Christmas #1

Ahh... the joy of Christmas. Sleeping in. Coffee and a good breakfast. Presents. Excitment. Food. Food. Food. Celebration. Rest. It was a great one!

We started Christmas on the Eve, with the Corum family tradition of pizza! I love this tradition. Mainly because I love pizza but also because it means I don't have to cook on Christmas Eve. We rested by the fire (Jackson too), devoured our pizza and enjoyed the anticipation of Christmas Day.

On Christmas morning, we slept in a little bit = bliss! Then awoke, staying in our PJs, to enjoy a quick breakfast together... bed head and all!

After that, we gathered around the tree and Ryan and I opened our presents for each other. Ryan spoils me. It's just terrible. I try and keep up, but he out-does me all the time. Not that Christmas is all about presents, but the Corum family expresses their love through gifting. They absolutely love it. And God placed me in their lives for a reason... because I have a hard time accepting gifts. I love to give them too, but accepting is rough. This year is no different.

"Santa" gave this shirt to Ryan and no, I don't mean me. "SANTA"

Ryan had to settle for this voucher for this game... it arrived, of course, the day AFTER Christmas

And I say that I can't keep up with the Corums, because Ryan got me...

A BIKE!!!!

I love my new bike. I haven't had a bike since I was a little kid. It is such a treat!!!

After we had spoiled the heck out of each other, we cleaned up and headed down to Visalia to share Christmas with the Punt family. We couldn't resist taking Jackson along to be part of the fun.

We had a great time with my family, getting even further spoiled and enjoying lots of food and some typical Punt wacky behavior.

What a truly Merry Christmas! We can hardly wait to do it again with the Corum family next weekend!

Don't forget the reason...

May we always have room for him in our hearts.

Be blessed and Merry Christmas!!!

The best best friend

I am blessed with the best friend in the entire world. I know most of you reading this will contest this and claim that yours is better, but you’re wrong. ;) And though I could go on and on and sing the praises of my friend Michelle, I will just tell you that I love her because she’s the real deal. She accepts who I am and praises who I am (flaws included) and I in turn do the same for her. When the world gets all “wonky” and I don’t think anyone will understand, she does and she makes me feel better about it all. When other friends have betrayed me, when things have gone bad, when people have walked away from me… Michelle stays and supports me. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Every Tuesday Michelle and I get together for coffee, conversation, bible study and prayer. Though we are both extraordinarily busy people with completely different lives, we make that time for each other because it’s important. We nurture our friendship each and every week and I grow more and more thankful that she’s in my life. It's one of my favorite days of the week.

This Monday (we pulled a switcheroo) we got together to have dinner and celebrate Christmas together. We had a wonderful time, as usual, but got to talk about how much we appreciate each other, especially in the past year or so, which has been difficult for both of us. Though we exchanged gifts and I absolutely love what she got me, Michelle is the only gift I need. And though this sounds a bit like a love letter, I say and mean it all because friendship like that is priceless.

I love you Shell Bell and hope you have a wonderful Christmas. I am eternally grateful for your friendship.

Food Blog: Winter Harvest Soup

I've been in the mood for comfort food lately. The cold winter air, rain and windy weather and our warm cozy house just multiply that. When I picked up my crate of produce on Friday, I found a few of my favorites inside... butternut squash, potatoes, onions, apples. I recalled a recipe that was tucked into a previous crate that had ALL of these things and sounded really good and pulled it out. Though it still required a trip to the grocery store (which I hate), it felt worth it.

Rarely am I in the mood to stand in the kitchen for hours on end, chopping, stirring, simmering, pureeing, etc. But Sunday was the exception. I spent nearly all day in the kitchen working on a few dishes and was so pleased with how everything turned out. This was SO delicious and so worth the effort. As I mentioned in my previous post, it made way too much for just me and the veggie hater hubby, so I took some to my parents, who said that it was wonderful and scarfed it down. I'm not sure if it really way because I think they were just dazzled with having someone make dinner for them. But either way...

Winter Harvest Soup

5 T. unsalted butter

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

2 medium apples, thinly sliced

1 large white potato, diced

1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled butternut squash

Salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 teaspoon dried sage

2 tablespoons flour

1/3 cup apple cider

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk

2 ounces thinly sliced bacon, torn into pite sized pieces

2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large put over heat. Add onion, apples, potato and squash. Season with salt and pepper and cook until onion of soft. Stir in dried sage and flour. Add the cider and cook, stirring until thickened. Add broth and milk, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until potato is soft.

Cook bacon until crisp and drain on a paper towel.

Puree the soup in a blender (*being careful not to overfill the blender with hot soup - it will rise and splatter more than something cold*), in batches, until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Return to the heat, add the cheese and remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and stir until melted. Garnish with the crumbled bacon and more cheese. Also consider chives or croutons.

Food Blog: Broccoli Salad

It's Chritmastime and I'm feeling nostaglic. I've been thinking of Christmases past and all of the fun times with my family, most of which involve food. We really love to eat! Too much, most likely, but life is short and I believe it doing what you love. ;) Christmases are different now. Better, but different, considering I have 2 families. And the other one loves food too. I'm in trouble!

I was laughing to myself about the fact that people always ask me what "Dutch food" is. "Both sides of your family (mom and dad's) are Dutch, so you must have a ton of Dutch food. What is it like?" Frankly, I don't really know. Either it's what I've always known, so I don't consider it to be Dutch... or, I'm not all that Dutch after all. To me, Dutch food is meat and potatoes, comfort food, good bread, great cheese, yummy desserts, lots of almond paste and flavoring, strong coffee, licorace, King peppermints and licking your plate. Better yet, sopping up the gravy with good bread. For true Dutch cooking, I look to Kayotic Kitchen. This blog makes me homesick for the Netherlands, even though I've never been. Her recipes are fantastic and she's Dutch so I trust that she's cranking out some true Dutch food. Her photography makes me drool. And, she's gorgeous. Why does it matter to mention that? Well, it doesn't, but she is. Check her out... for her FOOD though. So if you're looking for Dutch food, head over there.

My take on Dutch food is pretty simple. If my family brings it to a potluck or a holiday, it's Dutch. One of those items is Broccoli Salad. I love love love it and it shows up at so many family events, I swear it's gotta be at least part Dutch. :) I was craving it like mad over the weekend and had most of the ingredients on hand thanks to my lovely produce crate. Seeing that the hubs is not much of a veggie lover, I decided to go ahead and make the big batch anyway and brought it to my parents for dinner along with a steaming pot of soup. Mmm mmm good.

Broccoli Salad

2 1/2 pounds broccoli flowerets (you can mix in cauliflower too)

1/2 pound bacon, cooked, drained and crumbled

1 red onion or shallot, thinly sliced

1 cup raisins or dried cranberries

1/3 cup sunflower seeds, pine nuts or slivered almonds

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup red wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar is good too)

1/2 cup sugar

Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut broccoli into bite sized pieces. In a large bowl, combine broccoli, bacon, onion, raisins and nuts. In a smaller bowl, combine mayo with vinegar and sugar and whisk to combine until sugar is dissolved. Add mayo mixture to the broccoli mixture and toss well. Refrigerate. Serves 8 to 10.

Christmas around the corner

Another weekend come and gone? It's hard to believe that Christmas is just a few short days away. In some ways, we are very ready - house and tree are decorated. Presents are bought, wrapped and under the tree. Parties, menus and travel planned. In other ways, we're just not ready. At least not in our hearts. This season rushes by so quickly every year. Because of this we tend to lose time and focus and so much more. Because of that Ryan and I opted to slow down this weekend and spend time with each other and catch up with "life".

Sure, there isn't much fun to report besides laundry, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, watching a few movies and sitting in front of a few fires, but we would not have had it any other way.

We got to go out to dinner and do a little shopping in Fresno on Friday night. Saturday brought a few hours at the office for Ryan, :( , but later brought a nice long walk together with Jackson, a few movies (Year One and Marley & Me) and pizza in front of a roaring fire... Sunday brought much of the same, with a lot of cooking thrown in, which I will blog about later.

We even got the chance to re-kindle an old habit/tradition - Fajita Sunday! It's exactly what it sounds like. It's Sunday and we make delicious fajitas and have a small Mexican feast. It's wonderful... and so tasty!

And that's about it. Now it's back to work for a few days and just a few more preparations for the big day. Hopefully we'll find some time to rest before then because we're both pretty exhausted right now.

The house update

The reason we haven't posted a house update recently is because there isn't an update. :(

Yes, sadly we are stuck in what seems an endless flow of paperwork that we can't seem to ever finish. Initial this. Sign that. Date this. Date that. Sign and date and inital this and that. Write another check. ** sigh **

As you can probably tell, frustration has seeped in and somewhat overtaken me this week. As a long list of stuff to do sits unchecked...

Yes, I mean that literally. It's blank. I know that this is all in God's hands and timing, but it's hard to be patient when our dream is so far out of grasp, yet we've invested so much time AND MONEY on it. Not to mention that we are under a sort of deadline, with hopes to close by June 30th in order to collect the tax credit.

I want to sit back and enjoy Christmas and know that this new year is going to deliver us a permanent home. I want to let go of the control and the anxiety. God knows I need to. I want to know how good it feels to see a foundation poured for the place we will nest,  have children, tend our little garden, play with the dog, all for decades to come.

I forgot how much I love surprises

I have an amazing husband. I knew this. I mean, I KNOW this. But every once in a while, I have to step back and take a moment and relish in how blessed I am to have him. Usually, these moments kind of catch me off guard. This weekend was one of those times.

After another long and semi-exhausting week, Ryan insisted on a date night together. I say this like I don't appreciate and look forward to our date nights, which couldn't be any further from the truth. But, we had already had a few date nights last week and I wasn't sure I felt like doing the dinner/movie thing. I could tell something was different about this date night but couldn't put my finger on what it was. Since Ryan requested a date night several days before Saturday, I knew he had something special up his sleeve.

I have a love-hate relationship with surprises. I like to be surprised... but I'm a planner by nature. So, it's hard to let that control go and enjoy the moment, especially when there are hints that something is coming. Ryan let me know that we were going on a date night and that there was an activity planned and that I would have to do something special to prepare but no other details... and that killed me! :)

So, on Saturday, not knowing what was coming, I got all "dolled" up for a night out. Ryan took one look at me and let me know that though I looked great, I might want to dress a little more casual, and... a little warmer. I was stumped. Surely we couldn't be doing something outside! It was COLD!!! After the several weird questions and statements that followed ("What kind of socks are you wearing?" "You might want to bring mittens or gloves" "Bring your camera") I grew more and more intrigued, and a little freaked out! I kept saying the same thing over and over, "What are we doing?! Wait. No. Don't tell me. But..."

So, we headed out for pizza at our favorite local joint. Mmmmm! Then, started driving toward Fresno. My mind raced but I decided to just let it go and get lost in conversation with Ryan. It wasn't until we pulled up and I saw this sign that I realized what was going on...

Oh my... ICE SKATING!!!!

We had such a great time. It was such a sweet surprise. A few weeks ago, maybe even months ago, we had seen someone ice skating on TV and talked about how we both wanted to do it sometime soon. I had totally forgotten about it. But... Ryan remembered and he made it happen.

I love him so incredibly much and treasure the times he does such sweet and romantic things for me. I'm keeping him forever.