Cooking in the Country....

We went to visit the Hoefer's this weekend. Abby made a delicious dip called Cowboy Caviar. She hopes this video will kick off her Food Network career. The whole video was too long to post so below is the last minute or so of her show Cooking in the Country.

The Grand Finale

They ended their week in Oregon at Bullwinkle's Family Fun Center and the kids had a blast. Matt and I met up with them for dinner. That place is so LOUD! I don't recommend going there on $12 Tuesdays:-)
It was great to have you guys. Thanks for coming!!

Gorgeous Gorge

Monday we ventured to the Gorge to the Historic Columbia Highway to check out the waterfalls. It was a beautiful day. Shaun loves Matt and enjoyed hiking with him and asking him lots of questions like "Matt, what's your 13th favorite NFL team?" Timmy was sick so him and Mike stayed home and watched Looney Tunes all day.

Lessons from Katie...

Sunday was a very rainy day so we spent it inside playing games, baking and cleaning?? Katie introduced me to the Magic Sponge. It cleans really tough things like your stove top and the grout in my tile counter tops-Amazing. My oven needed to be cleaned due to an incident earlier in the week involving some Monkey Bread but I had NEVER cleaned it before. Katie helped me out...

Mandie loves to bake. We made hot fudge cake in the crock pot and these yummy cheese bread appetizers. Both were delicious!

Goin' Coastal

My brother Mike and his family came all the way out from Rockford, IL to spend Spring Break with us. It was a great time. We went to the coast and had fun checking out the lighthouses, going to the aquarium, checking out tide pools and whale watching. (It was free-day at the Lighthouse-yay!) We were reminded of a few important lessons about the ocean: Always remember to watch out for sneaker waves and Don't turn your back on the ocean:-)

A weekend in the country....well Snohomish anyway

Last weekend we took the train up to Seattle (a first for both of us) to see Matt's mom and his great-uncle Dick. Uncle Dick fell a few weeks ago and has been recovering in a nursery home. He is 91! His spirits have been down but Delores said it was the most he has smiled in a long time when he saw Matt. It was good to see him. Please pray for his continued recovery though. He really wants to be back in his own house.

We also planted some blueberry and raspberry bushes, a pear tree and an apple tree on Dick's property. He has about 20 acres and we took a little hike to check it out. It is really pretty up there.

Matt accidentally left his Bible on the train on the way up and was bummed. We checked in the lost and found but it wasn't there. Then, yesterday someone from Amtrak called and said they had it and they were sending on the train back to Portland. Very cool.

Better than I(we) deserve...

ok, so if any of you are Dave Ramsey fans, you will get the title. For those of you who aren't fans, he is a financial guy that we listen to on the radio and try to follow his philosophies on money(although I don't really care for "rice and beans" and we haven't quite had "gazelle-like intensity"). He is a Christian but has radio show that is played on the local talk radio station(1190). He is big into having no debt...none...not even your house. Well we haven't quite gotten there yet but the Lord has blessed us in being able to pay off our 2nd mortgage and we're very excited about it and thankful. On the radio when someone gets to this step in the program they call Dave and scream WE'RE DEBT FREE....(except for our house). we think that is a bit over the top so we'll just stick to a small blog blurb.

Olive Update

Ok. I apologize for the horrible picture(it was taken with my phone) and for not updating sooner but Olive is doing well. She has been home for about 2 weeks and seems to be back to her old-self. We do have to give her fluid treatments twice a week but she is handling that pretty well. We take her back for a check up tomorrow to see where her blood counts are. We are happy to have her home. This picture was taken when we visited her at the pet hospital. She had to wear the blue thing so she didn't pull out the IV she was on. Of course, she still managed to pull it out once or twice. As you can imagine, she was not so thrilled about wearing this.

Kristi's Connection...Coming Soon!

Ok, don't we all have at least a one friend that is a great person but just hasn't found the right one for them yet? I have several friends like this and I figured if I have a few and you have a few, maybe we could help some of those friends meet. The trick is that my single friends are mostly women so I hope some of you know some wonderful men that could be a great fit for my friends. I will write a blog about the friend and if you know someone that might be a match, let me know....maybe we could all get together for dinner and introduce the two of them...or whatever.

Keep checking back for my first Kristi's Connection blog.

p.s. If you're single and you would like to be featured on Kristi's connection, let me know:-)

Raspberry Almond Mini-Muffins

I made these last week and brought them into the vet as a thanks for all the people that helped take care of Olive. They were tasty. The folding of the preserves into mini muffins is a little tricky. I think I might just make regular size ones next time. Sorry no pics.

Brown Butter Tortellini with Spinach and Ham

Tuesday night we tried this "featured" Pampered Chef recipe. With Matt's chopping assistance it went pretty quickly. We were eating within 30 minutes of starting. Interesting and unexpected blend of flavors and textures. Not a low-fat recipe but we enjoyed this one. We gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.