Soccer

I've been playing on an indoor and outdoor soccer team. My indoor team won the winter league and we are undefeated so far in the spring season. For indoor I usually play at least half the game as goalie. My outdoor team is 3-1. I scored two goals in our game today, bringing my season total to 4. I've been playing forward mostly for this team. I haven't been having problems with my knees either.

Kitchen

We had granite counter tops installed in out kitchen last weekend. Our kitchen is small, but between the new counters and appliance, it looks tons better. Hopefully it will make it easier to sell this place, when we decide that it is time to move. We originally looked at some formica from home depot, because the price was appealing. We decided we'd look at a few granite places just to see how much it was going to cost. After haggling with the shop just a few miles from our house, I was able to get them down quite a bit on the price, so we decided that we should go for. The pictures make the counters look lighter than what they actually are in person. There are some dark red flecks that look really good with our cabinets. There is a mixture of the dark read, cream, brown, dark gray, and some iridescent flecks.

Just after installation, the color is called giallo santo

We went with a granite composite sink that is a dark grey, rather than the typical stainless. One reason was that we couldn't find a large single basin sink in stock with 16 or 18 gauge stainless. We found some on with 20 gauge, but wanted to get something that we were sure would hold up since the undermount sink is pretty permanent. This sink we got has a think wall and is supposed to be stain and scratch resistant. I love having the big single sink! Also, Thanks to Finnis and Penni for letting us have their old faucet, I looks great!

Here's a shot of the new appliances with the counters

Here's another view. You can see my orchids too. I was very happy they survived the move and are happily blooming.

Smokin'

We had been talking about getting a smoker for a while, and we finally got one. I did some research about them, because I knew that we wanted something that was easy and didn't require a lot of babysitting to maintain the temperature. So I decided that electric was going to be the write one for us. I ordered it from home depot, since they didn't have this particular one in the store. It just so happened it arrived on Valentine's day, so I called it Brice's present, even though it was something I wanted too :-). It is super easy to use. Set the temperature and add some wood chips and that's about it. It has a built in meat probe that will read out to a remote too. We have used it every weekend since we got it. We've cooked for a few people and everyone loves the pulled pork. We are still working on perfecting the chicken and just need to use a milder wood when we do ribs.

Another look into our exciting lives

This past weekend the weather was nice so we finally got around to repainting the trim around the garage door. Brice did the prep work and I did the priming and painting.

My indoor soccer team played in the championship game on the 18th and we won. It is co-ed so you have to have 3 girls on the field at all times. We didn't have any girl subs and only had one guy sub there, since some of the games had been postponed due to the weather a few weeks ago. We had some people that had scheduled vacations to Colorado since it was presidents day weekend and they didn't have to work on Monday. Our new season already starts this week, so hopefully we will do just a well this season. I played a little more than half the time in the goal, because I was the only person that had any experience in goal. This season we have another person, that should be able to play in the goal too.

We also recently got a smoker and tried it out for the first time this weekend. We went with an electric version, because of the better/easier temperature control. For our first time it turned out pretty good. We did a pork shoulder and will be eating it all week. We are already planning on trying again this weekend, but I'll probably have a couple people over to help put a dent in the meat. We learned to keep track of the top of the meat when you pull it out to rest. We ended up letting it rest upside down and the juices leaked out onto a towel...needless to say the dogs enjoyed it.

Cute pictures

Jabba the Hut

toys that are hard to get the treats out

Bailey in a cat bed, and Jack in a box behind her

Bailey in the other cat bed...she's a little big for it

Cold

We had about 5 inches of snow fall last Tuesday at our house. By Thursday there wasn't much on the roads to speak of, but they where having problems supplying enough natural gas, so they cut the supply off to the air force base, which ment we got to go home at 12:00. With -20 windchill it didn't take long for the older buildings to start cooling off quickly. Work was also cancelled on Friday, but it was my scheduled Friday off.

Bailey is quite the snow dog, but the negative windchill was too much for these pups to really enjoy playing in the snow. This is looking out our living room window into the backyard while the snow was falling

My orchids are blooming again. I only have two, and they are thriving in my kitchen window. This is the first bud to open on one of them. This one has been growing like a weed and has 12 buds on it. My white one will probably open in a week or so. It got sick shortly after moving into the house, so I'm suprised it is doing anything, but I will have 4 flowers on it.

Poor Puppy

We've had Bailey for a little more than a year now, and she is definitly not the average dog. She is super spoiled and I'm pretty sure she thinks she is a small human and not a dog. The video is of the poor thing moaning, wanting to be picked up and put on the bed. She is more than capable of jumping up on her own, but she won't. She also does this if you are on the computer and she thinks she needs more attention, and sometimes she will start moaning when we are just sitting on the couch.

Mix things up a bit

So I'm going to try and occasionally post recipes for new things that I've tried making, and maybe it will get me to post more often.

I'll start with stuffed pasta shells. It all started with food network, then looked at a few different recipes online. Then a trip to the grocery store. The only problem was I didn't write down the ingredients. So I bought what I remembered it ended up being a combination of a few different recipes, but it turned out good.

Stuffed Pasta Shells

1/2 box jumbo pasta shells or manicotti
1 pint ricotta
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 Romano cheese
1/2 asiago cheese
(if you can't tell this is very healthy)
2 eggs
parsley, salt, and pepper to taste
1 or 2 jars of pasta sauce.....I used alfredo, because Brice likes it better than tomato sauce

Boil Pasta

Combine all the cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, and parsley in a bowl and mix will. Spoon the mixture into a ziplock bag. Once paste it cooked, drain. Coat the bottom of a 9x13 dish with sauce. Place the shells in the dish. Cut the corner off the bag with the filling and start filling the shells. Cover the filled shells with your sauce of choice then bake for about 30 minutes at 350F. Be sure the paste is covered well with sauce (hence the extra jar or you will get crispy pasta, the extra sauce is also good for reheating the left overs)

I think the manicotti may be easier to work with and I will probably use it next time.