Cooking Making

Last weekend was fulll of cooking making. First we headed off to my cousins place to make around 8 different kinds of cookies. A few of the cookies we made Saturday were: Thumb Prints, Spritz, Peanut Butter Fingers, Mounds Malls, Sugar Cookies, Almond Bark, Christmas Wreaths, Pecan Tarts, Ginger Snaps, and Pixies.

Then on Sunday we got together with Brian's mom and made a few of her family recipes such as peanut butter kisses, mint surprise cookies, truffles, and mint cookies.

For the next 2 weeks our meals will consist of cookies, cookies and more cookies.

Bringing Home The Christmas Tree

Last Saturday we finally went out to pick up the tree we picked out so long ago.

From a distance we saw our red flag marking our tree...but when we got closer we found our trees decorated with the strangest ornaments: Ducks, Hearts and TROPHIES!

Evidently Jacques had gone out a few weeks ago with Daisy and had a ball decorating our trees.

Brian with the ornaments:

Removing the ornaments so we could take the trees home just to re-decorate them :)


Brian cutting down our tree, it would have been a lot easier if our stump wasn't 4-5 inches in diameter.


Most people only go home with one Christmas tree, whereas we go home with THREE:


The finished product:

Thanksgiving Squared + Crab

The week of thanksgiving came quickly and went just as fast.

We spent Thanksgiving day with the Ohs side - we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and had a lovely time. I also bribed Tom with a piece of Banana Cream pie and he came over and took this picture of the 5 of us...well technically 6.

The day after Thanksgiving I woke up at 3:37 am - it was suppose to be 3:30 but I really need the extra 7 minutes. So you would think that with waking up in plenty of time I would have scored some great Black Friday deals. Well, if you call $5 fleece pants, Crest Toothpaste and a York Peppermint patty a great score - then I win!

One I regained some sleep we decided to have crab legs for dinner. So we headed to Costco and bought 4 lbs. of 'Alaskan King Crab' (as Brian likes to proclaim). It was a delicious dinner!


As you can see there was not much left of the crab after Brian and Steve were done...

Then Saturday we revisted Thanksgiving at my brother James' house. I'm pretty sure there were close to 40 of us there - but I always forget to count because by the time I should remember I'm already in a food coma.

Things I am thankful for...

Seeing as it is Thanksgiving I thought it was right to post what I believe I am most thankful for this year....really it's at this moment - but I'll let it pass for the year...

Memories - whether stored in photos, in our minds or in our hearts. The way they remind of the time - good or bad. They keep those we've lost in our lives and they also serve as reminders of the fun and the love we have shared with our family and friends.

Fun, Love and Life - to me these three attributes should always just go together. One because we should always love those we care for unconditionally - even when people make mistakes and while sharing that love we should always remember that life should be fun. Even in the darkest of times I always try to reminds myself that I only have one life and if I had to choose how to live it I'd choose to live it full of love and fun.

And with out any explanation at all these are a few other things I'm thankful for: family, friends, banana cream pie, kitties, Sassy, internet, warm days, snow, cake, photography, randomness, and more.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Baker Boo

Yesterday was Baker Boo at Baker Park near Plymouth. It's a fun event planned by Baker Park each year were campers come to camp and during the day there are activities planned such as: pumpkin carving, rock climbing, mini golfing, and other carnival like games. Beck and Mark evidently do this annually and decided to invite James, Jeanne and Natalie - I just tagged along for the fun. What a great event! The day activities were great and then in the evening they have the kids do a costume parade and then after that they go around to each camp ground trick or treating! It was a great day.

Natalie and Alex along the parade route, we saw another mother stopped so we had to also:

Natalie, Alex and Tony in costume:


Natalie and Alex showing off their face paintings:

And since they showed off their face paintings so did we:

The Christmas Tree Hunt was successful!

Today we traveled all the way to Wisconsin to St. Croix Valley Trees, LLC to find the 'perfect' Christmas tree for us. We headed out with Pops, Sandy, and Aunt Shelley to the tree farm to pick out four trees - everyone but us picked a Fraser Fir we ended up with a Balsam Fir. I'm quite happy with our decision. It was a great day with lots of laughs and many stories...

Pops, Shelley and Sandy - pictured with Sandy's magnificient Fraser

Brian and Me - Pictured with our wonderful Balsam Fir.
Sandy and Me - I took this picture while walking....

Pumpkin Patch

On what was probably the coldest weekend this fall we decided to visit Apple Jacks Orchard (and pumpkin patch) in Delano. The weather was in the 30s and boy was it cold! We did however manage to go through their 5 acre corn maze, eat some great apple dumplings and we loaded up on around 100 pounds of pumpkins....oddly Brian and I came home with around 70 pounds worth - even though we only purchased 3 pumpkins.

4th of July

We had a great fourth of July weekend. It started off on Friday. We picked up the girls (Lindsey, Maggie, Abby) on our way up north - stopped at DQ and had some delicious treats. Once at Elwood's house we realized Brian forgot his board shorts - so off to the local Alco we went (its like the only clothing store within 20 minutes of my Dad's house). Once we got home Mike and his oldest 3 boys had arrived. So it was time to head to the lake despite the weather looking like it may rain.

We got out on the lake with Zach, Jonathan and Thomas on the tube. Once on the other side of the lake from the access the boat engine began to smoke. Not to get into too much detail, but after that a long swim across the lake pulling the large boat in the pouring rain followed. Needless to say, my legs are still tired.

Saturday with Mike's boats our of commission we took our out our Uncle Rudy's boat. After giving a few rides to the nieces and nephews the boat dies - out of gas. This time we brought a mobile phone, so we called Elwood and he brought down his boat with 4 gallons of gas. At least day 2 was sunny and help was on its way.

We got back home Saturday night and so we called up Bob and Sandy. We ended up going to the fireworks with in Maplewood instead of driving to Blaine to meet up with two of my brothers. It was a nice relaxing time.

Sunday we took the yaks out and did a nice paddle around Silver Lake. I do not think we'll be going back there any time soon, lots of green/brown sludge not to mention how bad the lake smells.