Two NEW Favorite Veggies

These have become two of most favorite new vegetables - Flowering Kale and Yam. It's because of the great recipe that I found that combines them into a delicious dish and the purple of the Kale and the orage from the yam is so pretty!

• 4 lg. yams
• 1 tlb. plus 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 1 tsp. fresh finely chopped rosemary
• 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. course ground sea salt
• 2 1/2 c. (or more) kale, trimmed and thinly sliced.
• 4-6 oz. feta cheese

Bake yams in 375 oven, just until tender -- do not cook completely. Let stand until cool enough to touch. Cut yams in half lengthwise and scoop out and reserve flesh, leaving a 1/2 inch thick shell. Coursely chop flesh and set aside. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, rosemary, salt and red pepper flakes, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Add kale; cook until kale is wilted, about 5 minutes. Sir in reserved yam and feta cheese and 1/4 c. water. Cook until heated through, 1 minute. Place yams shells on a rimmed baking sheet. Spoon filling into shells. Cover with foil and bake until heated. 30 minutes.

Should have taken a picture of the finished dish but forget -- was too excited to eat it!

YUMMY!!!

Ice Skating in the Mountains

Every year we have a fun Ice Skating Trip up to the mountains in Evergreen with the Youth Group from church. We skate and play hockey on a man-made lake that is so much fun! Kinda crazy because for those of us who are not very good skaters, there are no "walls" or railing to help you stop! I only fell once, but I'm sure it looked really spectacular! I was "it" and was chasing Raelene REALLY fast (faster than I had any business going !) and completely biffed it spread eagle on the ice. Nothing hurt too bad -- it was a great day!

I don't think Kelsey or Jacob will be considered future Olympic hopefuls, however, Kelsey did skate better once she switched over to Hockey Skakes AND this year Jacob could play hockey with the guys a lot easier.

Some of the guys have been playing hockey since they were little. That's Bishop Davis below and our new Bishop Tooley in the next picture on the far right. They are great with our Young Men!!

BABES ON ICE!!!

Here is Jacob with his friends -- the girl right next to him is

a REALLY good friend!!!

Cool ice sculpture for the New Year and me getting a

kiss from one of the locals!

Celebrate with Jess & Nate

Jessica and Nate were unable to come to Colorado for Christmas soooo .... they came out for a long weekend January 7th to 11th. Well, they had to go home really early on the 11th but we had fun for the time there were here!

One of the main things Jessica and I wanted to figure out how to do, while she was here, was to find a way to make our "blogs" into books. There are a number of websites to do this and we thought we had found the one! Our goal was to get our 2008 blogs all ready to go.

We loaded the software on our computers, side-by-side so we could both learn at the same time.

Well .... about 4 hours later we were still on the first couple of entries. You almost have to reformat every page! We decided this was not for us and gave up! On to Plan B, I guess!

Hangin' Around the House

We had a great time just basically hanging out! Jessica got Nate a Rubik's Cube for Christmas and he was obsessed with learning how to do it and showing ANYBODY that would listen. He's showing Kelsey how to do it here, but he really got Jacob hooked.

What has our family become --- a bunch of computer geeks? Jess doing homework, Nate checking on work, Kraig finishing a church lesson. Pretty amazing!

Some Sista & Bro time!

Jessica got Jacob some 'finger-clackers" as if he needed anything else to make noise with!

Checking out Kelsey's new I-touch I-pod and Jessica
shopping at "The Barn"

Tryin' Out The New Panini Grill

The Greek Feast

Because Jessica is vegetarian, I thought it would be fun to try out some meat-less Greek recipes that my friend Libby cooked for us at her house one night. We made Falafel, Tzatziki Sauce (a tangy Greek yogurt/dill sauce) and fresh veggies stuffed into home-made Pita Bread. They were fun to make and GREAT to eat!!

Seems like all we did was eat -- but we really did other things too!!

Catching Kelsey at Work

Rice Krispy Treat Pizza

I took Jessica with me to a Girl's Camp meeting that I had to go to on Friday night and we made this fun Rice Krispy Treat Pizza! It had a marshmallow treat crust, strawberry jam (sauce), white frosting (cheese) fruit roll-up (pepperoni) and little green sprinkles (onions). The girls loved it -- though it was REALLY sweet!

The masterpiece!!

CHRISTMAS 2009 HIGHLIGHTS

We had a pretty quiet Christmas this year. Because Kelsey is working now, we weren't able to go out of town to visit family and this was a year that family didn't come either ... soooo we just had a nice time here at home. Jessica and Nate are coming for a few days on the 7th!

First we "decked the halls"! I LOVE all my special ornaments on our tree. It is getting so full of them that it's hard to find a place for any new ones. We got a new nutcracker to add to the collection too!

We started the festivities by making Christmas Cookies. Why I still "tripled" the batch with just us 4 here ... is beyond me! My friend Mary Morgan came and helped (we sent home lots with her)!

We had a nice turkey dinner on Christmas Eve since we didn't cook a turkey on Thanksgiving and we already had a big one in the freezer!

We had a special "open me now" present along with our traditional new pajamas that we open on Christmas Eve. Jessica and Nate sent us an "Instant Infant". They said that it wasn't an "announcement" ... just a cardboard cut-out of a promise of things to come! He looks so real! It was so much fun to have him sitting by the tree and have people come in and freak-out!

I unwrapped "Mrs. Snowman" that goes with the "Mr. Snowman" that I received last year from Susan and Dad. Susan has been giving each of us girls these wonderful pieces of her beautiful collection. I love them!

We surprised Jacob with an electronic drum set! He was shocked and loves it! We spent the rest of the morning trying to put it together. It's great because he puts the headphones on and he is the only one that can hear it. However, he is talking already about getting an amp!

Kelsey and I received fun electronic things too -- IPODS! Kelsey's is WAY more fancy than mine but that's just fine with me. All I want mine to do is play music! Wasn't that what they were made for to begin with?????

I received a special present from Kelsey this year! The first present that she bought for me out of a "pay check." It was a wonderful foot massager! It feels great!

We got a fun Panini Maker from my Dad and Susan too. It's funny because that is what I got my Mom and really wished we had bought one for ourselves! Everything you put in there turns out crunchy and delicious! The possibilities are ENDLESS!

We really had a great couple of weeks celebrating Christmas with our immediate family and friends. Thank you for all the wonderful gifts that we received (I could only "blog" about a few of them) ... though we were all apart this year ... we felt your love!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2010