Practice Turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hugh and I had a great time in College Station today. The food was great as well as the company. We did "Thanksgiving in P.J.'s" which was AWESOME. I don't think there's anything better than getting to spend a holiday in pajama pants and a t-shirt. We ate, played some football.....Hugh dove for a ball and found a sticker burr patch. OUCH! We came home early and I'm baking pies for Thanksgiving round 2 tomorrow.

Ok...the practice turkey. I promised an update. Well, the brining went well except for the fact that I didn't know there was weird stuff inside the turkey that you had to pull out. UGH!! I thought I was going to puke. BUT...we had awesome results. Check out the pictures:

Notice the dogs were really impressed with the turkey as well. :) Hugh also got a chance to use his new electric knife and did a very good job. Can't wait to see the results with the larger turkey tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving and got to see their families!

Love,

Website Loves!

I know this has nothing to do with our day to day life, but I just thought I’d give everyone a random update of websites I’m currently fond of.

Woot!

This website is based out of Texas and they sell one thing a day. It’s all sorts of different stuff, and always at a great price. From day to day you’ll see different products like: TV’s, Roomba’s, Cedar Grilling Planks, Hacky Sacks, etc. I like the variety and it’s fun to look at.

Woot! Shirts!

This is an offshoot of Woot! where people submit their own ideas of t-shirts and they sell one a day. It’s always $10 + free shipping for the shirts and they’re American Apparel so they’re always super-soft. They sell them until they run out, and then they have an ongoing contest of the “favorites”. You can buy favorites for $15 and it’s great for when you miss a day. Even better than the shirts are the descriptions of the shirts. They're HILARIOUS! Here’s the one I’m currently coveting: Warm & Cozy

Bike Nashbar

Hugh and I purchase cycling accessories and needs from this website. They always have good prices and since this stuff is always expensive, it’s nice to get a break!

Kayak

Great to search for plane tickets!

Funbrain

Ok…so it SAYS it’s a website for kids. I don’t care. If you go to the Arcade section the games are really fun and you can change the challenge level. This is a great thing since I’m game-challenged.

Check them out, let me know what you think.

Love,

Turkey Day Food Shopping!

Last night Hugh and I went shopping for all of our Thanksgiving food. We’re heading up to College Station next Thursday to have dinner with my parents and siblings, and then we’re hosting the McCrea’s at our house on Friday. It’s going to be fun, and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time in the kitchen.

Shopping Trip:

Alright, I’ve never cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving. Other than the one turkey frying experiment that Hugh and I conducted, we’re turkey cooking virgins. With this in mind we decided to buy two turkeys, one to practice with and one for the real dinner. I’ll keep you updated on the practice turkey escapade.

I created a menu and then made a list of what all we needed from the store. I then put it into an Excel spreadsheet according to which department the items were located in the store. I sent it to Hugh and asked him to “pretty it up” since he’s the King of All Things Excel. Before we headed out to HEB we went through all of our coupons and pulled out all of the ones that we thought we’d need.

We went through the store pretty quickly. Hugh discovered that HEB was having a promotion where if you purchase $20 worth of food then you can get a turkey at 22 cents a pound with a limit of one. Since we needed two turkeys Hugh went and got another cart, divvied up our groceries and we checked out twice. Overall, we did very well and I’m really looking forward to cooking and spending time with family.

I'll keep you updated about our turkey happenings!

Love,

Camping Update!!

Whew! We made it home in one piece. Inks Lake was awesome and the weather turned out to be great. It was a little cold, but I don’t think we could have asked for better weather. We went with two other couples and we all had a great time. I think Hugh had a great birthday and really enjoyed himself. We got to do some fun hiking, relaxing, sitting around the campfire, and TONS of laughing. Our campsite even got a visit from a Game Warden that made the boys pour out their bottle of scotch on Friday night. I really thought there was going to be some crying involved, but after being threatened with $250 tickets each, I think it was easier to comply with his demands.

There was a ton of food, but I must say that my favorite was the s’mores. I just don’t think food can really get better. Chocolate, toasted marshmallow and graham cracker. I get happy just thinking about it! Hats off to Patrick for fine tuning the difficult art of s’more making. It does taste even better if you heat up the graham cracker and chocolate.

The only negative that occurred would have been Toby and Zorro’s fight. Zorro is a very small dog, Toby is a large one, and they didn’t like each other. Thankfully Zorro is healing and going to be ok. I still feel awful about the whole incident but I’m glad that he’s going to be alright.

Note: Sleeping on the ground was much easier when I was a kid. Apparently, when you’re 30 you prefer sleeping in a bed to the ground. Hugh and I didn’t sleep very much at all over the weekend, BUT we have been sleeping amazingly well since we got home. No more camping on the ground….this girl needs a mattress.

Here are a couple of pictures from the trip.

Love,

Shutterfly Cards!

Shutterfly is offering 50 free Christmas Cards to bloggers for posting about it on their blog! All you have to do is go to their website and sign up. I’m really excited about doing Christmas cards this year since it’s our first “official” Christmas as a married couple. The hardest part is choosing a design and deciding which pictures to use. I’ve been looking around and some people get really creative with their ideas. Since I’m not a very creative person I’m trying very hard to channel my non-existent creativity gene. I've never sent out Christmas cards but I'm really looking forward to the task. I do love Shutterfly for allowing me to store all of my photos online for FREE, and I’m currently working on putting together a wedding photo book. I’m not a scrapbook-er, so the idea of a photo book is awesome.

Here are some products from their website that I'm a fan of:

Christmas Card: Spot the Snowflakes

Possible Gift Option: Desk Calendar
(I think this would be cute for my Mom)

Baby's First Christmas: Ornament



I'll keep you posted on what we decide to do!

Love,

Happy Birthday HughBear!!!

Happy Birthday!!! Hugh turns 31 on this Saturday, November 13^th. We’re going camping at Inks Lake State Park with some friends and we’re taking the dogs! It should be a really fun time and we’re both excited. We spent last night getting all of our gear out and together and deciding what we needed to take. I’m going to attempt cooking over the campfire with a cast-iron skillet, so we’ll see how well that works out. We’ve split up cooking with some of the other couples and I’ve let Hugh decide on the menu. We’re making turkey burgers with feta cheese, new potatoes, grilled veggies, and sausage. S’mores, of course, for dessert! We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon for Austin where we’ll spend the night with family and then head up to Inks Lake on Friday morning. We can’t check-in to the campsite until 2:30 so I’m guessing we’ll try and take the dogs on a hike. The dogs know that something’s up, they can usually tell if there’s a change in the everyday routine.

This will be the longest car trip for the dogs and the first time camping. It’s going to be an adventure for all of us. Hugh’s so excited about the trip that he’s even been growing a “camping beard” which is another word for “I didn’t shave all week”. He works really hard and has been having a trying time at work, so I’m glad that he’ll get to spend his birthday being outdoors and relaxing with friends!

Here are some LOVELY pictures of the birthday boy:

I'm pretty fond of him, and I think he's SEXY!!!

Love,

Tour De Donut 2010

Whew! Today Hugh, Mac, and I rode in the Tour De Donut. It starts at the Katy Mills Mall and goes out to Fulshear, Simonton, Sealy, Brookshire, and back to Katy. There are two routes, one that's 28 miles and it is actually a race. The riders are timed and at ever rest stop they get to deduct one minute of their overall ride time for every donut they eat. It's pretty funny, and Shipley's supplies the donuts. :) We chose not to do the race, and opted for the 57 mile ride instead. This is our first organized ride of the "season" and the longest we've ridden as well (we ride most weekends on our own). The weather was great. It was a little chilly to start off (47*) but it warmed up quickly.

The story? Well, we got onto this stretch of road that was made of chip-seal. Chip seal is really bumpy road, and you feel it non-stop when you ride the type of bikes that we do. The only issue was that this wasn't your ordinary usual chip-seal. This was horrible, awful, crappy chip-seal. Here's a snippet of the conversation that we had while on this road:

Hugh: "Awww man, this is that crappy rock-chip stuff."

Jenn: "You mean chip-seal, and yes...this is horrible."

Mac: "Rock-chip, chip-seal, rock-scissors-paper....it's bad."

Jenn: "Um...don't you mean paper-rock-scissors?"

Mac: "No, when I was a kid we played it differently."

Jenn: "Hmm...all I know is that this is hurting so bad that I won't pee straight for a week."

Mac: "HAHA....I might actually pee straight for once."

Hugh: "You guys are weird."

Just to explain, this is how most conversations go while we're riding. They don't always make sense, but we find them pretty humorous and it passes the time so we don't get bored. However, we are considering getting an iHome2Go which is a speaker for an iPod that we can legally ride with.

Well, on this so-called road there was a guy and his son riding behind me. Hugh was in front, Mac to his left and slightly behind and then me right behind Mac. The guy behind me looked over his shoulder to check the status of an oncoming car. Unfortunately, he was riding too close to me and clipped my wheel. He went flying and I did some interesting maneuvering. I managed to stay on my bike even though I did experience that flash of adrenaline that makes you cold all over. The guy behind me fell and hit the ground really hard. He messed up one of his knees and I think he might have broken his collarbone. I realize I'm not a Dr, but the bone was kind of sticking out. We stopped, I called 911 and then held his head still while we waited for the ambulance. The guy's son (13?) was really calm. I felt bad for the guy because he was obviously in a ton of pain. Riding can be scary sometimes. We wear shoes that clip into our pedals so if you're in a collision situation it can be pretty scary.

Alright...that's enough for now. Except for the crash it was a great ride. We kicked butt on our ride time and even in direct wind we worked very hard. The three of us are off to a great start this year!!!

Love-

Toby and Cassie

Hugh and I love our dogs. In fact, that's probably an understatement. You'd think they were our children. They are brother and sister, but apparently mommy dog got around because they obviously have different daddies. The big excitement right now is the upcoming camping trip. We're going to be camping pretty soon and it'll be the first camping trip for the dogs. We did get a new sleeping bag and Cassie managed to get inside the bag while Hugh was unrolling it. So.....I'm guessing that she's ready to be a camp pro! I'll post a few pic of the pups. Basically, we love 'em and they love us. I'll keep you updated on the camping trip.

Have a great day!

Tupac: This is definitely a Jenn blog and not a "we" one.

Tupac: Yes, Tupac. I loved Tupac when I was in high school and just today ran across the song "Changes" that was released after he was "assassinated" (It drove me CRAZY when people would say that...he was killed people, not assassinated) and I really enjoyed listening to it. So, now when I go home I might just locate some of his old songs and throw them into my playlist. Here's a  little something that everyone might not know about me: When I was 15, my Mom was taking me to school one morning and I mistakenly left a tape playing in the van. Well, this tape was playing a song called "I got five on it..". Needless to say I discovered that day that my Mother is not an idiot and she COULD understand the lyrics. I was shocked when I got picked up that day and was informed that I no longer owned any CD's. My parents had decided that it wouldn't be in my best interest to listen to music that discussed killing other people, and doing drugs. Go figure....

Feel free to follow the link and listen to  Tupac "Changes"

see ya later, alligator-

Welcome!!!

Yes. I just welcomed myself to blogging. I'm going to consider myself a new blogger even though I've had to use a blog for my graduate studies. That was boring and not what I would call fun. This? Now this will be fun. I am writing this first post with no true goal in mind. I had a crazy day at work that was followed by the gym and then a 3 hour class over first-aid. Let me just state for the record that the Red Cross could REALLY use some help in making that first aid video a little more exciting. I've had to take the same CPR/First Aid class every year that I've been in education (6 years) and it's still the same 'ol stuff. UGH...change up the people and for the love of all things holy please change their clothes.

My husband made us a delicious dinner called Tomato-Almond Pesto. Delicious! If you want the recipe, email me. He's awesome, and he hasn't even complained about the fact that I've taken off two pairs of socks and left them in the living room. I'm going RIGHT NOW to pick them up. Maybe.

Till next time: