i sorta forgot i had a blog

and this is not a promise i've officially remembered it...

but it's been crazy busy around here, y'all! tonight we went to the new river valley fair and boy was it country. i loved it though. even though i live in southwest virginia, i don't often get to experience it the way most southwest virginians probably do. there were huge cows and tons of bleating lambs and a tractor race and homemade corn dogs and lots of country people with their cowboy hats and their 4H club ribbons for winning in whatever category their goat or pig caught the judges eye. a little girl (2 years old little) standing beside me watching the sheep cry their little hearts out even said "they're a-hollerin'!" it was really cute.

that's not all that we've been up to. i don't really feel the need to recap everything just now, but let's just say we've been traveling like crazy. with vacation, summer project, family trips, and a couple weddings thrown in there, we've definitely clocked a sufficient amount of driving time. probably close to 100 hours. anyway, maybe i'll post some pictures on here soon, but i just thought this blog seemed so forlorn without its background, and with all these posts about snow at the top. hope everyone's doing well!

one snow day to the next

apparently that is my blogging schedule. Yesterday was just beautiful and so much fun. Of course you all know we had about 10 inches of snow here in Virginia. So, our snow day adventures commenced early, with me promptly cancelling my girls brunch :( Sad! Oh well, we will try again soon. We settled in to doing some reading, cleaning, laundry, your normal things. But then we got to go do some real winter adventuring in the afternoon! With Holly and Josh! It's so nice to live so close to friends, and in a small town, I guess it happens a lot, but I'm still thankful. We walked over there in our snow gear (I could barely bend my legs because I wore too many stinkin layers!). I fell about 6 times walking over there since Jordan took me up a steep hill with unpenetrated silky slippery snow...it was fun. Then we went down the hills around their apartment complex but eventually decided to make a loop around the larger Ellett neighborhood. Let me just say - that was a workout!! Holly and I walked behind our husbands so they could make some sort of tracks for us since our legs are just a bit shorter than theirs. We had to stop halfway through for a angel making session (or was that just our excuse to lay down for a minute?!) This snow made for an excellent mattress, we all agreed. Then we walked about a mile or more loop stopping at every good hill. I should have taken pictures, but it just seems my luck always catches me with a dying battery (or I'm always forgetting to charge it). After several GIANT hills and lots of laughs, we made it back to our house with wet hands and Jordan's jeans soaked through! Such a trooper. We then tried to excavate our car from the snow to drive it back over to their house. That was a sad fail. Jordan was very diligent but in the end, the snow won the battle. This morning we woke up to a plowed driveway, with a gigantic pile of snow right behind...guess what...our car. We'll see how that battle goes this afternoon. At least we got to finish up with some delicious snow cream and good company. :) Enjoy your snow days!

my favorite thing is

going to sleep when it's snowing outside and experiencing the mystery of waking up not knowing what on earth it will look like after hours of snow! i love this so much, i'm actually excited to be snowed in (if it happens). here's to fun and happy snow days!

tetris...an account of my addiction

If it isn't enough that I am now posting about tetris, including picture, let me tell you that I dreamed in Tetris last night. And, as I was watching a movie last night, I began imagining pieces falling down on the screen and me fitting them into different crevices. This is getting sick already, and I've only been playing 2 days. I think it needs to stop or else my thoughts may become permanently altered.

turkey pops!

As I mentioned on Thanksgiving, I found the cutest thing ever on Bakerella's site: cake pops. I have made these several times over the year, but I've never gotten quite as creative as she has by making characters out of the chocolate covered cake. But for Thanksgiving, I thought it was time. And I had the time finally, since it took me probably about 6-8 hours when it was all said and done. Oh well, it was a nice activity. So, here they are! Aren't they cute?!?

This is where you can find the basic instructions on how to make these.

Also - here is the glorious rum cake. I would post the recipe to this, but it turned out quite alcoholic and the glaze didn't really glaze...it was more of a thin buttery sauce (with 4 shots of rum in it)...so I am going to try to tweak this recipe a little bit and get the glaze figured out sometime in the next couple weeks. I'll let you know how it goes and then I'll post the recipe!