Rainy Morning

Heathly Dinners

Chicken with shallots, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and spinach pasta
Chips with garbanzo bean, pepper, and corn dip and guacamole (and favorite salsa!)


Chicken, broccoflower, and shallot stirfry on white rice

Gingerbread cookies with cream cheese frosting


Tomato soup with Blarney Castle cheese sandwiches

Kale soup with chickpeas, carrots, and celery


Lentil soup with carrots, onion, and garlic with biryani spices

Homemade bread and butter pickles from Ben's boss (killer stuff!)


Spinach enchiladas (with cottage cheese, cheddar, olives, anaheim peppers, and Hatch sauce)

What's Cooking?

Ben and I have a plan to eat healthy and lose weight this year. We're trying to limit our meat consumption (Word of Wisdom), only diet soda, and when we eat out (hopefully less often) we'll eat less of the portions and order lower calorie foods. Ben is also committed to cooking one meal a week so he's less dependent on me for dinners.

Here are some of the things I made in my kitchen so far this year.

BBQ boneless chicken with corn muffin and roasted brussel sprouts (my favorite new way of cooking them).


Roasted carrots and parsnips, lemony lima beans with parmesan, and buttered noodles.


Blueberry lemon muffins.


Broccoli soup. The creaminess comes from using oats - there's no cream, cheese, or milk!


Chinese chicken soup (chicken, peppers, carrots, and garlic)


Turkey meatloaf, braised butternut squash and sage, wild rice.


Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and candied ginger.


Tofu udon soup with spinach, shitake, and scallions. I HATED this. Ben liked it well enough.

Tofu tacos. I hate tofu, but this was an acceptable way of eating it. Black beans would have been better though.

My version of massaman curry with sweet potatoes in place of regular, scallions instead of onions, and lowfat coconut milk.

Ben also made some pasta and bean soups that didn't get photographed. I made old vegetarian favorites that I didn't record as well. Overall I'd say we're doing pretty well this year.

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Good Times

I took these photos while hiking on Apex trail a few weeks ago. The snow was still very deep (the last week has been sunny in Denver, melting about half of our winter accumulation)




By the way, my fishy died a while ago. It was really cold, he lost most of his color. I switched him to this jug and rigged a heating system. For the night he warmed up and got his color back.

But the next day I left him by the window and I think he overheated from the sun and glass. I got home from work and he was floating. Bummer dude. I guess I can't be trusted to keep fish in winter, it's too cold! I'll try again when this spring, maybe with a goldfish! For now my uber cool pod is acting as a flower vase.

Not as exciting, but still very pretty.

I finally finished a craft project

Here's my first quilt ever.


I did a fairly terrible job. I measured the squares by eyeballing only and I ripped the fabric into pieces instead of cutting. The lady at the craft store was very disapproving when I told her I wasn't going to use a frame to tie it. She gave me an earful of advice I decided to ignore. See, I have no patience for quilting, all the painstaking measuring and ironing, moving at a snail's pace. I like to create shortcuts wherever possible. With help from mom on the telephone, this came together rather quickly.

And I don't care if it's perfectly smooth and aligned. It's warm and it's Star Wars!

(We had to leave church early because Ben felt a migraine coming. He's napping upstairs now while I post these pictures and enjoy a snack of crackers and goat cheese with mineral water and craisins. For some reason I find that funny.)

Friday I finally painted our bedroom! I haven't hung much art yet, but here's a look at it so far:



We also replaced the ugly faucets with something more appropriate for a pedestal sink.

I love being a homeowner.

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Counterattack - Disney World!!!!

The pictures really say it all, so there won't be too much commentary. More pictures from family members posted here.


We stayed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.


It had Japanese TV with Sumo every night. This is a puppet show of a blood vessel (we think).


These animals are right outside our room balcony.


The following safari pics are from the Animal Kingdom park.





Onto Epcot!










And the Magic Kingdom!


I maxed out the score on Buzz Lightyear. Andy and Ben were uber jealous, then accused me of cheating.



Who's that guy in the skirt? Oh right, my uncle :-)


Hey look! A line!


Jungle Cruise



And now MGM Studios.



I love this one of me and Ben.


And this one is to be sure you all check out my sweet sweet fanny pack




Dinner in the Sci-Fi cafe, where you eat in cars and watch a reel of old movie promos and ads. Very fun!




Honey I shrunk the kids playground set


Back to Magic Kingdom on the last night.



And Downtown to kill time before our flight.




It was a Fantastic vacation. Thanks Mom and Dad!

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Bring it, Mavi

I've let my blogging duties slide, and now I pay the consequences: you sneak in with pictures from a Merchant Ivory film production in China. Well I ain't got no China. But I have lots of pictures and crafts and stuff going on that's been piling up. Now that I've got a fire under me, expect a few more posts this weekend.

Christmas time was here . . .

And finally pictures to show you what a great holiday break it was!
** means be sure to click on the pictures for glorious enlarged details.

On the second day of the big blizzard we said "to heck with this!, " chained up the car, drugged up the cat, and skirted off to Grand Junction to jumpstart vacation.

**the small red sign say "No Parking, snow storage area, you will be towed or buried"

Dad and Amanda made two kinds of nut brittle


Mom and I painted the study


Andy did his mac thing


This brittle was devine


Christmas eve carols


and cat picture outtakes! I love that only me and Amanda are looking in the same direction out of all six of us.


We kids got dad a rc airplane. After a couple days the snow melted enough to give it a whirl


And dad loved Andy's wii almost as much as Andy. He got his own recently - and so did we! I mean wii!

Dad whaled Andy on both tennis and boxing





Addison is getting cuter everyday! Read about Kristin's family on her site.

All three Waterhouse kids teethed on this Sesame Street finger puppet.

There was a bonfire party at the Graves house. Ben was in heaven with their dogs


Later in the trip we were able to give the plane a proper run. I think it took two trips to the hobby shop to replace parts, but we had a great time flying.





**Love mom's face in this shot




**zoom in to see Dad watch his plane take a nose dive! This was a hilarious lucky shot.


Mom and dad have a fantastic aquarium in their office. These shrimp are fun to watch


At the end we had a beautiful drive back over the mountains.

We left later than planned because of more snow on the front range. I was spoiled with presents, got to see a lot of friends and family, and came back thoroughly relaxed. Merry Christmas.

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Family Guy and Musicals

How did there ever become a show that has fart jokes for Ben and musical references for me? I'm not sure, but I'm so glad Family Guy is still on the air! Last night in the Road to Rupert episode, they gave 2 1/2 minutes (10% of the show really!) to a musical gag. They took the footage from Anchors Aweigh and put Stewie in for Jerry the mouse. Stewie and Gene Kelly dancing together! I almost fainted :-) Here's the clip in case you missed it: