy the last of the frames. The total cost is below.

Paint - $33
Frames - $80
Pegboard Items - $12
Grand Total - $125

Below are some photos of the process. Now it's on to the rest of the house!

The token "before" photo. We are ready to paint after taping off everything.

See what I mean about the cable outlet!

One view of the room.

My favorite corner!

All Paint Is Not The Same

2008-06-20T09:07:00.007-07:00

Remember a few weeks back when I said that I would be remodeling the guest room over the next few weeks? Well the most important part, the painting, is happening this weekend! The ugly shelves "gifted" to us by the previous owner are down and now I have some 1/2 in. holes to spackle, thanks to their not so conventional use of screws. But after that, and moving everything except the bed out of the room, I will be ready to paint.

My parents have painted two whole houses already, so I nicely asked my dad if he would like to assist me since my mom will be out of town at a medical conference this weekend. He oh so nicely said yes. Just a side note, my parents are great and have helped Chris and I so much with things around the house over the past almost two years. I know that Chris's parents would help us out too if they didn't live 3,000+ miles away! But I digress. My parents have informed me to buy a certain brand of paint. I was thinking that I'm sure paint is paint right? But no, according to them, paint is not just paint. There are certain qualities of paint, some cover better than others, which means more paint and more coats which then equals more time and money. With some coaxing from my parents, I've gone with Benjamin Moore. This paint is known as some of the best in the industry, so I am going to try it out and see what I think. I'll make sure to follow up after I finish the project as well to let you know how well it worked. By the way, the color I selected is named Woodmont Cream.

I also said in a previous post that I wanted to keep the entire project (frames, shelving, drapes, paint, etc.) under $100 dollars. So far I've spend $33 for the paint. I also bought one of the 10 picture frames with a gift card, so no money from the budget gone there. Only 9 more frames, shelves and drapes to go!

2008-06-19T11:00:00.005-07:00

Cheddar Apple Bacon Melts

Difficulty: Easy

Sorry this is actually being posted on Thursday, but I made this recipe last night and was having some trouble photographing and then I had to wait until this morning to upload the photos, but nevertheless, this is a great recipe to share. Grilled cheese is one of the those go-to comfort foods in our house. During the winter I pair it with Tomato Soup, but this go around, I chose to do something a little different. The blend of flavors is wonderful. The crispiness of the apple and bacon add something to to the gooey cheese. In order to shave calories from the traditional grilled cheese, use turkey bacon or even soy bacon, and use whole grain bread and low fat cheese. For my melts, I used turkey bacon but not low fat cheese because I never skimp when it comes to cheddar. Instead of tomato soup, pair this sandwich with watermelon slices and some pretzels for an amazing taste of home.

Ingredients

Sliced Whole grain bread

Cheddar cheese

Bacon,

Granny Smith apple

Butter, margarine or spray butter

Instructions

Begin by cooking your bacon, two slices per sandwich. One bacon is fully cooked, place on plate covered with a paper towel to soak up the grease. Slice apples in thin slices. Assemble sandwich by placing a layer of cheese, 4 apple slices, 2 bacon sliced and another layer of cheese. This helps to hold the sandwich together. Heat frying pan to medium. Once pan is heated, spread or spray butter on one side of the bread. Turn sandwich butter side down in pan and cover with lid. Let cook for 3 minutes, but watch carefully to make sure it doesn't burn. While still in pan, cover the bread facing up with butter then flip sandwich. Cook for another 3 minutes or until browned. Remove from pan, cut in half and serve.

Great For Your Pantry

2008-06-17T20:00:00.002-07:00

One of the things I keep on hand at all times is cake mix. I suggest buying it when your local grocery store has a sale such as $1/box. Yellow, White, Chocolate, Cherry Chip and Angel Food are my flavors of choice. Yellow, White and Chocolate are for what I'm about to discuss and Cherry Chip and Angel Food because those are our personal favorites.

There is a great book, which is the main reason I keep so many cake mixes on hand. It's called The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn. The whole point of this book is to make homemade cakes using mixes as a base. Every cake I've made has turned out great and no one has ever questioned whether it was made with a cake mix. The recipes use flavor boosters and make the cake richer by adding key ingredients.

This book actually rates as one of my favorite baking cookbooks of all time. Some of my favorite recipes from the book are the Ripe Banana Loaves and Blueberry Muffin Cake. I've even given this as a gift to a few friends...enjoy!

Simplifying For Summer

2008-06-16T09:02:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this, but I have a 45+ minute commute to work every morning. It's not ideal, but I've learned to embrace it the most I can over the past year and 9 months I've been driving 25 miles each way to and from work. I usually spend my time thinking. Now sometimes this is good and sometimes it's bad, and most of the time I get a little stressed about something. Well this morning was no different. Over the weekend I began to realize how much my "technology" is spread out. You might wonder what my "technology" is, and I'm getting to that now. When I was on my computer this weekend, I realized that I use 3 computers regularly...3!

My work computer, which inevitably gets it's fair share of personal use and has personal files and pictures saved on it.
My ibook, which has mostly items from college and the year after, but also has been getting used a bit at home since computer #3 is waiting for a new hard drive.
"Our laptop" which is an old computer Chris reformatted and we mostly use as our Internet computer at home but also use it for music, photos, etc.

To be honest, the whole thing was pretty stressful. I realized that I had photos stored on all three computers, that each computer has different files, all of which I need, and that it's more difficult for me to locate items when I need them.

My stress level lowered after I got into work this morning and was doing my normal Internet routine. When I came across a notice on one of my favorite sites, I realized that the answer to some of my problems might finally have been solved. Shutterfly, which I have started using since Flickr started charging, has started a new things called Share, which allows you to upload your photos, put them on one website, write about them, and order them. I know that this sounds just like a blog, and it is, to some degree, but it also allows others to print your photos with professional quality and can be controlled for privacy.

If you are feeling anything like me and want to take the summer to do some nice indoor cleaning, I suggest finding a site similar and trying to harness your "technology" into one place. If you have out of town family and friends, this is also a great way to stay in touch. Also, don't forget to back up any and all files on your computer every few weeks or so in order to prevent a disaster. External hard drives are great for this, and they are easy to hook up to any computer. If you spend just a few hours out of the heat and organize your technical files, you will be so much happier the next time you have to find THAT photo!