Thankful for this Sunny & Fabulous Weekend!

I am so thankful, and feel very blessed that it has been so sunny and beautiful. I feel like the wonderful sunny rays are shining down just for me, they are like a gift from God :)

This weekend I went on a great sunny walk with my friend Whitney (who shares my love of house gazing), attended a fun and yummy 'Pie Party' (I made a creamy peanut butter pie), went to the Yale vs. Harvard Football game and the traditional PA Pre-game Pizza Party at Mary's house (the director of the PA program), went out on a girls night to see the movie New Moon, and discovered how I can get sunshine rays all winter long!

This is it! The sun shines right into my kitchen window, and today I was doing dishes in super bright and warm sun. I even wore sun glasses it was so bright, and got pretty toasty from the rays. It was great!...and yes, I am a weirdo....and possibly sunburned now....Yay!

Here is the Pizza Party! Look at that spread! The pizza was amazing! Even ore amazing is that they made it out of a TRUCK with a built in brick oven in the back!

 

Here's us at the Yale vs. Harvard game. We were winning till the very end, and then they beat us 14-10. The Halftime show was as crazy and weird as we expected. It was like a drama-geek play that was narrated over the loud speakers and acted out by students on the field. It was pretty funny/weird.

It has been a great weekend!

Thankful for...learning how to cook!

I remember being at my wedding showers, receiving cookware, recipe books, mixing bowls and baking sets. Each time I would open one of these gifts, I would exclaim "I don't know how to cook, but I can't wait to learn!". I was 100% serious, and now a year and half later, I have grown leaps and bounds in my cooking skills. It's been a fun journey and I've noticed a few things....

1. I love allrecipes.com and am a very loyal allrecipes chef. What I love/need are the comments and reviews from people that have already made the recipe. They give advice and confirm that it is actually a good recipe, and tips about how they made it wonderful. I am frightened to make anything not on all recipes...even despite the heavy alluring pull of my cookbooks at home, and the super-duper awesome ones at the store.
2. I only cook things that I like. I don't love this observation about myself, however it's true :) I know that Daniel really loves a few certain foods, but I don't make them very often at all...bad wife!!!
3. If something takes way too long, or I had a difficult time with it, I develop an aversion to that food, and wont eat it again for a very, very, very long time....even if it tasted good.
4.  I am extremely non adventurous when it comes to cooking meats. I basically only cooked with beef and chicken. Other varieties are minimal: ham (only once) and sausage (a few times), pork (once in a slow cooker, so that doesn't really count) and fish....well, I have cooked shrimp and scallops, Daniel made red fish once...but still, very limited fish use also.
5. I don't really cook my restaurant favorites. I love Sushi, Thai, Pasta's and Mexican food the most, yet I make these the least...? My new cooking goal is to make these kinds of foods more often, as well as Daniel's favorites :)
6. I have found these 3 basic things to be the most helpful when cooking. Taste your food. Use lots spices and flavorings. Don't cook a recipe with out personal advice, or a 5 star rating :)

These are some really great items that I love to make. These are very easy (require no skill at all) and very yummy! I follow the comments on all of these :)

Slow Cooker Tortilla Soup - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Chicken-Tortilla-Soup/Detail.aspx

Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spicy-Garlic-Lime-Chicken/Detail.aspx

Salsa Chicken - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Salsa-Chicken/Detail.aspx


Kielbasa with Peppers and Potatoes - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Kielbasa-with-Peppers-and-Potatoes/Detail.aspx

Ham and Potato Soup - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Delicious-Ham-and-Potato-Soup/Detail.aspx

Thankful for Your Comments :)

Shout out to my friends who leave comments on my blog:

Rochelle, Alicia, Emily Kayner, Natalie Bergin, and Hoang, thanks guys!!

I love seeing your messages throughout the week, it makes me oh-so-happy and always brings a BIG smile to my face. I am thankful for you and your friendship!

Realizing how much I enjoy comments has made me want to spread the love, and comment more often on other blogs. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I will look at a handful of blog posts in just a few minutes, and don't stop to leave any comments at all.

I am going to be a better blogger and commit to more comments!

Thankful for LiFe!

Today,  I am just thankful to be alive in this wonderful and crazy world. Kind of a weak 'thankful' post, but I am just feeling content and happy about life.

Thankful for Summa Time!

Summer Time?? Yes! Summer time, I am thankful for the years of wonderful summers I've had.

(I think I'm suffering from the 'you never know what you've got until it's gone' syndrome. Fall is beautiful. I 100% agree, but I think after fall summer should just come right back - none of this winter stuff!)

I am thankful for the having lived in my bathing suits, for sun dresses, flipflops, and for once living so close to the beach you didn't even need to put on flip flops. Beach frisbee and football, and hitting strangers w/ your frisbee and football and blaming it on the wind. Fishing attempts, sea shells, sea oats, ocean sun sets, ocean fire works, feeding pelicans on the pier, and even crazy angry stalker like seagulls.

My montage to Summa Time *Enjoy!!

*This video is really just to make me happy :) I am assuming most who view it will find it nausiating/annoying....but if it makes you happy too, then hurray! If not, tune back tomorrow for a new post :)

*Special Shout out to Raquel! Who also misses summer muy mucho.

*Can you count how many life jackets are in the slide show?

*These pictures are from all over (Florida, the Bahamas, and Carribean)

*Feel free to remind me about all the horrors of summer, I've totally forgotten all of them :)

Thankful for Fun Game Nights!

Me-o-my, I love me some game nights!!!!

See if you can guess my 2 most favoritest games.....

Can you tell??? It's  Pictionary!

This one isn't the best drawing, so extra points if you get it right.....It's Cranium!!!! WooHoo!!

We had Daniel's classmates over for another lil noche de games that was super fun, and another semi game night back in October for Halloween. I made a silly Halloween Jeopardy game and had friends come over, I didn't snap a picture of the game, but did get some amazing/potentially embarrassing pictures of everyone in their rad costumes.

I am thankful for good company, fun games and lots of laughter.

Longest Jenga game ever with Daniel's classmates!

Thankful for our camera!!!

While driving around senic areas near Sleeping Giant, we stopped to take a group picture. We set our camera on the spoiler of our car, turned on the self timer, smiled, and drove off..........we forgot to get the camera off the back of the CAR!!! It's a miracle it stayed there too! We kept driving, it kept raining, and noticed it was on the car when we got home! Yikes!

Here are some pictures from our wonderful camera that we love and promise to treat better!!!

Thankful for my Job!

This week I have felt very thankful for my job. Pretty much every person I meet in the Church asks me how I got my job, and what it entails....so in case you were wondering too, here ya go!

I am a Support Specialist for the Church's Seminaries and Institutes program (formerly CES). I heard about the job through my Bishop. He knew I was looking for a job, and that I had done office work before. After about 3 weeks of futile job searching on my own, this job became available. He got me in contact w/ the area's S&I Director, Dwight Durrant. I had to apply for the job, submit a resume, have an interview, get worthiness clearance...all sorts of stuff. The funniest thing I had to do was take an intense timed online exam of Microsoft Word and Excel - the Church is so hard core! I passed w/ flying colors though, and was hired a few weeks later :)

It is a part time job, w/ very flexible hours. I help Brother Durrant with the New Haven institute classes each week. But there is much more! We oversee 3 stakes seminary and institute classes, I keep busy by communicating, helping, and keeping records for dozens of classes, teachers, and students. We train the teachers, and travel to their stakes many times throughout the year. It's kind of hard for me to explain, but just know that I really like it, it's enjoyable, meaningful, and rewarding work and I'm thankful to have such a great job. There is only one Support Specialist per 2-3 stakes, and less than 10 in the whole New England Area, and I'm one!!!! This is the New Haven Chapel which is where we go to church, and where I work.

Thankful for Visitors!!!

Later this week we will have our 2nd batch of family visitors come up to Connecticut! Yay! David, Daniel's cousin, and his wife Heather are from Florida, and will be coming up to visit our Grandparents in MD, and then us in CT. I am very excited! And what a great idea! I think everyone from all over the country should come visit us!!!!! We have a spare bedroom calling your name!!!

We plan on going to Mystic, and NYC...but does anyone have anyother fun ideas?? Especially for New Haven and Mystic :) We'll do the Yale Tour, get some pizza probably, see the lighthouse...all that good stuff. Let me know if you guys have any other fun things to do/show people around here :)

Thursday Afternoons

Daniel has an exam every Thursday....making Thursday nights a time to relax and have fun and watch two of our favorite shows, The Office and 30 Rock.

We are sooo thankful for Thursday nights and for Daniel's good grades on his exams so far :)

A month of Thanksgiving!

This November I will be writing each day about something I am thankful for. I got the idea from a friend here in New Haven (Emily Streeter), and I'm excited to get more into the meaning of Thanksgiving this year.

Today I am thankful for a true Fall!

A few days ago we took a long walk around Downtown New Haven on Saturday and loved taking in the whole fall experience. These pictures are from the Yale Campus and the New Haven Green.

 

 

This moss covered rock is an old tomb stone! Pretty creepy!

 

Fun FuN FUN!!! Birthday and Halloween Time!

I am now 23...not 16, which is usually how old people guess I am :)
We went out for dinner at an awesome all you can eat sushi place - in a good way - not a Golden Corral buffet kinda way. It was delish and we can't wait to go again!  If anyone reading this also loves sushi or wants to try it...I am your girl!

I also celebrated by B-day by taking a Quilting class at JoAnn's and by going boot shopping! Both are new to me, but I can tell I am going to have a life long love affair with both :) I want to take more quilting classes and buy more boots too - good thing Christmas is coming up right?!!!

This is the square I made, and my new snazzy leather boots from Nine West.

This weekend was Halloween, and I was stumped to think of a costume! Finally a decent idea came to me and after a few hours at Goodwill viola...we were transformed into 1980's Prom King and Queen!

(shout out to Whitney Pope for the awesome mullet wig)

We also had a PA class party at our place to raise money for a New Haven homeless shelter. We made pizza for everyone and had lots of games to play. The intense people played pretend poker, and the fun and fabulous people played Wii, and the ever awesome game of Pictionary. Daniel's classmates are all so great, they are a tight group and I'm so thankful they are all so awesome!

 

 

 

So much FUN!