Jacket Season

It's Fall and I love it! I love the cool crisp mornings. It feels so good to throw open the windows and let the fresh air in. It's just cool enough to need a sweatshirt or light jacket in the mornings and evenings. It's perfect for coming home, grabbing a book, and relaxing on the patio. The leaves are just starting to change color and the sunsets are amazing. Can you tell I'm having a hard time getting up and moving this morning? I am sitting here trying to type this and my eyes keep wandering out the window (I hate it when they wander off like that, luckily they come back). I keep getting distracted by the nice breeze and sparsely cloudy sky. I've been up since the butt crack of dawn and instead of going back to sleep, I've been enjoying the peaceful morning.

I have a house to clean today and brought work home this weekend too. Guess I better get to it, I want to get some outside time today. Enjoy the lovely fall weather.

Making the Voices Jealous

Have you ever noticed that there are tons of insurance commercials. My son will see one and every time ask who our insurance is through. We never see commercials for them. Well, we finally did! They tried to sing a little weird insurance song and then ended it with "bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum." Awesome!!! Seriously, songs about insurance are stupid anyway so why bother trying to hide it, just bum it and call it good! Best insurance commercial ever.

I feel like I'm letting you down since not much is going on after our return from vacation. Just nose to the grindstone and band is taking all of Devan's time so chauffeur hat is getting lots of wear. Nothing exciting to talk about and the heat wave has dried up all my creative juices. I was curious how many people read this boring blog. I have have a visitor counter set up. I wanna keep tabs on you...well, not YOU, but you. Curiosity got the best of me and I just couldn't live anymore without knowing how many people want to subject themselves to my warped view of the world. So thanks for joining me in my little world. It's nice to have visitors however the voices get jealous.

Gripe of the day - isn't it apple season? There are hardly any apples at the stores and they are super expensive. Uh, it's fall, fall is apple season, that means there should be lots and lots of apples and they should be reasonably priced. I miss the PAC NW so much at this time of year. I miss my box of Fuji apples. Can I get a whoop whoop for my dad - apple delivery man extraordinaire?! WHOOP WHOOP!

I Left My DNA On A Wall In Seattle

Along with many other people. My kids too. While in Seattle we made a stop at Pike Place Market and made a quick detour into a back alley. We chewed our gum, blew some bubbles, then added our saliva coated gum to the Gum Wall. And yes, it is as grossly fascinating as it sounds.

Don't you want some gum now? Remember, get Extra Bubble Gum, they have nice little notes inside the flap.

Another highlight of Seattle was our visit to the University of Washington. The campus was gorgeous and they have lots to offer. Plus, so many programs for Freshmen to help get them involved and connected. Of course the only picture I remembered to get while visiting a college is this one of Princess Mackenzie Marie (not at UW). It's a beautiful crown don't you think?

What I did manage to get pictures of is one of my new favorite things in Seattle - The Fremont Troll. It lives under the Fremont Bridge. Forget the Space Needle and the waterfront, the only thing worthwhile on the waterfront is Ye Old Curiosity Shop that has shrunken heads and mummies on display. But for those who like the weird and bazaar, say hello to my shiny eyed troll friend...He can squish a slug bug and he can squish you. Unless of course you climb on him then pick his nose. He likes that. Even if you don't.

Bigger is Better

At least so far with our college campus visits. Learning lots about what we want in a campus and what we want from the school. The school in the middle of the city was our least favorite and the larger college has gotten Jordan's attention while the smaller school has Devan's interest. The campuses of both the large and small school are beautimous. Hopefully we can get a couple more campuses to visit before my little senior decides where to spend her inheritance.

Pics will be uploaded very soon. Not of the campus tours though, I didn't get any pictures of us visiting any of the three campuses. :) Yea, yea, I know....sshhhh! Hey, I'm doing better, at least I remembered to get pics of some of the highlights of our trip. Got some fun ones in Seattle. It's me, so of course we didn't go to the traditional touristy places. You'll have to wait til I can post pics to show the places we went. Evil teaser, I know. Mwah, ha, ha!!!!

Living in Beverly Hills

Today is 9-02-10. Welcome to Beverly Hills! It's the only day in my life I'll live in 90210. :)

My Butt Didn't Fit in the Crock Pot

My sister made my son cook dinner once a week when he was there over the summer. Luckily, he likes to cook and has 4 really yummy meals in his culinary repertoire. One of his favorites is pulled pork. They were going to have a BBQ sauce cook off to see who could make the better sauce but they ran out of time. His last week there was spent in the sleep lab, one of those days being his birthday. One of the gifts my sister took there for him to open was a bag of 4 different BBQ sauces. Not your typical birthday present but still got a positive reaction. My question is, how much pulled pork does she think we eat?! 4 bottles of BBQ sauce is a lot considering we only have two carnivores in our house. Seriously, 4 bottles!?!?!?!?!?!?!

As we were grocery shopping last week we decided to get a pork butt to make pulled pork and have a BBQ sauce taste test with our 4 bottles. We chose to get a really big butt so we would have lots of leftovers to eat throughout the week. I always put it in the crock pot and let it slow cook all day so its ready for us to eat when I got home from work. I went to put the butt into the crock pot and it didn't fit!!!! We got such a big pork butt that I had to squish the sides and shove it down into the crock pot. I finally wriggled it in there (luckily I had put a little bit of liquid in the bottom beforehand) and it was so big the top didn't close! It was almost there but was sitting on the meat. I turned it on to cook for 10 hours and went to work. My thought was that as it cooked and shrank a little, the lid would fully close. I was excited to have pulled pork for dinner and had been looking forward to it all day at work so I went straight to the crock pot when I got home; only to find that it wasn't done cooking! The gigantic pork butt didn't even cook in 10 hours!!!!!!!!!!! The meat hadn't even shrunk enough to allow the lid to close all the way. I had to shove it down into the pot some more and drain a little of the liquid and voila, the lid fit! :) Woo Hoo! Now to finish cooking the ginormous butt. I turned it on high and cooked it another 6 hours. Mmmmm...mmmmmm...Sheer perfection - for dinner the next night....

And the winning BBQ sauce is Sweet Baby Rays Hickory and Brown Sugar.