Last of Christmas!

Today at work they emailed us our pictures we took at our work Christmas Party. I had forgotten we had done this. A few of my co workers in my department jumped in on the fun

On the left is Kelli and Pat *************************On the right is me with Vanessa.












Since these pictures came in it got me to thinking about one of the items I came home with. Randy, It was so worth the money. It was really yummy. Thank you Nancy and Randy for the Chocolate covered Sardines. I am glad you passed the goodness on to me and not Calvin. LOL I had to take a picture so you can see for yourselves of the goodness that I was able to endulge in.

I tell you the French sure know how to make a good Milchschokolade Sardinen mit Vollmichshokolade.

We better not quit our day jobs!

Saturday was a beautiful day with 60 degree weather. Nice change for what we had a month ago with a -18degrees. We had to wait until noon for the temperature to get high enough for a bike ride. We took a great 45 mins ride around Green Valley. I have to say, I have had the worst luck riding, because once again I got a flat tire on my way home. Yes the first for this year but not the last until I can order some of those super sonic tires off the internet.



Later that evening we went over to a to Marions' and Chris's house for a Rockband II party. They had invited another couple over. While the kids played with their toys in the next room the adults played with their toys late into the night.










Here are pictures of our men jaming to the music. I think Adam was singing "Eye of the Tiger" at this point. Chris was strutting his stuff on the drums while Pablo was kicking it on the guitar.




After seeing our performances on video, I think we should all keep our day jobs. And keep this between us for those wild rockband partys full of chocolate covered fruit and cheese fondue. Thanks Marion and Chris for a rockstar night!

Bad Week Blues,

Have you heard the term “heads will roll”? Well that is what is going on at work. It has just been one of those weeks. I felt burned out when I walked out the door on Tuesday with that being said it has not gotten any better. I am almost through the panic and rush to get the stuff turned around and out the door, but in the mean time it has been a tuff week. ERRGGGG!

I really try not to get too caught up in my job, I try to keep a distant from ever letting it get personal, well I let it get too personal and it is so exhausting when that happens. I am worn out and looking forward to the weekend. I am hoping by today the problem will be done and off my desk and tomorrow will bring the same old work junk. LOL

With that said, Bad Week Blues are sure to fade by 3:30pm Friday afternoon.

The island of Duvall

This is so crazy I had to post it on my blog. We just recently returned from some crazy weather in Seattle being snowed in. Well the snow had to melt RIGHT? And so it did. My sister sent these pictures to me today of their new found Island of Duvall. The roads and highways by them are under water. There is 6 feet of water in the yard. It covers about 3.5 acres of their 5 acres. Here are some pics of the neighbors and roads and such. The next door neighbor and 2 down from them, came over to canoe. It is insane! I don't know when the roads will open but it is supposed to be drier today and tomorrow. The river is supposed to crest sometime today and then it will start receding.










This picture taken was taken today of their backyard.

This picture was taken a week ago of the same back yard.

This is insane! Personally, I think it would be more fun going canoeing in the back yard then playing in the snow

Do people still make New Years Resolutions anymore?

I was thinking about what I want to do in 2009, what I want to accomplish, you know the same old stuff that didn’t happen in 2008, 2007, 2006 etc. You get my point. So here are some things I think I can accomplish this year.

1. I will spend less than eight hours a day on the Internet. This, of course, will be hard to estimate since I'm not a clock watcher.
2. I will stop sending e-mail, ICQ, Instant Messages and be on the phone at the same time with the same person.
3. I will not talk on my cell phone all the way to the front door and greet the person who I have been talking with on the cell phone.
4. I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking leaves. I will think of some more excuses.
5. I will go and workout occasionally and not beat myself up over the workouts that just don’t happen.


I think this is a good start. I don’t want to add too much pressure, the year just barely started. As for the one I add to my list every year since I can remember which is “To lose weight, to get healthier, to eat healthier, and to drop a few pounds”. I have not even put it on my list this year. I like what Jay Leno quoted below

Jay Leno
“Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year's resolution”.

Cheers to all you who set their goals high this year!

Benjamin Franklin
"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man".

Scott's Talent

x

Janie and the Splits

Saren and Scott's Game - So Funny!

Last of Great Christmas Adventures!

Monday December 29, 2008

The snow had turned to rain and so it was helping melt the snow away. Adam and I took the 2 girls out to run some errands and pick up dinner supplies for dinner that night. We were planning on getting together with Spencer, Ildiko and her mother Martha for dinner. We decided to have schnitzel and apple macron. It was a Swiss specialty that has become a family favorite.

Once Ildiko arrived we began making the specialty Hungarian cake which is called the drum cake. It is a 6 layer cake with a chocolate filling and a caramelized topping. She made it for us last year for our family fondue party and I have wanted to learn how to make it since then.

That is one of the things on my list to do was to learn how to make this cake. It was so much fun to have my siblings around and together and making a cake. As you can see we had many cooks in the kitchen to help with the cake and with dinner. I am not sure what happened, but the filling didn’t turn out the way it was suppose to and the cake batter was thicker than it normally is. I kept telling Ildiko this happens when you try to teach something you have been doing for years. Things just don’t turn out when you want them to. I had the same thing happen to me when I was doing cooking group. The peanut butter balls turned into something I have never seen before, and I have been making them for years. This was the same. She has been making this for years and it just didn’t turn out the way it was suppose to. Everything that could go wrong did. It is a timely process to make this cake and 4 hours later this is what we got. I have to say, it was very tasty and was worth all the effort even if it didn’t turn out.

My favorite part of the evening, other then the cooking with family was at the end of the meal when everyone was done. The kids came in from their table and we all talked together. Ildiko shared with us the sounds that farm animals make in Hungry and we compared them to the farm animals in the US and it was very different and funny to us and to Ildiko and her mom of the different sounds. We also learned how to count in Hungry and many other words like “Spencer is a cheater” It turned into a late night and after some family had left we had time to sit and talk with the kids.

This is when we were able to film Janie singing her ABC’s

Tuesday December 30, 2008

The trip went way to fast, and before we knew it was time to fly home. I am not ready to leave. It was so much fun to be with family and spend the time with our nieces and nephews. They are too fun to leave. I did get a fish taco on my way to the airport. Yesterday when Adam and I got out we went to get a fish taco and can you believe the guy tells me they are out of Fish? Seattle, they are out of fish? I explained that I have not had a fish taco from this place in five years and that I was only in town for another day. Oh well I tried! So that is why I had to try one more time before we left for the airport. Our flight home was uneventful and I am thankful for that. Everything ran on schedule and we were home just as planed. The snow is starting to melt when we left and the winter wonderland that had us on lock down was now disappearing. We were not able to do all the things that we had planed for the trip, but who cares. We were able to spend it together and that was more fun! Thanks for a great trip. We love and miss you Spencer, Ildiko, Nancy, Randy, Calvin, Saren, Scott and Janie already! I even miss Kitty 1, Kitty 2 and Kitty- Janie

Great Christmas Adventures - Continued -

Friday December 26, 2008

The next morning we found more snow outside and that is pretty much snowed the majority of the day. Adam and I got up and made a hearty breakfast for everyone. Actually every day we were there we made hearty breakfast that I found on my last day. Cal asked me as I am carrying my luggage down the stairs if breakfast was ready, and to his disappointment I told him I was flying out and that there was not time for me to make breakfast today, so he would need to go have cereal. I found myself with the excitement to make a igloo with the kids. I asked Sarin to go online and find an igloo plans to we could built one.

Calvin, Saren, Scott, Janie and myself went out to start the grand project. In about 2 hours of building our Igloo we found the workers starting to get distracted and the Iglo not getting bigger. So we sat down and decided it was going no where and to make a snow man instead. So the massage igloo that could house the whole family turned into a snow cover for snowball fights.

The snow was so deep and heavy that was we formed the base for the snowman we found that it was hard to roll it up closer to the road. I backed off and Cal with his muscles got on his knees to push the massive bulge forward. I was so impressed with his strength.

The kids came up with the idea to make a snowman sideways in the snow as if he is swimming. So we made the snowman, finding some hair for his head, twigs for his swimming arms and a carrot for his mustache. We used foil for his eyes. It started to get dark and so Janie heading in to get some hot chocolate, Sarin and Scott soon followed.

Cal and I stayed to finish the snowman and found that he looked like a life guard if we attached the sleigh to him. So there you have Cal being rescued by the swimming snowman. We never got the fins made that were the sharks chasing the snowman.

I didn’t realized how chilled to the bone I was until I got inside and all the wet clothes off and some hot chocolate inside me. While we were eating dinner I didn’t realize how hungry I was when I soon got the shakes from not eating and playing so hard in the snow. That night I watched a movie with the kids. We watch a panda movie that was really cute and I fell asleep watching flipper. Not so cute if you ask me, kind of boring. Saturday December 27, 2008 We were able to get out a bit. So the girls all went shopping and the boys went to the gaming store. It was fun to have the girls afternoon. Saren has really grown up, and she has good taste in clothes. It was cool to see her find cute clothes and she looks so good in everything she puts on. She had some gift cards to spend so she was a girl on a mission that day. Janie got a little bored and so Nancy took her to the play place to work of some energy. Soon we all met up and headed to a few other stores before going home to made pizza’s for dinner. Dinner was a lot of fun together, we made the dough and then we prepared all sorts of toppings. Then we each made our own individual pizzas for dinner. Everyone got what they wanted and for a few of 8 that was a crowd pleaser. After dinner the boys started a game of Monopoly and the girls when down to watch the chick flick. I told Saren that I wanted to sit in the big bean bag to watch the movie so we raced to the bean bag. As we came down the stairs and around the corner I saw Saren run into the air hockey table. I turned to laugh at her and then found myself jam my hip into the fuse ball table. Yea and then fell into the big bean bag. I won, but I have a huge black bruise on my hip from it. It was a really cute Cinderella story and I really enjoyed watching it with Janie and Saren. When the movie was done we went to check on the boys who were still playing the game. Scott looked upset as he was loosing and Adam and Randy were battling it out. So we went back downstairs to watch Kung Fu Panda. One by one the boys came down as they lost the game. Once the movie was over we went upstairs to find that the game was still going between Randy and Adam. Randy was winning and Adam was holding on. I wanted to watch the Mummy movie with the boys and had waiting all night to do it. So I convinced Scott and Cal that the games would go on for at least another hour between Adam and their dad and we should start the movie. So we did. We went to watch the movie. I found myself asleep shortly after it starting and then I hurt all sorts of noise upstairs. Adam lost the game. Sunday December 28, 2008 To our surprise they had announced one hour Church. Yeah! So after we fed the crew a massive breakfast we each took turns using the bathroom to get ready. I found myself in the girl’s bedroom curing their hair. Janie had more hair than I had thought and it seemed we didn’t have the time to take in Sarin’s hair. But Janie when with a full hair of ringlet curls to church. She told me while we were doing her hair that she did not want to look like an old lady. Because old lady’s have curls in their hair, once we were done, Janie tells me that when she grows up she thinks she will curl her hair. Sunday was relaxing and fun to just hang out and play games and talk.