My Newest Quest

The best steak restaurant I have ever eaten is The Hereford House in Kansas City. I don't remember if it was when we went to Phantom of the Opera or to the Air Medical Conference, but I can picture it just down the street from the convention center and theater. We waited in a LONG line. It was extremely expensive($100 for just the two us). Watched as they grilled our steaks on an open grill and they were perfect! But the absolute best was my dessert. Bread pudding. Since that day I have wanted to duplicate the bread pudding in that restaurant. So last week when we went on a bike ride and stopped at the Nauvoo Winery to get some wine for a friend I found the perfect cookbook to add to my collection. It is a collection of old bread pudding recipes! So my quest officially begins to try each one and maybe modify to create the perfect bread pudding. I know what your thinking..... Not many people like bread pudding and even I am not sure who I will feed it to. But the fun is in creating it. What is really interesting is in this book I have found a recipe for Old Fashioned Christmas Pudding too. It takes six hours to bake it! I can't wait for a few days off so I can try it! Got to get through Christmas cookie time first though then comes the pudding.

Nov 26, Update

I got a little behind on updates and I know many of you are wondering if we fell of the face of the earth. My work schedule is the same 48 to 60 hours each week but for some reason my shifts have been hit hard and I have been running a LOT! So far I am behind only 5 reports though. Not too bad. So to bring y'all up to date.
Dan had another birthday. For the last two years I have planned weekend get-aways for him. Last year was Iowa City, the year before Chicago by train. This year I figured he would be more surprised if I brought the "get away" home. Sounds strange but I think we've been away so much lately that a stay at home would be nice. So we went to a movie, dinner and had a special celebration at home.
We have continued our work-outs. Kind of funny that 3-4 years ago we walked every night to exercise and chat. Then several years ago we bought a tandem bike to exercise and spend time together now we go to the gym for those same reasons. It seems to me that the older we get the harder we have to work out. Dan hasn't been eating so much junk this last year and that has made a big difference too. My addiction is the "Big Red" caffeinated soda. I drink 3-4 a week. Yes I have been corrupted. Never drank a caffeinated soda until many years after getting married. It is probably the source of my abdominal pains.
We both are working nights on the Thanksgiving holiday. The kids all have other plans so we will be celebrating it later when our schedules coordinate. I spent the day baking for my family's cookie day on Saturday. Robert called and needed some advice on how to cook a turkey. I believe it turned out well for him. I am thankful & proud that all my kids seem to manage well in the kitchen. Which reminds me of a nice memory. He it is:
When the kids were young they liked to make us breakfast in bed. I mean a complete breakfast with eggs, bacon, orange juice or milk. Sometimes even pancakes. Dan and I would be pretty impressed and sometimes I even felt like such a lazy mother to let my kids get up so early and wait on me like that. But it was so sweet. It was around that time that I seemed to have problems trying to find my birth control pills. It seemed they were never where I kept them and several times I even had to get more from the pharmacy. Since then I have discovered the reason for the disappearing pills. Sarah admitted to me a few years ago that she had hid them because she had wanted another brother or sister. Is this why we received such royal treatment??? A reason to keep us in bed??? LOL

Fixing our driveway

Dan is hard at work fixing our driveway. Those puddles we had when it rained were getting to big to jump across.


Our neighbor helped with his tractor.



Nothing is more sexy than a man hard at work!!

NEW SLIPPERS

I have had my eye on these crazy slippers for over a month. I held of getting them just in case somebody got them for me for my birthday. Finally when Dan and I were in the store the other day I just couldn't resist. I only wish I had a "cat in the hat" HAT to match them. It doesn't take much to brighten my day does it?

Sarah's Birthday

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I am a little slow in updating. Sarah's birthday was Friday. Dan and I went with her and Matt to Mi Jalapena in Quincy. Went shopping for a birthday gift together before we ate. Had fun then went directly to work. Anyway Happy Birthday Sarah!!!

Waiting

Here I sit waiting for some Buns to rise................. When he gets up we are going to work on the house. LOL

Oct Review

Once again we have made it through an amazingly busy month. Hard to keep up with work, fire dept and classes. We also have been working on the house. Dan has been moving stuff out of our bedroom since we will be redoing the walls in there and updating it. It has been slow progress since he tends to be easily sidetracked.
I am posting some pictures of our Halloween. My favorite time of year. Dan and I went to the pumpkin walk in Nauvoo. Ended up eating at the Hotel because neither of us felt like eating the typical sidewalk vendor foods. Later the kids came over(except Robert of course) and we went downtown again and took more pics. I had decorated some of my Halloween cookies which Sarah LOVED. She came back the next day and finished them off.I also carved two pumkins just for nostalgia. The one says "Fire" and the other was a skeleton with Fire Helmet. It sure is different without the kids helping with the holiday stuff. But it is nice to share it with Dan since he always seemed to take the backseat on the Holiday preparations before.

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