give thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have had a wonderful day counting your blessings, spending time with friends and family, and of course, enjoying a good meal.

This was me and Chip's first Thanksgiving where we cooked the meal. Since my parents live so far away now and Chip's family spent Thanksgiving with their daughter in Naples, we decided to have Thanksgiving at our house with Chip's other sister Candi and our friends Mark & Emma. We were intimidated at first since we were doing all of the cooking, but in the end it came out well and was actually fun. We had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, mac & cheese, rolls, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and some double chocolate gooey butter cake (courtesy of our friend Emma & a Paula Deen recipe). Everything tasted good!

I also watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I have watched that parade every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember! I always look forward to seeing the old-timey looking turkey float at the beginning and Santa at the end.

Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving meal. I look forward to making it again next year. Hope you all have a great day!

vote for frank!

I entered Frank into our local newspaper's "Best Pet" contest because, in my humble opinion, Frank is the best pet. He is very sweet and cute and loves everyone! Here are a few pictures to encourage you to cast your vote for Frank.

To vote go to http://www.nwfdailynews.com/bestpet/vote/?page=6 scroll down and look for Frank. His name and my name are there to identify him.

Feel free to vote as many times as you'd like. I know Frank won't win due to some problems the site has had with cheating already (several people used a program that would automatically vote for their pet - like 16,000 votes in 5 hours), but it is still fun to see how many votes he can get. Thanks for your help :)

ooh...scary

Happy post-Halloween! Sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been busy planning and throwing baby showers, a costume party, and now a dinner party. I should start my own business!

One of the parties I hosted was a costume party that was last Saturday. Chip and I procrastinated till the day of the party on our costumes, so we ended up with this...

What are we, you ask. Well...we never really quite figured that out either. We aren't goth, we're not bikers. I guess we are "Miami Inkers". We're not portraying characters on the show per se, just people who might be customers on the show. All we did was spray Chip's hair black and buy one of those tattoo sleeves for his arm. Basically it is pantyhose with fake tattoos on it. It is pretty clever. For my look I put on a black wig, slapped on some faux eyelashes and went to town with some black eye liner. Not the most original. Oh well, we can't win the costume contest every year!

Well...that's about all that is new and exciting with me! Hope you all are doing well :)

real classy

Today after church I went out to lunch with some of my girl friends from church (all of our husbands are out of town either on a business trip, a youth retreat, or deployed). We went to the Ruby Tuesday in Niceville. It was fairly busy from the post-church lunch crowd. As we were sitting there enjoying our lunches I glanced over to another table to see a guy sit down. I got an eyeful of his t-shirt and my eyes bugged out! This guy was wearing a t-shirt that said "No, I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll have a look". Wow! And to make matters worse he was sitting at a table with his wife and 2 kids!!!! This is wrong on so many levels - where do I even begin?!

Do I blame him for buying such a distasteful t-shirt and proceeding to wear it out in public? Or do I blame him for subjecting his children (both of which, thank God, looked too young to be able to read yet) to having to look at him in that t-shirt?

No, I think I will blame his wife. What wife would A) let her husband buy a shirt that said that and B) let him wear it when they went out to lunch in a public restaurant and C) wear that in front of their children??? I mean, come on! If I were her I'd slap him and then take the shirt and burn it! But, then again, she willingly left the house with him in that shirt so I guess she doesn't care or maybe even finds it funny. I know no one at our table found it comical.

tim tam slam

The other day Chip and I were shopping in the World Market in Pensacola when Bethany called. She and I started discussing all of the tasty sounding international foods they had available when she mentioned they sell Tim Tams. I just happened to be on the very aisle they were on. Tim Tams are actually called Arnott's now (the company was sold a few years ago). Tim Tams (Arnott's) are a chocolate dipped sandwich cookie Bethany brought back from Australia. Apparently these are real big there.

There is a certain way to eat them that is referred to as the Tim Tam Slam. Basically you bite the ends of both sides of the cookie off and dip it in a hot drink (we used hot chocolate, but coffee would work) and suck on it like a straw. The hot chocolate comes through the cookie and melts the chocolate. You then eat the warm cookie...mmmm.

About 7 years ago I tried the Tim Tam Slam when FSU's BCM had its annual Laguna Beach retreat. It didn't go so well for me! I slammed with some nuclear hot chocolate and burnt the crap out of my tongue. I didn't get to enjoy my cookie because my tongue was burnt and I couldn't taste it. Bethany ran out of Tim Tams and I never got to try it again. So years later I wanted, no needed, to redeem myself. I bought a pack of Tim Tams (Arnott's) and set out to slam the right and safe way.

Chip made some hot chocolate and I explained to him how to slam. He is new to the whole process. I proceed to bite the ends off and dip the cookie in the hot chocolate. I suck up the cocoa and it didn't burn my tongue! Success! I then ate my melty cookie. It was really good! Here are some pictures of the process.

If you are ever in a World Market I suggest you pick up a pack of Arnott's and try the Tim Tam Slam. It is really good! Thanks for reminding me Bethany! It was good to remember some old, funny memories again! :)

roll tribe!

Ok, sorry it took me all week to post pictures from the FSU/AL game. Joel McAllister took the pictures on his camera and it took him a few days to send them to us because he went on vacation. Here are some of them.

The game was pretty cool. FSU and Alabama have a pretty strong fan base, so there was some good natured competition between fans. Alabama fans would shout to each other "Roll Tide" and FSU fans would shout "F-S-U" or do the warchant. Chip, Joel and Kristine all had matching "Roll Tribe" shirts - that was the game day t-shirt with FSU's spin on "Roll Tide". Clever, clever.

The game started off pretty boring. Nothing really exciting happened until the 4th quarter. Pretty much people were getting trashed since the game was not very interesting. The stadium was selling beer and hard liquor. There was a guy so drunk in front of us (not only was he buying beer, but he also had 2 flasks in his pockets!) that by the end of the 3rd quarter we saw him vomit into the aisle in front of him. Then of course, he began to drink again. Real smart!

Luckily the game got better after that. FSU pulled away from Bama and ultimately won (for those of you who didn't know - shame on you!)

After the game we met up with Curtis & Robin Cooper at O'Charley's. It was good to catch up with them. We hadn't seen them in a little over a year. We all caught up on life and then stood around and shared pictures of our pets. :)

The rest of the weekend we hung out with Austin & Ashley Henkel. It was great to see them again. We miss them so much since they moved to Jax. We all had a good time together living it up for Chip's 28th birthday. Chip wanted to eat at Sonny's BBQ, so we did. We pigged out on pulled pork and crinkle cut fries...not bad. We then went to Dave and Buster's (the equivalent of an adult Chuck E. Cheese) and played some games. I played one game and somehow won 300 tickets! Ashley witnessed my sweet redemption. :) It was a good time.

Here is a picture of Austin we took at a store in Jacksonville. Thanks for being great hosts Henkels! We miss you guys already!

As I promised, we stopped at Au Peche Mignon on the way to Jacksonville. It was as delicious as I remember. Mmm!

All in all it was a great weekend full of fun with a bunch of good friends. It was great to see everyone again! Happy Birthday Chip! I hope it was a good one! :) Love you!

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If you like what you have read in my blog so far and hate to be bothered having to remember to actually check for updates, you can subscribe to my blog and have it conveniently sent to your email for FREE! This isn't some great thing I have come up with - it is just a feature of the blogspot. On the very bottom of the page there is a link that says "Subscribe to: posts". Just click on that and follow the instructions and you'll be good to go. Then you will be sure to know all the juicy details of my very exciting life ;) Wow, you'd better get a rag to wipe the sarcasm off the desk!

I appreciate everyone who was left comments! It is fun to see what people have to say and hear from old friends. Keep 'em coming! Just so you know when you post a comment it will not show up on the blog immediately. The comment is sent to my email and after I approve it, it will be posted. I have chosen to moderate my comments since anyone is allowed to view and comment on my blog. I am trying to prevent spammers from leaving inappropriate messages on my blog.


Anywho...I am very excited to leave tomorrow to go to Jacksonville for the FSU game. I'm sure the game will be fun, but it will be really nice to see our friends Austin & Ashley and Joel & Kristine. I enjoy getting to catch up with everyone. I'll post pictures of our weekend on Monday for all of you eager readers. I am really looking forward to stopping in Tallahassee for some Au Peche Mignon - the most wonderful place on earth! It is a french pastry shop that makes the MOST wonderful individual sized desserts short of being in Paris (I can't actually back that up because I've never actually been to Paris)! I can't name a favorite treat because I love just about everything I have eaten there. If you are ever passing through Tallahassee you must go - you won't regret it.



Oh, here is a picture of my hair for those who asked. I guess it isn't that "exciting" looking, but you just had to have seen the mess it was before I got it done. Note Frank's expression in the picture - how funny!

Peace out, it's time for dinner!