Goodbye 2009, thanks for the Good Times...

I was on a call today with someone who had these sentiments: "I am glad 2009 is over, it was the year of people swindling me left and right." Sorry if your year felt like this, but mine was pretty good. Lots of good times, I'm sure there were some down times, but the good ones outweigh them. As 2010 comes full swing, I just wanted to share with you some of my favorite discoveries (new to me) from 2009.

Clorox Disinfectant wipes. I love these. I just wipe down the bathroom counter, or whatever and it looks clean and beautiful and all the germs are gone. While everyone was getting the swine flu, I was wiping down with clorox wipes. I don't ever want to go to life before I knew the clorox wipe.

Yes, I have had peanut butter before 2009, but what I didn't know was that it is an AMAZING agent to get construction adhesive out of a coat. Jake was bravely fixing a frozen water pipe and got construction adhesive all over one side of his coat. I did a little research online and found that if you let peanut butter sit on the adhesive for a little while, you can just scrape it right off with your finger nail. I sprayed the area first with Shout so that the oil from the peanut butter wouldn't stay on the coat. It worked like a charm! I heard you can also use this for stickers left on certain clothing and other sticky things...

3M command hooks. I love these babies too. I have a new found love of putting wreaths on the front door, but the heavy magnet wreath holder was ripping the paint off the door when taking the magnet off. I think Jake was the one who suggested using these, but I didn't think it would hold a big wreath, especially a heavy Christmas one. It worked! It has been holding my big Christmas wreath on the door for about a month and a half now, and it hasn't even fallen once. I used the other one that came in the package to hang my necklaces on in our bedroom. I will keep buying these for any hanging needs I have.

Good old Pumice stone. Not just useful for making your feet nice and smooth, but also for cleaning your toilet. The toilet downstairs had a nice ring around it and I tried cleaning it with normal bathroom cleaner, magic eraser sponge, and anything else I could think of, it still wouldn't come off. After some research on the internet, I found that if you use a pumice stone it will scrub that ring right off, and it won't even scratch the ceramic. Worked beautifully! I thought we might have to buy a new toilet, but It looked as good as new. Oh the wonderful things you find on the internet.

Thanks 2009 for the great discoveries, please provide some more in 2010...

Always Good for a Laugh

My roomate from college (shiloh) and I would sometimes disappear to her bedroom and watch youtube for hours. We always watched people falling because it is our favorite. We would laugh so hard our stomachs would hurt and we would cry. I still sometimes hop on youtube when I have a hard day and need to laugh. Just thought I would share my favorites! I love watching people fall down- so hilarious! When you watch the lady stepping on the grapes, turn your volume up at the end because it is SO FUNNY.

Watch the model's ankles in this one....

YES, we are alive and YES, I know you are all as tired of seeing that dumb bowl of popcorn on our blog as I am. You can now relax and not worry any longer, because I have returned to blogging.

The past month in three words: JAKE'S BIRTHDAY and DISNEYLAND. Probably Jake's favorite month of his entire life. The week before we left for Disneyland we celebrated Jake's birthday with friends. Of course in Fall Fashion. We went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving point and did the corn maze and all of the fall festivities there. We even played some good old fashion tether ball, which of course I lost at. Afterwards we came back to our house for cheesecake and fun. We had everyone wear birthday glasses, which is what Jake is wearing in the picture. Jake's birthday was on one of the days we were in Disneyland, so he was able to celebrate it there! We made sure the whole week that we told the restaurants it was his birthday so he would get tons of free desserts.




Disneyland was GREAT! As you all know, it was my very first time. We flew in Saturday afternoon and met up with Jake's family. (Dad, Mom, and sister Amy's family) Jake and I went in on Saturday night because it was the only night they were having the Fantasmic show. We got there and it was INSANELY busy. We were getting slammed around by people walking by, and dodging strollers. We went and rode a few rides and then were a little late for the Fantasmic show and got stuck with the great view of a tree in our faces. We stood there moving our heads back and forth for a few minutes until we decided it wasn't worth it, so we went to ride more rides. I guess I was expecting thrill rides and was expecting to be scared for some reason. After Jake reminded me a few times that Disneyland was made for kids, I was able to chill out and have fun. Lame, I know.

We spent 5 days between Disneyland and California Adventures and it was SUPER fun. We went on almost every single ride in Disneyland, and a select few in California Adventures. We even rode the teacups- which I only ever need to do once. For those of you who have been there before, I HATE the "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" show/ride. You put on these 3D glasses and they do experiments and there is a part where mice get multiplied and then where you are sitting they blow shots of air at your feet so it feels like mice are running by you. FREAKED me out. I lifted my legs up and screamed because i HATE mice more than anything. I don't think I'll go on that one ever again. Other than that, everything was great - I can see why kids love it. We didn't end up taking as many pictures as I had hoped, but here are a few. I guess we'll have to go back so we can take more!

Everyone excited to be standing in line

Outside the Haunted Mansion

The Front Entrance Gate

The Tea Cups - I thought it was so cute!

Sully at California Adventures

I love this stuff. I love it air popped, microwave popped, popped from a pan on the stove, at the movies, or in those little metal things that you can put over the fire. I love it buttered, salted, with cheese, with lemon pepper salt, caramelized, toffeed (is that even a word? well i love it), even plain. Any way you can serve it, I will eat it.

I ate it for dinner tonight. That's one thing I kind of regret - eating a cookie for breakfast, and popcorn for dinner. Whenever we have kids I will have to get better eating habits or they will turn into 5,000 lb monsters. I think my love of popcorn definitely comes from my mom. I can remember her getting bags of cheese popcorn from Krogers and after eating it, my fingers would be completely orange and i would have to suck on my fingers to get all the cheesy goodness off. There's nothing quite like Krogers cheese popcorn.

My mom also had a specific pot she would use to pop it on the stove growing up. I don't know if she ever used that pot for anything else but popcorn, and boy did it always turn out super tastey. It had a specific taste because of that pot.

I loved when she would make caramel popcorn. She would always pop the corn in the pot, then make the caramel and toss it all together in a paper bag (from the Meijer's grocery store). She would lay it out on the dining room table and we would all walk in and out of the dining room throughout the night grabbing handfuls of caramel popcorn. Those were the good old days.


In another random note: I saw this picture in someone's facebook account. For those of you from MI, this is the HUGE Santa Clause at Bronners (the most amazing christmas store EVER). Thought you might like to see what happened after a storm (i hope they were able to put him back together):

Notice the head behind the tree

I ate a $75 piece of steak. And it was DELICIOUS. Was it amazing because i didn't have to pay for it? NO - it was amazing because it felt like it MELTED in my mouth. Talk about never wanting to leave the restaurant.

I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas last week for a couple days for work. Vegas is full of many of my favorite things - awesome shows, the Rainforest Cafe, amazing hotels, and H&M. It is also full of many of my NOT SO favorite things. I don't want to talk about those.

I stayed in the Palazzo hotel while I was there - it's attached to the Venetian and it is BEAUtiful. I stayed in one of the suites and it was definitely sweet. I had three TV's, a remote for the curtains for the window, a jetted tub (with a tv in the bathroom so I could watch while I was taking a bath), and stale gummy bears in the cupboard. The hotel was great, and I had a nice time sleeping in a humungous bed all by myself - although I stayed to one side, so I could have had a smaller bed. One thing I didn't like were the towels. They felt like sandpaper on my face, which no one likes. If I could change one thing it would be the towels (oh, and the stale gummy bears that i had to eat for dinner one night because it was too late for room service).

The night before I left to come back home, my boss took some of us to eat at The Cut. It's a restaurant by Wolfgang Puck, and it was awesome. I don't think I will ever eat like that again. I decided to go all out and order a 10 oz. New York Strip that was from a cow from asia. I guess they feed it special stuff to make the meat so tender. I think they also soaked it in butter for weeks, because i felt like I was going to have a heart attack after eating half of it. I couldn't even finish it because it was so rich! I wanted to bring the other half home for Jake to try, but I didn't think it could last that long - and the people in the airport security might look at me weird for bringing a doggy bag with a piece of steak in it.

I also walked to H&M that's on the vegas strip. I usually find tons of things that I LOVE and can't live without, but I walked away with only one pair of gray tights. Talk about lame. That store was so tiny and full of flourescent clothing. I could close my eyes and still see the bright pink and green clothes. I am not big into the eighties - it's not really my style, although I did try to wear a side pony tail in college one night (low on the side, so it looked halfway normal) but i still looked like an idiot. Anyways, i wish I could have gone to the HUGE H&M store further down on the strip, but I didn't feel like getting in another taxi and hearing sob story about how bad the economy is in Vegas - i swear the taxi driver took a HUGE detour on the way from the airport to my hotel so that he could get paid more.

Vegas was fun, but I am now looking forward to Disneyland. And YES - i am going to get a pair of mickey mouse ears and take pictures at EVERY attraction. You have THAT to look forward to...

It Worked!

So Jake and I planted our first ever garden this year to see if we could get anything from it. I decided that even if we just got ONE vegetable then it was a success. I faithfully watered and not so faithfully pulled weeds, but it still worked! We are very proud of our small garden. We planted corn, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon, carrots, squash, lettuce, and green peppers. The peas, cucumbers and carrots didn't really make it, so let's not talk about those. As for the corn, it grew and grew but then was attacked by earwigs. Everytime I peeled back some of the leaves on the corn, tons of earwigs would come out. NOT COOL. The squash grew like CRAZY. It was huge and beautiful, but we don't really enjoy eating squash, so that one was just fun to look at. We will probably not ever plant that again. The watermelon grew (we still have two more out there), but of course I picked it too soon because i was excited and it was NOT ready. The inside was still a light green. BUT, we did get plenty of green peppers and tomatoes. Jake and I decided to make salsa today, so I thought I would take pictures of this momentous occasion!

I LOVE FALL! I don't know what i love more - the crisp air, the fall colors, or the yummy meals of soup and rolls. I know it is probably a bit early to start getting so excited, but it is NOT AUGUST anymore! The first day of September I put away our summer decorations and put up the fall ones. I don't have tons of them, but I love the ones I have. I even got into the spirit and made my own fall wreath for the front door. I love this time of year because I can start wearing my scarves again. I love the fall jackets, the fall colored clothes, and even the fall shoes. It is all just so wonderful! I just wanted everyone to know.

Just to bring you up to speed on our life:

• Our basement now has carpet! The carpet is wonderful and is extremely soft. Jake and I carried our sectional downstairs and I wanted to SCREAM OUT LOUD because parts of it were so incredibly heavy. I am enjoying the fruits of our labor though, and watch the tv that Jake hung above the fireplace while reclining on our sectional. We can finally use the basement and it feels SO good :) This weekend we are putting up our baseboards and trim, then after that all we have to do is finish the tile around the fireplace.
  
• Our front yard is looking AMAZING. If you saw it before, you probably wouldn't even recognize it anymore. The flagpole and spotlight are gone! hooray! The huge rotten pile of rocks is gone, and the front yard is flat! Our wonderful neighbor came over with his bobcat and got rid of all the rocks, and then flattened out our front yard. We planted grass and it is slowly growing. In the spring it should look great!

Oh the joys of home renovations :) We are just living day by day and getting VERY excited to go to disneyland. It will be my first time there, and I hear it is just amazing. Happy Fall!