Looking back

It seems to me that many people I know or bloggers that I read are taking this time to look back at the past 12 months and see where they were and how far they have come. Ever the analyzer that I am, I though that this would be fun. I have come so far. But I cannot just talk about the past year. For me, the journey started when I arrived in Sandpoint, ID on August 16th of 2008.

My favorite picture that I took of the canyon.

I left the Grand Canyon not knowing what I was getting myself into. All I knew was that I needed a change for the better. Leaving an abusive relationship of 3 years, I wasn’t really sure who I was anymore. But I knew that I liked the person that I used to be and I wanted to restart my relationship with her. Depression got the best of me for a few months. It was understandable. But a chance meeting while playing pool in a bar would lead me to where I am now. I played pool with Ben for a while, but it was all superficial chit chat until I lost my house due to a flaky roommate. Ben noticed that I wasn’t myself and asked what was wrong. I told him and it turned out that he needed a roommate. I never would have guessed that he would become one of my best friends over that year.

The sun coming up my first morning in Sandpoint

Feeling better about myself and living with a stable roommie, gave me the confidence to start dating. Let me just say, that sucked! But then I met Bill. I thought we were in different places in our lives. He was fresh out of an 8 year marriage with 3 kids and I wanted to have all that of my own. So we were friends. Its funny how sometimes you realize that what you have always wanted is right there in front of you. Bill knew that I wanted a child and he wanted that with me. He just wanted to make me happy. And he does!

I am happy. I have ideas and plans for the future with someone that fills my heart with so much love that I never knew it was possible. We are going to be married next year and we are starting to plan our family. I have three of the most wonderful step children that anyone could ever ask for. I count myself among the lucky ones in this world. We laugh hard, we work hard, and we love hard. and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Future

Catching up from the weekend

I finally feel like I am catching up after this weekend. It was a full one too. We had the veteran’s standdown on saturday and we tried to make sunday just as full.

Sunday

We started by cleaning the house while the kids played. They tried to help, but sometimes they are still too young to just get stuff done, so we sent them outside. After the house was clean, we packed some snacks and headed out to one of the local beaches for some fun in the 90 degree sun.

We were really lucky to find a shady spot. But it still was too much and it got to the kiddos.

We ended up stuck in traffic forever trying to get home. As it turns out, there was a very bad accident and our thoughts go out to the families. But that took so long that there was nothing to do but stick a frozen pizza in the oven when we got home.

Today

Woke up at 5am and got Bill off to work and the kids home before I came home to get ready for work at 7. I was rushing so much that I barely had time to make breakfast. But I was able to grab this:

Got to work and it was a monday. Mondays tend to be slow at mountain resorts. I guess its nice, but I like it when its busy.

This is me enjoying the quiet:

When I got off work, I headed over to Safeway. I just love their filones and I wanted to have one with dinner tonight. Well, I ended up with two of them and a 1lb tri-tip that the butcher added a wild turkey marinade to.

So I cooked up the meat added some tomato and avocado… and this is what I got… Oh My WOW!!!

I had a dilemma in the kitchen though. What do you do when you have bananas that look like this—–

But you don’t want to toss them. You find the best recipe for banana bread in the world and you make it.

Yummy! I will post the recipe soon.

Well, Bill is waiting for me. I think we are going to watch the Soloist. Have a great night all.

Yes, the sun can make you sick.

Poor Arianna. She got too much sun today. We ended up going to city beach and playing in the water for a few hours. It pretty much killed us all…

The kids died when we got home. But Arianna ended up with a bit of sun poisoning. Poor thing. She is better now, but the house is out of anything vitamin C.

All the playing made us a bit hungry so it was time for food fun. I fixed up some cold shrimp with a lemon garlic tartar that the whole family seems to think is awesome. I will be sharing that recipe the next time I make it. We made hamburgers and Bill BBQed them and a pork loin that I picked up for him, along with some turkey dogs. Oh… it was so good.  I am full again just thinking of the spread.

And just when we thought that it couldn’t get any better, I made dessert. I know, I know… I am going back on what I said. But this was lowish fat and so good.

Sponge cake with white chocolate mousse and fresh blueberries. Oh wow! That was some of the best dessert that I have made in a long time. Thank you Yokes for having beautiful looking blueberries on sale.

I decided to go for a quick run now that I have my inhaler. YES!!! It works. So I do have exercise-induced asthma after all. I ran about half of the 1.13 miles and it didn’t hurt. I love this!

When I got home from running our kids and the neighbors kids, as well as a boy from the neighborhood that Arianna likes were waiting for me. It was time to light off all the fireworks that we bought last week. Fun Fun. The kids loved it and it was fun for all the pyro adults too.

Well, its 10:30 and the kids are in bed.We are going to a verterans stand-down in the morning, so I better head off to bed so that I will have energy to wrangle kids and new stuff tomorrow. I just know I will be dreaming about that dessert.

Mmmm. Now thats a sweet dream.

The weather man is wrong

So… they say that its gonna be 86 today. Um…. can you say they’re wrong? Its 7:45 in the morning and its already 65. Its gonna be warmer than that. Yup!… I think were gonna have a great day.

They had slip n slides on sale at walmart for $5 so we picked one up. Hope the kids have fun with this.

Got the script for my inhaler, so I am gonna get that filled and we are going to take a run. I figure the kids can play at the park wile we do it. Heck… its only 2 laps.

So anyway, I am off to get ready for the day and the kids will be here soon. By-eee.

Holiday weekends = Bad Blogger

So, I was a bad blogger this weekend. But we had so much stuff going on and I was soooo tired that I just couldn’t.  But here I am with all the fun.

Saturday

It was our one year anniversary, so we spent the morning alone and it was really nice.  We did the farmers market and the parade and then home to wait for the kids.  I cooked up some yummy tartlettes for our picnic:

And we packed up and headed out to city beach.

All day we fought the clouds. It tried to rain on us a few times, but it was worth it. We fought that to get this:

We had a great day just spending time as a family:

A good time was had by all. And after what seemed like an eternity (actually 4.5 hours) we got what we came for:

It was a great night:

Sunday

I woke up on sunday way too early and had to go to work. But I saw my little friend on the way up the mountain.

He was on the passenger side of the car just chillin, eatin some bfast.

Then he realized that I was there and wanted to come say hi. I am not ready for that part of our relationship…. so I sped off taking this last picture as I did:

Work was work. No pics from that… but I can show you one that I took last summer:

This is the view into the village at Schweitzer from the front door of the lodge.

When I got home Bill and Erik were watching UFC, so I sat down to relax and I never got back up. The fireworks didn’t happen for us since the sky decided to open up. Dinner was a fun experiment:  Saute walla walla onion, mushrooms, garlic scapes, turkey bacon, fresh basil. Add 3 ice cubes of tomato sauce, 2 tbsp heavy cream and 3 fresh terragon leaves and serve over pasta with parm. So good!

Don’t you love the pattern on my apron?

When the rain stopped for a moment, we went outside an lit off some of the fireworks we bought for the kids. Hey… we’re kids too. 🙂 It was fun, but we decided to save the really big ones for this weekend when the real kids can oooh and aaaah.

We sat on the couch the rest of the night and snuggled and ate ice cream that I never should have bought.

Monday

This was the last day of Bill’s 5 day weekend. I love having him home with me, but I have a routine of how I do things each day, so its nice to have him at work too.

We went for our run and I am still having so much trouble breathing. I think this may be exercise induced asthma. I am going to talk to my doctor about this and see if I can get an inhaler to help with it.

We had breakfast and watched last week’s So you think you can dance. Mmmm breakfast!

I spent the rest of the day doing nothing until I had to go to work. Again… work was work. I did have  a lady and her two daughters come down to the lobby at about 10pm and tell me that there was a bear in the pool. Truthfully he was in the pool area… he wanted the garbage. Sooo, that was a bit of excitement. Ooooo!

Anyway, that was my weekend. Nothing else going on around here. The house is a mess after all that doing nothing, so I am going to clean today.

Have a great one.

Saturday fun

I love Saturdays. Not to mention that this is a special one to start with. Bill and I have been together for one year today. Its gone by so fast… it just doesn’t seem that long. But there will be many more to come, so….. YAY!!!! for year one!!!!

The kids were in our local 4th of July parade today, which was on a Saturday so that all the locals could still go to church on Sunday morning. Riiiggghhtt. But the kids had fun and thats what is good. I love these little guys.

The two redheads and the monkey. Gosh I love those babies.

Well, after the parade, we made our way over to the farmers market. I was lazy and didn’t take all the pictures that I should, but we had some yummies. We split a giant cobblestone muffin and a lamb smokie. Oh my! It was soooo good. I am still drooling just thinking about it. We picked up some Jalapeno cheese curds and a delicious pear apple butter. We also got two bunches of garlic scapes.

Mmmmm. Such a beautiful bunch. Can’t wait to use them in my cooking.

Ok then. I am off to have a wonderful cloudy cold  anniversary with my hunny and the kids. Have fun all.