Summer in Michigan

I was looking through my pictures the other day and realized I never posted any photos from the couple weeks we spent in Michigan with family this past July.

My parents are originally from Michigan and I was born there and lived there until we moved to Colorado when I was 1.5 years old. Growing up, I always loved going back to Michigan to visit relatives. My dad lived on a farm that had a huge pond and a large woods that we loved exploring via canoe, paddle boat, 4-wheelers or on a trailer with all our cousins while being pulled behind Grandpa’s tractor. I also loved playing hide and seek in the corn fields while the sprinklers were going with our cousins.

I haven’t had the opportunity to see my dad’s side of the family, especially my grandparents, for a couple years and with my grandpa’s health not doing too well, I definitely made this trip a priority. It was fun to spend time back in the old stompin’ grounds and to show the area to my hubby and my two nephews. 

 
Uncle “Bock”, Caleb & Braden explore the new dock, the pond and the woods

 
Hubby ponders having a pond like this on our farm someday while the boys explore the playground equipment and peddle tractors and Aunt “Bee” and Caleb ride the giant tree swing

Before leaving, we stopped by my great grandma’s house (a couple doors down from the house my dad grew up in and where my grandpa still lives) to get a 5 generation photo for my sister with her boys. I guess you could also say this is a 5 generation photo since I’m 5 months pregnant here. L-R: My grandpa, my dad, my sister, my bro, me and great grandma in front.

After visiting my dad’s family in Cadillac, we travelled south a couple hours to enjoy some time with my mom’s side in Grand Rapids. One of our favorite things is to visit the Grand Haven lighthouse because we have lots of fun stories from this place (such as my mom falling off the end of the pier into Lake Michigan and my dad and I pulling her out to reveal a swamp monster…thankfully we can laugh about it, but many people have lost their lives falling off that pier). Hubby had never seen a Lake Michigan sunset (one of the most beautiful sunsets you’ll ever see) so we headed out for a fun night. The sunset wasn’t the best because there were no clouds, but it was still pretty.

Braden was so cute riding on Grandpa’s shoulders. Whenever he’d see something he wanted to look at closer, he’d take his sunglasses off, squint one eye and point. It was so cute! He is such a smart little cookie and I loved spending time with him and seeing him and hubby start to bond.

Group shot of all the relatives who enjoyed the evening in Grand Haven

L-R: me, my sis, her two boys, cousin Casey, my brother, Casey’s hubby, my mom, cousin Aaron, Uncle Scott (mom’s youngest sibling and Aaron’s dad), cousin Shelby, Gram (Bibi to her great grandkids), my dad, my hubby

In addition to indulging in many excellent mom & pop ice cream shops, and lots of laughs, we also had a scary glimpse into my mom’s future when she came out wearing one of my grandma’s wigs:

Of course, no trip to Michigan is complete without a day at the beach.

Braden looks like he’s striking a pose for muscle beach. Me & Gram chilling on the blanket until little Caleb came and dumped a pile of sand in my hair. He’s lucky he looked so cute toddling after those seagulls it was impossible to get upset!

 
We also took time to take in a minor league baseball game with my mom’s dad and his wife and some cousins.

Back L-R: Haila, Gramps, Mom, Dad, cousin Aaron
Front L-R: Me, my sister, cousins Casey & (her sister) Shelby

And, the main reason we were in Michigan this summer was for the Bultema family reunion that my mom and grandma were in charge of hosting this year.

I made the postcard invite last year (featuring my great grandparents) for them and it was fun to see it used in a slideshow they made honoring all the different members of this LARGE (my mom has over 50 1st cousins) Dutch family.

We took a picture of the tallest and shortest at the wedding. The tallest guy I believe is one of my mom’s 1st cousins. The shortest was my grandma’s oldest sibling.

I love this pic of my grandma and her two siblings who are still here on this earth. My grandma is the youngest (of 7 I believe), next to hear is the oldest sibling (I think she’s older than my grandma by at least 20 years) and on the left is the sibling closest in age to my grandma (but still 10 years older than her).

Summers in Michigan are always so much fun!

The College Graduate

I went home to Colorado May 13-18 to watch my “little” brother graduate from my alma mater – Colorado State University. He received a major in Environmental Engineering. I was so proud of him and so were our parents!

The following day his long-time girlfriend (as in since high school) graduated from CSU as well. Way to go guys!

My sister and her boys flew in and my grandma was in town as well. It was so much fun to spend a few days with family. Braden is now 2.5 and Caleb is a little over 1 and just started walking. I hadn’t seen him since he was 3 months old!

We visited one of our favorite restaurants in Denver – Casa Bonita. I love their cheese enchiladas and sopapillas and the kids love the inside cliff divers, gun shows, puppet shows, piñatas and game rooms. It such a fun place!

We also made a trip to our hometown zoo in Colorado Springs – the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. In my opinion, it is one of the best zoos I’ve been to in the country. Their giraffe exhibit is especially top-notch. Everyone has the ability to walk up and pet the giraffes for free and if you want to pay a little bit you can buy some crackers and feed them. We allowed Braden & Caleb the fun experience of giraffe tongue and slobber on your hands!

My mom made some delicious meals while we there and one night my dad built a fire and we all enjoyed toasting marshmallows and eating s’mores.

It was such a great trip. The only downside was the emergency dash I had to make to the airplane lavatory upon landing back at LaGuardia courtesy of my little turkey.

 

 

Another Fabulous (but unproductive) Weekend

Hubs & I had the BEST time Friday night! We had dinner at the home of some new friends from church, and I knew she and I would get along as soon as she served us PW's lasagna. As the 5 hours of laughs rolled on, we discovered just how scary it is how similar our husbands are. Definitely think we have found some new quality, and hopefully life-long, friends. We're looking forward to many more nights of laughter in the future.

Saturday we made a trek out to PA to tour a modular home factory. It's amazing how fast those homes are built (6 days in the factory; about 3-6 months from start to finish) and how well-made they are. We're hoping to meet with a builder this week to see if our lot is conducive to modular home building and then to get pricing. It's so exciting! On the way home from that we stopped by some family friends of hub's family and had a great conversation and meal with them. It was a long day (left house by 10am and didn't get back until after 9pm), but a very fun one.

Sunday was another awesome morning with everyone at church (can I just say again how much we're LOVING our new church family!) and then a fun-filled afternoon 4-wheeling around the property. We got a little lot of mud on us, but that's half the fun. Can't wait until it dries out and we can go exploring in the woods instead of just the fields.

Hope you all had great weekends too.

This week my goals are to tackle my house. Our busy lives lately have resulted in one messy bedroom and bathroom, PILES of paperwork to be filed (and tax forms to be located so we can file those), and a couple baskets of clean laundry that have been waiting to be put away for a couple weeks now. We've banned TV during the week, so hopefully we'll get back to being productive around this joint!

My Tiresome, but Fun Weekend

It all started Thursday with an awesome night at with my hubby to celebrate my 29th. Dinner at my favorite Mexican joint was just as yummy as I remembered. I even got a birthday cheesecake complete with candle and song from our waiter and guacamole maker. It was a lot of fun! After that it was off to Lincoln Center to see South Pacific. I had heard of this musical but didn't know the story line at all. Let me just say, I LOVED it! The only problem is that now I can't decide if I rank it before or after My Fair Lady in terms of my favorite musical of all time.

Friday night hubby and I were planning to go to a garden expo. My hubby LOVES gardening (thank goodness because I don't have a green thumb at all) and lately has really gotten in growing things from seeds in a little greenhouse. For Valentine's Day I bought him a magazine all about that subject and some packets of seeds. He was in heaven. When I heard about the garden expo I thought it'd be right up his alley. But, it was over an hour away and by the time I got home from work we were both pooped so we decided to pig out on cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory (red velvet for me; caramel pecan turtle for him) while watching our tivoed olympics instead.

Saturday was another fun, but long day. In the morning I scrambled to finish up my nephew's birthday gift so I could get it in the mail in time for his 1st birthday (where has the time gone little Caleb?) this coming weekend (pictures to follow tomorrow) and then in the afternoon hubby and I met up with some of his clients to tour a home expo. We were expecting there to be different presenters with classes and diy tips as well as tables of vendors, but it ended up being just vendors. Don't really understand why you have to pay to go and pick up information from people when you could have found it for free on the internet. Guess we know not to go next time. But, we did meet a few perspective modular home builders that we're looking into for the guest house on the land.

Saturday evening one of hubby's college buddies hosted us for a delicious homecooked dinner and UFC fight night so it was back to the city we went. Only problem is that on the fights didn't start until 10pm EST time and hubby and I had to be up at 6:30am the next morning to head off to church. But, it was such a great time that it was worth getting only 3 hours of sleep!

Sunday was a fantastic day because the church plant we volunteer with and attend officially launched! It's so exciting to see how God is already working in this body and the friendships we're already forming with the people there. We can't wait to grow more with this body of believers. After church we made some delicious homemade pizza and crashed for a few hours before getting up to take hubby to the airport for a business trip.

It was an exhausting but very fun weekend. Now if I could just get caught up on my sleep....

Philly & Valley Forge with Brock & Leah

My brother and his girlfriend came out for a visit a few weeks ago and hubs and I had a great time touring Philadelphia and Valley Forge with them. It was freezing cold, but we kept reminding ourselves that we had more clothes on our backs than the soldiers did who were living there at the time. I didn’t have my camera with me so here are some photos I stole off Leah’s Facebook page:

Brock & Leah with the Liberty Bell

Brock & Leah with the LOVE sign…we were all expecting it to be a lot bigger

 

Brock & I at Elfreth’s Alley – the oldest continuously lived on street in America. I look about 10 pounds heavier than normal because I had leggings on under my jeans and a bulky sweater under my coat because it was so cold!

A replica of the huts the soldiers lived in at Valley Forge. It was very informative.

One thing I really love about living in this part of the country is all the neat history that is in this area. Definitely don’t have things like this in Colorado.

I Will Still Love Him

NOTE: I intended to write this post before I just read a friend's announcement on Facebook.

Over the weekend hubby and I watched Facing the Giants again with his parents. This time, their struggle of starting their family really struck me, especially one line spoken by Grant to his wife that basically asked her if the Lord never gives them a baby, would she still love Him? (Him being God).

I know I mentioned on my bucket list for 2010 to "start a family". What I haven't mentioned before is that we've been trying to get pregnant for a year now with no success.

I'm not going to lie. I experience very mixed emotions when I hear about others who are expecting...especially when they weren't wanting to start a family yet, or they got married or started trying after we did, or it's their 2nd or 3rd child, or they're choosing to adopt before they start a biological family.

I've dealt with these emotions when I learned my sister was pregnant with number 2 (whom she conceived while on the pill; same with number 1). I've dealt with these emotions when I learned friends who got married after us are already unexpectedly expecting. I've dealt with these emotions as some of my friends are praising another friend for choosing to adopt before starting a biological family. I've dealt with these emotions as many good friends have had 2nd or 3rd babies before I've been able to get pregant with my 1st. I've dealt with these emotions every time someone asks or jokes that it's about time we had a baby.

On the outside, I try to appear happy for those friends who are expecting because I know deep down inside I really am happy for them. But it's hard. It's very, very hard.

It's hard because I know most people's response is "you can always adopt." Don't get me wrong. Adoption is a great thing and maybe someday it will be a road I walk. But choosing to adopt and having adoption as your only option of how to grow a family are two very different things.

This post is not intended to be a "poor me" post. It's not intended to belittle the joy and excitment of those I know who are expecting. This post is to hopefully explain to some friends why I may not seem overly excited for them. This post is to request prayer that the Lord will bless us with a biological baby, and that if that's not His will that He'll open our hearts to adoption. This post is to say that no matter what, I will still love Him.

Thank Heaven for AAA

My brother and his girlfriend are visiting for a little bit before they start their last semester of college. They spent yesterday touring NYC and attending tapings of Good Morning America and The Late Show with David Letterman. They also got to see and speak with Chuck in the NBC Studio store in Rockefeller Center.

After work, I took my car for an oil change and met hubby at Chili's (thanks to my bro for the gift card for Christmas) and as we finished eating Brock called to say they were on the train and heading our way. Hubby and I had separate cars and instead of him heading home and me heading to the train, he opted to drop his car closer to home but along the way and ride with me.

We made it to the train station about 5 minutes before their train arrived and turned the car off to save on gas. Brock and Leah get in the car and I go to turn it on only to learn it is completely DEAD. No lights are coming on even. DEAD.

Never have I been so happy to have hubby with me because not having any jumper cables, the only option was to call AAA. The AAA is only in hubby's name. Thankfully, the guy was there in 15 minutes and ran some tests on the battery. He said he'd be able to charge it enough to get us back home, but that we'd have to get a new one anyway. We decided to save the hassle and have him install the new battery then so Brock and Leah wouldn't have issues when they used my car today.

It'd sure have been nice if there was some way the guys who performed the oil change I had just gotten on my way to dinner would have been able to tell my battery was going to be dying in less than 3 hours. Then again they probably would have charged me more than the AAA guy did.

Hopefully now that my car has four brand new tires and a brand new battery it won't need anymore expensive work done before we're ready to get rid of it in a few years!

Gettysburg Photos

I mentioned here that hubby and I spent some time with my parents in Gettysburg over Labor Day weekend. We had such a great time! Here are some photos from the trip:

We met up with our friends Luke & Melissa for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. God provided a ride home for hubby from the house in a neat way. Luke & Melissa were going to come visit us for Labor Day if we didn't have any plans, but I told them we were going to be in Gettysburg. Mel just laughed because they had already decided if we weren't available to drive out to visit her aunt and uncle who lived near Gettysburg instead. So, hubby hopped a ride from the house with them and I still got to see them for a little bit at breakfast. How fun!

The rest of that day, my parents, hubby & I toured the brand new visitors center. They had a great video, cyclerama, and museum that was very informative. We also did some antique shopping where I found a beautiful silver tray for $12!

Before heading to the ghost tour (which was very lame, but gave us great things to laugh about) that night, we had dinner at Dobbins House. It's one of the oldest homes in Gettysburg and even has a spot where you can see where they hid slaves on the Underground Railroad.

The next morning was our horseback tour and we were all look forward to it a lot. It was so much fun and the weather was awesome. But we were all a little sore at the end!

Here is a Confederate soldier (renactor of course) that we came across right near where Pickett's Charge started. We actually saw him as we were doing a driving tour of the fields after the horse ride.

On the horseback tour, we came across this barn which had a hole shot through it with a canon. It's located beneath the two diamonds in the brick. See it?

L - R: My dad on Stormin' Norman, my mom on Robbie, Hubby on Red, and myself on Simon. I was so excited to get a Paint because I love Paints. He was such a sweet horse. The headphones are how we heard the tour guide who was stationed in the middle of the pack.

Group photo after a great ride.

Our last stop before heading out of town was at the National Cemetery. It was here that Abe Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. This was one of the many canons situated throughout the cemetery.

On the driving tour, we came across so many monuments honoring the brave men who fought so valiantly for their beliefs. My favorite was probably this one that honored the men from the state of Maryland.
They were one of the few states that had men fighting on both sides of the battle and this monument depicts a Union soldier on the left and his Confederate brother on the right. Very moving.

The fields where this battle was fought are absolutely breathtaking. It's hard to imagine the numerous men who were lying wounded and dead on this particular field after Pickett's Charge.

If you've never been to Gettysburg (or any of the battlefields for that matter), I highly recommend you go. It's definitely an awesome experience!

Giddy Up!

I've been looking forward to this Labor Day weekend for a VERY long time.

I picked my mom and dad up at the airport last night and we're on our way to pick up hubby in Dillsburg, PA. He hoped a ride with our friends Luke & Melissa (our reno buddies) from the house to their relatives house there. Once we get him, we're off to GETTYSBURG!

I love Civil War history (don't ask me to recall a single date or name, though because I enjoy learning it, not remembering the specifics!) and can't wait to tour this battlefield again.

The first time I went was about 8 years ago with my parents. This time we're taking hubs for the first time (even though he's lived three hours away from it for his whole entire life) and we're touring the fields on HORSEBACK! How awesome is that?!

We're also going on a ghost walking tour tonight where they'll tell us stories from that time in history.

And to top it all off, the weather is supposed to be gorgeous.

Now, where are my boots and hat?

Where I've been the past two weeks

I've been away for the past two weeks at a slave labor camp...I mean a family wedding! I don't know if your family is at all like mine, but we all seem to have very labor intensive projects we assign to out of town family in the days leading up to the big day! Overall, though, a fun time was had and my cousin made a beautiful bride.

I also got to met my darling new nephew and spend some awesome aunt and nephew time with his big brother. It's music to my ears when I hear him call for Aunt Brie - especially after I already left to go home and grandma's making him go to bed and he's calling me to come help him! "Aunt Brie, help! Help! Aunt Brie!"

Hubby and I also got more work done on demoing the kitchen. I'm beginning to think it's the job that never ends, and made the 12 hour drive back home yesterday, arriving around 1 in the morning. Needless to say...I'm a little sleepy.

On a side note, while we were all together, my sister received some very discouraging news. I can't go into details besides saying she has a ton of big decisions to make in the near future and is desperately in need of prayer for guidance and wisdom as she needs to make some decisions that will impact her and her boys for the rest of their lives. I know she will be eternally grateful for your prayers.

And, the business is one step closer to opening. I was hoping to get it all done while I was away, but the slave labor camp prevented that...he, he, he :)

Oh yeah...I also got to try out Wii Fit while away. LOVE it! Definitely want to get it for Christmas.

A Great Memorial Day Weekend

Whew! It was a busy and wonderful weekend here. To kick start it all, I played domestic diva on Friday and scored some great deals at the grocery store and made a delicious meal that will definitely be a summer repeat.

I've been trying to spend around $200 a month on groceries, or about $50 a week. This covers the 2-3 meals I cook a week for hubby, me, the in-laws and a friend who works with us for one of our companies and lunches for me at work and breakfasts. This week was the biggest bill of them all, but I was pretty excited to score everything below for less than $50 (I forgot to include the shredded cheese and bean sprouts in the picture). The big ticket items were spare ribs, bacon and chicken. They took up a little over $25 themselves. I also bought some lighter fluid which took up another $5. I got the eggs and all the fruit and veggies (except the corn) for about $7! I love the farmers market (an actual year-round indoor store) where I score all my produce and I'm really going to miss it whenever we move away.

Here are the meals I'm planning on getting out of the above groceries: chips and guacamole (mother-in-law had avocados already), 2 pizzas for Sunday pizza night (already had some things for toppings), BBQ for Memorial Day (see recipes below), apple cake for someone at work, BLT (have lettuce and tomato in garden), roasted potatoes to accompany meal m.i.l makes, and chicken fajitas (already had tortillas).

Friday I was in the mood for a BBQ so I decided to make spinach salad (recipe courtesy of my dear friend Katie's mom), honey garlic pork spareribs, sweet corn on the cob, baked beans and rhubarb cobbler (to use up some fresh rhubarb someone gave us). It was delicious!


Saturday and Sunday I worked on things for my shop (which is opening in a few days!!!) and had dinner out at On the Border with hubby before church Saturday night. We also rented two movies which the four of us really liked: Valkyrie and Mall Cop.

Monday brought glorious weather and hubby and m.i.l worked on fixing a fence to keep the cows in a certain pasture while d.i.l worked on fixing his John Deere so we can hay the fields. I kept myself busy working on projects for my shop and starting to refinish a dresser I scored for free on Craigs List (pictures to follow in another post). A great day ended with a delicious hamburger cookout.

Here are the three recipes from the BBQ I did on Friday:

HONEY GARLIC PORK RIBS (modified recipe from Taste of Home for grill)

3.5 - 4 lbs. pork spareribs, thin skin removed off bone side, extra fat trimmed
1 cup honey
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground mustard

1. Tenderize ribs by placing serving size portions on a rack (bone side down) in a shallow baking pan. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour; drain.
2. Meanwhile combine the remaining ingredients in a large resealable plastic bag. Place cooled ribs in bag and marinate in fridge for several hours, turning bag occasionally.
3. Cook ribs on grill for about 30-35 minutes to reheat, occasionally brushing with marinade from bag until they get a nice sticky coating.
NOTE: Ribs can also be made in 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes, or until meat is tender, brushing occasionally with pan juices.

SPINACH SALAD

1 lg bag spinach
1 cup bean sprouts
2 hard boiled eggs diced
3 slices bacon, crumbled

Dressing
3/4 cup veg oil
3 Tbl vinegar
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup sugar
3-5 green onions chopped

Mix dressing and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Pour over salad before serving.

RHUBARB COBBLER (modified a recipe of Emeril Lagasse)

2 lbs. diced fresh rhubarb (I'm sure you could also use frozen)
1 cup fresh sliced strawberries
1 pint raspberries
2-1/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons + 4 teaspoons butter (plus extra to grease dish)
juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon (yes, TABLEspoon) baking powder
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon (yes, TABLEspoon) vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk (or just add a little vinegar to your regular milk to sour it)

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x9 or 9x13 pan with 2 teaspoons butter. In saucepan, combine rhubarb, berries, 2 cups sugar, butter, and lemon juice. Stir and cook over high heat about 6-7 minutes. Remove from heat. Cream together 2 teaspoons butter and 1/4 cup sugar. Add egg. Slowly add remaining ingredients. Mil until resembles cake batter. Pour rhubarb mix into greased dish. Pour batter on top. Bake 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream on top.

Happy 90th Gram!

Today is my hubby's grandma's 90th birthday! She is such an amazing lady and I'm so blessed that I have the chance to call her Grandma too.

She is unlike any other 90 year old I've ever met. She still lives on her own in the same house that she raised hubby's dad and his older sister (who unfortunately died in her 50s of cancer). She delivers the Meals on Wheels, they don't come to her. She's also the same lady who went parasailing for the 7th time this past summer at the age of 89. For Christmas, we all gave her a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride once the weather gets warmer. And, if she has her way, she'll get to experience skydyving before the Lord calls her home as well.

In addition to her spirit of adventure, she makes the best eclairs you'll ever taste and hosts a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner every year. She's such a wonderful lady and I hope she'll at least stick around until we can celebrate her 100th!

Here's to you, Gram. Hope I have at least a quarter of your spunk and spirit of adventure when I'm your age! Can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend.

My Visit with Martha

Yesterday my mom was in town and we went to see a taping of The Martha Stewart Show in NYC.

We were super excited just to see what Martha was doing, but also because guests in the past few days had received awesome giveaways such as $100 juicers, cupcake stuff, craft stuff, special edition Estee Lauder makeup sets, etc.

After waiting for a train that was delayed 45 minutes, we finally arrived in the city and walked our way through the crowds only to wait in line another 45 minutes in the freezing cold outside her studio. While waiting, we saw people leaving the taping of the LIVE show for the day that tapes in the morning. They had huge brown bags filled with stuff, so we were all starting to get more excited.

They finally let us in and Joey came out (if you watch the show, you know who he is) to tell us what the show was on. It was now Tuesday, February 10th, and we were talking about stuff for Valentine's Day. Martha had one of her former chefs on and they were going to make steak au poivre and pastries. She was also going to do a glitter craft and had some live birds on her show before doing another craft. We all thought we were going to get to taste some pastries and get some good foodie and/or crafty giveaways. Yeah!!

The staff came around to see if anyone had questions for the "Ask Martha" segment they were going to record if there was time and they put stars on your tickets if your question was picked. My mom got a star which meant we got awesome seats!

They lead us all into the studio (after giving us the signs for applause, aahh, oohh, and mmm of course!) and we anxiously awaited Martha. She looked so pretty when she came out in a yellow shirt, khaki colored dress slacks, and high heels. She went right to work cooking the steak and it smelled heavenly! After a commercial break, they came back and finished up the steak and proceeded to give out the first giveaway. What was it you ask? A new pan, Omaha steaks, a special pepper grinder? Oh no my friends. We got demi glaze! Yeah. The $5 tub you could make yourself or buy at the grocery store! Whoopie de da do! And we didn't get to taste any pastries either :(

The next segment was Martha crafting the glitter heart buckles to use on wrapping your valentine gifts. Very cute, but seeing how they didn't give out the glitter, and I'm not even going to be around this Valentine's Day, I don't think I'm going to be rushing out to buy all the different colors to make my own "bedazzled" buckles! Not to mention the fact that I don't think my hubby will wear it after he unwraps his gift.

Next was time for the birds. They had a lady there from the Maryland Zoo with 4 different kinds of endangered birds. The first one was this huge crane that looked like this:

The bird had to make a grand entrance, so they had him in the back of the studio audience and when called he flew down over us (we were directly under his flight path) up to the front. After they finished his segment, he was supposed to fly back up to the trainer behind us. As he took off, he was a lot lower over us going back than he was coming, and two rows short of the back he decided he got tired and decided to perch on some lady's head instead! It was hilarious!! Best part of the whole show!

Once they got the crane off her head, they went on to show us the hawk, parrot and tucan that they had as well.

After the commercial break, Martha was supposed to show us how to etch on a fish tank and we were all supposed to get another giveaway (which my mom peeked on the way out and saw it was a glass etching kit which I've wanted for a long time), but to protect themselves from getting sued, they had the lady who had the crane on her head come on to have her say on national tv that she was okay after the incident, and ran out of time to do anything else.

My mom did get a chance to ask Martha her question after the show was done taping, "How do I get red candle wax off my white wall?" and Martha's answer was, "Paint. It will never come off and ban all red candles from your house like I have because the red dye is the worst."

So, even though we only came away with "meat glaze" as my mom likes to say, we had a great time and are looking forward to getting tickets again.

If you feel like seeing a lady with a giant crane standing on her head (and my mom and I because we should be in the front row off the floor) then definitely watch the show on February 10th. It's hilarious!

P.S. We came home and watched the live show from yesterday morning's taping to see what they all had in their big brown bags and they got fleece jackets, Quaker oat products and an Obama hat. I could have done without the hat, but the fleece sure would have been nice!

Say it ain't so...

Wow...it's been a long break I've taken from blogging. Don't know if anybody still checks in on this thing, but in case anyone is out there...

I'm sure we're all pretty sick of seeing Christmas photos by this time in January, but I have to post some for posterity. So without further ado:

L to R (front): my brother-in-law, sister, nephew, my brother's girlfriend, my brother; (middle): my parents; (back): me and hubby (who still has to remain faceless)

My cute nephew wearing an outfit I wore as a baby that my parents bought when they travelled Europe while pregnant with me. Hopefully my kids will get a chance to wear it too!

On New Year's Eve, hubby and I had to make a trip to New Mexico for a business trip. We left my parents' house in Colorado Springs at 4am to start the 5.5 to 6 hour drive. I'm trying to get my photo with every state sign, but seeing how it was still dark when we crossed the NM border, this is the best I could do. We got to the ranch where we needed to install the system and learned that it's actually owned by the either the writer or producer of A River Runs Through It. Hubby got to meet the guy, but I stayed in the car for what was only supposed to be an hour, but ended up being three and a half, looking at home remodeling and decor magazines and napping. We then stopped and had dinner and headed back to Colorado arriving around 9:30pm...just in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with my parents. Long day, but fun day.

The rest of the time out there, we just relaxed, ate, played games, and of course shopped. It was a lot of fun.

For now...

read this blog and please pray for this family.

I will update more when I return from spending time with my family in Colorado on Monday.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Christmastime in NYC - Part II

The next day, my mom flew in to LGA so we could go and see all the sites in NYC. I was very proud of myself because I've driven to LGA before, but I normally always take public transportation when I go to the city unless I'm the passenger in the car. Seeing how we were going to need a place to store mom's luggage, though, I decided to brave it and test my NYC driving skils. And, I must say, I impressed myself a lot! Heck, I could work as a NYC cab driver and probably do a better job now. I didn't get lost once and I'm very surprised at how well I've gotten to learn NYC. It seemed so daunting the first few times I visited, but it's really one of the easiest cities to get around.

Anyways, after I picked mom up, one of the first things I said was that I wanted to go to this little cupcake bakery that I read about online. She said she wanted to do the same thing because she saw it in a magazine so our first stop was Crumbs. I had the caramel chew and mom had the red velvet and both were out of this world. I brought hubby a chocolate pecan pie one that he said was pretty wonderful too. We figured we'll eat dessert first seeing how it was right near the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Next it was looking at all the shop fronts along 5th Avenue. Some beautiful stuff, but I think the Disney store was actually my favorite. The angels near the Rockefeller tree were beautiful too. The white metal ones we're pretty as well :)

After that we decided to go to Rosa Mexicano's for dinner. Yes, the same one I ate at the night before. I'm telling you people, it was THAT good. And yes, I ordered the exact same thing too, minus the pomegranate margarita. With bellys full, we walked back to our car (we sure got a lot of walking in!) and on the way decided we'd make one more swing my Crumbs so we could get another cupcake for mom if they were still open seeing how she ate all of hers beforehand and I only ate half! Unfortunately they were closed so we drove by the Macy's windows on the way out of town and made the long trip for home.

The next day we went and saw Australia. It was a great movie and I think even men would enjoy it. We also hit the Christmas Tree Shops for some shopping seeing how that's one of her favorite stores and they don't have one in Colorado.

I drove her to the airport on Sunday where my hubby hopped on the plane with her to head to our house to finish demoing the kitchen.

How about you? Have you been doing any fun Christmas activities?