Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving went perfectly. All the food turned out really good and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The night before prep work:

The schedule

From left to right: Green beans casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie.
Ingredients set up in order of when things were going to get done. (dork!)

Tyler making his banana cream pie

Turkey seasoning (not complete). There's only sage and garlic in here. The total seasoning also had olive oil, butter, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, grill seasoning, salt.

I separate the skin from the breast and stuff seasoning in between. Tyler thought it was the coolest thing ever!

All seasoned up!

Dangling bacon and hungry doggies. LOL

Ready to go. Yes.. I put toothpicks to hold the little wings close to the body.

Turkey in the bag ready to go in the fridge and to be baked the following morning!

Some cooking on Thanksgiving day:

Finishing off the pie

Getting the juices for the gravy

Turkey all done!

The food:

Squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots. These are still frozen. I steamed them.

Cream cheese corn. (Still frozen too). I microwaved these. They were sooo yummy.

Stuffing!

Mashed Potatoes (made by Tyler)

Bread!

The desserts:

Banana Cream Pie (made by Tyler)

Pumpkin pie

Apple Pie

The Table:

Centerpiece

Place settings

All the food on the table

Stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, veggies

Green beans, sweet potatoes, turkey, gravy

The elders getting ready to eat

Me, Carly, Kevin, Ethan on his high chair, elders back

After dinner and dessert we played Catch Phrase with the elders and our friends. We ended the evening with a clean kitchen and dishes all done and lots of leftovers!
It was a lovely evening!

To our family and friends

Tomorrow? Really?

I am sitting here and thinking of all the things I need to be doing to prep for tomorrow hurah and can't seem to be able to move my butt off the comfy couch. It doesn't help that it's cold (joy in my life), I have the electric blanket on top of me on medium high, and there are two seriously cute doggies cuddling with me.

Is tomorrow really thanksgiving?? Seriously?? I guess I better go give my turkey some loving, make my pies and pie dough for the apple one, and clean the house which includes washing the carpet where one of darling doggies had a pee accident and the other one had a puke accident. I can't wait until we get wood floors. Seriously.

But I'm grateful. I know tomorrow I'll be all giddy because the missionaries will be coming over and we even get the special happiness of having elders! We were going to have sisters but they had transfers yesterday and it is now elders in our ward. Elders eat much more than sisters do. I'll also be giddy because our besties are coming over, Carly and Kevin and little boy Ethan. This is our third Thanksgiving with them. If only Sam and Emily lived in Texas and were familyless like us. Vernice and Matt had their baby two days ago, little Nathan. I'm super excited for them and can't wait to meet the little guy. They'd be coming over too, but Matt's parents are in Texas and they have to go over there. Darn it! But I'm still excited... I love cooking for people and even though tomorrow and today will be busy I'll be gleaming with pride when everyone is telling me how good everything was. lol I love our friends we've made in Texas, and love where our life is headed, grateful school is almost over, grateful Tyler has a wonderful stable job, grateful for our non-shedding little doggies even if they pee and puke on my carpet, grateful for our families and life really. Life is pretty dang good right now.

BYU v. Utah Game Party!

On Saturday Tyler and I had a few people over for the BYU/U of U game. I was super excited, and got slightly carried away with the amount of food I made.

For snacks and appetizers we had:

- Chicken Cigars
- Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese rolls)
- Peanuts, Cashews, Roasted Almonds
- Veggie tray and dip
- Olives
- Homemade salsa and chips

For dinner (at halftime) we had:

- Burgers (bacon, cheese, or plain)
- Hot dogs
- Chips (Cheetos, potato, doritos nacho cheese)
- Fixings (pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, condiments)
- Drinks (Coke, Fanta Orange, Root Beer, Sprite, Water)

For dessert we had:
- 5 Minute in heaven chocolate chip cake
- Dove chocolates

Here's the table picture

Tyler cooking us up some burgers!

Part of the crew

We had Carly, Kevin, Ethan, and Pattie; Matt and Vernice and cute fetus Nathan; and a new couple we had never met Julia and John. So clearly I made way too much food. I just love to entertain people and couldn't control myself. Everyone ate and had fun. They all left after the game which bummed me out greatly because I wanted to play games pretty bad. I wanted to get to know Julia and John a little better and games are one of the best ways to do that. Oh well... I guess I'll just need to plan a game night party. :-D Maybe I'll have less food too, and we'll have to get John and Britney to come! Hmmm I'm getting some serious ideas as I'm writing this! Joy, joy, joy!!!
Once everyone left Tyler was kind enough to play scrabble with his game deprived wife. :-D

On Sunday we went to church, Tyler took a nap, I did homework, and we had Julie over for dinner. Julie is a good friend from nursing school and one of the nicest, most Christ like people I have met. Even though she's not LDS, she is nicer to people more than a lot of LDS folks we know. After dinner we convinced her to watch "Charly" with us. She liked it, but was bugged it was sad. I'm a mean friend. It was nice to have her over.

Yesterday I had clinicals at the crazy ward. I only have one more day left of clinicals and then I'm on my final semester of nursing school! It's nuts. I only have one more lecture for Psych and 2 tests (test 2 and final). My final is on Dec 9th. I can't even believe it that I'm 2 weeks away from being on my last semester! And a little over 5 months from graduating!!! Crazy I'm telling you! I've started talking to a few hospitals about internships and during my break will be redoing my resume and applying for internships that are available. I want to work on a Medical/Surgical or Telemetry floor. I am super excited! I can't wait to be an RN. I just love it. We go back to school Jan 22nd for the last stretch. During the break we'll be in Utah for Christmas and I'll get to visit my family in Florida. It'll be a nice break.

Thanksgiving Menu

At the Winmills for Thanksgiving:
1. Sage and bacon turkey
2. Creamy mashed potatoes
3. Stuffing
4. Corn
5. Harvest veggies
6. Green bean casserole
7. Gravy
8. Rolls


Desserts:
1. Homemade Apple Pie
2. Pumpkin Pie
3. Banana Cream Pie

Drinks:
1. Martinellis Sparkling Cider
2. Juices

Who wants to come over!?

We're a boring old couple

This past weekend we were seriously boring! On Saturday we stayed in bed until like 11am, then we got up and ran errands all day. We went to the Brazilian market and bakery in Plano to get us some yummy lunch and snacks and some Brazilian groceries. We love that place! We had rice and beans, picanha, pastel, and guarana. It is such a good price for the meal and it's yummy.


After our trip to the Brazilian market, we went to Walmart for groceries. Walmart was beyond busy and a nightmare. You couldn't even get you cart in the isles! I dropped Tyler home so he could vacuum and headed off to Target for some things I was missing.

Carly and Kevin came over to watch the BYU game and eat some Pasta e Fagioli I made in the crockpot. Everyone liked it, but me. I took a nap during the game, and after Carly and Kevin left we played games!
Tyler won both times. I suck at word games, but have a new obsession with scrabble. Please note how far my little purple book is from Tyler's blue one on Word Sweep.



On Sunday we went to church, took a nap, and baked cookies. We had the youth fireside at our house and that was fun. Once they all left we headed over to Matt and Vernice's house and took some cookies to them and I checked Vernice's blood pressure (she's prego and was having a headache) we then went over to the Nelsons to return their fold up chairs we used for the fireside and stayed until way late chatting with them. It was great to get to know them though.

Politics

I just think THIS story is too stinking funny to not post about it!

Blog letters: husband

Dear husband,

Thank you so much for starting to teach me piano last Sunday. I know we've talked about you teaching it to me since we got married but somehow even though we have been married for three and half years we're just now getting to it.

I'm grateful for your amazing talent, really, I am, promise. I know I don't sound grateful when I yell at you from the living room for you to shut the door while you're playing "Sleigh Ride" for the fiftieth time in the last 30 minutes. But I am. I enjoy listening to you play "Sleigh Ride" the first ten times you play it. I'm proud to say that you play the piano to others and always make sure to add on the "he's been playing it for 20 years" with a big smile on my face.

I'm grateful for your mom for making you take lessons and practice even when you didn't want to. I know you're grateful to her too because you love the piano. I'm also grateful for your grandma Relva for instilling that love in you and being a big cheerleader and example to you as you learned to play the piano.

Thanks for being a nice teacher during the lesson and telling me how good I'm doing when I feel like the biggest dork, and even though I've only practiced for 10 minutes since Sunday I promise to do better. Maybe we could do a reward chart like you had with your other students? However I think we should switch from candy bars to this. Good idea huh? I just hope this new talent of mine doesn't land me in primary again. ;-)

Lovingly,

Your bad student wife

Sarah Brightman Concert

Last night Tyler and I attended the very anticipated Sarah Brightman Symphony Concert. We started the evening by going out to dinner at a new restaurant we had never been before called Penne Pomodoro. I was craving some yummy Italian food and after some online research I decided to go to this one, it had good reviews and was within our budget. Tyler got the Pollo Parmigiana and I got Gnocchi with bolognese sauce. We also got the Focaccia bread. It was pretty yummy, we enjoyed the meal quite a bit, and the area had lots of shops and it was very cute. I'd like to go back and walk around Snider plaza and check the area out a bit more.


After dinner we headed over to the concert. Sarah Brightman is always amazing, but this concert blew me away. Her Harem one was amazing, but this one was even better. Here's a little description from the site:

Continuing Sarah's tradition of breathtaking stage productions, the SYMPHONY WORLD TOUR will feature new and groundbreaking technology, with virtual and holographic stage sets that have never been seen before in any touring concert production.

This innovative stage technology is highly sophisticated and dramatic, creating an otherworldly, ethereal experience: enormous realistic ballrooms will meld into fairytale gardens and then morph into giant fish tanks, right before the audience’s very eyes, creating a perfect backdrop for Sarah’s glorious voice.

It was nothing short of magical. The technology they used was so cool that it kept us glued to the stage. It was beautiful, and as always Sarah was beautiful. I love all of her costumer changes and thoroughly enjoyed her singing "Phantom" and "Canto Della Terra" with an amazing tenor, Mario Frangoulis, he was very very good. She also had Fernando Lima as a special guest whom she sang "Pasion" with on her Symphony album. She had these screens that showed the images and they moved and showed the things that were going in the "fish tank" for two songs. Just really cool.

And now the pictures!

Tyler and I at the concert!

This picture doesn't do her entrance justice. Her costume made it seem as if she was dead bride walking, and left me wondering if it was really her underneath all the tule.

The opening of the show with "Fleurs Du Mal"

This is not a great picture. It took me a while to figure out the best camera setting. All the forest stuff was on the screens and she was standing in the middle with trees and leaves around her.

The "fish bowl"

Her duet with Mario on "Canto Della Terra"

Her famous swing


A few Harem songs


At the end of the concert singing "Deliver Me"

She also sang a few Christmas songs from her new album "A Winter Symphony" . I wasn't able to get a picture because I got in trouble with the security guard. Apparently I wasn't supposed to take any pictures at all. Oops. Oh well, no harm.

I wore my infamous polka dot dress to the concert. This is the second time I've worn it and this time it was free of security tags! So I wanted to be nice and share the dress picture.

Like I said the concert was great. We had great seats and pleasant neighbors (Hi Andrew!). It was a great evening and now I'll just wait another 4-5 years until she goes on tour again!