Trident

We lose forks like crazy. Out of the last set of 10 we bought I only have 4 left and somehow I have 16 spoons. Tonight our entire fork supply was all dirty, so we had to improvise some spaghetti vehicles.


I nabbed a packaged spoon/fork combo and Dalan was left with a serving fork, which he fondly named Trident.

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Dalan and I had a great Saturday, first we went and browsed at Hastings. I found some noteworthy reading material.


We found a few DVDs to rent, one of which was MegaMind. We decided we might as well make the rest of the evening immature.

We went to Twizlberry first (because dessert first is awesome!) we got some extra yummy fro-yo.


Then we came home and made some pizza. We pretty much threw everything in the fridge on top, including bacon (which made it extra greasy and pretty gross).


While the pizza was cooking we built a blanket fort in the basement. It was pretty sweet! Sadly, I have no pictures. We ate our pizza and watched our movie in the fort. Apparently the fort upset Scout. She jumped on the blankets, tried to pull it down, and then peed on it (hence the lack of pictures).

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When we remodeled our front room last year it was always planned to add crown molding. It's been almost a year now, and we finally decided to finish it.

Our almost finished front room.





Scout is absolutely TERRIFIED of the air compressor. She scrambled up my leg and made me hold her while trying to hide.


Dalan had an interesting solution to reaching the ceiling over the stairway, I about had a heart-attack.


First wall installed.


On a side note, holy crap it sucked. Apparently molding comes in different angles, and Lowes didn't feel a need to advertise what the angles were. We ended up installing and pulling down at least five 8 foot lengths trying to get it right, but we ended up buying a jig that made a world of difference. No finished images yet, we still haven't finished caulking. Last things we have to do are touch up a ding in the hardwood and paint the exterior door, and then we can call our front room finished!

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Location:Work in progress

A Short Explanation on Why I Love Paying Bills

Seeing this:

Rocks my Socks! Our car is officially paid off.

Dinner Disasters

It's official, I am a horrible cook. I can't follow a recipe to save my life. In the thick of it I convince myself that substitutions are ok, I don't need to preheat the oven, and we can make do without that one little ingredient. These disasters happen often enough, I figure it could be a weekly installment on the blog.
-I should note, disaster is a very strong word. Almost always the outcome is edible, but that doesn't make as good of a story, now does it?

GOAL - Mac N Cheese

INGREDIENTS - wouldn't you like to know? Too bad I'm already in bed and too lazy to look it up again.

Flop #1 -The substitutions.
The first I don't view as a problem, we only have 'spelt' at our house instead of flour (my husband ground it, on our wheat grinder, we aren't quite 'those people' but we know enough of them that it's bound to rub off). The brown color was somewhat off-putting. I also only buy fat-free cottage cheese and sour cream, this can also change the outcome.

Then as I was adding the cottage cheese I found out I didn't have enough, but that's ok, I had sour cream and feta in the fridge. If you mix those two together it's basically the same thing right? RIGHT?!



The goo wasn't very pretty, but it's not like you can go wrong with sour cream and cheese, so I had no plans to abandon ship.






Flop #2 - I would like to blame McCormick for this one. Our paprika didn't have a sprinkle top. What the?! Copious amounts seasoning resulted.


Flop #3 - I didn't preheat the oven, and then I had to go get Dalan from class so I took it out 14 minutes early.

RESULT - I have no finished product picture, it looked basically the same as above, and frankly I was bored with it by this point. And that's exactly what we got, a bored dinner. It tasted like noodles. I should have saved the time and given a shout-out to my homies at Kraft and just gone with the box version.

FOLLOW UP
I shouldn't cook anymore, but since husband is back in school, I don't really have a choice. Tune in next time when I make Janae's Honey Lime Chicken enchiladas. Last time i attempted these was an official disaster, let's see if I learned anything.

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Some things

I am at a conference in Vegas this week. Their weather makes me super jealous.


This hotel is pretty swank. They have conversational areas on the veranda and Naked juice for community snacks.



I really really need to hem my dress pants. These safety pins aren't quite cutting it.


I saw the Luxor from the airport and that is the extent of my 'Vegas experience' this trip. I think there are 2 quarters in my bag. Maybe I'll live it up at the slots later.

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The Puerto Rico Post, FINALLY! - Part 1

I know that it has been SO long since the trip, now that I've finally recovered I guess its time to blog about it. I thought I could get this in one shot, but it looks like we will have a multi-part series. ahem, Part One:

11/26

3:30am - We wake up, obviously we couldn't miss the Black Friday sales. We arrived at Kohl's at 4:00am, ended up getting a few odds and ends, and checking out around 6:30. Then Dalan bought me a string of pearls for Christmas, even though as usual we were not supposed to buy each other gifts. (On a side note, I have wanted pearls ever since I read Anne of Green Gables when I was 12). We went home and napped for about 2 hours and then finished packing.8:00pm - We left for the airport!!

11/27

12:50am - We boarded our first flight to Atlanta.


Dalan, Braden, and I watched some movies on our iPods and played a LOT of solitaire.

9:00am(ish) - We enjoyed a glossy-eyed breakfast at the Chili's Too at the Atlanta airport. It was CRAZY expensive and I creepily got hit on by the host and completely missed it. By this point we were pushing 24 sleepless hours

2:30pm(ish) - We arrive in Puerto Rico. We stuffed 7 people and 14 large bags (plus all of our purses, backpacks, etc.) into a mini van. Dalan and I braved the backseat, Thankfully the ride to our hotel was short, I could only balance mom's suitcase on my head for so long.

In San Juan we stayed at the Verdanza hotel.

It was pretty cute, and I was impressed for the price that we paid. Some of the information wasn't correct on our reservation, so it took awhile to get to our rooms. We were stuck in the van while my dad tried to sort it out. This resulted in one of my famous laugh/cry attacks that freaked the entire family out, and it was a great start to the vacation. (please keep in mine I'm about 36 sleepless hours here). The staff at the Verdanza was extra friendly, even with our copious amounts of luggage they were still super nice.

4:00pm - We attempt to find dinner, we had a short amount of time so decided to play it safe with Wendy's. The employees at Wendy's didn't speak English, so Braden got to do all of the ordering. I ordered a classic #1 with a Diet Coke that tasted exactly like gasoline (or at least like the smell of gasoline, I guess I don't have first hand experience). We then headed back to the hotel where we rushed to change into swim attire.

5:30pm - We head out to pick up Braden's friend Fransheska before heading to the Bioluminescent Bay. Puerto Rico driving is the scariest I have ever seen. I felt so bad for my dad, he had to drive the entire trip and by night was always worn out from the stress. After a few wrong turns we found Fransheska's home. Her adorable mom, Alta Gracia, invited all 7 of us inside. (I think that we are at about 40 hours here, not the best of company). Then the family + Fransheska piled into the van for the 1 hour drive to Fajardo.

Now we come to one of my favorite parts of the trip. In Fajardo we kayaked to the Bioluminescent Bay. Each kayak held 2 people. Dalan and I had quite a struggle working out a system at first. We followed the guide into the ocean, and then went around an outcrop and into a small stream lined with mangrove trees to reach the bay. (This is a daytime picture, the sun had already set by the time we got to Fajardo).

The way in was extremely stressful! Multiple groups lead tours into the Bio Bay, and there is only one route in and out. There were parts that the stream was about 20 feet wide and there were groups passing each other, it was also totally dark, the only light was from the small glow sticks on the front and back of the kayaks. Dalan and I repeatedly ended up in the mangrove trees

and then had to find a way to pull ourselves out (can I mention again that it was pitch black?!). I could hardly handle it. Some people in our group decided to be complete jerks and run their kayak into others. With the dark, oncoming kayaks, getting slapped in the face by trees, and random attacks from the drunk crowd I about lost it! My aunt and grandmother kayaked together, but my grandma got seasick. This made their ride even more unbearable. My aunt ended up paddling while my grandma tried to keep her Wendy's down. We finally made it to the Bay, and it was absolutely amazing! There are microorganisms in the water that, when disturbed, glow a bright blue. You could run your hand or paddle through the water and the shape would stay. You could also just get your arm wet and let the water drip off, the drops would begin to glow as they moved down your arm! We disturbed a school of guppies and they swam off leaving a bright blue trail behind them, it was one of the neatest things I have ever seen! Sadly (and smartly, we got SOAKED) we left our camera behind, but here are some images the company has posted.
I really looks like that no joke! And don't make fun of the cheesy smile, if you were experiencing something that awesome you would have a cheesy smile too!

Since we were the second to last group to leave for the bay, the ride back was awesome! We could see the light of the guide in front of us and just had to paddle straight (kayaking in the dark is quite an experience!) Dalan and I finally figured out a system. I would steer by using my paddle as a rudder in the front and Dalan powered us from the back. We hit zero trees on the way back YEA! Marna and Janae were towed in by our friendly guide Orlando (who has apparently towed up to 4 kayaks at once).

More crazy Puerto Rico driving and we finally made it back to our hotel @ 1:30 am. This may have been the most glorious part so far, because after just short of 48 hours awake, I GOT TO SLEEP!!!