What kind of sausage?

I felt dinner was ruined last night. I wanted to make biscuits and gravy so I pulled out this package of "Country Style Sausage" from our freezer. Now I admit, this particular package was quite old but it had never been thawed.  I defrost it a little and then placed it in the pan to start browning it. After a bit, I thought it was giving off this weird smell. I asked Jake to come and see what he thought; had the meat gone bad? He said he thought it was alright so I continued to cook it.  The whole time I kept thinking, "This doesn't smell right. The smell is making me sick. How am I supposed to feed this to my family if I'm not sure I could eat it?"

As the meat finished cooking, it hadn't browned any and there was no grease at the bottom to use for the gravy. I again had Jake come look at it. He asked if it was turkey or something else. I had to look all over the package and finally the only place that said what kind of meat that was used was the ingredients list. First ingredient: Chicken. So unknowingly I had purchase Country Style Chicken Sausage. Isn't that about the grossest thing you have heard of?

More Teeth

Sunday night we were sitting around as a family, Ellie was sitting on my lap and jabbering away. While she was talking, I thought I saw something white on her gums. I put my finger in there and felt around.  That's how I found that she has 2 of 4 molars poking through, with one super close to follow. The last one is not as close but you can still feel it through her gums.

She just let me feel them and then giggled when I talked to her about the teeth.  We then had Jake feel them. She laughed some more. Then more jabbering almost like she was talking with us about how excited she was for us to find her teeth.

This explains her runny nose and why she has been sitting around with her fingers in her mouth. Not just one or two fingers, but 2 from one hand and 4 from the other. That girl.

Breckenridge, CO and the International Snow Sculpture Championships

Breckenridge, CO- A small mountain ski town very similar to Park City, Utah only it was an hour and a half drive from our place.  The main street is full of fun little shops; some what you would expect and others a novelty type store. Some of the ones that stick out in my mind; the O2 bar, the Joy of Sox (entire store dedicated to almost any type of sock imaginable), the Photo Shop (store owner is photographer David Pfau and a member of Team Breck for the snow sculpture), and Peak-a-boo Toys (they had a kids play area in the back).



Carriage rides up main street but there are also sleigh rides closer to the slopes.



A view of what the street looks like.

I was slightly shocked because they were saying that the mountains here have been having some massive amounts of snow fall this year. If this is big for them, then Utah definitely gets more and better snow. 

 It was a little chilly outside but not bad. We did manage to show Ellie that gloves are beneficial and she wore them most of the time outside the stores.


Budweiser horse at the entrance to the area where the competition took place.

I want to know, who craved the stuff out front that wasn't part of the competition; like the horses pictured above? 

The ice sculptures showing the sponsors of the Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championship.



A sculpted fort also outside the competition. Good thing too.

The sculptures were amazing.  We didn't take pictures of all of them and I didn't post all the pictures I took of them on here. That would make this a really long post (cause everyone knows my posts are super short already.)  Maybe if I get bored later this week, I will add an addition post with the other pictures.  

Team Breckenridge, 3rd place and kids choice



 



Team Canada-Yukon, 2nd place, Artists choice, and people's choice.

We didn't take a picture of the first place winner because part of it had fallen off by the time we stopped by.  They were sculpted from Jan 25th until the 29th when they were judged. So the fact that only 2 had major collapses by Feb 5th was actually probably extremely lucky. 

If you would like to see the first place sculpture and more professional photos of the winners, click here. They really were amazing to see. It would be fun to be able to spend time watching the sculpting and then see the finished product.  Maybe that's why there are some many shows and documentaries on cable, because it's more interesting to watch thing develop over an hour instead of 5 days.

Today's music

I don't know how many of you listen to new music but I am just about done even though I really like r&b and hip hop. Well, I actually love any music that has a great beat you can dance to.  The problem with hip hop and r&b are the lyrics. I just about choked the other day. Here are a few songs or lyrics that I have heard recently. (And people wonder why STD's and STI's have high prevalence rates.)

I think it's Rihanna who sings "S & M" that has a chorus of "Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me." There's also the backseat song that talks about kicking it in the back seat of a car.

But what do you expect when the song "Too close" was so popular back when I was in high school and slightly more recently the Pussy cat Dolls had a hit with "Buttons".

Maybe I'll have to switch to Country full time or even worse, talk radio (but I wouldn't want to hear myself after listening to talk radio.)

Little everyday things with Ellie

Just a few things that are going on around our house.  Ellie is not only walking but running. She thinks she can jump but then again she also thinks she is a monkey because she climbs on anything and everything; diaper boxes, kitchen chairs, rocking chairs, Tupperware totes, etc. Sometimes she is successful and sometimes she isn't. 

She is also starting to talk. Mostly its stuff that only parents understand because of how and when the word is used. She says "cheese" which means please, normally she is pointing to crackers or sippy cups. She says "yes" and shakes her head no.  When she is getting in trouble and she doesn't want to be (usually because she has put her hand into the garbage after I threw something away), she will tell me "baa" for stopping her. One that is hard to decipher is "dow" which either means down or done. When it is time for bed, she tells us "nigh, nigh". Every other time she talks, she will just ramble any combination of what she thinks are words.

Something that drives me bonkers but Ellie loves to do is lick everything. I really mean everything, especially the oven when it is warm. She doesn't lick as much when she kisses anymore which is nice.

She loves the water, whether she is taking a bath or just standing in the shower with me while I shower. She also loves to dance and put on my clothes. This happens the most after we have finished showering.

No matter where I am or what I am doing, she wants to be in the immediate vicinity. She won't play in her room if I am in my room doing my hair or getting dressed. She won't play in the front room with her toys if I am in the kitchen. She has to stand close by and pretend to help; by walking away with the potatoes, putting her hand in the garbage can, or pulling all the saran wrap, tin foil, or sandwich bags out of their boxes.

But no matter she is doing or has done, she loves giving kisses and hugs and trying to cheese one of us into letting her continue with what she is doing. I love that little girl.

Back to School

Jake is back in school but I am not sure if he is back into the swing of things yet. Classes were only the last 3 days of the week his first week back. The next week was Civil Rights day so only 4 days of classes. He finally had a full week of class but on Friday the 2nd of 2 classes was cancelled so it was only a half of a half day. This week would have been a full week except Denver University (specifically the Law School) closed down on Tuesday because of the cold temps. His last class on Monday was cancelled so when a professor walked in to inform the class some of the students, mostly those from Utah or Wyoming asked why if there wasn't that much snow (less than 2 inches). They were told because the school doesn't need any law suits, especially from law students who have recently learned about negligence, prudent care, etc. 

He seems to be handling the time off alright. He spends quite a bit of time (what I really mean is at least 40 hours a week) at the school, whether there are classes or not. He and some friends from his classes study together and work on outlines in study rooms on campus. Though Ellie and I would love to have him here more, it's probably best since we can be very distracting. Well, mostly Ellie because she wants his highlighters, tries to read his books which usually means torn pages or lost spots, wants to type on the laptop, etc. She is a big help with studying.

We are proud of how hard he is working and we hope that he does well this semester. We were proud of how well he did his first semester even though he is being hard on himself. ;) Love you Jake. Keep up the good work and remember to back up your hard drive.

It's FWEEZING!!! or It's Frickn' Freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth.

Why is it when there are big weather stories, they really don't ever mention mountainous areas?  The week of Thanksgiving some places in Utah received 2 feet of snow, but there was nothing on google about it. The past week, this arctic freeze that came through topped news stories but only local news said anything about Denver's weather. Instead google had a story that mentioned places back east shutting down for inches of snow and freezing rain. While I have never been around freezing rain, I have driving through Parley's Canyon and Sardine Canyon during snowstorm that dropped 2+ feet. I also lived in Logan one winter where the temperature wasn't in the positives for over 30 days.

Anyway, with this deep freeze Jake and I realized how poorly insulated our windows are. We placed duct tape around the edges of the windows to keep drafts from coming through at the beginning of winter but I guess that doesn't have any effect if the quality of window is terrible. Tuesday when we woke up, the news was saying the actual temperature was -12 degrees but with the wind chill it felt -33.



This is a south facing window on our stairs landing.

This is the west facing window in our bedroom. Note the ice on the duct tape.

This is a bigger shot of the same bedroom window.

Every window and sliding glass door in the house looked like this. What temp was the inside of the house? Well that's a little hard to determine. The furnace thermostat is one of the old ones. During the day we set the mark to 72 and at night drop it to 68. The problem is there is a cheap plastic thermometer about 6 inches away from the furnace thermostat. It says the house is around 74 during the day and 70 at night. Ellie's baby monitor has an electronic temp gauge that would say 66 during the day and 60 at night. In reality, who knows but if you ask me, I would bet on the baby monitor because I feel like the house is always cold.

Side note; half the city of Denver was shut down on Tuesday. Jake's Monday night class and Tuesday classes were cancelled by 4:00 on Monday. I actually don't think there was a school open on Tuesday. I think I'm ready for summer after being 70 on Friday to negatives by Monday.