Rangeley, Maine - September 25-27, 2009

From the height of the land:

Looking back up at the height of the land:

Smalls Falls:

Not the greatest picture...

Moose Track:

Camp? It has a house number...

Happy Anniversary!

Preview

This is a fantabulous homemade carrot cake that I'm overly proud of. Recipe to come!

Target funny:

For the child with lofty career ambitions:

More cake balls

My cake balls that I made for our family party on Sunday. My mother took this picture before they were devoured! They were a huge hit and I will definitely be making more of them for family gatherings! I figured that one cake made about 55 of them or so.

Cake Balls!

Bakerella has inspired me in so many ways! Pat was off working a 24 hour shift this weekend so I needed to entertain myself. What to do? Bake!

Her website can explain far better how to make them, so I won't attempt it. Her photography is also much better than mine, but here are my pictures of my creations.

I seriously think they're so cute I can hardly stand it. I've got another batch at home ready for dipping tonight and I can't wait. I'll probably even bake another cake for dipping on Tuesday. I think they came out pretty well for my first time!

I'm obsessed!!

My working space (I love our kitchen):

What do you think? Any suggestions?

Pat in the kitchen!

When I got home last night my wonderful husband had dinner all prepared for me. Shake n' bake chicken, corn and stuffing! What a great surprise and it tasted sooo good too! There's something wonderful about walking in the door at 7pm and having dinner already made for you!

Thanks honey!

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

(crappy cell phone picture)

I've seen this recipe all over the internet, but I mixed it up a little. Most people just use salsa and chicken. But I didn't have enough salsa so I added some frozen corn and a can of stewed tomatoes. I then added some red pepper flakes for a little spice.

This was VERY good and I wish I had made more for leftovers! We ate it with tortillas and I will definitely be making it again!

More 4th food!

Homemade sugar cookies with homemade buttercream frosting:

Fruit platter (strawberries, grapes and cherries) with fruit dip:

More strawberries and some pretzels to use up the rest of the white chocolate:

Happy 4th of July!

Father's Day

This blog is WAY overdue, but here it is anyway, they're too cute not to share!

Like a lot of people (I hope!), I know my Dad is the best one out there. However, he is impossible to buy presents for. When I saw a post on http://www.bakerella.com/ before Father's Day I knew what I would be making.

Burgers and fries!

Stryker helped too!

These pictures don't do them justice at all, they were so cute and a huge hit! Bakerella has easy instructions in her blog and even templates for the tray and fry holder!

Even though Dad doesn't eat sweets I know he appreciated the thought and time that went into these. He even took them to work to show off!

Commute...

I was so annoyed this morning on my commute to work (not that it takes much in the morning).

I was driving along, minding my own business when I quickly came up on a stupid Subaru doing about 15mph below the speed limit. When the idiot noticed me (and about 10 other cars) behind him, he put on his 4-way flashers and pulled about 1/2 into the breakdown lane. When I attempted to go around him, he sped up and got back in the lane.

Ok, now he's going the speed limit so I kept a normal driving distance behind him. About 2 miles later the same thing happens again. This time I was able to get around him as we were on a straight away with no traffic.

But really. If you put on your flashers and want someone to go around you, make it easy for them by pulling off into the (large) breakdown lane and slow down. Do not speed up.

My commute has always been between 30-45 minutes, but since I moved to Windham it's down a 2 lane road instead of the highway. Oh, how I miss my highway commute.

Blogging slump...

My Mother pointed out that I haven't blogged lately, so here I am.

But I just don't have anything to talk about. We're in the house, and it's wonderful. Pat has been working so hard on his limited time off to keep the lawn and gardens looking nice. Me? I can't see why anyone would get pleasure out of gardening. It's just not my thing.

However, I do want one of these:

I've certainly hinted around it enough with Pat so I'm hoping one shows up next week for my birthday. I have so many things I want to make, mostly homemade salsa! I love, love, love good salsa.

Today is actually our eight month anniversary and also our third month living in our house!

So that's pretty much it. I haven't been cooking too much because I get home too late and Pat has been working a lot of nights. I have been baking some - turns out my homemade brownies are a hit! Thanks for the recipe, Mom!

This weekend we may be having my coworkers up for a game night. No plans have been finalized yet though, so we'll see!

Remembering Maddie

You may notice the new badge to the left. This is Madeline Spohr, and she has touched me.

Sadly, I first learned of Maddie after her death. My high school friend posted a status update on facebook that one of her good friends had just lost their daughter. I followed the links to the blogs of her parents that loved their little girl more than anything in this world.

My heart breaks for them as I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child.

If you click on the badge it will bring you to Maddie's mother's blog. There are stories, pictures and videos of this precious angel. But be warned, your heart will break.

Emergency Aid Delayed...

My favorite morning show (The Free Beer and How Wings show) talked about this ridiculous story this morning. I was outraged.

The story is linked here, but in case you don't want to read it, here is a summary (video also posted below, with the actual call).

This poor 17 year old girl is watching her father have a seizure on the floor, just THREE weeks after having brain surgery. What is she supposed to do? Call 911. What are they supposed to do? Help her.

After ringing and ringing with no answer, she hangs up and calls back. It rings and rings and before the person picks up the phone she says "What the F***". Keep in mind, this is before the officer answered the phone.

He proceeds to flip out at her for swearing, hangs up on her and doesn't dispatch anyone for six minutes. He never finds out what the emergency is.

She shows up at the police station and he arrests her.

Ok, I am flipping out. When you are faced with an emergency OF COURSE you are freaking out. You're 17 and watching your sick father have a seizure and nobody answers 911.

I have family in the public safety field, as most of you know. My sister is a 911 dispatcher and my husband is a paramedic. NEVER would they act like this. This is just plain crazy.

Was she perfect? No. But was the officer ridiculous? Yes.

End result - the father is ok and the officer got a two week supsension. That's it.

Here is the news story about it:

Baked Stuffed Haddock

Do you know how great it is living close to your parents? Well, if you have awesome parents like mine...it's pretty great.

Last week Mom & Dad made this amazing haddock with crab meat stuffing and Mom dropped some off for Pat and I. It was delicious. They seriously made the stuffing with a pound of crab meat. Yum!

She even dropped off the potatoes for us. She's so great.

In other news, we had some friends over this weekend to help us with some yard work. There was this stump I wanted up righted and some more trees to cut down. So Mitchell & Phil made their way down from Fryeburg to help us out. We spent our evening sitting around our fire pit table enjoying some burgers and beers. What a great weekend.

The boys up righting the stump:

That's the huge brush pile we hope to burn soon if we ever get some rain.

Our backyard with the two leaning birch trees gone:

The front yard with the Daffodils up:

Random Picture Post

Bacon, Eggs & Hashbrowns cooking Saturday morning:

Yum - I like my hasbrowns with cajun seasoning:

Pat making me breakfast before work:

Flipping the ployes!

Yummy ployes:

Stryker's favorite place in the kitchen:

Our new patio set - it's a fire pit!

Stryker waits here for me in the morning (upstairs hallway)

Stryker was "helping" Pat with some work: