Happy new year!

Well ive been on a bit of a vaca lately but now Im bk.

Ive had alot going on in my personal life that Im not ready to talk about, but wanted to take a quick note to catch up.

Ben and I both havebeen really busy working, we had a great Christmas with just the two of us, are currently enjoying a late Christmas with my parents and counting down the days til ohio and Florida.

I hope that everyone has a great new year!

Blog vaca

Hi all. Theres alot going on right now so In on a lil blogging vaca. Ill be bk soon. Merry Christmas!!!

Old photos

So the visor broke in the Hyundai the other day and an old CD of pix came flying out at me and I just got around to looking at them tonight. 

The pix are from my trip to DC w/Sally and her fam and we went to the Chesapeake Bay (I think) and "camped" for a week, Heather's birthday, and a  from a road trip with Liz to see Ben on harvest and to Yellowstone. 

That was a fun summer!   Oh to be young and carefree again! =)

Liz and I had the hairbrained idea to go to Yellowstone and drive through all in ONE day! It was a fun but long and crazy trip.

Short post tonight, but some fun photos!



Baby Glenn





One of Heather's bdays I think





One of the entrances to Yellowstone



Road Trip part 2

So, Ben and I got home on Tuesday night from our trip to Memphis, TN. 

We had a good time, but we have jointly decided that we are getting to old for road trips and for such long days of driving in a row! :)

I have included some photos of our trip. 

We left Friday night, drove to Tulsa, got a room on Hotwire at a fancy hotel (according to Ben) and then left by about 9am on Sat. We drove the rest of the way and checked into a hotel in Memphis area. 

Sat we went to a Brazilian BBQ place where they slice meat for you off of a stick, it was AMAZING and so much food! I Don't think that I have eaten that much beef in a long long long time!

We did a bit of sight seeing on sat night, but not alot.  On Sunday we slept in a bit, then went to the Peabody hotel to watch the duck march (you should look it up on their website its pretty cool), had coffee and met some new people.  We had lunch @ Cracker Barrel, drove by Elvis' house, went to an evening church service and had some Popeye's for supper! =)

We headed home on Tuesday, and I got to eat my chipotle again on the way home and got some extras to take home! 

For a last minute trip it was alot of fun. I am looking forward to the beach trip to FL in January and to seeing the Taylor side of the family. 

Now, I work for the next five nights and have yet to have decorated, opened boxes from online shopping or wrapped presents.  Tomorrow I hope to buy a sm tree to use as last min decorating and get my presents opened and wrapped so that I can ship them in time for some cute kiddos in my fam!

I'm thankful for an adventurous hubby, for a job that enables us to take last minute trips and for spread out family so that I can take trips to go and see them all!

At the Kooky Canuck eating supper.

A village made out of ginger bread houses and lots of icing @ the Peabody.

The ducks in the pond after the duck march.

Amazing Christmas tree @ peabody.



Cool Chirstmas tree of lights on  the side of abuilding.





Elvis' house





Us next to the King!



My fav buddy from the Kooky Canuck.

Road trip part one

So ben and i r headed out tonight to memphis tn area!

We left bout 7pm snd currently just crossef over into oklahoma! Havent been thru ok in a few years...i dont think since my road trip with andrea.

That was a fun trip full of crazy music, lots of laughter, crazy sherrifs in tx, ending up in tx on accident, and nearly running out if gas!

Good times! We rented a car from wichita since our two cars have seen better dias. While ben was getting the rental I quickly drove to chipotle. Now im sitting in the car in a food coma but Im happy!

So this week I had a training in dc. I managed to almost break a toilet, take a table down and accidentally point out to my group that our teacher was cross eyed

Needless to say Im now TNCC certified and glad this week is over. I sure hope I have a good weekend with hubby!

Broken toilets

Well I have decided that I am only going to post every so many days as my days have been so busy and not alot going on.

This week im on days for several different trainings. Then ben and I r going on a quick trip this weekend! Im so looking forward to it.

So today i was at a training in dodge and had to use the restroom and after I did the toilet wouldnt flush! And the bathroom was in the back of the room in which we were training in! Then the instructor asked me a question about the toilet and i pretended like i didnt know what she was talking about. =)

So needless to say I have been slightly embarrassed today. =)

Happy thursday!

Happy Monday

Happy Monday!

I worked all weekend, so not alot new going on here. I am still working on the rest of the compliation of recipes to put into an organizer...hopefully will have completed by the end of this week.

At the end of this week ben and I are taking off on a lil vaca, I'm excited to get away for a few days, and it will be some much needed time for us!

Today I hope on sleeping, then lunch and nail date with a good friend and work and yoga, then BED!  

I am looking forward to the fact that I get to work days this week, but I am sure that my body will be all kinds of goofed up.  Overall, I have adjusted to working nights much better than I thought that I would.

Lately, I have been toying with the idea of completing my NP sometime in the near future.  Just gotta figure out what school, and do some more convincing on Ben's part! :)

Today I'm thankful that I get to go to bed in less than 2 hours! 

Beginning of my online meal plans

So, a good friend was asking for some help w/some meal planning and I have started making some charts of what we cook frequently at home. I have the same recipes at home, but I have decided to condense them by meat type or by similar ingredients. I will enclose what I have done so far, it isn't much yet, but I am hoping over the next couple of weeks that I make some pretty decent and easy charts to reference...it makes cooking at home easier too for Ben! :)

I am excited that tonight is my last night in a 3 night stretch and then I will be days, for training purposes, for the next week, so I will have almost 7 nights in a row at home w/Ben...sure will be interesting!

I have been spending allot of time playing on Ancestry.com and I am really enjoying it. Luckily my mom and Nanni have already done allot of the leg work for me, but I am starting to dig further, so I am curious what I am going to find.  I have found out that my family on my dad's mom's side has been in the US for longer than I thought.  I have played on this site before, but expanded my membership to worldwide, so perhaps I will be able to find some more ancestry stuff abroad this time.

Have a nice rest of the weekend! Here are charts for "Mexican chicken in the crock pot" and spaghetti sauce in the crock pot.

Mexican Chicken in the crock pot: Put chicken in crock pot (3-4 breasts) on low, mix rotellos and taco seasoning and pour over chicken. Cook on low all day. Once cooked, pull bone out of chicken and shred w/fork.
Chicken tacos/burritos or fajitas	Mexican Chicken Salad	Chicken Enchilada Casserole	Chicken, rice & black beans	Chicken Tortilla Soup
Ingredients for each meal:
Chicken, shredded cheese, tortillas, tomatoes, lettuce, lime, salsa	Chicken, shredded cheese, tortillas, tomatoes, lettuce, lime, salsa, other veggies if desired, black beans	Chicken, shredded cheese, 8-15 tortillas, 2 cans enchilada sauce, black beans, rice	Chicken, shredded cheese, tortillas, enchilada sauce, black beans, rice	Chicken, shredded cheese, tortilla chips or stale tortillas, bell peppers, onions, lime, salsa, sour cream, chicken broth
Directions:
Heat up tortillas, place sm amount chicken on center tortilla, cover chicken w/other ingredients desired and serve. Just like tacos, but cut up bell peppers first and either put in tortilla shells raw, or cook in saute pan on med heat for about 3-5 mins w/lil amount olive oil, salt, pepper and about ¼ tsp garlic powder.	Place lettuce on bottom plate, layer w/rest of ingredients, finish with splash lime juice and salt if desired or salsa or salad dressing.	Preheat oven to 350. Place about 2TBS enchilada sauce on bottom of rectangular pan, place tortillas on bottom pan, chicken, ¼ c cheese & about 1/3 c enchilada sauce. Continue to layer like this for 3-5 layers then pour rest ench sauce over all of casserole and top w/1/2 c cheese. Cook 30 mins w/foil on and then 15 mins w/o foil.	This is like a burrito bowl, usually w/leftovers. Just throw it all in bowl together and heat up.	Great for leftovers. Place shredded chicken in pot (like pasta pot), add in 1 or 2 boxes chix broth (depending how much you wanna make), frozen onions, cut up bell peppers, black beans and rice in pot. Let heat up all way through (bout 15 to 20 mins). Put some in bowl, top w/chips, salsa, sour cream and cheese.
*If using canned black beans, take lid off beans, place beans in colander, rinse w/water and drain.   I heat my black beans up for about 2 mins in the microwave, just about 1/3 to ½ cup (what I’ll eat) and then put rest in fridge in Tupperware or freezer in baggie **For rice, heat up rice in microwave (according to directions) then add a pinch garlic powder and salsa or rotellos if you want it to be a bit more tomato like.  ***I would use whole wheat tortillas for most things, except for enchilada casserole, corn tortillas work best. You can cut the tortillas up if you need to fit in pan better.

Spaghetti Sauce in crock pot: Place ground beef and Italian sausage in crock pot (either frozen or fresh), take skin off of around Italian sausage before putting in crock pot, place bell pepper (bout ½ of one) and bout ¼ c frozen onion, 2 cans hunts spaghetti sauce, 1 TBS garlic powder and 1 – 2 TBS Italian seasoning. Cook on low for ½ to whole day. You might have to chop meat up in the crock pot half way through, if you don’t ,break up meat before you serve the sauce.
Spaghetti	Pizza	Mostaccoli
Ingredients:
Spaghetti noodles, Parmesan cheese (if desired) & sauce	Frozen/refrigerated pizza dough, toppings desired (peppers, cheese, onions, turkey pepperoni, etc)	Mostaccoli noodles (long, fat hollow noodles), shredded mozzarella cheese, low fat ricotta cheese
Directions:
Make noodles, add sauce J	Preheat oven to package, lay out pizza, add toppings and cheese and bake	Make noodles according to package, rinse put back in pot, add some sauce, ½ cup to 1 cup of ricotta and mozzarella cheese (depending on how much you wanna make) and eat.