Christmas 2010

Usually our Christmas is filled with travel troubles as we lug suitcases full of presents through crowded airports to get back to the east coast.  This year we had no trouble at all, because we didn't go anywhere.  Literally, we were Christmas shut-ins.  Jason and I stayed in our pajamas for about 48 hours, and played board games on the wii.  The only time we got up was to eat lol.  While we certainly missed our family, it was nice to have our own little holiday.

We opened a few presents on Christmas morning, which was the most activity we did all day lol.  Gracie Lou helped, of course.  She found a new present under the tree too which kept her occupied all day! 

 We hope everyone had a great holiday, and thanks for the wonderful gifts.

My first solo batch of brittle

Every Christmas I can remember involves peanut brittle.  It's one of few recipes we can trace back several generations.  As far as we know, my great gramma Maude made peanut brittle over the holidays and passed the traditions down to my gramma, my mom, and now me.   It could go back even further, we're not sure. 

This year, for the first time, I made it myself.  Usually, I make it with my mom's supervision, but since I've been away from home now for some time, I decided it was time to give it a try.  

  

I'm happy to say, I remembered all the steps! You have to boil ingredients, use a candy thermometer, and spread the mix fast when it's done.  It's all about timing.  When we were little our job was to spread the peanut brittle.  My mom would say, 'Man your stations!"  And my sister and I would grab heavily greased spatulas and spread the nutty mix all over cookie sheets.  (This year, Jason had to help with that part.)

I made several batches and gave it away as gifts in mason jars.  Not bad for my first attempt, thanks to years of practice.

Snowmageddon

The Metrodome roof collapses under heavy snow and ice!!

There aren't too many snow storms here that rival the ones I grew up with, but this weekend Minnesota had one for the books.  On Saturday we got about 2 feet of snow, which is pretty unheard of here, at least at one time. 

If you haven't seen the video already - check it out.  There was so much snow on the roof of the metrodome, where the Vikings play, that the roof caved in!  Fox Sports was inside the dome when it happened.  It's pretty crazy video.  They're still trying to figure out how long it will take to fix.  In the meantime, they're rearranging the Viks schedule.

This video will, no doubt, be used over and over again here.  The Viks are lobbying for a new stadium, so I bet they will use this to their advantage.

I get it now

Every year my family would decorate the tree my mom would break out old ornaments that we had made over the years.  I never understood why she felt the urge to put our macaroni reindeer on the tree year after year, but now I get it.  Those ornaments have a story.  Now some of ours do too.

The shark has a story.  When Jason and I first started dating we went to a bar in Uptown and had a popular drink called a 'shark tank.'  The shark is filled with grenadine which you dump into the drink.  He kept the shark, added fishing line and hook, and gave it to me for our first Christmas four years ago.

When we were in Hawaii we bought this hand painted ornament.  We decided it would be our little tradition to get holiday ornaments from each place we travel to.

 

Our tree topper is an angel.  My mom gave it to me a few years ago.  It's the same tree topper we put on our tree every year.  My mom tried to retire her, but I wouldn't have it.  She's a little rough around the edges, but I like her.

This little toad in a throne is an ornament my Gramma gave me.  It says, "You have to kiss a lot of toads to find a prince."

This one I made with my grandparents.  They made a lot of crafts and sold things like this at various craft fairs.  I remember making a ton of them one year.

 

This angel was a gift from Jason's mom.  It's been on our tree since we moved into our house.

Eventually we'll have a tree full of stories...

All the rage

Gardeners are used to changing their planters as the season change, and now Minnesotans have come up with a winter idea.  Spruce Tip Planters.  Arrangements like the one above look great, but can cost upwards of $60.  They're all the rage in Minnesota.  They are everywhere.

But why pay $60, when you can make one for free?  I did.  We had to chop off some branches to make our tree fit in the stand so I took the extra branches and made my own planter.  I tossed a few left over decorations on it and now we've got a nice little arrangement right outside our front door.

Decorate a bulldog

Gracie Lou is never really sure what to make of the holidays.  When she watches us drag the tree in the house she tilts her head in confusion.  Unlike other dogs, she is pretty well behaved around the tree.  She doesn't try to knock it down, or eat ornaments, but this year she took interest in the Christmas lights.  She watched them blink as we tested each strand.  Since she was so interested, I decided to 'decorate a bulldog.'  This lasted for about three seconds, before she tried to run away and take the lights with her.

Finding the perfect tree

This year Jason and I stayed pretty close to home to get our Christmas tree, and we got one that is normal size.  Last year we bought a 12 foot tree, but the bigger the tree, the bigger the mess.

As usual I was on the hunt for the perfect tree.  I had Jason drive around the entire tree farm before deciding where to get out to look.

It was a really nice winter day, as nice as a winter day can be.  All the trees were laced with snow, and the temperature wasn't bad either. 

We chopped one down, brought it home, and decorated it.  We put it near the fire place this year, looks pretty good huh?

Hibachi experience

During the holidays it always seems tough to keep up with friends.  On top of the shopping and cooking madness that comes with the last two months of the year, several of our friends are expecting their first child around the holidays which understandably adds to the chaos.  John and Jess are expecting their baby girl any day now, so it was great to catch up with them.

We decided to try something different so we went to a Japanese restaurant and ate at a hibachi table.  Basically a cook stands right in front of you and cooks your meal with all sorts of tricks much like Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail only with utensils instead of bar glasses.

It was our first hibachi experience, and overall it was pretty good, but the company was better. 

Turkey day

It wasn't my first time as Thanksgiving host, but this year was by far my best attempt.  A few years back I attempted to host Thanksgiving for a group of 'newsies' that all had to work on Thanksgiving.  I took the day off to cook and everyone showed up after the newscast.  I thought I was on top of my game, but when I cut into the turkey - it was still pink.  That was my first lesson: make sure the turkey is completely thawed before cooking lol.  Since then, I've gotten much better. 

This year I brined the turkey overnight.  It turned out great, really moist and it looked like a picture in a magazine lol.  On top of a great turkey, I made all the side dishes including pecan pie.  I even consulted cooks books! Plus, we got to eat on our new kitchen table and I bought cloth napkins for the event!!

My one little mistake was the stuffing.  I made it, but I left it in the turkey!  Whoops.  We had so much stuff on the table I forgot about it.

Homemade Christmas

I feel like I've been neglecting our blog lately.  It's partly because we've been boring lately lol and because some of my free time is eaten up by the upcoming holidays. 

Rather than roaming the over crowded isles of store after store, we're trying to make this a homemade holiday.  I've converted our office into a craft room.  I've got stuff strung all over in there, seriously it's dangerous room, but my projects are coming along.

Typically, I wait until last minute with these kinds of things, and then I'm rushing around, and pay way too much for shipping to make sure gifts arrive right on time.  This year, I'm trying to curb my rushing lol.  Hopefully this little elf can keep working for a few more weeks and have some nice homemade holiday gifts to show for it.

On location

It's been a busy few weeks at 12 News.  After the craziness of election night, we started working on a 'special' newscast.  I'm producing the show, Hometown History, which will air over the holidays.  It's all about local landmarks.  We feature an old town hall, a train depot, a library built in the early 1900's - things like that.

We shot parts of the show 'on location' at a historic farm today.  This ten acre lot is just as it was back in the early 1900's.  It was certainly a chilly morning, a whopping 20 degrees.  It took several hours to get everything done.  We shot in six different spots around the farm.

We even got creative and took a few shots from on top of the live truck. Over the next few days we'll edit everything together.  I'll put up a link to the show once it's finished.

Winter's roar

We had an unseasonable long stretch of warm weather to kick off November.  We got spoiled.  We all knew winter was coming, and yet when we woke up this past Saturday morning we were shocked to find winter had arrived and it arrived with a vengeance.

When we woke up, it was a winter wonderland.  Several inches of snow covered the ground and we had no power.  It was out most of the morning, long enough to remind us just how much we rely on electricity.  

Of course it was time to break out the snow blower....but that didn't go so smoothly.  The snow blower had a few issues.  After a 'few' hours Jason had it running again though.

I guess it's a scene we should get used to.

History repeats itself

We've all heard the saying, history repeats itself.  It just usually doesn't happen so soon. 

In 2008 the race for a U.S. senate seat was so close in Minnesota, all the ballots had to be recounted by hand.  It was a huge undertaking.  It took eight months for the entire process to play out. 

Now, two years later we're in the same boat.  A week after the polls have closed, we still don't know who our next governor will be.  Yet again, the race is too close to call.  What's the deal in MN? 

One of these two:  Republican Tom Emmer (left) or Democrat Mark Dayton will eventually end up as governor.  More than two million ballots statewide will be recounted.  The recount craze starts all over again in a  few weeks.

Halloween mistakes

This year we had about 40 trick-or-treaters, which is a little more than last year. In fact, this year we ran out of candy.  We try not to be one of those houses that skimps on the candy, so we gave little handfuls to every kid who came to the door, and apparently we over did it.  By 8:00pm our lights were out!

That wasn't the highlight of the night though.  Two little kids, about nine years old came bouncing to the door.  They both have long blonde hair, brightly colored wings on their back, and purple face paint.  I go out on a limb, and assume these girls are butterflies.  So I make a comment, "I love the costumes girls."  Do you know what they said, "We're not girls, we're boys!"  Whoops.  I just looked shocked tossed them some candy and shut the door. 

A few minutes later another 'girl' comes to the door.  Picture a small Pocahontas - long black braid, leather vest, and a leather purse that looks like a kid decorated it with pink and purple yarn.  So I say, "I like your purse, did you make it?"  And the kid says, "It's not a purse, I'm Indian Jones!"

After that I stopped talking to the kids and just gave them candy.

Wedding archives

It's taken me about five months, but I've finally finished our wedding and honeymoon albums!  More and more bride and grooms aren't printing their pictures, they're happy with a DVD slideshow, but we wanted the prints.  Not all pictures are meant to stay in your computer lol. 

Originally I didn't think this would take a lot of time - print the pictures and put them in a book right? Well every photo album sold these days has room to write near the picture which takes FOREVER!  And of course, I decided to make a scrapbook of the honeymoon which also took some time. 

As for the wedding album, I specifically bought one that does not have any space for notes.  I think they all turned out well!  

Bluff country

Before the chilling temperatures hit Minnesota, Jason and I took a little day trip to Red Wing.  The small town, about an hour south of our house, is known for a barn shaped bluff that sits in the middle of town.

Most of the metro area is pretty flat, no real hills to speak off.  Once you venture out, corn and soybean fields fill the landscape until you get far enough south to see what Minnesotans call, 'bluff country' - which is a nice touristy name for rock covered hills.

We decided to hike up the 400 ft bluff, fortunately it's a pretty easy hike.  We took some great pictures once on top of the city and of the Mississippi River below.Parts of NY have bluffs like this so it was a nice reminder of home.

Back to school

It's official.  I'm going back to school.  For awhile I've talked about getting my master's degree in mass communications with the hope of teaching journalism one day, and now it's really happening.  Last week I was accepted to St. Cloud State University as a graduate student. 

The hope is that a master's degree will give us a few more job options as we consider moving back east in the next few years. 

When I went to the school for an interview, I was a little surprised at how far removed I am from college mentality.  While on a tour of campus, I was reminded of the 'change the world' attitude that seems to ooze from every student.  Somewhere between the students petitioning to save the whales and the journalism students 'exposing' campus politics - I realized I'm older than I think lol.

That said, the graduate level mass communication classes are made up mostly of working professionals who are looking to teach one day, so hopefully I feel more comfortable in class. 

Speaking of classes, they start in January.  Wish me luck!    

Wanted: Potato recipes!

The garden is just about tuckered out, but we still had some potatoes left to dig out.  We pulled out some russet potatoes earlier, they were a good size but the reds seem to do much better. It's a process to dig them all out, so next year we might try using hay instead of dirt.  I've heard others have had success doing that, and it's a lot easier on the back.

 Needless to say, you know what our side dish will be for the next 25 dinners lol.