There's always time for a little fun at Church!

So, Ashley wins...she posted this video first.  I have been keeping an eye out for at least one of the recordings to end up online...and I missed it....You win again, Ashley...you always do!  (said with a Ron Burgondy accent)

So just in case you don't understand what is going on in this...it was improv.  The songs are not pre-written or rehearsed, which is why it was a different skit at each service.  Most of the lines where scripted, but I changed up a few things for each service cause Adam made me.....that Adam.....

This is a recording of the 9am service from You Tube.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK_vAQuKo68&feature=player_embedded

Included was Josh Rhodes (our new college minister) and Adam and myself.

Everybody needs the Post Office...and cupcakes

So I've made a few trips recently to the Post Office in downtown Morgantown.  Needless to say, with the holiday season being upon us, the lines have been quite long.  I do have to give props to this branch, though.  Each time I have gone, the line has been all the way to the entrance/exit, and each time it has moved very quickly.  There must have been 30 people in front of me this last time, with 4 workers, and I got out of there in less than 20 minutes.  If you would've seen the things that these people were being asked to accomplish--fit this into that, make this bill correct, my box key doesn't work--you would completely appreciate this feat.  I was quite intrigued with the skill that the workers moved through the line of complecated cases with calmness and one, even a smile.  Merry Christmas to you, Morgantown Post Office workers!

Yesterday afternoon I spent making cupcakes for a get together we're going to tonight.  I must say...they are so cute!  My cupcake book had around 6-7 different choices for Christmas cupcakes and I asked Adam to choose because I just couldn't decide!  He settled on cupcakes that look like Santa!  As I saw his choice, I felt a little overwhelmed, as there were lots of steps to completing the items that make up Santa's face and body parts.  I prepared and was good to go for my decorating marathon.  I also wanted to try getting away from the boxed cupcake batters and my good friend, Ashley Griffith, was nice enough to give me pretty much every dessert recipe she had in her collection.  Included was a Vanilla cupcake recipe that seemed simple enough....except for Cake Flour...whatever that is!  Ashley did answer my question about the whereabouts of "Cake Flour"...which probably would've been easier to take care....but I managed ok.  I actually asked an older woman that was wondering around in the breakfast sausage area of the supermarket what Cake Flour was.  She said that you could use all-purpose and add something to it...cornstarch she thought.  Good enough for me!  That meant that there was a logical explaination online somewhere, which was exactly the next step I took.  So--I had all of the ingredients at home already-what a great recipe!  I made a couple of extra cupcakes to taste-as I always do.  Adam said it was my best cupcake yet!  Yay, Ashley!  Success!  Hopefully they keep well for the get together this evening.  I put them in a Cake travel caddy, as they are too tall for my cupcake caddy.  I'm hoping I don't go to pull them our of the fridge tonight and find Santa heads rolling around...that would be tramatic...  I have been torn as whether to put a picture onto this blog, seeing as though they haven't technically been "revealed" yet....so I will wait until tomorrow to do so.  But--I figure that a blog always needs a little flare....so here's a picture of "Garth and Kat" from yesterday's skit at CRC (including Adam, Josh Rhodes, and myself).  I'm sure a video will pop up somewhere that will eventually be on here....who knows.

Ugly sweater contest

Winner!  Yes...I won the Ugly/Cheesy sweater contest at work.  I must say that not a lot of people participated, and some of the sweaters were straight out of Bill Cosby's personal closet, which made it a little awkward because people didn't know which people were wearing something for the contest, and which people just had poor taste....awkward :-)  As my prize, I got a lovely little snack box snowman which included a variety of goodies, which Adam is probably enjoying as we speak!  Here's a picture....and the socks...I just happened to have them and they matched the color perfectly!  Good times...

On a side note, Adam was tourturing Lexi last night.  He thought it would be funny to put his hat on her.  She didn't mind it until about 30 seconds after he put it on.  As Adam's punishment, I am posting this picture of him with a severe double chin...of course, he doesn't have it usually :-)



Christmas Parties!

So as I'm sure most people can relate, it's the season to go to parties!  I love Christmas.  I was trying to think about what it is that makes me like this holiday more than the rest...and I think I've come up with my answer.  Food.  Yes, food.  Why not Thanksgiving, you ask?  Well, yes, there is lots of food on Thanksgiving, but it's just one day, and if you're lucky, two-three different places/meals.  When December hits, people plan parties like they're going out of style!  And with each party, comes different food!  Whether it be little appetizers bites, buffets, or full family meals--I love food!  Sometimes it's dried out food (for instance, work parties with buffets) but I still like it! 

This past Friday was the Chestnut Ridge Church Staff Christmas Party.  It was at Nemicolin Resort in Pennsylvania.  Let me say--best "buffet" food EVER!  The room was set with little stations along the wall, each with their own magical meal.  First was the Caesar Salad with a lovely homemade dressing, then the sushi bar-Yum!, then I was off to the Ravioli bar with seared gnocchi that was simply to die for! Then they had a carving station with ham and rolls, and a lovely Piaya station.  The dessert was ice cream with a homemade hot fudge with our choice of Pound Cake or Angel food...and lots of whipped cream and fruits in syrup to top it off.  Needless to say...I ate it all....

Then, Saturday arrived with a fun filled day of scoring.  Yes, scoring....and stripping....wallpaper that is :-)  Ashley and Chad Griffith called for "all hands on deck" to get their nursery ready for baby Eli on the way.  After that, Adam and I headed to the Mylan Christmas party.  There were general finger foods and a buffet of prime rib, pasta, green beans, and lobster tail.  I'm pretty sure it was in the largest banquet room known to mankind.  Some of you know that I was a banquet server in college for a few years, so I've definitely seen my fair share of banquet halls.  I'm pretty sure that I could fit 3 of the largest Adam's Mark Hotel banquet rooms inside of the one we were in Saturday.  Just amazingly huge!  They had a boring band playing older cheesy music in this room, and opened up a smaller banquet room later in the night to become the "night club" with more current music playing to dance to.  Needless to say, the crowd preferred the tiny dark room as the night rolled on.  All in all, it was a fun night!  My grandmother was nice enough to by me a little party dress to wear, since I didn't already have one.  Here's what we picked out while shopping over the Thanksgiving break. 

My hair became somewhat of a project, since I've never really been good at fixing it.  After a disastrous attempt at hot rollers, I just did a simple pull back with little loops in the back...and lots of hairspray...which might be becoming a favorite scent of mine....who knows.

Monday evening my work location (just the Greenbag Road location) had a small party at Lakeview with a buffet of wings, meatballs, veggies and cheese, and brownies.  I'm going to make a declaration...prepare yourself.  "Lakeview (or Legends inside of Lakeview) has the best BUFFULO wings in Morgantown".  That's right folks....Lakeview golf resort.  Go figure.  And for you Morgantown friends, they have 50 cent wings on Sundays...so go there.  If you want a different wing flavor, Kegler's has the best--Southwestern...grilled wings.  Oh, and if you're traveling and happen upon a Logan's....they have the best wings of all time.  Just thought I would let you know.

Today at work we had our free Mylan meal (the company feeds everybody for the major holidays) with a really wonderful ham, green beans, and scalloped potatoes.  Tomorrow we are having a Pot Luck in the break room with Pulled Pork sandwiches, whatever other goodies people bring, and a Tacky Christmas Sweater contest.  I intend on winning....Maybe I'll take a picture of that tomorrow...if you're lucky :-)

Next week will continue with several group get-togethers with all the more food to feed my face.  It's a wonder I fit in that dress to begin with!  I can't wait to see what food adventures await me in the future...Yum!

Soup-it's what's for dinner!

So, most of you might know that I like soup.  (And I type "most of you", realizing that only about 4-5 people actually read this blog..)  I like all kinds of soups.  I seem to go through little phases where I'll like a particular type of soup more than the other, but for the most part-I haven't met a soup I don't like...except for this one time someone made "chili" that was more like a soup and he had OBVIOUSLY burnt it....gleh!  Oh--which reminds me, I like Chili too :-)

Probably for the past year or so, I've preferred the broth made soups over the creamy.  I think it all began with the French Onion soup that I had at Disney World - In "France" at the Epcot Center where they have all of the different countries and people from those countries working there.  I wasn't really wanting to get it, but the menu at fancy resteraunts like that only have a couple of different options for each "course" so I was forced to get it.  OO-Lah Lah, I say!  It was amazing.  Ever since then, I definitely like to try French Onion soup whenever I see it on a menu. 

A couple of months ago, Mylan decided to open up a little Cafe' inside the Greenbag Road location.  Over at the main plant, there is an amazing cafeteria with tons of awesome food.  They decided that since hundreds of people were going to be working at this location, that they would bring easy items over and sell them to us since we don't have many food options around here.  They have salads, sandwiches, chips, pepperoni rolls, fruit, and SOUP!  They have a different soup every day!  And it's only a couple of bucks for what looks like to me a good 16 ounces.  They actually have a really good chili here as well.

So it's part of my daily ritual to go on Mylan's internal website, check the menu for the soup of the day, and then wander down the hall to collect my lunch :-)  Today's lovely selection was Turkey & Wild Rice. 

It is the perfect amount of broth with the turkey torn into the perfect bite size pieces, and also including what I'm sure is whatever vegetables they had lying around the kitchen.  I think I detect a little twinge of Cilantro....YUM!  I like to get 2 packets of crackers each time I get some soup from the Cafe'.  Not to use in the soup, but to stash in my drawer.  I'm like a little gerbal in the afternoons just searching for something to nibble on.  2-4 crackers makes a nice afternoon snack for those of us that are fighting off some unwanted holiday pounds :-)    I wonder what soup will move me onto my next obsession...perhaps a lovely creamy potato soup...who knows...

Thanksgiving

I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Memphis for Thanksgiving to see my family this year.  Adam and I were intrigued with the trip because my grandmother sent us a GPS device and we wanted to see if it worked accurately.  We were very pleased and found lots of fun uses for it along the way.  It was also neat to see if my way was the fastest :-)  On our way home, we got stuck on I-65 north in Kentucky.  The traffic was at a stand still and we were bummed that our trip home would take even longer.  I saw that an exit was just 200 or so yards away, so I started pressing buttons on the GPS and saw the "Detour" button.  We thought, "why not?", pressed it, and followed it off of the nearest exit.  It took us through Kentucky on the scenic route...all the I-64 headed towards West Virginia.  We only lost about 15 minutes time (probably from sitting still before we becamse adventurous)!  Adam saw a post online from a friend of ours that had gotten stuck in the same place-but with no GPS.  She said she only moved 3 miles in 1 hour, and that the jam lasted over 4 miles on the northbound side.  Thank the Lord for Memaw giving us that GPS!  It saved our trip!

While we were in Memphis, I got to see a couple of my friends, go bowling, go shopping, and see family.  We had Thanksgiving Lunch with my Father's family at my cousin's house and had a chance to talk with her new husband about the church that they have become a part of in town.  It's a very contemporary service that intertwines the arts with the service-sounds like something Adam and I would enjoy :-)  After that, it was off to my Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving dinner with my Mother's side of the family.  Needless to say...we ate alot!  I had the chance to make some "cake balls" that I took to both familys' houses.  They turned out pretty good and gave us something to nibble on throughout the week.  We also got to spend alot of time with my niece, Ruth.  She is 20 months old and has the most wonderful personality :-)  We were trying to teach her our names while we were there so she'll remember us when we skype with Lawson, Alison, and her.  My name is "ni ni" and Adam's name came out sounding like "dum-dum"!  Hilarious.  Spending time with her made us realize how great having kids can be.  We're very much looking forward to our friends having their babies so we can play with them and teach them strange things :-)

Having so much fun with Ruth, we couldn't help but snap videos and pictures all the time we were around her.  I noticed that that's pretty much all we have pictures of, so here are a few of my favorites:

1. Ruth is playing with an App my brother has installed on his iPad (is that what it's called??).  It has lots of different children's songs that have interactive pictures on the screen for her to push buttons and see reactions on.  This one happened to be a hot air balloon with animal shaped balloons floating around, that you could touch and they would pop.  Adam had alot of fun with it too :-)

2. This one was us playing in the game room at Lawson's house.  Ruth thinks Adam is funny too...

3. Here's a picture of my Memaw and Grand'dad with Ruth.  Evidentally Ruth was playing dead....they were trying to pick her up and she went limp!

4. Here's Ruth squatting...she would walkaround the room and then turn around and do this squatting thing.  We thought she was pooping...turned out to just be gas :-)

5. Here's Ruth saying "All Gone" that Adam taught her from the App.

6. And last but not least, here's the picture that is above my parent's fireplace...wow...

So all in all, it was a good trip home, and now it's nice to be back and get back into the rhythm of regular life.  Bring on the snow, baby!