I need a vacation!

We're home after a wonderful two week cruise, but now I am so bone tired I need a vacation to recover from the vacation. Tonight I'm going to work on the pictures we took and see if I can find a few good ones to share with you. I'm really disappointed in them this time, I messed up the setting on my camera and out of the 800 pictures I took only a few turned out very good. The one above was taken on the ship as we boarded the Carnival Dream. Stay tuned for more on our Dream cruise.

And We're Off

Today we leave for Billings so I can get my hair cut and then tomorrow we board the plane for an early (6 a.m) flight to Florida. We will board the ship Saturday morning and then spend two glorious weeks in the Caribbean. I plan on taking lots of pictures so I will have plenty to blog about when I get home.

This trip is especially exciting because I get to meet Empress Bee and Sarge. I have been reading their blogs for about two years now. They are avid cruisers and coincidentally are going to be on the same ship. I'm also looking forward to meeting Hannah from Georgia and Pat from Tampa Bay. The internet has sure made this a small world.

Because the airlines are charging so much for luggage these days we are trying to cut back on how much we're taking. This is a real challenge because we are going to be gone for 17 days. I have seven pairs of shoes out to pack and I know I really shouldn't take them all, but I really need every pair! I'll find room for them (Ken doesn't really need all those shirts).



Bon Voyage!

COUNTDOWN

7 Days until my vacation!!

167 Days until retirement!!!!

and they can't come

soon enough!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas '09

Our daughter Cami wasn't able to spend Christmas Day with us this year, but she came over
Christmas Eve Day and opened presents then. Kenzie opened the box with clothes we got her before her toys. Luckily, she loves clothes so she wasn't disappointed.

Talen wanted a "band" for Christmas with a pink guitar. I wasn't sure I would be able to find one but JC Penneys came through and grandma scored some points with this gift. Santa came through with the rest of the "band" so it's plenty noisy at their house.

Colette and her two kids are living with us so we had the fun of Santa coming to our house this year. This was Luke's reaction to his new car.


After he found his M&M's and woke up a little more he was a happier with it.



Lexie and Caelen love clothes too. Here they are dressed in their new Christmas duds.






The big kids had fun too. Jeff and Colette are playing Wii tennis. Jeff looks a little intense.



This is about the time the gift opening got out of hand and the pictures stopped.



The day after Christmas the kids braved the cold and tried out Caelen's new sled. They still liked the inner tube better. Luke was happy outside until Colette took him down the hill on the sled then he had enough of that. We have had snow behind our house for over two months. The sledders love it but I have had enough winter. That's why my new background has a summer look.... that and the blue and green colors make me think of the ocean. :)

December Stuff

December has been another busy month, as it is for everyone. My back is finally feeling better so I have been able to enjoy getting ready for Christmas. This will be the last Christmas we will spend in this house as we are moving to Billings after we retire this summer so I had wanted to do it up big, but circumstances have kind of put a damper on those plans. We did manage to get the tree up and the presents wrapped.

Lexie spent the night with us last night so Ken bundled the girls up this morning and let them sled down the hill behind our house. The weather has been a lot warmer and most of the snow is gone, but there was still enough for them to have fun.

Of course, the biggest kid of all had to join in the fun too.

Colette and Ken decided there was still enough snow to make a pretty good snowman. When you don't rake your lawn in the fall though you get a lot of leaves in your snow.

While everyone was outside Luke and I stayed in the house so I could get some baking done. This is how Luke entertained himself.

Catching Up

It's been a month since my last posting and what a month it's been. The day after Halloween I turned wrong and felt a sharp pain in my lower back. I took it easy the rest of the day, but by the following day I had pain shooting down my left leg. After a week of visiting the chiropractor with no relief, I made an appointment with our family doctor. He sent me to Billings for an MRI and made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon the following day. I won't go into all the details but that appointment was extremely frustrating due to the surgeon kind of giving me the brush-off because he had a dinner to go to and they were having difficulties bringing up my MRI on the computer. He pretty much told me he didn't have time for me. He left a message the next day on my phone telling me what he thought was wrong and I could make another appointment to see him. At this point I had made the decision to shop elsewhere for anther doctor. In the meantime, we had a trip planned to Phoenix to celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary. We talked about cancelling, but I decided that I may as well hurt in Arizona as Montana so we flew to Phoenix on the 19th and spent three days visiting with our friends who moved to Tucson last year.

We stayed at the Hyatt Place in Mesa which had this beautiful fireplace in the lobby. The weather was beautiful while we were there, but it does cool off at night so I guess they do need fireplaces occasionally in the desert.

We met Terry and Terri when we first moved to Colstrip over 38 years ago. Ken and Terry became instant friends. They played tennis together, basketball, softball and as they got older Terri and I became golf widows. They moved to Tucson last year and have been missed. They drove up to Phoenix and spent a couple of days with us. We did some sightseeing, shopping and of course, eating. Even though I was somewhat limited with my leg pain we had a good time. While the guys golfed, Terri and I visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Taliesin West in the foothills of Scottsdale. He built his winter home here in 1937 and it became a camp for aspiring architects and it is still being used as as a architectural school. I was familiar with some of his work, but not with his personal life. I was so fascinated by him that I came home and ordered two books about his life and work from Amazon.

The panels on the roof in the picture below are made of canvas, so when it rains the water comes right through on furniture and whatever else is in the room.
When we returned home last weekend, I made the decision to find a new doctor and try to get something done with my back. An acquaintance told me about her doctor and he sounded almost too good to be true so I gave him a call. He was caring, knowledgeable and gave me the same diagnosis as the orthopedic surgeon. I made the decision to schedule surgery with him. When I told my sister about him she begged me to reconsider. It turns out that he did surgery on her mother-in-law and completely botched it. She also told me of several others who had bad results. So now what to do? Ken and I decided back surgery is so risky that we wouldn't dare have someone operate who we didn't entirely trust. So back to square one. Tomorrow I am basically starting over in my doctor search. The condition I have is called spondylolesthesis, basically the L5 vertebrae is fractured on both sides and slipped over the first bone of the sacrum and is pinching the nerve root (the reason for all the pain). Our cruise is only 8 weeks away so now I am worried about being able to go. We have travel insurance for the cruise but I don't want to cancel, we have been planning this for a year. Hopefully, I can find some answers and get something done soon. I have been living on pain pills and I hate taking pills!

Soup and Bread

I had to do another post right away so that the picture of the awful snakes wasn't showing whenever my blog was opened. Halloween night I made this soup for dinner along with the bread shown below. I thought it was delicious and want to share the recipe.

Italian Sausage and Tortellini Soup

1 pkg. sweet Italian sausage (1.25 lb size) I used hot sausage
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
2 lg cans diced tomatoes
4 cans beef broth
1 1/2 cups red wine
2 lg. carrots chopped
1 pkg. frozen spinach (thaw and drain)
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. oregano
1 pkg dried cheese tortelline (I used the fresh 5-cheese tortellini from Costco)
shredded Parmesan cheese

Remove casings from sausage and discard casings.
Brown sausage, onion and garlic in a large dutch oven, stir until sausage crumbles and is lightly brown. Drain and return to pan.

Add tomatoes, broth and wine, bring to a boil. Add vegetable and herbs. Stir, reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes

Add the torellini and cook for 15 to 20 minutes if using dried tortellini. If you use the fresh, as I did, you will only need to cook it for 7-8 minutes.

Garnish each serving with parmesan cheese.


I served it with this delicious oatmeal molasses batter bread. Easy to make and really good with soup.



Oatmeal Molasses Batter Bread

2 pkg. yeast
2 tsp. salt
5 cups flour
1 cup quick cooking oats, uncooked
1/2 cup molasses
1 tablespoon margarine or butter

Combine yeast, salt and 2 cups of the flour in a large bowl. Set aside. In a 2-qt pan mix the oats, molasses, 1 T. butter add 2 1/4 cups water. Heat over low heat until very warm (120-130 degrees) . With electric mixer on low speed, gradually beat liquid into flour mixture, just till blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes. Beat in 1/2 cup flour and beat on med for another 2 minutes. With a large wooden spoon, stir in remaining 2 1/2 cups flour to make a stiff batter that leaves the sides of the bowl. Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until double in size, about 1 hour. Grease two 2-qt. round casserole dishes. Divide dough into equal portions and turn into casseroles. With greased hands, turn dough to grease top and shape each into a ball. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise about 45 minutes, until double in size.

Place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven and bake for 40 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped. Remove from casseroles and serve warm.

(There is only 1 gram of fat in each serving and no cholesterol)