Before this turns into the every third MONTH blog...

... I guess I'd better write something, huh?

It was great to see everyone at Thanksgiving, and I feel like I caught you guys up pretty good on what you'd missed since my last blog, so we'll just move on from here. Not much new to report, I'm halfway through my 2 week vacation, and I am thoroughly enjoying doing nothing at all other than puttering around the house and working on a few projects I have been neglecting. Hopefully with the remaining week I'll finish up with enough time left to get out and do some more hiking and enjoy the outdoors while the nice weather lasts! We have gotten some good rain, and a few snow flurries, and while I am certainly ready for much more of both, it has been perfect weather to be outside for the most part.

Saturday night April's parents were in town, so we had them over for dinner. I did some chili in my dutch oven out on the fire pit, and it turned out great. I have a few pictures of it from when I had made before, and since a blog just isn't complete without pictures, enjoy them!

Here it is cooking, I miscalculated the size of the fire pit so I had to continually turn the oven to avoid having one side get hotter than the other.



And of course every chef needs a sous chef, mine spent her afternoon trying to figure out how to get the good smelling stuff out without burning her little feet. Don't let that innocent face fool you, she is devious and made several attempts at the chili. The second time I cooked it she had learned her lesson and left it alone, even after I moved it out of the pit and let it sit on the ground to finish cooking.


The finished product:


(Actually, after I got it inside I added some cornmeal to it to make it a little thicker. It was awesome! The cornmeal was a perfect addition.)

As for what I am thankful for, I won't mention family and things like like, because everyone else has already hit on those. Instead, I 'm going to say that I am thankful for a family that is thankful (ok, so I worked family into it afterall, but you know what I mean =P ). To so many people the holidays just mean rush rush rush, hectic battles with crowds (both at home and at stores) and trying to one up themselves. Luckily both sides of my family (April's and mine) have a pretty firm grasp on what the holidays are really about. No one tries to one up anyone else, no one makes it about the gifts. Instead it is about the family and trying to find the time to get together and enjoy each other's company. I think that can be attributed to both sides having fairly large families (April has 3 brothers) and realizing that once you start to get spread out and have families of your own, it can be easy to miss all the good times and togetherness.

Having just said that, however, I just got back from doing a little Christmas shopping of my own. I think the people that I bought for will be quite pleased with their gifts. However, there is nothing that will wreck the Holiday Spirit like a trip to Wally World! I had a few items in my cart, and rather than try to push it down a crowded isle, I opted instead to leave it at the end and go get what I needed. By the time returned someone had taken the items out of my cart, put them back on the shelf, and put their own stuff in it! Then THEY abandoned the cart and went to grab something. I didn't see anyone in the vicinity, so I grabbed my items back off the shelf, emptied their stuff out, and reclaimed my cart. It didn't ding my spirit but I imagine they were peeved when they got back. As I further roamed the isles, I saw people fighting and arguing with each other over the most trivial things. Of course, this was the Wal*Mart in Columbia, TN, so that was par for the course. At least on this trip I didn't witness anything I thought I would have to testify in court over (haha).

Talk to you next time.