One Year Together!

Today is the Sheriff and I's first datingversary, yep we have been dating for a year.  I cannot believe we met a year ago today, this past year has seriously flown bye at lightening speed and has been a blast.  We have tackled many home improvement projects, spent a lot of time paddling together, enjoyed a lot of weekend getaways, gone to concerts, stayed home for game nights with Mr. Pie and just enjoyed each others company, it has been wonderful.  We started off today at the park with the pups, had brunch at Stacks and spent the rest of the day working on our punch list for Mr. Pie's room, we hung the blinds, replaced the vent, removed bits and pieces of tape, painted the doors and baseboard and now we just have some touch up painting to do and hopefully we will move Mr. Pie in next weekend.  I am not a huge anniversary person, I don't expect much (flowers would be nice or something that sparkles), so working on stuff together and just being together was all I wanted, other than that, I am not really a fan of making a big deal of things like this, so Sheriff if you are reading this, you need to know you are a great dad and a wonderful boyfriend, thank you for everything you have done for me in the last year, I look forward to many more years together! 

XOXO

Bass Pro Shop, Duck Dynasty & an Alligator Dinner

Oh my goodness, what a perfect Saturday!  Aliso Viejo woke up to this picture, yep that is snow on the mountains, time to break out the snow gear and head to Big Bear!   

After seeing such a great site I met up with the Sheriff and his side kick Mr. Pie and we drove out to the 909 and visited the Bass Pro Shop again!  You may remember we went a few weeks ago and could only stay 45 mins and last weekend we were supposed to go but someone did not read their book report book, so we had to stay home, boo!  We made it out there right before lunch time, so we grabbed a bite to eat at Johnny Rockets before we entered the Mothership of all sporting goods stores!

This is our little clan, aren't we cute?

Mr. Pie & I were taking all sorts of selfie pictures of us in this mirror at the sunglass counter and it was not until I was going through the pictures that I noticed Mr. Creepy in the background, eww. 

Yep, he is ready for "huntin" season!

Yep, they belong to me, SMH!

At our last visit, I found these rubber band guns that I thought Cole & Mr. Pie would like, so I snuck away from the Sheriff and Mr. Pie and bought the guns.  I am giving both boys these for Christmas.  Yes, I think it is perfectly acceptable to let little boys play with guns, if you don't that is fine but please no nasty grams in the comment section and yes, I did ask my sister if it was ok before I bought it and well, the Sheriff is a total gun enthusiast, so I did not need to ask.

Mr. Pie whined, begged and begged some more trying to get us to buy him the rubber band gun, he did not understand that his birthday and Christmas (he still believes in Santa and it is seriously the cutest thing ever) are coming up soon and we were not going to be buying any toys for him.   I had been planning on buying him the rubber band gun, so the Sheriff and I had to stick to our guns and say "no".  Mr. Pie has also been wanting a duck call like nobody's business as well and we were planning on buying that, I was able to grab that as well without him seeing me.  I purchased everything and met up with the boys and I put my bag of presents in the shopping cart, Mr. Pie was sooooooo bummed when I told him I only bought one rubber band gun and it was for Cole and then he proceeded to ask me about 25 more times (no joke) if he could buy the duck call and I had to tell him "no" 25 times and I swear I crushed his little spirit more and more with each "no", it was so sad.  It got to the point where he would bring the duck call up to me and I would just shake my head and he knew I meant "no", poor kid.  

After breaking the boys heart over and over I told him that if he could find something for $5 or less he could buy one thing, he was so excited and I not thinking clearly saw something for $4.99 and said "you can buy that" and wouldn't you know it was a freaking pocket knife and the boy was stoked!  SMH, the Sheriff gave the green light to buy it with many rules associated with it.  Yes, we bought the boy a pocket knife, it has a pair of scissors, a tooth pick, tweezers and the knife, it was $4.99 and he thought he had won the lottery and like I said there are so many rules that came with it (not going to get into them on here), so don't judge us.  Plus it was $4.99, how long can the thing actually last?  

After our shopping adventure at the Bass Pro Shop, we hit Barnes and Noble to buy Mr. Pie some books for school and then we went back to the BPS for dinner.  The Sheriff thought it would be a swell idea to order fried alligator as an appetizer, ewww, gross.......I wish I was joking. 

He liked it, I tried it, it was ok!

And then we drove home, the Sheriff behind the wheel and Mr. Pie (with pocket knife in hand) and I crashed out, we rolled into our hood at 8pm and that was all she wrote for us, we were cooked.   It was a fabulous day, we had a blast and I wish I could post a ton of other pictures of Mr. Pie, he is so cute but since I blur his face out they would not be cute to anyone.  Oh and we had a random snowball fight in the parking lot, yep there was a car there with some snow on top and we decided it needed to be used for a fight oh and there may of been a lot of signing and dancing in the BPS to Christmas songs by Mr. Pie and I when the Sheriff was not around cause we could just not help it.  :)

Not this time!

After three weeks of waiting I got word that I did not get the job with the City of Newport Beach, however, I am still on the eligibility list (totally a normal thing, so nothing fantastic) for the next year, so you never know, something wild and crazy could happen and they could call me for a different position.  In the meantime I am very grateful for what I do have and realize that there is a lot of movement going on in the Recreation World, so who knows what might come-up in the future.  When I found out this morning I had a moment with a lump in my throat and disappointment inside, but it only lasted a moment when I reminded myself that everything happens for a reason and I need to just let this happen and I am not in control of this situation.  So, I texted the important peeps in my life to let them know and went on with my day.  The Sheriff, the awesome guy that he is took me out to dinner tonight to get help get my mind off of it.  It was just the two of us tonight and it was so nice to be able to talk the whole time without any interruptions and kind of reflect on the past year of our lives.  Can you believe that this Sunday will mark one year of us dating, crazy!! We just talked and talked (or maybe that was me),but it was so nice.  

Hola!

Hi All,

Not a whole lot going on lately, just the same ole same ole, for the most part.  Friday night the Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I went to Tesoro High School's first CIF football game, it was down the street, it was cheap and it was a lot of fun, but it was late, we were tired so went went home in the third quarter, ha we are old!  Saturday afternoon we were headed to the Bass Pro Shop but had to turn the car around and go home and read Sarah Plain & Tall, not a whole lot of explanation needed, you guessed right, someone did not read their book report book and was caught, thankfully for me, not him, I loved that book and the movie so I knew the storyline and all was well after we read it together.   Sunday was a day of rest, I ran a few errands, hung with g-dogg and got reacquainted with my couch, it was a wonderful day. 

We always need to take a group selfie (lol, that makes no sense at all)

Go Team, ya, we don't know anyone who goes to this school!

A great read, at least I thought so!

Me and G relaxing on Sunday afternoon!

I laughed so hard when I saw this, the poor Sheriff gets random texts from me with these pictures.  Haha, poor guy!

Mmmm, bacon!

If you are my friend Marisa and you follow me on instagram (recgirlem) and every time you scrolled through your feed yesterday you saw these........

and wanted them, you are in luck!  These egg/bacon yummy treats are sooooo easy to make for breakfast you will feel like a culinary genius.  All you do is take a muffin pan, spray it with PAM (most important step unless you enjoy scrubbing pans (trust me), cut a slice of bacon in half, place it in the cup, beat two eggs (or more if serving more than one person), add some green chiles (if your heart desires) and sprinkle some cheese on top and viola, you have an amazing breakfast.  Pairing with a hot drink from Starbucks optional but highly recommended. 

ENJOY!

PS. Bake at 375 for 30 mins and place something under the muffin tin in the event bacon grease drips. 

Moving On!

And there goes another week of waiting, we are two and a half weeks post job interview and I have not heard a word, for reals NEWPORT?  I hate to be all negative Nellie, but I am thinking this ship has sailed and I did not get the job.  I am so bummed considering how well everything went, but oh well, that is life and I still have a great job that pays the bills and allows me to participate in extracurricular’s that otherwise would be tough to do.  Time to move on to the next opportunity!

What were they thinking, they could of had this amazing transformation of an employee!  Lol!

Happy Day!

I love getting text messages like this first thing in the morning, it makes my day so bright!

This picture is actually a snap shot of a video that the Sheriff posted on Facebook and I thought it was great, he a blast on the helicopter ride he went on for work yesterday.  

XOXO

Making Progress!

The Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I have been busy little worker bees lately on the weekends (just another reason for the lack of blogging lately) working on Mr. Pies room.  Mr. Pie initially wanted a blue and green room but the Sheriff and I thought that would be too dark, I wanted to add a stripe around the room to break up the dark solid walls and the Sheriff said if we were doing a stripe, he wanted three stripes.  So with a little compromise from all three parties we got to work.   There was a lot of taping and prep involved, I don’t think people understand the work involved when it comes to painting stripes on walls, you seriously tape, paint, let paint dry, remove tape, tape again, paint, let paint dry and repeat a gazillion times and this does not include the second or in some cases third coats of paint before removing tape, taping again and painting.  Yes, it is a process!  Thankfully we do not have a deadline that we need to be done by, so we have just been taping and painting when we can along with taking care of the two dogs and doing normal everyday weekend stuff, sounds exhausting, well it is.  This weekend we are going to paint the baseboards, window sill, doors and hang new window blinds.  Once we get all of this weekend’s items done, we will start working on painting his furniture, however the jury is still out on what color, I was leaning towards black at first, but now I am leaning more towards white, so we shall see how it ends up.  

Just getting started and everything taped off.

The tester colors, we tested before deciding to do the stripe.

 Mr. Pie helping out!

Moving along!

More tape and paint!

We are almost finished, just need to paint the doors and baseboard. 

Happy Birthday Super Dad!

I am way behind on important blog posts, I know you were all worried, lol!  It was a busy weekend along with a couple days of rest that kept me away from blogger.com to give you all and update.  It was Super Dad’s birthday on Saturday so we all gathered at the parents house for a small celebration, the Sheriff and Mr. Pie were able to come too and that made Cole one happy boy, he and Mr. Pie get along really well love playing together.  Mr. Pie could not wait to go to the partay and kept asking me all day when we were going to head over there and he did not want to go home, actually no one really wanted to go home, the majority of us did not leave until 10pm and we all had a 45 minute drive home after that.  Super Mom out did herself again, she made an amazing lasagna and us kids brought the fixings (salad, garlic bread and wine).  

Here is Miss Mari showing off her missing tooth!

Grampy and his favorite kiddo's!

Mari and Grammy

Mari was Grampy's present opener and clearly the only child that wanted her picture taken.

The kiddo's enjoying their dinner (the best picture I could get of all of them)!

Mike, Shannon and Kathy coming up with Grampy's math problem for his cake.

Happy Birthday Super DAD, we love you tons!!!

Village People!

It takes a village sometimes when you work full-time, live alone and have a pup!  Case in point, the other day my neighbor called to tell me there were shady characters in front of my house in a beater car and they looked like tweakers, so he called the cops, awesome. Then that afternoon Curtis the best dog walker ever sent me a text picture message of my broken house key in the door lock, not so awesome.  I post said picture on Facebook as I was shaking my head and my neighborfriend Melissa said that she would send her husband over after work to fix it, awesome. So before I got home, the cops were called and chased the tweakers out of my hood, the dog had been walked twice (thank you Melissa for the second walk) and my door had been fixed!  I am so lucky to have such an amazing village surrounding me.  

 It was totally Gracie's fault, she pulled on the leash as he was locking the door!

Everyone should be and have a neighbor like these!

Thanks everyone!!!

Today?

Will today be the day that Newport Beach calls me?  Finger's crossed it is!  So far they have not called my references and there has not been a "thanks but no thanks"letter in my inbox or mailbox.  Ahhhh, the waiting game, I am not good at that.   

Mini Pot Pies!

Last night the Sheriff and Mr. Pie came over for our weekly dinner date at my house.  It has been kind of a challenge to find something to make that is quick, easy and tasty that Mr Pie and I will enjoy (we don't have to worry about the Sheriff, he will eat anything), so I was browsing some of the blogs I like for dinner ideas and I found mini pot pies, BAM, that was what was for dinner.  It was fairly simple to prepare, the first time is always the hardest and now I know for next time what to expect and how to tweak things to make the prep flow better.  I have to say I have never made a pot pie nor have I ever eaten one, but I was quite pleased with the way this one turned out and I think it is a keeper! 

2 tbsp butter
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp flour
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup cooked chopped chicken breast
1 cup broccoli florets (steamed)
All-purpose flour for dusting
2 10-inch round prepared pie crusts
1 egg (beaten)
1 tsp water

Heat oven to 400. Grease your mini muffin tin. In a pan melt the butter over medium heat. Saute the garlic for about 30 seconds then add the flour and whisk for 2 or 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk and bring to a simmer, if it thickens up too quickly add a little more milk. Turn the heat off and stir in the cheese, chicken and broccoli then season with salt and pepper. To put the pot pies together roll out the pie crusts, using a 3 inch cookie cutter or a small cup, cut out the pieces for the bottom of the crusts. Place them down in the mini muffin tins. Fill with the chicken mixture. Now beat the egg with the water and set to the side. Using a 2 inch cookie cutter or a smaller cup cut the tops out. Brush the egg mixture around the edges of the pot pie then press the tops onto the bottoms and seal. Brush the tops with the eggs mixture then make a 1/2 inch cut at the top of each pot pie. Bake in the oven for 15 to 18 minutes.  Makes 8 mini pot pies.

I think the next time I make it, I think I will make a big pot pie and double or triple the recipe.  The current recipe makes just enough to fill-up the 8 muffin tins. 

Please don't judge my mini pot pie making skills, I know they look bad!

Ha, they look even worse cooked, but boy howdy they were tasty!

This is what Mr. Pie thought of my cooking, I don't take it personally, he is anti eating these days and he had fallen asleep on my couch right before dinner.   The Sheriff was trying to get him to eat and he was not having any part of it.

The Dam Race Part 2 - The Ride Home!

Sunday, we all slept in, with Milo barking on and off throughout the night and constantly jumping up on to the bed it made for a sorta restless night of sleep for me.  We got up, showered, loaded the truck up and headed to Crossroads for breakfast, the place was packed but the wait was not very long, we had a good breakfast and headed to Lake Havasu City so Ken could stop at AZ Built Sports and check out a canoe they had for sale, sadly they were closed so we went to the London Bridge instead.  While we were playing tourist, we saw a banner for a PaddleFest so we decided to go check it out (since we did not have enough paddling on Saturday), but by the time we found it, it was over so we stayed to check out the RV, Boat and Off Road Show.  It was fun, we dreamed about the cool vacations we could take with a trailer hooked up to the back of the truck and then quickly realized they will probably be forever dreams with the price tag that comes along with the trailers, but it was still fun to dream.  From there we headed home, we took a different way than the way we came, so it was a nice change of scenery, you know dirt, desert and bushes look different when you go a different route.   As we drove home the Sheriff knew we would be passing the Bass Pro Shop and wanted to stop but we were on a timeline, we had to have Mr. Pie to his Mom’s house by 8pm, so we were cutting it really close to eat dinner and get to the Bass Pro Shop.  We found a pizza place near the pro shop, so we scarfed our dinner down, practically eating it as we walked out of the door, ran to the Pro Shop and made it through the entire store in our allotted time of 45 mins.  We were all sad to go, we had so much more to see and I wanted to buy Super Dad a birthday present there, but there was no time to wait in line, so the present had to stay in the store, sorry Super Dad, you would of loved it.  We all agreed that we would go back another day soon and check everything out!  We made it home at 7:45pm, unloaded the truck and went our separate ways.  I missed the 6 pm pick-up for Gracie, so she had to spend the night at camp, so I was up bright and early so I could pick her up before work.  Whew, what a weekend, we had a great time and came home exhausted so I would say it was a “win” for everyone.  Now the anticipation of the wait to see if Newport Beach will call me with good news, it was really nice to be busy all weekend so I did not have time to sit and worry, wonder and over analyze my interview.  Finger’s crossed!  

So sad they are closed!

The London Bridge

We stopped at Lake Havasu Park for the PaddleFest that was already over, doh!

Yep, we are in Arizona, nothing like having a gun hanging in your truck.

This is what I had to deal with; stinky/dirty feet along with 8 year old farts for hours, ahhhhhh!

Bass Pro Shop

The Sheriff wants this for his front porch.

This place was amazing!

The End