Cooking

After getting our Christmas Tree this year (pictures to come later) Dan made dinner for us.

The master chef

 I found some Asian cooking sauces at Aldi and the dish turned out amazing! Dan just fried up the chicken in our Wok, added peanuts, peppers, and green onions, and after it cooked for a couple minutes add the sauce. It tasted great! We want to try it with cashews next time too. The other nice perk with the sauce is that you don't use the entire bottle.

Final product

Things we don't like to admit

My hip has been hurting...and by hurting I mean the pain was so bad I couldn't go to work. Now this might seem odd as I really am not that old. But as I have been taking evaluation of my body recently I have had to come to accept some hard truths.

1. I can't eat what I want anymore.

My body just can't keep up with everything I want to eat any more...my metabolism has slowed down and now my hand to mouth reflex needs to do the same. :)

2.  My joints hurt

My hip isn't the only part of my body complaining these days. As the pain subsides I think about all the hard hits I took landing on the ground, running into the wall during racquetball, the two 1/2 marathons I have run, and all the miles I have logged on my body. I bought into the idea that my body would bounce back...not believing that so much anymore.

This might seem like a short list, or a vain list, maybe a complaining list...and maybe those things are all true. But what I think we need to recognize is that change happens. One season of my life is affecting this new season of my life and as I sit typing this I can't help but feel struck by the change. I kind of miss my body being 24...but I wouldn't trade that season of life for the season I am in now.

That is all I really wanted to say...body changes are hard. And they don't always move in that direction (being hard :)...bad joke?) I just needed a place to write out that fact. My body isn't 24 anymore and that's ok. But it also means I have to start making new choices because I want to stay healthy for the next 70 years or so :)

Frankenmuth

After the Tree Lighting Dan and I left the next morning to go to Frankenmuth, Michigan. The fun part about Michigan in the fall is not only the magical wonderland of Bronners but also hunting season. I saw a car with two deer strapped to the top and a truck with a deer thrown in the back. Which was a contrast to the nice town of Frakenmuth...complete with horse drawn carriages :)

 After hunting down a parking spot, our first stop was eating at Zehnders...which was very good. They also had the place all decorated for Christmas. It was fun seeing all the Christmas decorations and starting to think about getting our tree and decorating our house.

 Next we walked through the streets and had fun watching them make fudge (pictured below) and salt water taffy. We spent time just looking through the shops, going through the museum, and talking before going to Bronners and then having dinner at a local pizza place.

Fudge time

Very interactive Museum

 On Sunday we went to one of the local Church's and took a few more pictures before leaving.

I had to include pictures of Bronner's. They have so much to see and if you have never been there it is worth the trip.

Christmas Float

 Inside Bronners they have everything decorated...and I mean everything! Here are some pictures of their displays.

As we were driving home on the highway I saw a picture I had to take....
I "heart" you too Michigan :)

Christmas Tree Lighting

Last Friday at Dan's work they had Christmas Tree lighting. They had a little train decorated for kids and parents to ride, Hot Chocolate and cookies, Santa and Mrs. Clause, and real Reindeer.

Before the lights got switched on

Standing by the tree

Santa and Mrs. Clause

With the Reindeer



Picture time :)

 It was a fun event and something they do every year the weekend before Thanksgiving. After the lighting we grabbed some dinner and want out for a late night movie.

100,000 miles

There comes a time in every car's life when the big day finally arrives...

And what do you do when your car hits 100,000 miles? You celebrate :) With ice cream from Coldstone!

Stacey's Wedding

 Two weeks after Dan and I got married my college friend Stacey also got married. This time Dan and I got to enjoy time with friends instead of hosting. Not that our reception wasn't fun but we had a great evening spending time with Jen and Brad from Chicago and Jen from Indy. Theses girls lived with me for most of college and we still try to get together at least once a year. I also got to see some other random people from college that I had not see in years.

 Her colors were silver and hot pink, they had crackers and cheese with fruit before the reception, and a candy for us to take home with us. They had it set up so we got to pick out what candy we wanted, just had to fill up our bag. We also got amazing cake! I had Strawberry and Dan had Chocolate Raspberry. The final touch was the chocolate fountain we could also frequent after dinner.

 It was so much fun to spend time with these women, I have known them for the last 10 years and love getting to laugh with them and at the wedding dance together!

 Dan and I also got to have our first dance together during the reception. It was a great night and we both had a lot of fun with everyone.

Things that are new....

A couple things happened the week we got back from the Honeymoon. A high and a low...

The low: my toe nail finally decided to fall off

High for the week:  I got a new hair cut!

Heading Home Day 7

The next morning we caught our shuttle back to the airport to head home. Our tickets showed us not being seated next to each other, Disney printed them off for us, so we asked at the gate if we could get seats together. I mentioned that it was strange that we didn't have seats together because we were on our honeymoon. She gave us new seats and congratulated us...as I looked at the ticket I realized she put us in First Class!


We loved every minute of the flight to Detroit and enjoyed all the extras...larger seat, drinks before take off, TV shows, larger seat, pillow and blanket, and a full meal for lunch. Back home we opened gifts and unpacked. We even went and saw the newest Harry Potter movie that is at the dollar theatre near our house. It was a great week off from work and time to just relax and enjoy being married.

We also took inventory of our candy from the Halloween Party and pictures of our candy from Hogwarts :)

Magic Kingdom Day 6

Our final day in Disney was at Magic Kingdom. We had our game plan ready seeing as one of the rides, The Peter Pan ride, is always busy unless you get their first. It was easy to walk quickly past the people with strollers :)

 Our next rides were It's a Small World, Snow White, and Mad Tea Party. It was fun walking onto these rides and not having to wait for any of them. But going in the off season meant that most of the week we didn't have to wait in lines.

Goats from It's a Small World

Tea Cup time!!

 We than made our way around to ride Space Mountain, The People Mover, Carousel of Progress, Jungle ride in Adventure land, and than it was time for lunch. We ate at Tony's from Lady and the Tramp. It was one of the more romantic places we ate during the week.

All ready for Christmas

Statue in the restaurant

 We than hit the train that goes around the park to go to Frontier land. We rode splash mountain, went to Tom Sawyers island to explore, and got a snack before the afternoon parade.

Mickey Pretzel anyone?

 We took the train the rest of the way around the park and had done everything else we wanted to at that point. Big Thunder Mountain had broken down and we were waiting for them to get it fixed. We jumped on the Monorail, Dan hadn't ridden it yet, and went to Epcot for dinner. We ate in Mexico and had very yummy chicken taco's before heading back to Magic Kingdom.

Ready for Fireworks!

 The castle had really cool lights that made it look like snow. Once back in the park we rode the Big Thunder Mountain coaster before watching the final fireworks show.