Debt Free Cruise!

As many of you know 2011 was a big year for us. We completed paying off our debt and celebrated and gave thanks over the week of Thanksgiving by taking a debt free cruise!

We left from Miami on Saturday, November 19th and spent 7 days on the Carnival Liberty cruise ship. It was a very big ship with lots of options of what to do while at sea.

We had a balcony from our room to watch the sun set and enjoy sitting on our deck.

Here is our chip behind us at our first stop, Cozumel Mexico. In Cozumel we did some shopping and walked around for a while.

Our next stop was Belize, where we rode on a small boat to the land and then also did some shopping. We found a store there that had some really cool, very expensive, hand made stuff that maybe one day when we are millionaires we will buy stuff from.

On Thanksgiving day, our stop was Mahogany Bay, Isla Rotan. We sat on the beach for a while and then canoed around for a while with a clear canoe. Then we did some shopping found a free internet connection where we checked facebook briefly and did our foot ball pickems.

Here we are at the Turtle Farm on our last stop, Grand Cayman.

We had a good trip away from everyday life doing something different that we wouldn't normally get to do. We worked really hard to get our loans paid off over the last 4.25 years and this was our reward, a debt free cruise paid in cash!

Potato Soup...

I realized this morning that I had quite a few potatoes that needed to be used up soon. So Patrick and I picked out a recipe to start with and we decided what to add and I got to work. The final product came out very good! and was pretty easy to make. Here is the recipe for the soup lovers out there.

Potato Soup:
1 cup spicy chicken broth (we made it)
3 cups chicken broth (4 if you don't have spicy broth)
4 cups water
1lb Velveeta Cheese
2 - 3 lbs potatoes washes and cubed (we left the skins on)
3 cups cubed ham
1 cup chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons chives

Add all the ingredients except the ham to a pot and simmer until potatoes are soft. Add ham just long enough to heat it and then serve! I think one recipe will serve about 8 - 10.

The soup had really good flavor! Surprisingly, It was not spicy at all. Next time we may add a bit more spicy broth and see how it goes. The hardest part about the whole soup is peeling the garlic and chopping everything up. So it take a little bit of time, but it is worth it.

F.Y.I. Blog...

Of the 34 blogs I keep up with, one of them is the Fuller Youth Institute blog. Most of them are pretty thought provoking and I feel like I stay a little more in tune with the youth culture that way. I have read their blog for several months and have saved a few that I thought some of you may also be interested to read. They are listed below...

Mapping Teen Brains

Boys Need Their Friends

Family Dinners of All Flavors

Do We Infantilize Teenagers When We Call Them "Kids"?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Are Parents the Problem or the Solution?

Is Reality TV a Catalyst for Mean Girls?

The last of the Garden...

I did not do a good job of keeping you updated on the garden this year. I guess things were just to busy. I had a lot of zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and green beans. And then I had 1 watermelon, a dozen peppers and a few things of lettuce.

 These pictures are form this morning. As you can tell fall is setting in here. We have already had our first frost and things are changing colors or dieing. The plants on strings are my cucumber plants we still have some out there growing that were to small to pick we will see if they make it or not. The plants beside them below are two of my zucchini plants.

This grape tomato plant was our largest producer by far. This plant really liked this spot. I have never seen a tomato plant grow so big and produce so many tomatoes.  I have been using our tomatoes for the last month over at the church on Wednesday meals for the salads.

These are our other tomatoes plants. I'm not really sure what happened here. They did well last year but this year they were so small. I'm wondering if it is because I reused the planters or if we had such a dry start to our summer. I have no idea! The one on the left was our peppers and it did pretty well.

Here are all the goodies I picked before the freeze last weekend while my parents were here. All of the tomatoes in the box are from the one mega plant.

Here are the leave changing colors for all of you that don't believe that fall is here and that the highs this past week have been 70 or lower and the lows at night have been near in the upper 30s.

Dawg Update...

Your favorite dawgs are pretty much inseparable now! They love each other and are true brothers now! Stafford has been given privileges now to stay out of his crate while we are away from the house and he is enjoying that. The dawgs have also been allowed to spend one night by themselves while we were out of town and they did well. Our little boys are growing up!

As you can see Stafford is catching up with Herschel in size. He only weights 3lbs lighter than Herschel and is actually a tiny bit taller than Herschel now. He is still thinner but they are very comparable in size.

They think is is funny to both get in Stafford's house when we ask Stafford to get in. Actually, Herschel wants so much to obey us that he gets confused about which dog we are asking to do something. So he does everything we ask Stafford to do.

Stafford loves when I open the window by the front door. He finds it very fascinating! He also likes to growl or bark at anyone out there. We are trying to teach him he can bark at some one on our side of the street but not at people in the park in front of our house. I feel that we have come a long way in this area.

We have two very cuddly puppies! Herschel has always liked to be close to us and snuggled in blankets when we are sitting  but Stafford loves it even more! Here you see them cuddling together. Aren't they so cute?!? Stafford has learned the blanket rule pretty well. So he knows he is only allowed up when there is a blanket up. But what he is having trouble with still is obeying us when we tell him to get down. He is so comfortable that it is just to hard to obey.

We love our Dawgs!

GF Brownies...

I have to start this post by saying Patrick is not a big fan of brownies in general. There has only ever been one particular recipe of brownies that he fell in love with that that was Kathy Taylor's brownies in Idaho. She made lots of brownies for our teen youth rally and for some reason we had some left over and we put them in our freezer so that when the teens came over we would have a ready made snack and well I will just say the teens never saw those again, we ate them. Not all at once of course! but one every once in a while just adds up after a few days and weeks.

Well because of Patrick's Gluten intolerance he will never again be eating Kathy Taylor's brownies, so occasionally I get in the mood to make something gluten free and what do you know a brownie recipe catches my eye. And then I make it. And then I ask Patrick to eat one and see what he thinks. And then he reminds me he doesn't really care for brownies..... Well this particular time he actually liked the brownies. Maybe it is because it is kind of more like fudge but either way it was a score!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you but if you want to have a Gluten Free Brownie recipe up your sleeves for when you host some one who is GF then try this one! And my favorite part about this one is that is is flourless! Flour is the most intimidating part of GF baking my opinion. If you bake regularly you may even have all of the ingredients on hand as well, I did.

An Update...

Here is an updated family photo for all of you out there who are missing out on the current family satus. We have two dogs children now, Herschel and Stafford, and everyone is doing well.

We have been very busy during the last couple months with out of town company and/or trips on the weekends. I think there has only been 2 weekends of the last 9 that we have both have been intown and with out company. And those numbers will soon be 3 and 11. My sister in law and my parents have been to visit, Patrick has spoken at a teen youth rally and a teen retreat, He has been gone for a week of gradschool, I have been to Kansas, and I have a friend from high school coming soon. We have had good times and would not want to change any of it, we are just ready for some more consistancy and some more family of 4 time.

On top of all of that, over the last few months I have been working more hours and we have been getting closer and closer to getting our debt paid off. We will be done by the end of this month if not sooner! And in November we are going on a week long cruise to celebrate! Patrick and I are also goign through the Financial Peace University Curriculium together and are getting excited about what we can do next with our money once we have our debt paid off.

Patrick stays busy with gradschool when he is not doing stuff for work. I will be glad when gradschool is over....in 5 years. But I guess the busyness is part of working full time and going to school.

I can't think of anythign else right now but I thoguth you might want an update on us since I have been pretty quiet on the blog lately. Now you know why.

My Parents Visit...

This past week my parents came to visit. They had three objectives: see Patrick and I, see their Granddogs, and see the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. We had a good time hanging around the house...

 visiting Tent Rocks National Monument for a hike...

 attending the Balloon Fiesta...

 and taking naps.... I mean watching the Georgia Bulldogs beat the Tennessee Volunteers!

Thanks for coming!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake...

I can't remember if I told you this or not but I have Zucchini out my ears! And when you have Zucchini out your ears and your husband doesn't like Zucchini you have to be creative. So a few Wednesdays ago I tried a new desert recipe and lets just say it was a hit at the churches fellowship meal that night. So much so that since I have more zucchini I am going to make it again this coming Wednesday night and I am even going to try it gluten free! Sorry that I didn't get a picture before everyone dug in but this will have to do.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

1 ts baking soda

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 ts Vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups shredded zucchini

1 cup Chocolate Chips

1 cup Walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a large baking dish.
3. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda & salt in a bowl. Or just mix them really well if you are like me and don't have a sifter.
4. Beat the melted butter, eggs & vanilla together.
5. Then beat in the sugar and then the flour mix.
6. After all is mixed well, fold in the zucchini.
7. Pour into baking dish  (if you are adding walnuts sprinkle them over the top now) and place in preheated oven.
8. After about 5-10 minutes of baking, sprinkle chocolate chips on top.
9. Bake until the top is dry and edges have started to pull away from the sides. Approximately 25-30 minutes total. Test with a tooth pick. 

This cake is wonderful and moist! And the chocolate chips on top act as the frosting so you dont have to worry about it cooling and all before frosting it! Believe me you need to try this!

Kansas Trip, Again...

Almost two years ago exactly I went on a trip to Kansas City to see my two close friends who live there, http://pandaford.blogspot.com/2009/11/kansas-trip.html. Well, over Labor Day weekend I went back to see them again. I spend a lot of time just catching up with Tiffany, saw her new house, met her BOY FRIEND, helped with a teen fundraiser, and ate lots of GLUTEN!

After a few days with Tiffany, I went and spent time with Tara, Chris & Ileigh. Tara had gotten pregnant just a few months after I was at their house last time so I had not met Ileigh yet.While I was there we mostly hung around the house and got to catch up, cook, and make/freeze baby food together.

Iliegh is very cute as you can see!

I had a good time being away from work and coming to spend quality time with my friends! Hopefully it won't be as long before I get to return!

The Garden Dogs...

Look at these two cute faces....

So sleepy, and obviously best friends...nose to nose cuddling!

Did I hear you ask why these two GA Bulldogs are so sleepy? And what do the dogs have to do with the Garden?

Take a close look at this picture. do you see it?

 Look closer. Do you see the teeth marks in my tomatoes?!

But you would say no, not these precious, adorable little dogs...hiding under the table. They would not do such a thing!

But you are wrong. All of these green tomatoes, yes these; the ones that should not be off of their vine yet. Yes, these tomatoes were taking off of their vine prematurely by those cute dogs you love so much!

I think mostly instigated by this small black one who loves the shade so much. The one who loves to bite everything, but most of all Herschel, and who likes to eat both his and Herschel's food when we forget to pick it up when Herschel is done. The one who is scared to go out the dog door when the grill is on and who is having a bit of trouble learning that I do not like to wake up as soon as the sun is up.

Yes, our new player, Stafford, is a bit of a trouble maker!

 But I think he will grow out of it, we just have to give him some time.

Over all the Herschel and Stafford have been doing good, we run into a little rough patch here and there but if we only loose a few green bean plants and tomatoes along the way I guess it is worth it all in the end. they just better not touch the cucumber plants! We have our first two cucumbers that are almost ready for the picking!

 As you can see I am not hurting for Green beans. I picked these today and I still have some in the fridge from last time I picked them. 

 I also made this in my spare time last week after seeing it on the Internet, thought you might want to gander upon my Swan Apple. 

Garden Update...

I have not been trying to keep you in the dark about our garden this year. I have just been busy and haven't had much time for blogging . This are coming along smoothly even though we have had quite the drought this year. I think all of the plants would be a bit further along had the weather been better, but they will produce over time.

 First is our hanging tomatoes. We have already gotten a hand full of grape tomatoes. There are a lot of green tomatoes currently.

Then we have a hanging pepper planter with seven pepper plants in it. We have several peppers coming along.

 Next it s a row of green beans. I have picked a handful of beans also.

Then we have our watermelon plant. This is bigger than we ever got ours to grow last year so we will see how it does over time.

 Next is our tomato plant that we put in the ground. It is growing much bigger than our others and has lots of Roma tomatoes on it.

 Here is one of our lines of cucumber plants.

 And last but not least Zucchini.

Things are growing! I will try to keep you updated more ofter sorry about the 2 month break.