Drilling and beeping more sounds you don't want to hear at night

Yesterday atoms drove their trucks up and parked accross from our condo. We live on the corner of the street. I am not sure when all the construction started but as I got home yesterday afternoon I noticed cones and workmen right at the place I needed to turn. I was able to get in the driveway. I then left again and came back the back way. I did not know that they had blocked off the short street from that direction so I had to turn and come down the street to go in by the construction.

As it got dark and they were still working we were wondering if they would stop but no they just put up a giant flood light that of course faced our bedroom. I was so glad we had blackout curting between the window and shutter.

We could hear beeping of a truck backing up and drilling all night. They finally finished around 2 AM. It was crazy that is when we could finally sleep. Not sure still what they were doing but it was crazy loud.

What's for Dinner: Chicken and Rice

This is one of our favorite and easy meals to make. We had some friends over a week ago and had this great recipe for dinner. So here it is the best chicken and rice recipe from my Mom and Me.

Ingredients 

skinless boneless chicken breasts (2-4)
1 can Chicken broth
Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice
bacon (3-4 strips)


Directions

In a shallow 2 quart baking dish place 3-4 strips of bacon, next place uncle Ben's Wild grain and long rice over bacon. Leave the package of seasoning out. Next, place the chicken on top of rice. Pour Chicken broth over chicken and rice, then place package of seasonings on top of the chicken. Cover with foil and cook at 350 degrees for 1- 1.5 hours. I have done it for 1.5 hours and it turns out great! This is an easy and great recipe. Hope you enjoy it!

Gratitudes

This week I have so many things to be thankful for

1. Going to the musical ghost with my mom. It was an interesting musical. The movie was way better  

2. Having friends over for dinner and just hanging out. We had a great time with Amy and Adam :)

3. Having a fire in the fireplace on the cold days and nights

4. Going bowling with my family and looking forward to new adventures each month. The next idea is to see monuments men with everyone at look cinema. Date is to be determined

5. Lunch with old friends. Love catching up and seeing their children grow

6. Learning great stuff in my grad school class. Now to work on my first reflection paper.

7. Movie nights at my parents house with the dogs. Had a great time on Friday keeping them company

January 2014

As January is rapidly coming to a close I thought I would update the blog. January has brought several family birthdays, and my parents 35th anniversary. I started my grad school class. It is very interesting. I M learning about identity in the digital world. Also I spent several days substitute teaching and cooking a lot of home made dinners. So that is January 2014 all summed up. Looking forward to a new month.

Christmas 2013

This year marks our second Christmas as a married couple. We started celebrating on December 22nd this year with B's family. We went over and had dinner and exchanged gifts. It was a lot of fun. Then, on Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house that has been tradition for as long as I can remember. We had lunch and exchanged gifts with my cousins children. When we were younger everyone would exchange gifts, but that stopped in 2002 or so and then we just started the tradition with the next generation. This year, our lunch was catered ,which was a new thing for our family. It was great, it meant something new!

After lunch, B and I went to the candle light service at Highland Park United Methodist Church. It was a beautiful service, that we enjoyed in over flow. Luckily, this year we had a seat and could see the screen, this was not the case last year. After the service we headed back home to decide what we wanted to do for dinner.

When we got engaged we started a new tradition of going to dinner just the two of us on Christmas Eve. This year we went to Hillstone, that used to be Houston's. It was really good and only took an hour to get seated, which was fine because we had a late lunch.

B was not feeling so hot on Christmas Eve and woke up Christmas morning with the awful cold that has been going around. I knew he was getting it but, he just looked awful on Christmas Day. So much so that we exchanged our own gifts in the morning and then he did not want to do anything. I went to my parents house with out him. Knowing that he should rest and that he looked awful. My parents had also had the awful cold too.

This year at my parents we exchanged our Christmas gifts. One exciting gift is that my brother, Bill and his girlfriend Sara got engaged. So, we have another wedding on our hands coming up. It was so much fun to see her excited and shocked face. Everyone assured her that her feeling of wow did this just happen, was in fact normal. She called her Mom, and then we all celebrated with dinner, minus B who was sick. I did text him and told him the good news.

All and all it was a pretty good Christmas, and looking forward to more exciting ones to come as our family grows by leaps and bounds. Excited to get another sister too. It will be fun to see all that 2014 has in store! Until next year.