Star Student

Calvin was star student this week in his classroom. This means that he gets to do lots of fun activities and bring some of his toys to share. He got to bring home the class pet, "Trumpet". He loves this little elephant. We get to write in the class journal to say what we did with Trumpet all week long. Trumpet enjoyed going out to breakfast, watching Calvin play his DS and going to IKEA. Fun.

GO CARDINALS!!

She just "did it"

I don't know how. She's talented that way. She just got on the bike with no training wheels and off she went. She didn't fall down, she didn't falter, she just flew! Way to go Cami!

Orange

I LOVE orange season. I love that we have an orange tree in our very own back yard that we can go and pick and eat whenever we feel like it. I love fresh squeezed orange juice on the weekend.

Let the squeezing begin.

Fresh squeezed "Pom-Orange Juice" Yum.

Back to Normal

Hi there. It's good to be back to normal. By that I mean back to school and back to work. It is taking me longer and longer to adjust into my semester the older I get. I did have enough energy to make this delicious home made mac n cheese the other night. 

We did have a wonderful break. We went and saw the Garcia's in San Diego, then up to Disneyland for a Magical Christmas, then home for Christmas, then up to Showlow to play in the snow. It was a fun time. Below are the pics to prove it. :) 

Cassi and Starfish @ Seaworld

Up close and personal with a dolphin

Disneyland

The Castle

Tink

My standing crown rib roast for christmas dinner.

Missy & Cameo's Certification Party

Certified or Certifiable?

My good friend Cameo and I wanted to celebrate with all our friends. What were we celebrating? That we finally passed our RID NIC test of course. Yippee. We invited all our friends to Majerle's Sports Bar & Grill in Chandler. We had about 25 peeps show and it was a lot of fun. Our friend Mary made these awesome RID NIC crowns for us. Thanks Mary!

Let Us Give Thanks!

This year for Thanksgiving, we were invited over to Brent and Cheryl's. Kendra and Kara and Cheryl's brother Duane were there too. We had a wonderful time and it was really so nice to just get up and hang out until it was time to goto their house.

Even though we were going somewhere else for Thanksgiving, we couldn't resist making a deep fried turkey.

You must be very careful when lowering the turkey into the hot oil. It is a slow process to get it in there. It is also very important that the turkey is completely thawed and that there is no water going into the oil.

About 40 minutes later you get a golden brown, delicious, beautiful turkey. We did two turkeys. One for us and one for our neighbors. It helps to split the cost of the oil too.

Cassi and I made this chocolate chip pecan tart. It was a big hit and there wasn't any left over.

Calvin and I made the cherry pie. He was a really good helper and liked rolling and cutting the crust.

We also had a pumpkin roll which is pumpkin cake and cream cheese frosting. Brian thought that this was the best. 

It worked out great! Everyone got something that they liked and it gave me a chance to cook at a leisurely pace and involve the kids.

Cheryl tried a lot of new recipes this year. These cranberry fruit cups were great! We also had southwest corn, peas with bacon and almonds, mashed potatoes with gravy and of course Kendra's green bean casserole.

After we got home a storm rolled in. We got pea sized hail that all washed out the drain pipe and collected on the grass. 

Thanksgiving was really fun this year and we are very grateful for our family and friends.

Sisters in Seattle

Seattle, Here we come!

Angie, Missy & Beth at Chateau Ste Michelle

Beth, Angie and I decided to meet up in Seattle for a girls weekend. We had a wonderful time exploring Seattle. We stayed at the very trendy W Hotel and had a beautiful view from the 21st floor. Shopping was just a few minutes by foot away.

Of course my favorite part of the trip was Pikes Market.

Colorful, Fresh Fruits and Veggis

Beautiful pepper garlands.

What are these???

The colors of all the fruits and vegetables were amazing. I could have stood there for hours just looking at everything. There were things that I had never seen before and even rainbow carrots. They were even throwing fish just like you see on TV. Imagine living near a place where you can get fresh cheese, bread, fish, fruit and vegetables. That would be awesome.

We paid homage to the very first Starbucks. 

We ate terrific food like this clam chowder...

And this potato and rosemary pizza...

And this wonderful breakfast at Elli's.

We watched cheese being made at Beecher's. I love the big cheese shovels.

We also were lucky enough to be able to go with Angie to try on wedding dresses. Sorry no pictures of the bride to be in her dress here. You will have to wait for the big day to see her in it, but I must say she was stunning. 

After dress shopping we went out to the Chateau Ste Michelle vineyard. It was really neat to see how the wine is aged and bottled and even better to have a free wine tasting. I even managed to bring home three bottles in my suit case. ha

Of course the weekend went by too fast. We had a lot of fun connecting with each other and connecting with the city. I guess its a good thing that we left wanting more.

RID - NIC

Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf - National Interpreter Certification.

I PASSED!! Yay.

Cami's Birthday Weekend

To celebrate Cami's birthday, we decided to have a birthday extravaganza weekend! On Saturday we invited friends and family over for a BBQ. It was a little tense for a while as we couldn't get the smoker much over 200 degrees and optimal smoking is more like 240. We made a beef brisquet and two pork shoulders along with cheezy potatoes, my famous baked beans, a yummy asian slaw (yes, I said yummy) and the best rolls ever from Von Hansens. (I know, I know, too much food.  .  . What's new?) Everyone came over at around 4:30 and played outside until dinner was ready. 

Unfortunately we were a little behind schedule and had to finish the meat off in our gas grill, but I think it was definitely worth the wait. 

When I asked Cami what kind of cake she wanted, I thought she would have wanted a popcorn cake or a star wars cake. Cami surprised me with her vision. She simply wanted "a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with strawberries on sticks." Ok.  .  .  Really?? So here is how it turned out. I got everything right except the strawberries were up side down. hmmm. Better luck next time.

The expression on Cami's face was priceless as we sang happy birthday to her.

On Sunday we are taking Cami and her friends to see Madagascar 2. 

Thank you everyone that came and made Cami's birthday special and thank you for all the gifts. We have great family and friends!

The kids are taking ice skating lessons and can go to open skating for free. So we decided to take them and let them practice what they learned on their first lesson. They had a lot of fun. Calvin met a little girl named Emma, that was making goo goo eyes at him and they held hands going around the ice for a while. WHAT!!!??? Yeah. He's a cutie. She was pretty cute too. They were excited that they were both 5.  He was holding my hand before he met this girl, we took a little break and when we went back on the ice he didn't "need" to hold my hand any more. I think he was showing off for his little friend. Brian said I better get used to it. He went all over the rink and didn't fall down too much. Unfortunately those hard plastic rental skates suck! They hurt so bad that I am going to look on craigs to see if I can find a pair for myself.

Garage Sales Rock

My neighbor, Dani, is a queen garage saler. I went out with her yesterday morning and can completely understand why people fall in love with this hobby. (or is it more of a sport?) There was a neighborhood nearby having a sale and there was TONS of participation. Which means that there was TONS of stuff for us to look at and buy. I got a cute smallish carved wood bear that will be perfect up at Brad & Sara's in Showlow for $10 bucks. I know that they sell for around $60 normally. I got two brand new kids sized camping chairs for $5 for two! I got some guess jeans for Calvin for a dollar. I got a big Williams Sonoma decorating kit for $5. I also got two brand new very darling purses for $5 a piece. It was a lot of fun. Next time I will try to bargain a little more. It is interesting the psychology behind a garage sale. Some people price their stuff as if we were shopping at Nordstrom and some people were literally giving their stuff away. Dani got a silk plant for .25 cents. I can't wait to shop again.