Thank you Aron

I know its been awhile since we've updated, Susan was responsible for almost all of the posts, and now most of the updates are done via facebook. Writing this is more for me than anything else, I wanted to take a few minutes to write about Aron.

I feel very fortunate to have had Aron in my life for almost 6 years. He was an amazing dog. I'll always remember all the times we spent in Dale & Jaimie's back yard playing with both dogs; putting the sleeve on and having Aron track me in the woods; all the nights we spent up in Monte, trying to fall asleep all crunched up on our air mattress so Aron & Bailey could fit on it with us. Hearing stories from Dale (and Susan) about Aron tracking bad guys, only drinking mirco brews, and not eating the walmart peanut butter.

Thank you Aron

Reducing Food Waste

I've reading recently that the average household throws away between 13% and 33% of the food they buy. Dan and I are particularly aweful. Even though I plan menus for the week, we end up eating out, and therefore throwing away the food that we were supposed to eat that night.

We also spend a great amount of money eating out (not to mention on the food we are throwing away). I spent yesterday morning totalling up how much we spent eating out in the last year eating out. I am not brave enough to share the actual amount, however, if we didn't eat out last year we could have went on a cruise in the Bahamas...twice. If we didn't eat out, we could have had a down payment on a house. If we didn't eat out, we would probably each weigh about 13 pounds less!

This week I am making a bigger effort to use up leftovers and cook the food I buy. I bought considerely less at the store this week. I'm going to make dinners depending on the need to use up items, using the items that will go bad quickly first.

On a side note, after researching food waste today, I found many articles on how bad it is for the environment because it doesn't probably decompose in the landfill because of lack of oxygen. I always thought it did decompose easily because food is organic.

Pizza Night...Again

This time I made my crust from scratch. It was very easy. I used a recipe from www.recipepizza.com I used the thin crust recipe, but I added a little oil and an extra handful of flour to compensate. The pizza crust was VERY easy and quick. The main part had a good texture. Thin and crispy crust with a little bit of dough on top. The outer crust was bland and a little too crispy. Overall, I would make it again, but I'll continue to look for a better recipe. One thing I like is that it called for very few ingredients and in small amounts.

From Pizza night

It was a taco pizza because we had leftover taco toppings but no leftover tortillas. You can see from the picture above that a little lip of the pizza crust got messed up when I slid it into the oven. I used a hot pizza stone (500*) and used cornmeal on the bottom to make sure it slid off the baking sheet onto the stone.

From Pizza night

Now that is a perfect picture of a perfectly crisped crust if I do say so myself.

From Pizza night

I used some leftover pizza sauce with some salsa mixed in. I blended them together (Dan doesn't like chunks). I added a little mexican seasoning I have from world market and a few dashes of hot sauce. I topped it with leftover taco meat, tillamook cheddar, and some lettuce and spinach when it was out of the oven.

It would have been great with tomatoes and avocados, but alas, I was out of both. Leftovers should make quite a tasty breakfast.

Classroom Update

I spent the day re-organizing my classroom. My classroom library has been bothering me for quite some time. I wanted the books easy to see, use and organize for the kids. They were crammed into a small space in the back.

I decided to move them to the front of the classroom, which was spaced that that was not utilized very well.

I got smaller book bins from the dollar store, but more of them, as kids don't really look past 2 or 3 books in a bin. I used milk crates from Big Lots and some wood boards from LOWES (shout out to Dan). It is now organized and beautiful. It feels good to come into the room now.

Jack's 2nd Birthday... We Made It!

The waters parted just in time for us to make it up to Montesano for Jackson's 2nd Birthday. We were lucky enough to get to babysit him on Saturday. We played blocks and read a LOT of books.

It was great seeing everyone on his birthday. We have pictures on our picassa page. We'll see everyone in a couple of weeks for mom's retirement dinner.

From Jackson's 2nd Birthday

From Jackson's 2nd Birthday

Missing Jack's Birthday

Well, thanks to Mother Nature, it looks like Dan and I will be missing Jackson's birthday this year. As of today, Thursday, there is no way to get in or out of Montesano. I-5 is closed, as are all 3 of the major mountain passes and 101 on the coast. The department of transportation said this morning that the rivers in Lewis County do not even crest until midnight tonight, so I-5 will likely be closed at least through the weekend.

From Christmas '08 part II

I'm just going to take this picture of Jackson and use Photohshop to make the present look like it has birthday wrapping paper instead of Candy Cane paper. I will also take out the Christmas tree and superimpose a picture of Dan and I there.

Date Night

Last night Susan and I went to Ikea to pick up a few things, and on the way home we decided to rent a movie. At Fred Meyer's they have a vending machine feature called MovieCube that lets you rent movies for $1 a night. We had never tried this, but had talked about it before and thought it would be fun to try out. It's much better than paying $5 or $6 at Blockbuster and having it for 5 more days than we need it. The movie that we chose was "Step Brothers," with Will Ferrell.

From Ulbin I & Ulbin II

From there, we went to Trader Joe's to pick up some pizza dough. They didn't have the plain dough, but Susan wanted to be adventurous and try the Garlic & Herb flavor they had. We have a pizza stone that we use a lot when we get Papa Murphy's, and Susan has made homemade pizza before, but this was the first time that we've done this together. Susan made hers first and covered it with peppers and mushrooms, along with some pineapple.

From Ulbin I & Ulbin II

From Ulbin I & Ulbin II

After Susan cooked hers I started putting mine together with some hamburger that Susan had already cooked up. I was having some problems rolling the dough in an even circle, and after I started putting the sauce on I decided to turn my pizza into a calzone.

From Ulbin I & Ulbin II

From Ulbin I & Ulbin II

Both turned out great, and it's something that we'll definitely do again. We had a great evening and it cost us less than $3, plus the ingredients that we already had at home.