Helllooooo out there!

Wow!! I can't believe I've put this off for over a month. Of course holidays are busy busy and when you find a moment to yourself the last thing you think of is your blog.
So this will be quick and I will post pictures of it all this weekend, I hope.

Thanksgiving was an adventure. It was my first time away from my family and I admit I got a bit homesick. I guess I never thought it would affect me but Im glad I got to see how others celebrate Thanksgiving. Bottom line it was GREAT food. We hung out in AZ for 3 whole days. It was nice to not have to turn back for hom on the 2nd day.

December was VERY eventful. We had the girls cookie exchange a whole 13 dozen = 156 cookies plus the rolls still in my freezer. I think Im just cookied out. Its always fun to see the different shapes and decorations.
We had our family progressive dinner which went by quick. This year was the first time my house was included. As small as it was we fit everyone in there. I served EXTREMELY hot Snow Flake cocoa... I guess the on LOW for 2 hours would have been fine.... hahah I paniced at the time frame and turned that sucker on high. I think I left a lasting impression on the adult tongues. meaning burnt! Sorry! But once is cooled down it was a huge hit.
The Gifford Family Christmas Dinner/Theatre was held at mom's this year. The kids acted out the nativity story and I got the roll of the ANGEL with the angelic voice. hahah I love that we are still carrying on traditions from our childhood. I hope that my kids will be able to participate in them one day. Last year my aunt had her kids make a video. She called each of us and gave us a line from a holiday song. Last year was Up on the house top. This year we did two, I saw mommy kissing santa claus, and The Christmas song. Its so fun to see everyones different ideas of how to act out everything. One of ours was "everybody knows a turkey..." so I entered A. Turkey on my cell phone and took a picture of it. Clever huh? There were some other funny ones and some cute ones. Christmas Day we woke up and for someone who says he doesnt like christmas or the holidays, he sure is fast to get to those presents! We opened presents from each other and then hung out for a bit played games. I was lookin to whopp some butt on XBOX live cause I know some kids got games for christmas that they havent played. haha Then we dressed and went to Ihop. We went last year and this year we dubbed it a tradition until we have another mouth to feed. Then we went over to mom's house for all day snacking and hanging out. we wateched Wall-e a few times, played Rock Band, and I made a watch that's pretty rad. I think we got home about 10 pm and I believe we just crashed. It was a draining week and month.
New years... isnt new years. Its weird. Usually you get way excited about staying up... but seems these days 9pm feels like midnight. I called Little Caesars abotu 4pm and placed an early order for 7. Boy am I glad I did. That place had the longest line when I got there! But I walked in and then right out with our stuff. We headed to Kevin and Tiffany's house to eat and hang out. tiffany made some rad jalapeno poppers which were like Fire but still good. The fire came 40 seconds after it hit your tongue. My niece Crystal was there too and she came home with us to spend the night and hang out. We hung out a bit and then the boys fell asleep pretty much so us 4 (Maeve too) watch a poor version of Twilight. It ended about 15 minutes before midnight. We went in and woke up the guys to go to Shelly's house. by the time we walked out the door we had 2 minutes. As we walked into Shelly's house her tv showed 30 seconds. so we ran out back to see the fireworks and wow... how lame. Fireworks havent been fireworks since we did those 4th of July shows at the stadium here. Where the bombs felt so close you always ducked a little from the sparks, which were far away, but they were so huge and you could feel them pounding on your chest. the closest thing I've seen since then was over the lake/river in Washington. The rich people were shooting off HUGE bombs from their lovely lake side homes and we sat on the other side enjoying a free show.
But new years was good. It was fun to spend it with Kevin, Tiff, Maeve, Crystal, Shelly and Adam and their sleeping kids.

Oh and in the middle of this all, I had my first Pampered Chef show! I was sooo nervous but I did ok. I'm so glad I had my sisters there and I had a much better turn out than I planned for. I look forward to doing more shows and getting a better feel of the system. (HINT HINT)

Like I said it's been a while and Im sorry for the long post. but hey... its done now.

Rain thoughts twice...

Be safe out there in the rain. I had to see this poor old dude hugging a pole.


oh and here are my new glasses. Sorry I know I look like a turtle, but its hard to take a serious picture.

Time to travel, so let it rain!

It seems every time is pours here, we are going out of town. Memorial Weekend it poured, we were in AZ, and to day we are headed to AZ and its pouring. Good Grief Charly Brown.

So we are headed to Arizona to spend our first Thanksgiving with his family. I haven't had a thanksgiving away from mine and I'm a little sad to be leaving, BUT this will be fun and I'll still eat like a cow. So really only the location will change. We are spending 4 nights and about 3.5 days. We are taking family pictures too. This will be fun to see my face in the picture, rather than pulling out microscope to see it. haha.

This year has been hard and fun, sucky and rad, hot and not so cold. Through all of our ups and downs there was never a time or moment when we didn't have each other to lean on, or family standing behind us pushing us along or helping us up. I am so grateful for a huge and extremely close family. Each and every member brings something different and special to the table. I am so grateful that I can ask for help from any member and recieve more than I asked.
I can't even say how lucky I am to have the in laws I have. My mother in law is just awesome. There is never a time that I talk to her and don't either smile or laugh. My father in law is very down to earth and smart. I love that he is someone my husband can call and ask for advice or call about cars and everyday stuff. My sibling in laws are just as crazy and awesome as the next. They are the younger siblings I've never had and I am glad that I have been able to be the sister in law that I always had growning up. The one to talk to the one who makes sense and understands. Not to toot my own horn but HONK HONK!
I love my ALL of family so much and I am truely Thankful for all of them, and the ones to come.
I am also thankful for my husband, he is my crutch.... more like wheelchair. Without him I'd be just digging in my rut. He is always supportive of me and my dreams and we are always able to talk to one another without a problem. He is truely amazing to me and I couldn't be more grateful.

I am very lucky to have the life and abilities that I have.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Eat lots cause its winter and our bodies need some layers for hibernation!

English Toffee

Ingredients
14 tablespoons (1 stick, plus 6 tablespoons) butter
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 chopped pecans
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Dash salt
1 (6-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips or thin chocolate bars
Directions
Generously butter a cookie sheet.

Put butter, sugar, and water in a heavy pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Bring to a bubbling boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes. Remove spoon from pan, and cook to a very brittle stage (300 degrees to 310 degrees F on a candy thermometer). Or, make a cold water test: candy will separate into hard, brittle threads when dropped in cold water(I TRIED THIS AND IT DIDN'T "THREAD" SO i COOKED IT UNTIL IT MOVED AS ONE... YOU WILL SEE. OR JUST USE CANDY THERM.) Remove from heat and add nuts(I GUESSED) to mixture. Add vanilla and salt. Pour onto prepared cookie sheet and spread to 1/4-inch thickness. Cool slightly, top with chocolate chips(DIDN'T MEASURE or chocolate bars, and spread as it melts. Cool completely and break into pieces. Store in an airtight container.

I let it sit over night and then broke it with a butter knife. It's soooo stinkin good and it takes hardly any time AND I had all the ingredients.


Enjoy!

O Christmas tree.... you are naked

This weekend was just another productive weekend. But first, Friday I got my pampered Chef kit in.... EARLY CHRISTMAS!!!! WEEEWWWW! ok... back to the schedules program. The laundry is done and ready to be packed or put away, our Christmas shopping is complete minus one person. Not to worry. My tree is up, but naked, the dishes are done, English toffee made, and my shopping list complete. WEW! Doesn't sound like much but throw in playing games, watching food network and visiting my dad and it takes a while to get it all done.
Saturday we "slept" in until about 8. We hung out and played games, ate breakfast. I downloaded my Pampered Chef Software. Wow I can tell it will help make life easier! About 11 we got dressed and went to my eye doctor to get my glasses adjusted, then over to the M&M sale at Ethel M. Not as great as I thought it would be. Then off to the mall! I heard Mervyns was going out of business so Eric and I took the opportunity to get him some church/dress/ shoes rather than wearing his old military dress shoes. I picked up some house slippers with the hard bottom so if I had to walk outside I could. I also got a new pair of socks. We picked up a few items for people on our list and headed to the rest. We hit about 3-4 more stores including the Wetzels Pretzels stand... mmmmm. Then across town to get stuck on the strip for another shop. Then we were done. On the way home we stopped my mom and dads house for my Tree. I wanted to get it up this weekend so we can enjoy it for the full month of December. We came home and I set the tree up. Instead of putting all together and then fluffing, I fluffed by the portion! so SMART! After hanging out we decided to go to bed. We put a movie on and Eric was out within 3 minutes. I of course stayed up. Some time during the night the power went out and reset everything! baaahhh! I was weird to wake up and see the clocks blinking. Well I rolled out of bed at 9? so much for church. :( Eric and I made breakfast together, Eggs with cheese and onions and then some bacon and toast. Mmmm it was good. I miss having breakfast with him. I cleaned up the house a bit and Eric did laundry. I put together a menu and shopping list for upcoming events; thanksgiving, cookie exchange, etc. Browsed food network and came across an English toffee that, 1 I had all ingredients, and 2, it was so easy!!! I debated on whether or not I should make it tonight. ehh why not. Let me tell you. It was so easy I made it twice! Eric couldn't keep his hands out of it! I barely had enough time to take a good picture of it. After all that the clean up was easy. I love my kitchen being clean. Maybe tomorrow I will go through it and pull out stuff we don't know we have.
All in all it was a great weekend. We are excited to get out of town and eat some awesome food with family. This will be my first Thanksgiving with my new family!

I had a hot date tonight!

A while back my mom had given us some movie tickets. Good for all shows at any time. RAD! since movies are up to 10.50 a person, we havent gone in a very long time. Before work was over we decided via text to go out. We went to chili's and then to the movies. It was nice to be able to do that. AND since we live in Vegas as we walked out of the movie, we each played a penny machine with a dollar. Eric lost his and I was down to .19 the I won 1.35 and Eric told me to cash out. psh.. I hit that sucker again and lost a little then I hit it again and gain it back and then some. So I cashed out then... $1.84! WEW Big Spenda! So I kept my dollar and Eric lost .16 He'll have to do extra chores for that! hahaha. On our way home we stopped at my moms and I picked up my pampered chef kit. Holy Christmas! I'm loading the program onto my computer as we speak, well as I type. I'm very excited to get started.

Tonight was a very good way to end the work week. Now we relax for a semi crazy day tomorrow.

Maintain THIS!

I’ve been doing a rather radical job at maintaining my job, life, kitchen, and weight. Go me! This weekend I clean the crap out of my kitchen and through out the week I have done dishes right after I use them. Eric has even been super great and he’s been doing his too. Keep in mind he used to have a hard time even rinsing the darn things after using them. But we have both been doing well. Over the weekend we did our grocery shopping at Costco. 50 bucks under budget! Don’t know how we pulled that off but we did. Even had dinner at Costco too. Saturday was a LAZY day a well deserved and needed lazy day. Eric has been working OT for the past month or so. It has been wonderful on the bank account, but not so wonderful for sleeping, his back/body, and my schedule. I used to get up with him and make him breakfast but 2:30 am is too early for me. He’s been working long days, coming home working out and then he does what ever is needed (relaxing, helping my parents, or whatever) I’m very lucky to have husband who loves my family. He has been over to my parents a few times this week helping my dad with the kitchen remodel. It makes me happy that he does that without being asked. We got up early and just hung out. I attempted home made wheat thins. And was successful! Well not that last batch I forgot about… whoops but those are mysteriously all gone now too. So looks like we will be saving money with those for snacks!
So another eventful week has come and gone. I think Eric and I saw each other maybe one and a half nights all together. So sad!
Monday I had my first Pampered Chef meeting. When I walked in I was asked to pick a product up off the table and then sell it as we made this meal. I shocked myself and my director. Did better than expected. Of course it was a 2 quart batter bowl (classic batter bowl) and that’s like selling money to someone. I love those things. I learned a lot about the company and products and I’m still very excited to get moving. I ordered my consultant kit, and I get a crap load of neat stuff. Everything I need to start my business.

Tuesday is MAN Tuesday. This really hasn’t happened for a few weeks. Eric looks forward to it. He gets together with my brother and a childhood friend of mine and my brothers and they work on their cars or random projects and no wives. This week Man Tuesday was held at my mom’s house. She needed some stuff moved out of the way so she could get her ceilings scraped. No more popcorn! So my brother and Eric went over there and worked for a few hours. I came home and made dinner for us and we just hung out. Eric also went and picked up my glasses for me and I CAN SEE! They are hard to get used to, always something on your face and then your nose hurts… maybe because my left ear is lower than my right. Who knows?
Wednesday I was invited to a coupon class by my sister. I had heard about it but nothing more. Its very eye opening and VERY smart! I’m going to try the tips and tricks and see how it works out. Right now we spend 200 a month on groceries at Costco. But it’s the same ole same ole. I’m ready to try this and get some different food in my kitchen! I miss making the chicken and potatoes meal and different things. I’ll let you know how it works out!
Thursday after work Eric went to my sister’s children’s school to be a hero. They had a literacy night and they had celeb impersonators come in and they said these are our super stars on TV and in the movies. Then they had Eric (NAVY) my brother (Army) and some others (Firefighter, Police Officer) come in and they said these are our real superstars or heros. Then I guess everyone walked around and they could come up to them and talk. Eric was a real sport for doing that. I know it’s not his favorite thing to do. He had to shave off his side burns he had been working on.  After we went to my brother’s house and hung out for a little bit and then we crossed the street to my sisters and had some dinosaur nuggets for dinner. Eric has fun eating them.
Tonight I think we are going to use our free movie tickets and actually go se a movie. Maybe I’ll take my big purse and take some snacks!