dear new hampshire, we're mad at you.

hmm. i'm going to try to write this in the most non-judgmental way, but i'm sorry this whole incident did indeed unfold because it involved the state of new hampshire.

you see, it was friday night and ryan had found that cabela's big game hunter was on sale for $30 (normally $50) at best buy. yes, i did say cabela's big game hunter, stop judging me. You would be just as addicted as we are if you played it. Anyways, the reason this find was so exciting was because we had a $20 best buy gift card due to the promotion at best buy when buying our wii...therefore making the game only $10 out of our pocket.

SO I got home and started searching for the gift card and couldn't find it anywhere. Well, I found the little sleeve it came on, but the card wasn't attached. There was no need to panic yet, though, because I called the number on the back of the gift card holder and they told me I could go to the store with my receipt and they could just look up the card and reissue it.

so off to best buy we went and into the customer service line (which wasn't a line at all...which was great because they take forever there). we walk up explain the situation and they had to find and talk to five different people before they realized they had to call corporate. so the girl goes somewhere else in the store and talks to someone and comes back and says "good news or bad news?"

I said bad news. Save the best for last, right? I'll tell you the good news, first, because it was a joke...she told me "I was going to tell you the good news was that I just saved 15% on my car insurance." Lame.

The bad news: someone found our card and spent $16.62 at the Portsmouth, NH best buy. Okay first question is, why not spend the full $20? Second question is, how did our card get from Danvers, MA to Portsmouth, NH so quickly?!

Hypothetical situation:

say a vermonter found the card...and actually saw it drop from the person's bag. they obviously would pick it up and return it to it's rightful owner.

not the case with the new hampshire best buy go-er.

new hampshire, this is all your fault.

welovermont.

crock pot failures.

so we can make things like chicken cordon bleu in a white wine reduction sauce and pork tenderloin in a molasses glaze...but we can't figure out how to successfully make tasty delicious meals in our crock pot! every time we try things come out not so tender and juicy...in fact their dry and just yuck.

we think it could be our recipes...so here is my plea:

we need good crock pot recipes...pleeeeeease! and thank you. we appreciate it :)

our Christmas tree :)

This should be a quick one...just wanted to post some pictures of our festive little apartment.

Despite both of us feeling not 100% up to par (we were not healthy for a good three weeks...), we ventured out down rainy 128 (never a safe idea) in search of Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Last year we were able to go the llama farm and actually cut down a tree when we were in Vermont, however we didn't think those things existed here in Massachusetts so we headed to Home Depot. Secretly I think that was Ryan's ploy to get me there so he could buy some fun toys for himself, but that's neither here nor there.

So after about ten minutes looking at the trees we decided to just pick one since they were all piled on top of each other and there was no real way to dig through them all...and this is the gem we found:

We were so excited to get our first Christmas tree together!!!!! We came right home and set it up in the stand and then proceeded to decorate it with lights and beads and the very few ornaments that we have. What's funny is that as we took out each ornament we just had to laugh because, besides the 10 little round ornaments we had bought that day, about 85% of our ornaments are penguins! I suppose our family and friends know us well :) and yes, that is a penguin on the top of our tree...

We also hung up our stockings "on the mantle". Lucky for us everyone knows we love penguin stuff so our apartment was fully stocked with Christmas stuff that may or may not be displayed all year round...

So that's our little tree. It stands about 5 1/2 feet and we love it :) We also strung up white lights on our porch because Christmas lights are fun....even if it doesn't actually look like Christmas outside! We love this time of year!! We are celebrating our Christmas together before we go to Vermont...so expect more pictures soon :)

Thanksgiving at long last.

I've been meaning to post about Thanksgiving for a while now...but we bought a wii and we've spent a little bit too much time practicing our Tiger Woods golfing... :)

So after much deliberation we decided to spend Thanksgiving in Massachusetts since I just started a new job and currently have no vacation time. BUT lucky for us we didn't have to spend thanksgiving all by our lonesome...we had the privledge of spending it with the Slyman's and a bunch of other wonderful people from church!!

So Sarah and I planned a menu and we were each going to cook separately on Wednesday night at our respective homes...until she called Wednesday morning saying that she had hurt her neck at an exercise class the night before. So we changed plans and went over to cook with Patrick and Sarah all Wednesday night. We peeled and chopped and made things like cranberry sauce and washed dishes so that everything would be prepped and ready for the next day. Silly me forgot my camera so I have no photos from that...but we had a great time. Minus the time i decided to stick my hand on the 375 degree oven and burn two of my knuckles so bad that I literally almost fainted...WHOOPS! oh well...

So then we left around 10 to go home and sleep so we could wake up and go back and start preparing around 10 the next morning. There was sweet potato bread pudding to make and corn muffins to bake:

and potatoes that needed mashing:

Mmm there's nothing like cooking a big feast for a ton of people...it was just so very enjoyable!

And since everyone in my family loves food so much I suppose I should include some of the tasty treats that we prepared...

green bean casserole:

garlic mashed potatoes:

drunken turkey:

sweet potato bread pudding:

butternut squash risotto

grandma's carrots:

So those are the dishes that we made all together...and then other people brought delicious treats and we had far far far too much food...but that's what thanksgiving is partly about, right?

The other more important part is being able to spend time with people that we care about. We felt so blessed to be able to spend the day with people from our church family. Even though we couldn't go home, it was just so great to be here and have it feel like home.

Here are a few more shots from the day:

Roberta and Michael

Sarah and her girls

:)

So that was our day. It was full of friends and fun and lots of cooking! It was a great way to spend Thanksgiving and we are continually thankful for everything that is happening in our lives right now! God is so good to us.