O H......I O!

One Saturday, way way back in November, I went to my first Ohio State football game courtesy of G's parents. The tickets came with grandma's babysitting services too! Wow, what a wonderful, wonderful surprise!! The only college football games I had been to before then, were two games at University of Colorado (go Buffs!). That's where my sister and b-i-l went to school. Those two games were fun and exciting, even though I didn't go to that school or live in that area. But this Buckeye game we went to....oh my God...it was completely INSANE! In a very fun way!

There was over 104,000 people in the stadium, let alone all the people that came to tailgate and party that didn't have tickets.

We were told not to miss the Skull Session that took place at St. John's arena (across from the stadium) 2 hours before the game. At promptly 1:30 pm TBDBITL showed up and put on quite a performance...their entire halftime program!

Then in walks the entire football team, dressed in suits, with Coach Tressel.  He gives a short, very short, speech about the team, the 19 seniors, and how they are going to play their hearts out for the next 3 hours.



Our seats were fabulous - 23AA - 7 rows from the field on Ohio State's 20 yard line and it was a GORGEOUS day.

Dotting the "I".

And because of this helmut-head guy next to Brutus...

...we were on TV. Well, Gary was on TV (he's in the upper left). Only my left eye made it on. No kidding. It makes me think of Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. "I was on TV", while being completely covered up by a logo. Do you see my eye?  It's beside the arm of the two younger boys.  That's me, Mike Wazowski.

This game was an important one: the winner went to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena (which OSU won against the Ducks on New Year's Day) and claimed a share of the Big Ten Championship. It went into overtime and the Bucks won it with a field goal 27-24.

That's when it REALLY got crazy!  (The poor cheerleaders got stuck in the crowd.)

What a great first OSU game! It'll be hard to top this one for sure!!

Testing testing. Blogging by text message. I'm sooo high tech...but only if this works.

Christmas Wrap-Up and Happy New Year

While Michael watches Deal or No Deal (one of his favorite shows) and plays with some packing peanuts (packing peanuts?? really?? after everything Santa brought him??), I thought I'd recap our Christmas and the days leading up to the New Year...which is in just a few hours now.

Lots of Christmas treats were given and received (thank you thank you Kathie and Mom!). I am blessed (and my body is cursed) to have family and friends that are such good cooks.

Christmas Eve was spent at G's parents house playing games and eating and opening presents.

It wasn't quite the same as past Christmas Eve's because G's aunt, uncle and cousins couldn't make it over.

G's uncle had his last chemo treatment that week and his immune system could not afford to be around any sick germs which seemed to be going around....can't blame ANYone for not wanting to get sick.

Christmas Day was also a little different because my mom didn't come over in the morning. She did midnight mass with her boyfriend and then spent the day with his family. They were with us last Christmas, so I said we could share her.

We slept in Christmas morning and then made our way over to G's parents for breakfast and more presents! Our niece, Christine, even made it home on Christmas Day, before being deployed to Afghanistan.

It was a Toy Story Christmas for Michael (bed linens, pillows, books, toys), a fuzzy Christmas for me (slippers, socks, blanket, etc.) and a game-theme for Gary (Wii, chess, board game, cards, football memorabilia...with some clothes thrown in for good measure).

On Saturday, my mom came over to celebrate Christmas and...

...we opened more presents.

Gifts from mom, Keni, Josh and Gabby were all ripped open with glee and enjoyed. Yes we were very spoiled this year (as we are every year).

Then it all started going to hell. I got sick that night. My ear and throat hurt so bad on Sunday morning, that I went to Urgent Care (cha-ching). Result: upper respiratory infection, ear infection (complete with a tinny steel drum/echo noise that has taken the place of our clock chimes), and tonsillitis. Sweet. Add in the antibiotics and the fun things it does to someone with Crohn's...and well, I hate being sick. OH...and then I get what looks like Michael's pink eye. Michael still wasn't acting like himself later in the week, and the result from his doctor appointment was a double ear infection. Now he's on the same antibiotic as me. Hopefully, we get all the crud out of our systems and house very soon. I'm going to have to do some serious disinfecting around here! Have I mentioned that I hate being sick?

All in all our Christmas holiday was wonderful and I hope that yours was too! Did Santa bring you everything you wanted or did you have to buy it for yourself after Christmas? What was your favorite gift? I'd have to say my favorite is the MacBook I am using right this moment...love it!! Thanks Gary!! xoxoxo :)

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to wrap up 2009 and start the new year (with much better health of course). I am SO energized and SO hopeful for an exciting and fabulous Twenty-Ten (that's how all the cool kids say 2010...so I've been told)!

Merry Christmas!!

From our house to yours...

Much love,

us

testing testing

ETA: Only the small pics can be seen in their entirety...medium and large get clipped. Hmmm, I might have to change the formatting of this little 'ol blog. One more thing to add to my "To Do" list.

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Testing out posting pics from flikr and the various sizes. :)

Pics are from First Beach, WA (any Twilight fans out there??) and part of the 10 mile Lake Ozette loop trail Keni, Noelle, and I hiked in September....and have yet to post.

testing flikr posts :)

where have I been?

Unfortunately, I haven't been anywhere. Our computer crashed, but luckily Gary was able to load the recovery software to get us mostly up and running again, except for a few applications (like my Palm software...error, error=grrrr). A week later, after we were getting back into the technology groove - you guessed it: the darn computer crashed AGAIN. Gary ran some diagnostics on it (yeah, he's pretty smart...and yeah, I guess we're a little nerdy) and it came back with an error code of FATAL crash imminent. That was Saturday morning.

I have a far-fetched wishlist in my head (and heart) that includes a dreamy Mac computer and it's been on my list for a few years, but they are so expensive. I mean, it financially didn't make since to buy a Mac because you could purchase 2, almost 3, new PCs for the price of 1 Mac.

BUT, after 3 PC crashes in 3 years, 2 of them within 1 week, the Mac was starting to seem like a better option. We did some research online (Apple had just had a one day sale on the iMac and a Macbook Pro on Friday- $100 off of each, not really that big of a sale, but it was big for Apple...let me remind you that it was now the day AFTER the sale) and we found the best deal at Best Buy (mostly for their financing)...especially considering the nearest Apple store is about an hour away.

We head to Best Buy to check 'em out in person. OMG! There they were on the display table... showing off their sleek sexiness...they might've well been topless for Pete's sake. And let me tell you, the new 27" iMac is....HUGE!!! We talk to the Apple Guy, who gives us a 2-3 minute demo...and wow oh wow. We were pretty sure we were going to make a purchase - even G admitted he had been thinking of switching to a Mac, which surprised me! But watching the Apple Guy edit photos, create a picture book, create a family newsletter, create a DVD with your pictures set to the beat of the music from your iTunes library...all in 3 minutes....well all I could say the whole time (after I wiped the drool from my chin) was "Yes. OH. Wow. Yes." Almost a When Harry Met Sally performance, let me tell you.

The sales guy was great, no pressure, go think about it, down-to-earth realist, etc. etc. So I ask him what he could do for us if we bought not one but TWO Macs. He left to work out the numbers and we came home with these:

A wonderfully, glorious 21-1/2" iMac and a 13" MacBook Pro. I swear I heard the angels singing and a golden light appear when we opened the boxes.

Just one more picture for you that makes me chuckle, the juxtaposition of the two computers. We could SO turn this into our own commercial.

The only downside of the whole transition is that Adobe would not let me switch my CS3 software from a PC version to Mac version because it was 2 years old. They did offer a discount to upgrade my software to CS4 in a Mac version for a mere $500 (which is actually a very good discount), but still....it bummed me out, and we did not (could not) purchase it...at this time. So no 'real' photo editing going on for awhile. WYSIWYG SOOC....and all that jazz.

It'll be awhile before I come down off of this cloud. {sigh}

sweet corn casserole

Okay, okay. So much for getting this recipe to you right away. Once again, I got sidetracked...maybe have a little ADD going on??? Gary tells Michael that "sometimes mommy gets sidetracked". I can't deny it. The first step is recognizing I have a problem, right? Anyway, this recipe is super easy (I think ALL of my "go to" recipes are super easy - they HAVE to be with our busy lives).

This dish is so versatile. We had it with the chimichangas (below), but it could also be a tasty side dish at Thanksgiving or maybe you could bring it to your next potluck.

SWEET CORN CASSEROLE

INGREDIENTS

1 stick of butter, melted
8 oz. sour cream
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix
2 eggs
1 can (15 oz) creamed corn
1 can (15 oz) regular corn, drained

DIRECTIONS

Mix all ingredients and bake at 350 degrees in a greased (Pam-sprayed) 9”x13” pan for 40-50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. I have had to add an additional 20 minutes to make sure it was cooked all the way through on the inside...just depends on how "saucy" your mix ends up being...perhaps I didn't drain the one can of corn enough or maybe I put in more than 8 oz of sour cream??

In real life, sometimes I get lazy or cocky (heh-heh-heh, did I just say "cocky"?? OMG I've watched too much Beavis and Butthead) and just toss in guesstimates of ingredients and end up having to change some things around...but that's okay. That's how you make it your own and sometimes end up with something even better.

I hope you still try to make this yummy dish. It's a nice change of pace, and in my mind I consider it healthy because it's made with corn. Obviously, I'm in total denial about the entire stick of butter.