Chilly Willy

It's cold.

It's 11 degrees outside right now but they say it feels like -4.

I'm not complaining but snow would make it feel a little more wonderful.

Thankful

We're Thankful For . . . (in no particular order)

Working vehicles

Adoption

Winco's cheap good food

Wheat Warmers

Sleep

Pumpkin pie

Family games (especially when I beat Jake!)

Visiting Teaching

Families can be together forever

The dog park

Morning scripture studies

Uncle Bob

Coupons (now we just need to learn to use them!)

Modern technology (internet, cell phones, digital cameras)

Winter clothes

Buster, Belle, and Sage

My professors

Road trips

Fun

My mom teaching me how to crochet

All my birthday wishes and gifts

Modern medicine

Monopoly

Snow

Family and Friends

Being alive

Good books

Education (spiritual and temporal)

Indoor plumbing (especially on cold windy days)

Prayer

Dyson vacuums

A clean house

Heavenly Father

Wholesome family movies by Pixar and Disney

The restoration of the gospel

The Holy Ghost

Family Home Evenings

Weather

Being PHAT

Jacob and his willingness to do the Thankful Tree

Living prophets and apostles and their counsel

A well paying job in Pullman, Washington

Emily

and

The Gospel

SNOW!

We love snow. It's just a white blanket of goodness! We've been blessed with it twice this year and we can't wait until it stays for the season. The last time I measured 5.5 inches in our yard. Yipee!

On a side note: Remember when Sage thought she was a cat? We thought that passed.

Until we found her on the window sill.

Birthday #28

My birthday was pretty low key this year but it didn't get unnoticed. I can't believe I'm 28! That seems so old! I've been asked if I felt 28. The truth is I don't. I've worked or have been surrounded by youth since High School. I feel like I'm still part of the young crowd. Hopefully I feel that way when I'm in my 30's!

So here goes the pictures. Here I am with my cake:

Jake and I have this thing with giving gifts. Maybe I explained it before. We'll get a gift for each other that is from the dogs. The catch is it's really something the other person wanted. Buster was watching me open my gift (from him).

It was WSU pajamas. Jake has been trying to get me to get a WSU shirt since we got here. I keep refusing, I'm a Rebel not a Cougar. Thanks Buster.

Lately on Sunday we play board games. Okay we only play Monopoly. My sister had bought us an American Edition one year. This year it was the Monopoly Champion Edition. It came with a trophy. We're so competitive we needed a trophy! We got a good laugh. This was from the dogs too! Haha we're lame.

I'm very grateful for all my gifts. I received some pretty neat stuff like books (real books and sewing books), my dad's journals, an awesome tea cup, money, candy, crafty stuff, and movies. I received a ton of birthday wishes and appreciated them all. Here's to another year!

A Month in Review . .

Let's see . . . what have we been doing? Hmm not much of anything of importance or fun.

Except . . .

This was before work. Jake snapped my picture. Really close!

and then far away. one extreme or the other, I guess.

When Sage sleeps her tongue hangs out. On this day it was really far!

In the early mornings we think it's funny to mess with the dogs. On this particular day we stuffed Sage in the WinCo bag. She didn't move or anything. It was like she really wanted to go with us shopping. Move over Paris Hilton's rat dog.

We have this amazing Pizza book and just so happened to have the ingredients for a true Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.

And here I am in action! I wish I could say I learned my skills from my days at Pizza Hut but they use frozen pre-sized crust.

So everyone thought his picture was pretty sad . . .

it only gets worse.

We save our weekends for Scrabble and Whitetailopoly.

And we are in a PRIME location for checking out the stars, moon, and planets. This is totally nerdy but we loved tracking Jupiter and it's moons. It was super cool. One night we saw 3 of Jupiter's moons. Jake thinks 4 but 3 for sure.

Drumsticks!

I would like to thank the Zinser's for this amazing idea.

Homemade drumsticks.

You will need:

12 ice cream cones

1 bottle of Magic Shell chocolate

1 tub of your favorite ice cream

1 handful of nuts (we used the honey roasted peanuts)

1 empty egg carton, some wax paper and tape

This is your cone holder. I put my finger all the way through to make the holes deep. Then I set the carton in the freezer and prepared the cones one at a time.

We used the Smores Magic Shell that is why it is clumpy. I squeezed some around the top of the cone and then used the handle end of a plastic spoon to smooth it all the way to the bottom. If you do all the cones at once and then put them in the freezer the chocolate will be more thick at the bottom. If you do one at a time they stay pretty even. So I would coat one and then stick it in the freezer.

Of coarse I skipped a bunch of steps in pictures but next I cut the wax paper into squares to roll around the cone. Then I took one out of the freezer at a time and filled it with ice cream (make sure you push the ice cream far enough down), taped the wax paper on top, and added another scoop of ice cream. You can put a straw down the middle and add caramel if you would like. We didn't on these and they still were scrumptious. At the end I took them all out and sprinkled the nuts on the top of each one.

The finished product.

We made 12 and they didn't last very long. And i didn't get a picture of us eating them either. They are a little time consuming but well worth the time!

Done with the drive.

I have become quite the weekend warrior away from home. These last couple of weeks I would commute from Pullman to the Tri-cities for work. My record time was 2 hours 10 minutes. I've lost count on how many times I drove this road. But I could tell you where the police sit, how many miles between turn offs, and where the right places are to pass (it's a two lane highway). I think this drive has finally ended. Well, we're hoping. I've been hired on with the City of Pullman Police Station and will be starting soon. These two pictures are while I was driving.

The farm land come right to the edge of the road.

This was a pretty cool sunset.

And when I'm home I have a crazy husband that thinks he owns a lamb. Jake kept himself pretty busy by studying and working while I was gone.

Our dogs will sit and look out the window all day.

So now we're back into the daily grind.