Wedding Season Already?

Posted on by Jordan

I don’t know if there really is a wedding season per say… we certainly didn’t get married in season if there is one…

None the less, Heather and I attended the first wedding of several we are planning to attend this year.

The wedding was in Omaha, letting us revisit a few of our old haunts along the way. I am pressed for time as I write this or I would go into more detail. You will just have to take my word for it that it was a beautiful wedding, and we are really excited for our newlywed friends!

Another benefit of an Omaha wedding, from our prospective at least, was that we had the opportunity to stay with Heather’s grandmother at the farm in Blair. It is always nice to get to see Gigi! The wedding was Friday night, and we really hadn’t planned our Saturday, but we soon discovered we had plenty to do.

First thing, we drove with Gigi to one of Heather’s cousin’s trap shoot. Apparently trap is becoming more commonly sponsored by high schools in the area. I think it was a little funny after Heather got more than her fill of guns last weekend that we ended up spending a few hours on a firing line again! The atmosphere was a little less intense, and Heather had a handful of friends and family around, so I think she enjoyed it quite a bit more. She even went so far as to cede that it might be OK for our (someday) children to engage in the sport!

After the trap shoot, we headed to a Special Olympics event that Heather’s uncle was participating in. He is anything but young, but was still excited to run his race! It was actually Heather’s first time at a Special Olympics event. If you have ever been to one… They can be kind of intense in a way, it’s kind of hart wrenching, inspiring and uplifting all at the same time.

After the race, we dropped by another cousin’s brand new house to say hello, and get the tour. We also got an extensive injury report as her cousin had fallen off a latter a few nights before and was really bruised up! He was expecting a full recovery, although the doctors were telling him to expect to be sore for months.

After that, we headed back to Des Moines. Quite a bit for just a Saturday if you ask me!

-Jordan

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As a sort of tangent thought that just hit me, but I wanted to get down somewhere….

I try to avoid using names for nearly everyone we interact with unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise. It’s kind of standard practice with public blogs like this. I just realized though, my goal with the blog has been to have a written record I can go back to years later and see what we were doing. I am wondering if we will remember who’s wedding was in April of 2010, or what cousin would have been shooting trap that spring? I suppose we will be able to figure it out though! 🙂

Biscuits And Gravy… Italian Style

Posted on by Jordan

I made biscuits and gravy this morning for breakfast.

Things were looking questionable when I discovered that the sausage was Italian-seasoned. I was having a hard time imagining it working in gravy. Heather encouraged me to try it anyway… and it actually worked out ok.

I don’t however foresee fennel becoming the next in-everything spice that chipotle has somehow become. 🙂

Also, I don’t have a picture because… you have seen biscuits and gravy before. The extra seasonings didn’t really change the look any.

-Jordan

The Only Thing Missing…

Posted on by Jordan

I know I talked about decorating the apartment last week, but I wanted to post a picture of our little tree, and a few words. First the picture:

The tree is about three feet tall, nothing too exciting really.

It does however, represent the first time in the eight years I have lived away from my parents house that there have been Christmas decorations in my apartment. I cannot tell you how much it starts to make the apartment feel really home-ish, and warmer somehow. At the same time, it only makes me wish Heather and I were married more. The (our) apartment is really starting to feel like home, and yet Heather isn’t here.

yes, it is very possible there will be 46 more days of “oh woes me” posts like today, sorry 🙂 It’s our blog, and Heather and I are really feeling sort of like little kids waiting for Santa… Not really sure we can survive the anticipation much longer, and sure we will explode if we aren’t careful.

Hopefully Christmas provides some distraction 🙂

-Jordan

Chicken, Noodles, and Biscuits

Posted on by Jordan

Oddly enough the fifth of November wasn’t really cold enough to create quite the mood that makes chicken and noodle soup ideal. Heather and I made some last night anyway.

as with every time I have attempted chicken noodle, I completely failed when it came to liquid management. Last time, I used 2 pints of chicken stock and it was too much liquid. This time I only used one pint of stock, and then took an idea from the Betty Crocker cook book, and added two cups of milk with some flour mixed in near the end of cooking. The problem was the noodles took up way too much liquid so it started to dry out and stick as soon as I added them.

I think the first thing I need to do is start measuring everything I put in, using some chicken, some random vegetables, a bag of whatever brand of noodles I grabbed this time isn’t helping any.

because the soup got too dry at the end, the celery never really got cooked, and even the noodles needed longer, but it was turning into a solid instead of soup so I had to stop cooking.

While I was doing that, Heather was working on biscuits:

(picture taken after we took a few off the pan)

She had much more success with the biscuits than I had with the soup, although they both were quite good. I think the only note there is that we could roll the dough out thicker and I think still be fine.

to recap, next time I try this I need to:

  • Measure, and write down how much of everything I used
  • Add the noodles last, after all the vegetables are cooked, or nearly cooked
  • Use the milk and flour to thicken approach again, that was working well before the noodles sucked out all the water
  • Leave myself more time, trying to rush meant we were eating crunchy celery

Now I Just have to remember to check for these posts before I try making something a second time 🙂

-Jordan