The Year of Travel

Jay and I have dubbed 2009 as the Year of Travel. It seems like we were gone most weekends and for a while I think our local friends thought we had disappeared for good. The reasons for these trips? Everything - from work, to weddings, to birthdays, to vacation - whatever it was, it took us somewhere else.

I thought it would be fun to put it all into perspective. Collectively we've been to 19 states this year.

Create your own visited map of The United States

That's 38% of the states in the Union in one year. And Mexico & Canada. Not too shabby, eh?

Now just for fun, lets take a look at specific destinations (again, this is a collective list):

Baltimore

Boston

Burlington

Casper

Cheyenne

Chicago

Cincinnati

Dallas - 2x

Denver - 4x

Flagstaff - 2x

Indianapolis

Jackson Hole

Kansas City - 2x

Laramie - 2x

Las Vegas

Los Angeles - 2x (more if you count all of Jay's out & back flights for work)

Montreal

New Mexico

Plattsburgh

Puerto Vallerta

Raleigh

Salt Lake City

San Diego

Seattle

Sedona

Wow, I'm exhausted just writing that!

The point is, it was a busy year! We truly have enjoyed ourselves and have the memories & pictures (and blog) to look back years from now to remember when we were able to travel so freely.

We look forward to all that 2010 will bring and can't wait to share our new adventures with you!

From our Kitchen: A Christmas Tradition (does that rhyme?)

One of my favorite Christmas traditions growing up was cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. I'm not completely sure of the origin of the tradition, but I do know that those lovely Pillsbury Sweet Rolls my mom baked up were quick & easy on mornings when the usual focus of food switched over to what Santa brought.

The past few years, I've been able to hold onto this tradition in my new family. This year however, Jay wanted to make them from scratch! I pointed out to him that the whole point of the cinnamon rolls was (besides their yumminess) how easy they were to make, but he wouldn't have any of it. We made Martha Stewart's Truck Stop Cinnamon Rolls several years ago & he pulled out the recipe.

In order to expedite the process in the morning, I spent some time on Christmas Eve measuring out everything we'd need. I wish I took a picture because I just know you'd roll your eyes. Everything was measured & labeled & ready to go. I was very careful to have it all measured just right because we cut the recipe in half (which worked fine, but next year I think we'll make the whole batch & give some away).

Jay had been up for about an hour or so by the time I dragged my butt downstairs. He had already mixed up the dough and it was rising nicely.

Once it was ready to roll, we rolled it out nice and thin & sprinkled on the melted butter, cinnamon & sugar. If you make this recipe yourself, it will seem like a TON of sugar & cinnamon (and it is), but use it all. Trust me on this.
After it's all sprinkled, roll it up nice & tight and then slice it up. We cut it into 8 equal portions.
Don't they already look delicious?? Just you wait - it gets better!
Then you put the pretty little rolls facing up on a buttered cookie sheet, cover & let rise for a little longer.
Put them in the oven & smell your house fill with the most beautiful, mouth-watering scent imaginable. They look like this when they're done (ok, maybe next time we'd cut a couple minutes off the cooking time).
Now, whatever anyone tells you, DO NOT stop there! Even if the recipe says they're ready to go (ahem, Martha) and even if someone (ahem, Jay) says they look good as they are.

Make the glaze.

Just make it. I know, it is a lot of sugar, but it is just not a cinnamon roll without it. I didn't use a particular recipe but you can if you like. Or just eyeball it: mix up some confectioners sugar, a little milk and vanilla until its the right consistency. Then you just pour. it. all. over.

Let it soak into all the nooks & crannies until they look like this.
Now they are ready to eat. And it may be lunchtime by then, but that's ok too.

Weekend Update: Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas! It started out by spending Christmas Eve with Jeff, Tara & Alistair. Tara was working until about 7, so when we got there, I helped get dinner ready. We had steaks on the smoker, stuffed shells, chicken parmesan, brussels sprout hash, and bread pudding for dessert. It was all just delicious! After dinner, we opened presents. We got a beautiful framed finger painting from Alistair as well as a donut ornament. Tara also painted us a nice "D" for a collection I'm working on!

Alistair was a little tired at first, but then I told him that Santa was coming & that got him to smile!

Can you believe this is our 8th Chrismas?? I sure can't!
We left Jeff & Tara's around 10 so we could make it to midnight mass in time to get seats! We got there just in time & really enjoyed the service. It was packed - standing room only!

Since we went to church on Christmas Eve, we got to sleep in on Christmas Day. I think we were up by about 8:30. Jay had started breakfast (I'll do a separate post on that later), so we opened our stockings (Jay got me chocolate covered coffee beans, Necco wafers, and butter mints and I got him wasabi/soy almonds, Necco wafers and his favorite shaving cream). Funny about the Necco wafers because my mom sent me 3 bags as well! Then onto our gifts from family & each other. Jay got me....
...and.....
!!!!

I just love his drawings! We're going to see the Broadway Across America showings of Annie (you like how he even drew Sandy the dog?!) on January 3rd - next weekend! - and Mary Poppins in February. I am so excited because both are going to be date nights and who doesn't like dinner & a show?!

I got Jay a very fancy wine key that he'd been eyeing for a while. It's something that we will have forever and help us enjoy many bottles of wine together with :)

We were planning on staying in all day, but made a quick trip to Blockbuster to get some movies. We watched District 9 and Julie & Julia. I really enjoyed the latter while District 9 was ok. It wasn't what we expected, but was entertaining nonetheless.

Saturday we watched the other two movies we rented: Away We Go and Inglorious Basterds (both were pretty good). We also hit the mall and really enjoyed ourselves believe it or not! We were prepared for it to be packed, so just took our time in finding a parking spot and strolled around for a while. We're still on the hunt for Jay's perfect shoes...it's a mission that I'm determined to accomplish in 2010!!!

Today was another lazy day. I got some sewing finished and Jay is on his way home from golfing with friends. Oh, there he is now - time to go - we're heading to the bar to watch some football & get something to eat :)

Stay tuned for our Christmas breakfast yumminess!

Yes, He's Real

I recently stumbled upon this very lovely letter from an 8 year old girl questioning Santa's existence and thought today would be an appropriate day to share it with you.

Sit down for a couple minutes (it's not very long) and take a read. I think you'll enjoy it.

Weekend Update: Ugly: ugh-lee. very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance.

Friday night was Joe & Kiera's 4th Annual Ugly Sweater Party. It is hard to imagine that people actually buy these sweaters for full price and wear them in public. The only thing I can start to pretend to understand is that some of these ugly-sweater-wearers are teachers. You know what I mean - young kids need that over stimulation of the senses by looking at bright! colors and textures like pom poms! and bells! Right?

The girls and I surely did a great job of finding just the right ugh-lee sweaters to wear for this occasion. I think these parties are becoming more common as neither Savers nor Goodwill had a trace of an ugly sweater on their racks. Kiera saved the night and let Jay & I borrow from their growing stash.

Check out us hotties in our very unattractive sweaters.
The McNeills did a great job of finding something displeasing-in-appearance to wear. Jeff also donned that 'stash to punctuate the look. (Alistair - good call on the striped PJs though they certainly are not ugly. I think it's hard to put someone as cute as you in something ugly, so we'll let you slide until next year).
The Blechs - as usual Joe's imagination rocked the house. Dickey!!! I think this qualifies for offensive-to-the-sense-of-beauty, don't you? (Kate - you will be mortified one day when you're 18 & see this picture. Just know - your parents do love you).
Kathy with her dates Elijah and Josh. The boys picked out their own unpleasant-to-look-at tops to wear.
And here we are in our omigosh-are-they-really-wearing-that sweaters. At least we're smiling, right?
So as you can tell, the party was a great time! Jay and I stayed up way past our bedtime and didn't get home until 1:00am!! It was so fun hanging out by the fire talking and listening to stories. I just love our friends!

The rest of the weekend was nice & quiet. Saturday we went to In & Out for burgers and then did a little grocery shopping. Oh, and I baked those date bars that were so yummy. Today...well, let's just say that I haven't changed out of my pajamas and it's nearly 8pm. It's THAT kind of day. I made beef stew in the crock pot (so good!), sewed & did laundry while Jay watched football & did some research online. We talked about all the exciting things we have to look forward to in 2010 as well. I just know it's going to be a great year!!

Christmas is just a few days away & we're all ready to celebrate. We wish you and your families a very blessed week!

xoxo Amie

From Our Kitchen: It's a Date!

I'm going to take this opportunity to introduce you to a friend of mine. Ok, well, I don't really know her, but I feel like I do! Her name is Ree - but most people know her as Pioneer Woman. She has an amazing blog that I follow (stumbled upon the link on a friend of a friend's blog and got hooked!) and a recently launched cookbook that I'm dying to get my hands on (it was on my Christmas list, so fingers crossed!).

Anyway - she had this recipe for "The Bar" on her blog earlier this week and I salivated looking at the pictures. All that butter! And dates! I love dates!! Remember the date milkshakes from our stop in Dateland last year? mmmmmmmm

::sidenote::

I think dates are underappreciated. When is the last time you sought them out at the grocery store? Or saw a recipe that included dates and was like, "OH! I must make that!"? You probably think you don't like them. Or that they look funny (they do - kinda like really big raisins). All I can say is try them. They might as well be in the candy aisle they are so freaking sweet.

Ok, now back to my story.

So, I saw the recipe on Monday and actually emailed a link to myself that day so I could keep the recipe handy. You will not believe what happened next! Just a few days later at work I noticed that this HUGE gift basket in the kitchen was getting pretty sparse. Among the jars of high-end condiments, fancy flatbread crackers, and the handful of Harry & David chocolate covered cherries, there was this lonely package of dates quietly waiting for me to stumble upon it.

I wish I had a picture of it in there. It practically blended in with the dark colored wicker and black shredded paper stuffed inside. I bet if I hadn't noticed it, it would have just sat there until someone eventually threw it away because people don't appreciate them enough. And you know what? If I hadn't seen that recipe just a couple days before, I probably wouldn't have looked at them twice either. Those dates are so glad that I'm friends with Ree.

You start by coarsely chopping them up. I found this a little difficult since they were so moist. Look at all the gooey goodness stuck to the knife.

Then you mix flour, baking powder and salt.
And then melt three, yes, 3 sticks of butter.
The microwave works great for this.
Then in a separate bowl, mix the sugar. White & brown.
Add the butter & mix well.
Then the eggs. My friend likes pictures of eggs and you know what? So do I. They make me think of my drawing classes growing up. Learning things like shading, shadows, depth...makes me want to get out my pencils... Anyway, you add them one at a time to the butter & sugar mixture.

Now, back to the stars of the show. Take some of that flour mixture and toss the dates in it. About 1/4 cup or so. I used more than that though because my dates were so sticky! I bet they were so fresh & maybe they were local AZ dates from Dateland!

This is an important step because otherwise the dates will just sink to the bottom of the pan when you go to bake it.

Now you mix (by hand) the flour mixture into the butter & sugar mixture. Don't over mix it though.
Then fold in the dates.
And pour into a greased pan. Save that yummy batter on the spatula to share with someone you love.
Then put it in the oven and wait. I used this time to play around with different settings on my camera. Fascinating, eh?
I might have sat in front of the oven for a little bit too.
It's done when it's a golden brown color and a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs. For me it was about 34 minutes. And since it is winter, leave that oven door open so you get to enjoy every last drop of that sweet warmth...
Then they are ready to enjoy! Jay and I went to the gym (=guilt free dessert? I think so), and ate dinner before tasting them. They are delicious! The only regret I have is not eating them fresh out of the oven. When I have them for breakfast tomorrow morning Next time I have them, I'm going to heat them up in the microwave for just a few seconds first.
A few final notes:

a. My pictures aren't nearly as pretty as those on Ree's blog. For some reason mine all turned out much more yellow and I just didn't have the patience tonight to edit every single picture. (I am learning though!)

b. The original recipe calls for nuts, but being the nut-free gal that I am, I omitted them. Jay said he probably would prefer them with nuts but still gave my version good reviews :)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

I thought of the perfect title for a blog post yesterday when I was coming home from work. Ready to hear it?

"No Christmas Tree, No Christmas Tree"

Isn't that clever? You see, it was December 11th and we were treeless. I was to the point where I had come to terms with the fact that we weren't going to have a tree this year. My lovely new computer and desk were now in the only space we had for a tree in our living room. I was thinking of picking up a tiny potted tree to use instead, but never got around to finding the right one (you see, Christmas trees, no matter what the size, must be real in my book).

It didn't really matter though. I came home from work to this beautiful sight:

This 2009 photo ornament (it's our tradition) was tucked inside:

Photo Source

I was so happy that I cried tears of joy. Anyone surprised? Jay sure wasn't when I called him at work to thank him. :)

I had the tree decorated and lit up before I went to bed. And here I sit peeking over at it every now and then, reminded of how simply sweet my husband is.

From Our Kitchen: Ok Well, Not Really

Why hello, Folks! I figured I'd get out of the "Weekend Update" rut and post about something a little different for once. We do fun stuff on weeknights too ya know!

Tonight I got together with Kiera and Tara for another session at Dream Dinners. You may remember me mentioning this in a Weekend Update post a few weeks ago. This time instead of making one meal, we each made 12!!

Our session started at 6, and all the ingredients were ready to go! We rotated around the stations and made all sorts of yummy dinners. Each month, they have a new "menu" to select from so the food never gets boring. Wanna hear what I made?

*Bruschetta Chicken Skewers

*Huge Sausage & Pepperoni Calzone

*Mango Chutney Chicken with Jasmine Rice

*Chicken with Honey, Garlic & Orange

*Savory Grilled Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Fries

*Garlic Balsamic Marinated Steak

*Chicken Mirabella

*Arroz con Pollo

*Classic Chicken & Dumplings

There were a few items that sounded real good, so I made 2 of them. The great thing is that it only took us a little over an hour to make it all and it is super easy to bring back home & store in the freezer.

And what would be a post without a picture? Check out the top shelf in our freezer - all stocked & ready to go for a night I don't feel like cooking!

And, in case you're wondering, the bottom shelf is our meat shelf. Jay is AWESOME at finding great deals, so we have a nice stash of pork chops, steak, chicken, sausage, and bacon for the nights that I feel like chopping, peeling and measuring.

The best of both worlds. Here in our very own freezer. How about that?

Weekend Update: Happy Birthday Jay!

We started off the weekend Friday night with my work holiday party. It was held at the delicious Chart House in Scottsdale - we enjoyed great food and took home some wine from the gift exchange :)

Saturday was the big day. My wonderful, generous, funny, handsome, talented - need I say more? - husband turned a year older. I gave him his birthday present early in the morning - an acoustic guitar. I'm so excited to watch him learn and get the hang of it! Here he is watching an instructional video on the computer - learning some chords :)
We eventually left the house for wings & football for lunch, and then did a little shopping before heading home to prepare for the big game. Kiera, Joe and Kate came over (with Joe's guitar of course - yup, I planned that) to help us cheer on the Cornhuskers. We had (just enough) pizza and then since Jay doesn't like cake very much, fruit tart for dessert.

I have always wanted to make a fruit tart for Jay, so this was the perfect occasion! Without going into detail, let me just say that it's not the easiest thing in the world. I made the shell from scratch, then there is a layer of chocolate, then a layer of pastry cream (basically a custard) I made from scratch too, then the fruit followed by an apricot glaze. The hard work totally paid off - it was delicious!
Happy Birthday my love!!!
Here Joe is giving Jay some pointers...I think he's getting the hang of it!
What a beautiful family - sporting red for Nebraska!!! Thank you so much for celebrating with us and for being such great friends!
Here's another shot of Jay playing his new guitar. Special thanks to Joe for his shopping advice as well as for teaching Jay some Metallica - my favorite!

Weekend Update: Cranberries in the Stuffing and So Much Cuteness I Can't Handle It

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Colorado at Jay's parent's house. Todd & May survived a road trip drove from Kansas with Xander and Liam to be there too so the whole family was together!

Since we arrived after bedtime, we didn't get to see the boys until Thanksgiving morning. Jay and Liam had their morning fix together to start things off:
The boys and I took a nice stroll to the park to enjoy the absolutely beautiful weather we had! It was around 70 and sunny despite all the snow you can see on the ground :) Jay's bestest friend Shawn came down from Denver to celebrate with us, so us girls were definitely outnumbered!

Liam giggled the entire time on the swing!
Xander had fun on the slide!

Karen and May put together a beautiful traditional dinner that we all enjoyed: Turkey, Stuffing (Jay's favorite part), Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry Sauce, Sweet Potatoes (my favorite part), Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Creamed Onions, and of course Pumpkin and Apple Pie for dessert! We were so stuffed!
Xander wasn't a big fan of the whole thing. He had a lot more fun browsing through the Black Friday ads and giving Todd a hard time.
Liam on the other hand....Liam LOVED the cranberry sauce. He loved it so much in fact that he put some in his hair (and up his sleeve, and on his chin) for later.
Other than a big dinner, the rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. We watched Star Trek, Up! and Blues Clues...

and played Hide & Seek...who's in the cabinet?????
BOO! Hi Liam!
We watched football (Go Big Red - Nebraska won!)- aren't the guys so cute in their Huskers shirts?

Oh and I took lots of pictures of these cutie pies:


We did some cooking too. On Friday night we made turkey soup and on Saturday night Jay made this absolutely delicious pepperoni lasagna - with homemade sauce! It was soooo good & we gobbled up every last bit!
On Sunday, Jay, Shawn, Karen, Mary and I went to see The Blind Side. What a great movie. I really loved that it was a true story and that it wasn't an old story - it seems like a lot of the sports related movies I've seen are about something that happened decades ago. In this one, it's very relevant as we watched the main character play for the Ravens while we were waiting to board our plane that night! It was very inspiring and we all really enjoyed it!

Well, there you go. Lots of cuteness, lots of family, and no pictures to prove I was there :( Seriously though - next time I'm giving Jay the camera duties!