Yummy

This makes me happy.

Dams, Big Ditches, and Psychic Stewardesses...Family Vacation Fun

The countdown to September 15, 2012 has come and gone!  Not only was the 15^th my mom’s 23^rd birthday (well, she may be a little older, but who’s counting?) but it was also the day Hubsters and I, along with my parents, started our family vacation!

Way back in March, Hubsters and I booked our yearly vacation and invited my parents to come along.  Our destination this year…the Grand Canyon!  Neither my parents nor I have ever been, and Hubsters went when he was 8 years old, so I don’t really count that.  We thought it would be nice to see another part of our country’s vast landscape.

We decided to fly to Las Vegas and then drive to Williams, Arizona where we rented a great house for the week.  I should have known that the vacation was going to be a good one when the stewardess on our flight out west put her hand on my stomach, told me she was a psychic and that I would be having a little girl.  When I told her that we were actually having a little boy, she looked very puzzled and said she thought the doctors were wrong.  She also said that little Bopper was going to have blonde hair.  I didn’t think that was too difficult for her to guess as she had been giving me cups of water every 20 minutes during our 4 hour flight and I was sitting next to my naturally blonde-haired husband.

Las Vegas was hot.  As in 100 degree shot.  Yuck.  Thankfully we only spent the night there which included a birthday dinner for my mom at the Cheesecake Factory before we drove to Arizona, which started with a visit to the Hoover Dam!

The Hoover Dam is amazing.  Run by the Bureau of Reclamation under the Department of the Interior, the Dam is economically self-sufficient as it is funded through the power it sells.  The massive scale of the Dam is hard to imagine, one has to see it to believe it.  We started out with a tour of the innards.

Then we spent some time wandering around, going through the museum, and taking pictures.

Oh, and did I mention that it was hot?  And that my dad makes me laugh?

And for your viewing pleasure…a very amateur video, shot by yours truly.

(Note, the commentary in the background just happened to be playing over the loud speakers and does not necessarily match up with the video)

Then, it was off to Williams, AZ.  We rented a great house, but I forgot to take pictures of it, so you’ll just have to go by the pics that I pilfered from the rental website.  By the way, if you’ve never heard of it, Homeaway is a great site to find vacation rentals.  Hubsters and I have used it more than once and have been pleased.  (Plug done.)  

The house was about 10 minutes from the center of town.  Williams, AZ is a little tourist town that, by my determination, only exists to cater to the tourists who come in the summer to go to the Grand Canyon.  Other than a very small and very touristy downtown road, there is nothing there.  But we enjoyed the peace and quiet that came with being in the middle of nowhere, with the exception of the howling animals at night.  And we also saw some animals (well, a bunny).   

And did I mention that the night sky was amazing?  I mean, AMAZING.  AMAZING!  I’ve never seen stars like that.

We ended up doing two days at the Grand Canyon.  It was beautiful both days we were there.  We took the shuttle bus, talked with a ranger, walked a trail, drank some authentic free Grand Canyon water, took in an IMAX film, and got a little sunburned.  It was wonderful.  A once in a life time opportunity.  Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

We also spent a day in Flagstaff looking at a large hole created by a meteor.

That evening we went to the Lowell Observatory after a great steak dinner.  The observatory was one of my favorite side trips.  We were there at night so we didn’t get any pictures, but they had telescopes set up all over the campus for visitors to look at the night sky.  We saw the moon, a little constellation affectionately nicknamed Wall-e that looked like the little robot from the Disney movie, and then a cluster of stars called M-15 which is not visible to the naked eye.  Here is a link to some pictures so you know what I’m talking about.  It was amazing to look into the night sky and take in the handiwork of God – to see His creation.

 

That about wrapped up the vacation, and on Friday we made our way back to Las Vegas.  But you can’t go to Vegas without at least taking a drive down the famous Strip.  Dad was very kind and drove slowly down the Strip so that Mom and Hubsters could get some pics.

And Bopper enjoyed the vacation too!

Getting Ready for Bopper, Little Bits at a Time

If you haven't figured it out already, Hubsters and I are expecting our first child.  He's a boy.  We call him Bopper.  He should  make his appearance around Christmas.  He's a wonderful gift from the Lord.

Who knew there was so much to do to get ready for a baby.  We cleaned out our guest/junk room and sent a ton of stuff to my parents (or rather, their garage and basement - thanks Mom and Dad!!!).  Hubsters had the room painted and then we decided it would be good to get some furniture.  Do you know how expensive dressers are?!?!?!  Let me tell you, they are expensive, especially when they are for "baby".  Who knew that one little word would allow stores to mark up the prices so much.  Well, we were not going to pay that much, so we turned to good ol' Craigslist, and found these slightly used beauties:

They are in good condition, but the previous owner did a poor job lining them with some really gross contact paper.  I stripped the contact paper off only to reveal sticky residue that didn't want to come up no matter how hard I scrubbed, and/or drawer bottoms in too poor of a condition to use as is.  So, off to Target I went to get new contact paper.  I didn't want anything that looked too girly (Bopper is a boy) or looked like it belonged in the kitchen (no thank you to little ducks).  I ultimately decided on a granite looking paper - only I didn't realize that the shine wasn't the plastic packaging, but the contact paper itself.  Oh well.  Bopper isn't going to care for another five years or so.

So with a little sweat equity, and sitting on the floor, we went from this:

To this:

And you know that saved the day?  Pampered Chef.  Yup, that's right, a kitchen company saved my dresser lining day.  Among the many amazing products they sell are baking stones.  And they also sell little plastic scrapers to clean the baking stones.  I don't use my stone that much anymore, but the plastic scraper still lives in my silverware drawer.  It's small, square, and it looks like this:

And it's perfect for smoothing out bubbles and wrinkles and all sorts of other disasters that come with lining large spaces with sticky paper!  (But not so good with trying to caulk a bathtub, but that's another story).

I still have the shorter dresser to cover, but the lasagna sauce is bubbling away on the stove and almost done (more on that tomorrow), so I should go attend to that.  Oh - and write a thank you note to Jill who loaned me a TON of fall/winter maternity clothes yesterday.

God's Faithfulness

So enjoyed the sermon this morning at Del Ray Baptist Church.  From Zephaniah 3:15, 17:

15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you;
    he has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
    you shall never again fear evil.

¹⁷ The Lord your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
    he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

We, sinners who do not deserve God's love, have been blessed by Him.  The greatest gift we can ever receive is the gift of forgiveness of our sins and salvation.  Thank you, God, for giving us your Son, Jesus Christ, who came to this earth as a man, lived the perfect, sinless life we should live, but cannot, and died the death that we deserve to die for our sins.  Thank you that through faith in Christ, we have everlasting life.

A Dinner Experiment

Over the last few months dinner has been less than creative, and my husband might say rather boring.  I have always enjoyed and taken pleasure in experimenting with new dinners.  Some worked (pineapple chicken bake) and some did not (don't even want to mention).  But then I got pregnant, and spent the first sixteen weeks not even wanting to think about or smell food.  My husband was a trooper during that time, and managed dinners himself and did a wonderful job.

I dubbed August "eat through the pantry month" so we didn't do much experimenting.  Now that September is here, we're back to trying a new dish in the bi-weekly dinner plan.  Today's try is Betty Crocker's Taco Beef Bake with Cheddar Biscuit Topping.  You can find the recipe here.

This was pretty simple, I had everything I needed in the pantry except the taco seasoning, and the frozen corn (and no, Dad, it's not because the frozen corn was in the freezer instead of the pantry).

Oh, and of course I have to display my FAVORITE part of the kitchen, my spice rack!

Next: 

• Brown the meat with my own special seasoning
• Add the taco spices, corn and salsa

It said to bring to a boil, but there wasn't enough water in the pan to make it boil.  I think it really meant "cook until the frozen corn isn't frozen anymore."

Then what makes it good - the Bisquick and CHEESE!  Mix it all up and heap it on top.  Then bake, but not as long as the directions call for, or it will be burned.

And the outcome...

Hubsters said it was a success!

It was a meal enjoyed.  And simple.  And I managed to time it just right so that it came out of the oven just as Hubsters walked through the door.  Now that's what I call an achievement!

Every Girl Loves a New Pair of Shoes...

Except when it looks like this:

 And this:

And comes with a foot that looks like this:

Which, if you haven't figured it out, is what you get when you walk full force into the Futon and your toe moves and the Futon doesn't.  Yup, broke my pinky toe.   :-(

Go Nationals!

One of the nice things about living in DC is that there is never a lack of activities to take part in!  And now that it's summer (even though it's almost over, but it's still hot here!) we have baseball!  In the past, the Washington Nationals have not been so hot, but as of this posting, they are in first place in the National League!  We went to a game earlier in the season with Bill's sister and her family.  It rained, but they won.  Last Friday night Bill took me to another game.  We splurged for the cheap seats, which I personally find to be the best, because you get a bird's eye view of the entire game.  Let me tell you, it was hot.  Like 94 degrees at 9PM hot.  Ugh, especially for being 5.5 months pregnant.  But the boys did great, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 10-0, and Mr Gio Gonzales pitched his first career shut-out!  But the best part was the soft pretzel Bill bought me.

Call it being pregnant, but it was one of the best pretzels I've had.  Shortly after I DEVOURED the pretzel, Bill snapped this picture of me and little Bopper.  This is technically Bopper's second baseball game, but the first where he could hear things in the outside world.

As you can see, it was hot that night.  But we had a great time.  Especially when Bopper started jumping up and down at the end of the 9th inning when the rest of the crowd was on its feet cheering for Gio.  Good game!

The Rest of Little Bopper...

Well, I know for my mom a picture of the feet just would not do when others were available.  So, the latest and greatest from 20 weeks.

Bopper's First Footprints!

Many of the first keepsakes new parents receive from the hospital when their Little One is born are those cute little inked footprints.  We didn't want to wait that long, so our wonderful sonographer gave us these little snapshots at 21 weeks.  Bopper's left and right feet!