Are You as Sick of Listening to the Politicians Fight as I am??

I know pretty much everyone I've talked to lately is ready for this election to be over.  All the political ads and the negative attacks are about to drive me nuts.  However, I have really been trying to make an effort to pay close attention to this election. 

So if you have also been watching all the news coverage and you know all about "Joe the Plumber" and who "that one" has been "palling around with," here's some funny videos you might enjoy.  It's so nice to hear both McCain and Obama cut loose and make fun of themselves a little at a foundation's fundraiser.   Both videos are a little long, but I think they're worth it.  Hope you enjoy!

Just Because...

...they are so dang cute!!

Alexandra and Victoria

Alexandra

#29: Have Someone from Church Over for Dinner that We Don't Know Very Well

At our church we can sign up to be put in a dinner group where we meet once a month at someone's house to eat together and get to know each other a little better. We were put in charge of a dinner group this quarter. So to make it easier for us the first time, we were assigned some of our friends to our group - the Hathaways, the Herkens, and the McCallie's. We love all these people to death, but honestly, we hang out with them a lot! So we decided it would be fun to invite another couple to dinner group that we don't know very well. We had Claude and Shirley Rich over and we had a really good time!

The boys hung out in the living room after dinner and had a discussion about politics and religion. The girls in the kitchen would stop and listen and laugh at their intensity. They look intense in this picture don't they?!? :)

The girls decided to play a game. We asked Shirley what game she likes to play and she said they enjoy playing dominoes. Trevor and I had actually gotten a set of dominoes for Christmas last year as a gift, so we finally opened them up and Shirley taught us all how to play chickenfoot.

We had a fun time and it was great to get to know another couple from church better!

#22: Have a Good Old-Fashioned Sleepover with My Friends

Well, I have to admit that not a lot of effort went into the completion of this goal.  Rachel decided to throw a super fun bachelorette party for our good friend Emily two weeks before her wedding.  The best part was she made the party a SLEEPOVER! 

I had just been commenting to Trevor a few weeks before I made my 101 list that I think you became so close to your friends in college because you slept with them.  He kind of gave me a funny look until I explained that there's just something bonding about talking and laughing with your friends at 2:00 in the morning in your pajamas.  So I decided to make it a goal to have a sleepover with some of my Kansas City friends. 

So instead of having to plan a party, I just got to sit back and relax and enjoy.  We had so much fun!  We decided we were all officially old since we were impressed with ourselves actually staying awake until 2:30 A.M.  But it was definitely late enough to get a little giddy....I learned a lot about people! :)

Here are just a few of the night:

I told you I was behind on blogging....Kori is still pregnant in this picture!

 

Emily and Karen jamming out playing Guitar Hero in their pajamas!

 

I have some more pictures of the bachelorette party, but they are probably not appropriate to post on the world wide web.  :)

Thanks for throwing a great sleepover Rachel!

#56: Buy a New Computer (with cash!)

So if anyone out there has been keeping track, you might have realized that I'm a little behind in blogging about completing my goals.  It seems I'm always writing about a goal I completed about a month ago.  I'm working hard to catch up, but life has become very busy the last few months.   I hope to be back "live" in a couple of weeks...it's a lot more fun to celebrate the goal completion when it actually happens!

So all that to preface the fact that we bought a new computer on September 2nd!  We were using the laptop Trevor got as a sophomore in college and it definitely had seen better days.  It took about 20 minutes to start-up!   I'd been holding out on buying a new one until we were done paying off our loans, but I finally caved when we got a pretty decent 2nd Quarter bonus at Sprint.  I mentioned to Trevor's mom that we were going to buy a laptop and they generously offered to give all of us kids some money for Christmas this year to buy computers since we all needed one.  So between those two blessings, we were able to buy a new laptop with cash!  Well, we actually put it on our credit card, but you know what I mean... :) 

We bought a Dell Studio 15 and we really love it so far!  We didn't get any of the fun colors in the picture....just the boring ol' black one.  We tried to talk the Best Buy guy into getting us the red for the same price, but none of the colored ones were on the really good sale they had going on, so it would have been $250 extra.  Hmmm...not too tough of a decision.

 

Side note: I'm thinking of getting the Adobe Photoshop Elements & Adobe Premiere software.  I'd like to have some more capabilities to edit photos and videos.  Does anyone out there have it, and if so, do you have an opinion on whether it's worth it??

Ella Jean is Here!!

Our friends Kori and JJ just had a baby daughter early Monday morning.   We were very excited to go visit them in the hospital last night after church!  She is such a beautiful baby and Kori looked great.  We were surprised to see her up and walking around after just having a C-section.  JJ and Kori looked so proud and happy!

Here are just a couple pictures I took:

Karen was holding Ella and was trying to give her to Rachel.  She said she wasn't good at passing off babies and holding their head.  So the two of them were in this position for quite a little while!  I just had to take a picture!

 

Karen and I admiring Ella...

 

The proud mother

 

Congrats Kori and JJ!!!

#64: Try 30 New Recipes (2 of 30)

Creamy Tomato Penne Pasta

I'd had my eye on this recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman Cooks blog for quite awhile now, so when I had a free night a few weeks ago I decided to try it!  It was really good.  My mind kept playing games on me though since it looked like it would taste cheesy, but it didn't at all.  It had a perfect creamy tomato flavor though.  It reminded me of something you would get at an Italian restaurant.  I'm going to add this to my list of recipes to make again!  Although, I'll have to only make it on nights that I have enough time to go for a jog....1 cup of heavy cream. Yowza!

Here's the ingredients:

• 1 pound shrimp (I used chicken)
• 3/4 pound penne pasta
• 3 T. butter
• 3 T. olive oil
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup white wine (I used chicken broth)
• 1 - 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 T. chopped fresh parsley
• 1 T. chopped (or chiffonaded) basil

See step-by step instructions here.  Enjoy!