Family and Sisters

I have just returned from Park City where I was able to spend the weekend with my sister and her daughters, and my mother and auntie Penny. Three generations of sisters!! The last time I saw my Aunt Penny was in 1983. Her children were toddlers and I was 9. Now that is a long time....too long! My Auntie Penny moved to Portugal after her husband died and so each time we went to visit grandma and other relatives in England we never met up with Penny and her girls. So when we discovered she was flying stateside we arranged a reunion for the four of us. And we had a lovely time. We all gathered at Vicky's house and spent 3 days talking, eating, drinking (water for me!) and catching up on all that's gone on in the past 26 years.

We had a nice lunch on Main Street at the Bistro, where I enjoyed my sirloin tips and tried my first ever escargo. It was really good, but I had to not think about what I was really eating!! The company was good and we avoided the sleeting snow and rain outside!


After breakfast on Monday at the No Worry's Cafe in Jeremy Ranch, we did a little girl shopping and headed to the spa for nails and pedi's. It was a nice relaxing day pampering ourselves...thanks Jim for picking up the bill!!



This reunion was too many years in the making and we've all promised that we will not wait another 26 years for the next one. I believe the next one will be hosted by Penny in Portugal in 2011.?! We're saving our pennies and counting the days for the warm reunion there. Thanks ladies for a wonderful weekend and for being family!

Little Girl's Room...finally!!

When McKinley was born, we were so surprised that we had a girl that we spent the first few months of her life decorating her nursery. We had purples, pinks, and light greens all in a perfect little nursery with wainscoating and curtains. Then when it was time for her to transition in to a big girl bed she got the queen size bed that doubled as a guest room. Since we have grandparents and friends that come to stay with us on a regular basis we didn't want to deck out the "guest room/McKinley's room" with way girly stuff. Plus I didn't have the vision in my head of a queen size bed when I pictured the perfect girls room.

Well about a month ago we decided that we were going to move the kids around a bit. Ethan wanted a bigger bed and McKinley had been sleeping on her own for a few months and was ready for her own space (she and Evan shared a room out of mutual fear of being alone...so cute!)

So we doubled up Austin and Evan (both of who can sleep through anything) and put McKinley in Ethan's old room. Now that I had a smaller bed and a smaller space I was ready to make the girly room that I had been waiting for. Alas, the budget woes prohibited me from my desire for Pottery Barn, but I came up with a great alternative set that McKinley approved of. We bought the bedding first and then kind of went with the colors and theme that was there. I painted her room (with 10 foot ceilings) and then the dresser (which has now been 5 different colors since we refinished it 11 years ago for Ethan). We added the wall stickers from Target (not my idea) and are just about done. I'm still searching for the perfect valence or curtains to go in there and we still need wall art for two of the walls. But it's a great start and best of all....McKinley loves it and feels special in it! Now everyone has their rooms done, except me! Hmmm...

Family Home Evening...Treat

Since our boys have soccer practice on Monday night we have been holding our Family Home Evenings on Sunday for a while now. We really like it being that we are so far from family that we really have long Sundays once we get home from church. No one to visit, and just the 6 of us to try and enjoy the Sabbath day. Occasionally we'll have people over for dinner or we'll go for a long walk, but Family Home Evening is always the highlight of our evening. And the child with treat is "the chosen one'. A lot of thought goes into the treat..."what can we make that mom will let us eat a ton of and even if we didn't eat our dinner?" Some of our favorites are sweetbread, dump cake, rice pudding, and crepes. But tonight Evan was eager to use the cookie cutters that he got from his Primary teacher (??) today at church. Well he didn't want sugar cookies and he really wanted brownies, so he asked if I could make brownies that we could cut out in his shapes. Why not?? And here's how it went:




We added the ice cream and it was a complete success. Everyone was pleased and no one passed on the treat. Thanks Evan for the fun and new way for brownies....hope you remember the lesson on "acting and not being acted upon" (2 Nephi 2:14) too.

For That Rainy Day

After a few days of non-productive nothingness I decided to get busy and work on some food storage I have had ready to go for this month. I have been working hard this year to learn new ways of food storage and thanks to a Relief Society meeting at church I was inspired by some friends to do pressure cooker canning. I like the idea of storing all the food on the shelf and for long periods of time (1o+ years) if necessary. Once I get what as much as I want I also like the idea of using it and rotating it for easy meals. That being said I set off with all this before me:

My goal: Taco Soup, vacuum sealing whatever I had, and 10lbs of chicken breasts. It was an attainable goal and it progressed throughout the day. It's not that much work, it's just cooking and then waiting on the canner to do it's thing. The jars pressure cook in there for 90 minutes and you have to make sure your pressure doesn't drop or rise much so you have to "watch the pot". And the vacuum sealer has to be the easiest thing ever. Put in what you want, put the lid and contraption on and hit "canister" on the Foodsaver. Then it sounds like a helicopter taking off while it sucks all the air out of the container and you're done. My kind of easy. Today I did 2 half gallons of Golden Puffs, Fiber One bars. and 2 1/2 gallons of Chex Mix. All things I would want to have around "in the event of an emergency":
And making Taco Soup is one of my favorite meals anyways since it's essentially brown the meat and dump everything in....so easy. We like ours with Fritos and as leftovers we put the filling in tortillas for burritos of sorts. Yum:
And by the end of the day...here's the stuff all ready to be stored in the closet:
Now only 118 more pints of chicken...22 quarts of Taco Soup...countless 1/2 gallons of snacks...and enough cereal to literally sustain an army (since it's a main course in this house!!). Now I'm discouraged again...ughh.

Nashville Anniversary Trip

It's been almost 14 years since David and I were married and so we planned a trip away for a long weekend. Thanks to the help of some of our friends here in Texas we were able to fly off to Nashville for 4 days/3 nights of alone time fun!! Our kids were well taken care of and so knew we could relax and have fun....and we did. We flew in on Friday and headed out to the Grand Ole Opry House for "Opry Goes Pink!!" in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I recommend the Opry to anyone who enjoys country music or can appreciate the history of the longest running live radio show. It's fun to be there and hear the commercials and the old time country stars and feel the history of the Opry. Here we are taking a picture of ourselves outside the Opry House.


Carrie Underwood was the star of the night, along with some old timers and newcomers, all celebrating in the pink lights of the Opry. We had great seats and David went up front to snap this picture of Carrie singing her heart out for the crowd....

Saturday and Sunday we explored the beauty of Nashville. We REALLY liked the countryside...kind of a combination of the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with our beloved trees from Maryland. It was so nice to be back among the trees...we miss them terribly!!

As you see we didn't take a lot of pictures, but the time we spent together was great. I can honestly say that any time I can spend with David is great, so 4 days and 3 nights together, just the two of us, was wonderful. It's great to have that time to remember why you love some one and realize that an eternity together is going to be great! Way cheesy I know...but it's awesome!! Happy Anniversary to us!