Christmas Cookies

Being done with school for the semester, I felt obligated to bake because I've only made cookies once and a cake for thanksgiving since school has started, this is unlike me. So, I chose to make Christmas cookies to take to family gatherings and then some chocolate chip cookies for Judd and Steven. 

I baked for 7 hours.... never again. 

 the supplies

 the cookies

 prep for bake time

 some of the cookies

 deliciously glazed sugar cookies

 This is my man slave who does the dishes.... not really, but he did help out a lot. I may have threatened the fact that he wouldn't get any cookies otherwise.

 20 dozen cookies later (not all are shown, that's about half)

My man slave making dinner, actually re-heating soup my gypsy mother maid.

20 or so dozen cookies later, I was tired and full of cookies. My new year's resolution is to not eat in January so I can lose the wait I gained from all those delicious cookies. It may work, I'll probably make it til lunch on the 1st. Wish me luck haha

Winter Break and Ice Crystals

So, winter break is finally here! That means I get to actually see my family, Christmas is near, I will get to eat tons of great food (which is really not good for me), I get to catch up with friends, and one of the most important things is that I don't have to worry about homework. Its a lovely feeling.

I started my break Friday by meeting Katie and Dad in Peoria to go Christmas shopping for mom. Its one of my favorite traditions for Christmas. Every year, Dad takes each of us girls Christmas shopping for mom with him. We get to pick where we want to go and pick where we want to have dinner. It was a lot of fun when we were younger because it was like a daddy-daughter date night I guess is what you would call it. Anyways, as we are getting older, we are getting busier, and so Katie and I shared our Christmas shopping day this year. It was a lot of fun. Dad behaved himself for the most part and didn't really complain about the shopping. We were moving pretty quickly though, Katie was "streamlining" our shopping by assigning me things to find and them she took dad to find whatever else. It was pretty funny that she gave me a specific thing and a time frame to complete it in. I just said o.k., thank you Miss Bogner and did what I was told so she wouldn't beat me.  It wasn't completely successful considering the fact that I have A.D.D. and I was still Christmas shopping myself, but we got done! 

My next adventure entailed a night out with some of my favorite people from home. It was a lot of fun. When I got home, there were ice crystals on everything! It was gorgeous and for some reason I found it comparable to seeing everything covered in rock candy. So, of course, I got out my camera. It was freezing, my tri-pod was not cooperating, and the pictures didn't turn out that great, but it was still GORGEOUS outside. I wish I would have more patience and warm clothes to stay out and keep taking pictures. 

these aren't the best pictures, but it gives a pretty good idea that everything was covered in ice crystals

Cocktails and Christmas

So, Emily and I have this amazing friend named Megan. A few weeks ago she decided to have a little gathering for a group of friends, but it was going to be classy, if you will. Both Emily and Megan, well and a few others, went out shopping and bought nice dresses. Em and Meg looked gorgeous! So we had a cocktail party last night and it was a blast! Megan made wonderful food, there was wine and hot chocolate (with the option of adding peppermint schnapps), and such. We all got dressed up, listened to Christmas music, joked around, caught up with friends, and it was the perfect way to wind down the semester.

This is Em and her new boy Luke.

 Em and our friend Megan

 Me and Lil' Louie

 Em and Steve... typical

 This is our friend Cody

 Steven and I

 Henry, the other love of my life and I

 This is Megan, the other Steve (a.k.a. Bob) and I

We were attempting to make a 50's style shot

Megan and I

We all had a really great time. Like I said before, it was the perfect way to end the semester with good food, food drinks, and good friends. :)

I baked a cake.

So this post is a little late compared to when it was actually made. Yes, I have made posts since this cake was made, but I hadn't loaded the pictures to my computer yet. But, I made a cake! It may be the first time that I have really baked, besides making Judd and Steven choco-chip cookies. 

I made this chocolate cake from scratch for Thanksgiving.... why you may ask? I was avoiding homework for the most part and I really wanted chocolate cake. 

I decided to experiment with Gum Paste. It was pretty easy and it ended up looking pretty cool.

 This is the gum paste flattened out with some of the food color spray that I used  behind it.

  This is the giant (not really) pumpkin I created.

Those are all of the decorations I made for the cake, I didn't end up using them all though. 

These are pictures of the cake from the front seat of my car on the way to Thanksgiving. I forgot to take pictures in the house, so sorry for the sun glared-out cakes. It was the best I could do with what I had. :)

It turned out pretty well for my standards, I liked it anyway!

There not here....

As you've maybe read in previous posts, I don't really care for grad school. But who really likes school? I like to learn, yes, I don't like papers, this, my friends, is a scientific fact.

So, as I'm staring at this brick wall in a little study room in the library attempting to complete my final projects and research essays in these last few days of school, I find myself wanting to bury my toes in the sand and listen to the waves. Is this suck a bad idea? No, I think not!

Instead, this is what I bury myself in...
 There are more papers than that now, just to let you know.

Its not as sandy or relaxing. Its not as warm either. bleh. No. Thank. You.

I'm thinking about turning my back porch into a fake beach. I'll buy many, many bags of sand from Farm King, paint a nice ocean mural on the wall, play some soothing ocean music in the background.... this maybe going too far. I like it though. It's probably cheaper than a plane ticket back to Hawai'i. Oh man, oh man.

Its snowing here a little, do you know what the weather is like in Hawai'i? Nice and 80 degrees. It never changes there I think the range goes from 75 degrees to 85 degrees during the day... don't quote me, but it doesn't change much past that.
Its 35 degrees here. Hello winter.
With winter comes Christmas break, a break that I desperately need. So, its not all bad. I'm sleeping from December 17th through the 23rd just in case you try to reach me, I'll be hibernating catching up on sleep from this semester.
And if you really love me, you'll support my "Send Steph back to the beach in Hawai'i" fund. All proceeds will go towards flying a red-headed girl back to the Oahu to sit on a beach and listen to the waves. All checks can be written out to me, cash is also accepted. I would appreciate your support. :)

In my dreams, right?

Firefighter Steve

Steve joined the Fountain Green Fire Department last year. It is VERY small and sees little action. He's only been called to a few fires and has helped out in bad weather circumstances. He loves being on the fire department even though they see little action. This has actually left him hungry for more. Now, this kid is going to be an E.M.T. once he finishes up his training in the spring, so, he'll be in LaHarpe (I think) sometimes for that and he wants to join to Western E.M.S. Oh, and he's going to join the Scuba dive and search (not sure of the official name) team.
Anyways, it keeps him happy.
here are some pics of the firehouse. We just went to look around one day. 

 Gear

 Hose

 Steve's gear

 The breathing apparatus

 more gear

one of the trucks
The End

Judd, a History lesson, Deer Burger, and Pictures

JUDD IS MOVING HOME!!!! And I'm excited.

Here's some Judd, Steve, Steph friendship history for those who don't know the story. It's going to be in super condensed canned soup form so you're not reading for 5 days. :)
Judd is Steve and I's best friend, we all happened to meet while working at Farm King, so come good things can come out of that place. Steven has worked there now for around 4 years I believe, Judd was only there a couple, I'm still kinda there and it marks a little over 2 years for me now unfortunately. I suppose you could label Steve a manly man who loves to farm and is even more in love with his beagle, and Judd a big scruff man who's terrifyingly good at photography.

Anyways, Steven and Juddly were buddies before I came into the picture. I'm not sure of all of their shenanigans, but stories always come up making me wonder about them... a lot.  One such story that pops into my head is something about Steve and Judd were driving around and this line came out of a situation. Judd - "Steve, if you played the banjo and I played the fiddle, we could play ourselves out of any pickle."  I think this was a serious statement too. I still don't know what it means.
Another one of my favorite line of all time that actually just happened week ago - Judd, "If Steve were a woman, I'd marry him." This explains their relationship quite well I think. hahahaha I'm laughing as I type this actually. It may have been one of those "you really needed to be there" moments but I still love it.
So, back to more historical facts. Judd introduced Steve to me. Yes, we all did work together. Steve, and well, about half of the young guys at work didn't talk to me for the first month or so that I worked there because they thought I was engaged. It was a ring from my parents that I got for 8th grade graduation. Fail. Judd had talked to me some. He came up to me one day, no hello or anything and asked if I was engaged. I said "No, not that I'm aware of." He said "O.K. very well." and walked off.  This also still makes me laugh.
Judd and I started to hang out some and we found out we had common interest in photography (and he's better than I ever could be in a thousand years).
So, Steve came to hang out with us one day, and we were all 3 kind of inseparable ever since.  I would find out 8 months later that a few months into the friendship, Steven had started to really like me. I was "involved" with that kid in Kansas at the time, so it made things complicated for him. That's a story for another time though. :)
So, since the start we've all became closer, we've gotten into more than a few shenanigans, Steve finally dropped the bomb that he liked me, we started dating in June last year, Judd got married, Judd moved to Gulf Shores, AL, Steve and I are still dating, and Judd is moving home, and there will be more shenanigans.

Moving on, Judd has been home for the past almost 2 weeks. He went hunting and got a deer. I think I was more excited about getting deer meat than he was about killing a deer

 This is all of the processed deer meet

 Steve and Judd sorting it out.

 

I had some deer burger and mac-n-cheese the other day... I was happy. 

I'm even more happy that Judd is coming home in a few weeks :)

We also went on a picture taking adventure somewhat.... we actually were just driving around

That's about it. Oh yeah, I'm excited that Judd is coming home :)