Yummy Pasties!

I have had the ingredients for these home-made pasties for about a month now, but just never found the time to make them. With Alyssa home this week, we decided to make the time to do it today. I generally buy pasties, but Jamie's been telling me about her mom's home-made ones and I decided I needed to try to make them. As you can see in the pic, I did kind of cheat by buying the pre-made pie dough. Jamie and her mom make the dough....I don't do dough...LOL!!!

They were quite tasty, although a bit on the huge side!! I only ate half of mine, I figure I'll take the other half in to work tomorrow for my lunch. We made six, and have one left over (Richard was here to eat with us). Other than cutting everything up ahead of time, they really weren't all that difficult to make. We had to dice potatoes, onions and meat. I used two london broils; one thing that worked out well was that I had the meat frozen and just took it out of the freezer this am. It was still partially frozen when I cut it up, which made it much easier to slice through the meat.

Sunset Again

I think I've figured out why it had been a while since I took sunset pics. It gets dark early in the winter and it's not unusual for me to leave the office in the dark, which makes it tough to take sunset pics!! Tonight as I was driving home at 6:45 and it was still light out and the sun was setting and I was driving into a church parking lot to take this pic, I was realizing that I was actually driving home in the daylight. Two months ago that wouldn't have happened!!

Happy Birthday Kurt!

Yesterday was Kurt's 53rd birthday. We celebrated by going to the Newburg Inn for dinner and then coming home for cake and ice cream. Alyssa made a delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. I got the recipe from a friend from work; believe it or not, the cake takes a cup and a half of pureed red beets!! It is a really, really moist cake! The peanut butter icing is really good, too (if you're a fan of PB, that is...LOL!). I would have been perfectly happy having a white icing on the cake, but anyone who knows most guys in our family would agree that peanut butter is the only way to go!! There comes a point in time when you run out of ideas to get each other. Alyssa suggested we get him some James Bond movies, which I thought was a good idea, so we picked up two boxed sets of 8 different Bond movies. (Yes, he does like Bond...LOL!!)

Decorating the cake

. Happy Birthday Dad!!

Blowing out the candles

Icing on the Moose

My Newer BFF

At least this one doesn't sing....


But on a side note, my new buddy needs a name. In the spirit of MckMama (some of you know who I am referring to), I am officially announcing a contest to help name my new friend. I confirmed with Mr. Geiger that this is indeed a ROOSTER (not a chicken), thus he requires a boy name. Now I don't expect I'll get 1,000 comments, like she would, but I hope maybe I'll have at least 2 or 3 to choose from...LOL!!

Chicken and Mushroom Casserole

I found this recipe in my Rachael Ray magazine. It was kind of odd because there were pictures of each step, plus all the ingredients were listed, but not amounts. You had to go to the web site for the actual recipe. Alyssa, Kurt and I really enjoyed it, and it was fairly easy to make. It takes mushrooms, heavy cream (I used light cream), marsala wine, a rotisserie chicken cleaned off the bone and rice. There was parmesan cheese on the top.

Whatcha' Makin?!!?

A bridge....

Adam and Richard were making their new bridge for the official Science Olympiad which is being held at Moravian College on Friday. They placed fourth with the last bridge they made. The bridge needed to be lightweight and could hold up to 35 pounds. I'm not sure how they do the judging, because the bridge that won first place broke with less than 35 pounds, but was lighter than Adam and Richard's (which is amazing because that first bridge they made only weighed 2 ounces!!). This time they are making an arched bridge, which is what they unsuccessfully attempted with the last one. They soaked 1/8 inch pieces of wood in water that was mixed with some type of wood glue. Soaking the wood made it pliable, and glue mixed in with it made the wood stronger. They made a mold and put several pieces of wood together in the form of an arch and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for a few hours to try and dry. More on the bridge later once it's together...I'll be sure to take a picture.

Mmmm Good!

Thanks to Chris and Steph for the Amish Friendship Bread batter. I had batter about a year ago and made two loaves of bread that were totally different than these two I made tonight. Those loaves had cinnamon and chocolate chips in them. The recipe I used tonight did call for cinnamon, and raisins were optional. I didn't have any raisins, but did have craisins (dried cranberries), which I thought would add an interesting twist to the bread. I didn't think cinnamon and cranberries would go well together, so I decided to skip the cinnamon. It turned out really, really good. Adam and his buddy Richard each had a slice and liked it, too.

Sunset

Thon!

Watch this to learn more about Thon!

CVS Cares

I don't generally do a lot of shopping at CVS, but needed contact lens solution for Adam over the weekend and it was the closest place to where Kurt and I had eaten dinner on Saturday night. When I checked out, there was a $10 off a $30 order that could be used in the next 3 days. I couldn't ignore that!

I perused the CVS circular yesterday and found several items that I didn't really need at this moment, but would eventually have use for. The best part was that each item also had a coupon in the Sunday paper that I could use, too. Finally, if I spent at least $20 on these certain products, I'd get a free six pack of Charmin toilet paper, which was a $5 value! (Now those of you who know me best, know that I only get Scott toilet paper....green for the downstairs bathroom and pink for upstairs one....I decided I could suck it up for once and use the white boring stuff...LOL!!)

Here's my bargains:

Head and Shoulders shampoo
Regular price $7.39
Sale price $5.77
With coupon $4.77

8 pack Bounty paper towels
Regular price $ 7.99
Sale price $5.88
With coupon $4.88

16 pack Duracell AAA batteries
Regular price $12.49
Sale price $9.99
With Coupon $8.99

50 ounce liquid Tide
Regular price $9.29 x 2 = $18.58
Sale Price $5.97 x 2 = $11.94
With Coupon $5.47 x 2 = $10.94

6 pack Ultra Soft Charmin toilet paper
Regular price $5.00
Sale price FREE (with $20 purchase)

CVS brand Honey Lemon cough drops
Regular Price $1.29
Sale Price FREE (with CVS receipt from Saturday)


Regular Price $52.74

Sale Price $29.58 (with manufacturer's coupons/free items)

Final Price $21.18 (with $10 off $30 order)

(Good thing I got that little extra below, or I wouldn't have been over $30!)

Reward for doing such a good job.

BBQ Hot Dogs

One of our favorite meals

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup vinegar
5 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. mustard
4 tsp. worchestershire sauce

Mix together (I often put in a container with a lid and just shake it!). I often double this part of the recipe. This particular time I was making it for the rockathon and had 30 hot dogs, thus actually tripled it.

Put hot dogs in a baking dish

Cover with sliced onions (as little or as much as you'd like)

Pour sauce on top

Bake, covered, for about an hour at 350 degrees

We eat them in rolls, with lots of sauce, onions and add some mustard. Delicious!!

**I totally forgot to take a pic of the finished product in the pan or even a pic of a finished hot dog in the bun. You'll just have to take my word on how good they look and how yummy they are!**

Rockathon!

As I write this, Adam is with a group of young people from our church at a 24 hour rockathon to raise money for a trip they are taking in July to New Orleans, LA. They will be joining 30,000 other teens at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's National Youth Gathering.

I was there from about 1030 this am, when it started, til about 1 pm. I helped serve them lunch of chili, bbq hot dogs and pierogies. They get a 10 min break every two hours to potty, stretch, or whatever. Tonite for supper they were having baked ziti, bbq and macaroni and cheese. Tomorrow for breakfast they'll have eggs, pancakes and sausage. There's a ton of snacks there: cookies, chips, pretzels, crackers, celery and peanut butter, veggies and dip, popcorn, cupcakes, fresh fruit, etc. There's a bunch of board games for them, a TV/DVD to watch movies (there must have been 20 different movies that kids brought), another TV there for the gaming systems (when we stopped by on our way to supper they were playing Guitar Hero). Kids brought their homework, some brought books, Adam tried to bring my Kindle (that's where I drew the line...LOL!!)

You'll see in the pics that Adam took our rocker/recliner...which I'm sure is more comfortable than a standard rocking chair, but I suspect he'll be struggling a bit more at about 3 or 4 am trying to stay awake!!

Me and A Moose

My New BFF

That's what happens when you go and have a baby. You lose your seat. Temporarily. This one sings, though. Poorly.

Random Thon Pics

Borrowed from people on Facebook who I've mostly never met! (Except for the last two... I borrowed them from Sarah...thanks!!)

I was watching the conclusion of Thon live on the computer on Sunday and thought that $ sign was actually a 5 and thought they raised $57, 490,133.87!!! I posted that amount on my blog, we left to go visit Kurt's mom in the hospital, I talked to Alyssa on the cell while we were in transit, we realized what I did, I had her go onto my blog and correct that figure!!

Sarah and Kristin

JoePa making a surprise visit!

The Bridge That Adam (and Richard) Built

Adam and his buddy Richard are participating in a Science Olympiad at Northampton and surrounding districts. There were a number of events one could sign up for; they chose this particular one. They were charged with building a bridge under certain specifications; it needs to be able to hold 30 pounds without collapsing and can only weigh a certain amount. They had these grandiose ideas originally for a big fancy bridge, but were unable to bend the wood like they had hoped to without it breaking. They then came up with this bridge instead. It weighs just over 2 ounces. They put 15 pounds of weights on this particular bridge and it withstood that amount, but didn't want to push it and try more weight and have it break! They will compete against other students in other districts. There are two competitions, one this coming Friday and then another one in March. Wish them luck! I'll keep you posted.

$7,490,133.87!

That's the amount raised at 'Thon this weekend! Awesome! Pics to follow!

Small World

I spent the night at the hospital with Jamie on Wednesday to help her with anything she needed assistance with. Stuff like changing diapers (eww...horrible, horrible to have to change a little diaper...LOL), holding the baby (the worst thing I've done in a long time), spend hours talking (that's just not me), watching late night TV (I usually go to bed quite early...NOT.), etc. When her post partum nurse came in the room on Thursday morning, she looked very familiar to me. I looked down at her name tag; would you believe it was the nurse who was in the labor and delivery room with us when I had Adam in 1991?!?!!? Back then she worked at Allentown Hospital, now she is at St. Luke's. You may wonder how I remember that far back...I mean, geesh, that's over 17 years ago! Well, turns out, her last name is the same as ours! Better yet, her daughter's name is Michele!! So as soon as I said something to her, and explained who I was, she remembered me, as well!!

It's just such a small world...what were the chances that we'd both be cared for by the same nurse, years apart, at different hospitals?!!? We both ended up being employed by that 'big hospital' in Allentown through the big merger and it sounds like she left them, too, for many of the same reasons I did, and is much happier at St. Luke's. She says St. Luke's has more of that home town, personal feel to it, much like Allentown Hospital had many years ago.

Cutie-Patootie

Snoozin' away

Jamie's computer...ready for her return!!
(She has a program on her computer that I need from time to time, thus figured I'd update her picture for her when I needed the computer yesterday)

Meet Josslyn!

Mommy looks wonderful and baby is beautiful!!

8lbs, 4 oz

19 1/2 inches

The netting on her right calf holds a GPS tracking device

(Mommy gave me permission to post these pics on my blog...thanks James!)

Go.....

Fly A Kite!

What to do on a windy day!!

Car Wash

No comments from the peanut gallery please!