The Zoo

My mother. She will take ANY and ALL chances she gets to spoil her children and run with it haha I feel so lucky and blessed to have a mom like her! She sent me thanksgiving package on Thursday. It was filled with Thanksgiving decorations and lovely treats!

All the goodies in one picture. they include: 2 pomegranates, a plaque, a frame, give thanks pumpkins, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with a burnt butter frosting and a Happy thanksgiving sign :)

 Happy Thanksgiving sign!

 Give thanks plaque

 Thankful hearts frame

Give thanks pumpkins that she MADE. That crafty woman. And you can see the cookies in the container

I feel so spoiled but so happy. I love my mama :) Sad (kinda) news from Dan's side of the family. Their family cat that they had for about 19 years was put down on Thursday. But we can all agree, it was time. Boots was so old that poor thing. [side note story about BOOTS]

I visited Colorado for the first time to meet Dan's family over Labor Day weekend in Sept of 2011. One evening we were in the TV room and Dan had gotten up to get something so I was just sitting there and all of the sudden I hear thing LOUD "MRRRRAAOOOWWW" It scared me so bad! Boots did not know how to meow like a proper cat. It was like a low, annoying grumpy mumble but it was so loud. Scariest thing ever.

Anyways, poor Bootsy rest in peace!

I made a new recipe this week and it turned out quite good. AHH I didn't take a picture! I feel like I've set a New Year's resolution and just remembered what it was December 30th of that year or in other words, a failure. Sorry! But I introduce to you Sweet and Sour Chicken!

This was quite delicious and I kind of improvised because I was missing a few ingredients  I didn't have corn starch so I used flour, turned out fine. I think with corn starch the chicken would have browned better on the skillet but oh well. And I didn't have white vinegar so I used red wine vinegar. Just a slightly different taste but it still tasted and smelled like Panda Express in my apartment! Yum! This is the first time Dan said, 'this is a keeper' I know he likes my cooking but when I get a statement like that out of him that means he really likes it which makes me happy :) Wifey points for that.

We are still watching White Collar together and we still love it. It's funny, witty and we enjoy it. I'm still watching Lost but it's kind of discouraging to only be on season 2 out of 6 but I'm still enjoying it.

Friday we planned to go out for dinner and after considering all these cool places we've never heard of we decided to be hermits and go to the usual Red Robin. Haha it's just so good! I want to go to new places around here but it's hard when there's a Red Robin burger calling your name. So we went on a lovely dinner date and it was delicious! The restaurant is hooked on to the mall so we walked around the mall afterwards too looking a a new hat for Dan the man. Friday was, for the first time, legit cold outside. I mean I've been cold because I'm always cold but today the outside weather and how I felt actually matched. It was quite brisk! I was surprised.

Saturday morning was full of homework and football. I made an AMAZING breakfast. Seriously it was so delicious and I just winged it. I wanted to make stuffed french toast so we quickly googled a random recipe just so I can get an idea of what ingredients to add to the cream cheese. I added some sugar, vanilla extract, nutmeg, cinnamon and s little bit of fresh orange juice to the warm cream cheese and mixed it up. Then I cooked apple slices in butter, more fresh orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg until they were soft. I made the french toast like regular, put a healthy amount of the cream cheese mixture, then the apples, topped with another piece of french toast on the top. Like a lil sammich. Then to make it look pretty I sprinkled powered sugar on it. And... I didn't take a picture because it was breakfast and morning and wasn't thinking, but you can imagine it and oh man, it was good. Mmmm.

After that we got ready to go to the Zoo. I love the Zoo! I just love animals. We went to the CALM Zoo which is a habitat for animals who have injuries, disabilities or who have learned to rely on humans. It was awesome! I loved all the animals. And the drive there was gorgeous! Well after you passed all the oil fields. No wonder they call it Oildale.

After the oil fields is was gorgeous fall colors in this big spacious park. Reminded me of Boise and it felt like home a little bit! Except I think it snowed there...? Oh well. But we thoroughly enjoyed out time at the Calm Zoo!

 RACCOONS!

 They use a litter box. I'm trying to convince Dan we NEED one cause they can be house trained.

 Dan and a big pig :)

 I talked to the turkeys. They talked back.

 Pelican :)

 Isn't that awesome?

 HEY FAMILY! These are the animals we saw in Mexico! They're called caoti!

 Enjoying ourselves! Notice the coats again. Little chilly!

Bald Eagles. They are huge.

Very vocal Mountain Lion. Super cool to hear him though.

 Big cactus. How cool is that!

Dan's beard.

Dan has been growing out his beard for 2 weeks now. I know that if some of you were to grow your beard out for two weeks people might mistake you for a lumber jack but Dan's facial hair grows super slow so this is awesome. I don't think he even looks that different. It's growing on me (pun intended) but I like it!

So in two more weeks he'll probably look like this.

or this

But maybe she should be going for this? 

Anyone a fan of the mustache on Dan? Somehow I think it makes him look Mexican. How does that work?

For dinner on Saturday I made this Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake. It was very good and you guys are just so special that I actually took a picture of my dish. It kind of looks... unappetizing but I promise is was very good!

Sunday was just a normal day at church. In Relief Society we talked about being on the Lord's Side on the imaginary line. I feel so blessed to be able to see situations  with the help of the spirit, in an eternal perspective to eliminate that 'grey area'. It's either good or bad. And if it's good is there something better? Or something best?

And just for fun I present to you Corgi in a box.

Gratitude Journal

I am grateful for...

November 9 - Time. I'm so thankful that right now I have time. I know that the longer Dan and I are married the less and less time we feel we'll have together with raising kids, jobs etc. I'm so happy that right now we have the ability to go out to dinner, just the two of us and to enjoy ourselves and be together. I know that time with just your husband is golden when you have kids so I'm savoring it now :)

November 10 - God's creatures. Today we were able to go to the CALM Zoo. It's a habitat for animals that can't survive out in the wild due to injuries, disabilities or reliability on humans. It was a really cool place! It was very naturey and outdoors in the pretty foothills of Bakersfield. I just felt really amazed of all the beautiful things God put on this earth for us to enjoy. Especially those darling animals! So cute.

November 11 - Eternal Perspectives. Lately I've been getting better at keeping the eternal perspective in my head. When something happens I may initially freak out but then I think in the long run and ask myself the importance this has on the levels of eternity and I'm immediately at peace. God is in control and his hand is in all things. When I worry people always tell me, it'll work out and it always does. Why? Becuase we are in the Lord's hands.