Thanksgiving Morning it was 9 degrees!

Thanksgiving in Utah was a whirlwind of fun times, cold weather, family, food, movies, and games.  Just the way I like my holidays.
First stop the morning after we got there was Magleby's Fresh for the french toast:

          Dave and me with his 3 brothers (left to right: Jonathan, Bryan, and Layton) 

Jonathan enjoying his french toast and hot chocolate 

                            Dave's dad and mom - Matt and Pattie

The next day was Thanksgiving and we headed to Dave's grandma and grandpa's house for the meal of a lifetime.

We had a word search race...Bryan won but just so you know I was ahead most of the time.  I choked at the end on "Thankful."

Thanksgiving was delicious, thank you to all who prepared it and wouldn't let me help with the cooking or the clean up! 

Friday Pattie and I went shopping for fabric for baby quilts!  We picked out some adorable stuff and here I am intently trying to decide where to place different squares.  Very serious business.

By the way, see the "Congratulations David" sign in the background?  It's because he finished his thesis for his Masters program at the University of Colorado.  I will do another post on that later because it deserves its own!

Weekend Updates

This weekend was so much fun!  Friday night we went out to eat to celebrate Dave finishing his thesis from his master's program in Colorado.  It's nice to finally finally be done with school.  But that also means guess what's going to start coming in the mail?  Those student loan repayment bills.  Ew.  I hate those.
Saturday was amazing.  We spent the afternoon in Austin volunteering at the Celebration of Love event which is where you collect toys for families in need around the Austin area and military families.  They had all the toys separated by gender and age in this HUGE warehouse and we packaged them up for families.  It was something my school volunteered to do and the only students that showed up were a handful of my students, holla to my class since they are the best!! :)  I'm just a little proud of them.

After the event I headed over to Old Settlers Park to for a photo shoot which turned out great!  The Rencher family was adorable and their little boy Gavin smiled the entire time.  Angel child.  Photographer's dream.

Friday night, Dave surprised me with tickets to go see my favorite favorite (no for real like my favorite) band, The Weepies.  The concert was downtown Austin on 6th street and it was so much fun.  It was at a little place called Momos that only holds probably 200 people so we were super close.  I could not believe it when they walked right by me to get to the stage.  I could practically smell them. They sounded so great! Check out a few of the photos and a video clip below:

Garden Life and an Easy Last Minute Recipe

Just to clarify, the recipe at the end of this post doesn't have anything to do with the garden.  I haven't mastered the art of food gardening yet.  I do want to have a little herb garden though sometime soon.

I took these pictures about a week ago when my rose bushes were at the most beautiful flowering stage I have seen them in since we moved in.  These rose bushes have been the best little plants.  We moved in our house in April and they were full of blooms and just now in mid November, the blooms have fallen off but the green is still there and vibrant.

I found this little "weed" growing out of one of my shrubs in the front yard.  I put it in the vase with some water and it has lasted over a month.  Glad I didn't throw it away!

The other day on my way home from work I called my genius food-savvy mother and told her I had ground beef and didn't want spaghetti for dinner...what other ideas did she have? Layered Taco Salad of course!

Layered Taco Salad
Makes a 9x13 pan (I halved it because I didn't think leftovers would be that good and it was just for 2 people)
1 lb ground beef
Taco seasoning
1 Can black beans (rinsed)
1 Tomato diced
Green onions diced
Lettuce (I used shredded)
Sour cream
Salsa
Shredded cheese
Tortilla chips

Cook the ground beef with the taco seasoning packet and set aside.  In a 9x13 - layer lettuce, tomato, green onions, black beans, ground beef, and shredded cheese.  Then mix together sour cream and salsa (I don't remember the ratio I used...but I just added salsa until the mix was a dark pink color) and sprinkle crushed tortilla chips on top.

If you add the ground beef while it's still hot, the cheese on top will melt...yum.

This took me 15 minutes and it was deeeelicious.  Thanks to my mother and her never ending dinner ideas! :)