Fright Night

Have a Most Dreadful Halloween from

Uncle Fester & Wednesday Addams!!!

The Final Touches

Our Halloween costumes are assembled and ready for the party we are attending on Friday night! I'm excited! J, not so much so! I'll post pictures on Saturday.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful day! Mom, we'll be seeing you soon.

Kisses!

A Valentine’s Day Crème Brûlée

Hey! That rhymes! Right on!

Valentine’s Day night was a perfect evening at home. J planned to prepare us a lovely surf -n- turf dinner. Fillet mignon and crab legs. Yum! Additionally, a few days ago we purchased all the ingredients for crème brûlée, but J had not got around to making it. On Valentine’s Day around 4 p.m. I got a wild hair and decided to take a crack at making the delectable dish myself. Yeah, that’s right, me “K”, the one who can’t cook to save her life! Well, guess what folks, *I* made it all by myself. No help from J except to eat it!

I must say that my expectations of successfully making the dish were extremely low. I mean, I’ve always believed crème brûlée was difficult to make. I don’t know why . . .maybe because the name of the dish sounds so upper crust and regal. Maybe because all my favorite chefs on the food network serve it in their 5-star restaurants. Or maybe my low expectations were just the accumulative result of still developing my confidence in the kitchen. Who knows why. What I’m saying right now is that crème brûlée was 10 times easier to make than I thought, that’s for sure. Too easy to be true actually. With only four simple ingredients - egg yolks, heavy whipping cream, sugar & vanilla – surely, the magic of crème brûlée HAD to be in the preparation. Surely*I* did not boast the talent to make this mystical dessert.

Yet, what I made was legendary! Legendary, I tell you!

No joke! I am somewhat of a crème brûlée connoisseur. I have tasted crème brûlée all over the U.S. in my various business travels and while living in a big city. I’ve had the creamy concoction in Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Orlando and even Cincinnati. I've had the dish in 4 and 5 star restaurants as well as in small mom&pop eateries. I can tell the difference between good brûlée and sucky brûlée. I am happy to report that, with my extensive experience in eating it, my first crème brûlée was not sucky at all! WOW! The texture and taste were both spot on! My dish rivaled that of my favorite crème brûlées made at The Brown Palace & at Le Central both located down in Denver. I was flabergasted to say the least.

Here are some pictures and a short film documenting the sugar carmelization process (the brûlée part) Oooooh, yeah, I used a TORCH!!! Yay! Fun! Harnessing the power of haracka (fire, fire, fire)!

Before:

Brûlée-ing

The finished product:

Next time I will get more adventurous and use vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract.

Ooooo, I can’t wait!

(This post is dedicated to my friend, Hollywood, a fellow lover of fine crème brûlée)

2nd Annual Shoe Shopping Extravaganza

Last year on January 1, 2008, while out seeking to spend a Dillard's Christmas gift card, my sister (Toni Baloni) and I stumbled upon the greatest of all sales . . .a SHOE SALE! After we each scored around 5 pair for under $100, we vowed to make January 1st from here on out our annual day for shoe shopping no matter what! Neither rain, sleet nor snow would keep us from this awesome event and a pinky swear sealed the deal.

Fast forward 1 year later, January 1, 2009, we honored our pinky-sweared vow and set forth on the 2nd Annual Shoe Shopping Event. The major surgery had by Toni Baloni on Monday December 29th might have slowed her down but even that couldn't stop her from going! What a trooper! So with credit/gift cards in hand and hope in our hearts, we entered the shoe department at Dillard's and had ourselves one heck of a heyday.

The 50% off sales of already slashed priced shoes were hiding from us at first. However, once we spotted those wheeling-dealing Rocket Dogs, you could barely see us through the frenzy of boxes, soxes and tissue paper flying around as we tried on many a pair, style & brand.

I finally settled for leaving with three pair. 1 pair of brown Rocket Dogs, 1 pair of black rocket dogs and 1 pair of brilliantly blue Ecco low-top hikers as seen here: Purdy, aren't they. The Rocket Dogs were originally $49 bucks, I scored 'em for $15. Ecco's originally $125. . .mine for just $37!!! SCORE! I love shoes. These three round out my collection to close to 50. Yes, yes, I know that 47 pair of shoes are ridiculous for one person to own; however, in my defense, Imelda Marcos I am not as I wear each pair at least a couple times a year. Some pair, obviously, I wear more than others. One thing I love about shoes and why I can't get enough of them is that no matter how many years pass or how much weight I gain over the holidays, I can "usually" fit into my shoes. Thus explains my love affair for the Shoe, Queen of the Accessories. ~sigh~ This rule applies to the Ladies in Waiting of Accessories as well - jewelry, scarves, handbags & sunglasses - but those are all stories in and of themselves that I shall leave for another post.

Back to the task at hand . . this year's shopping spree was a little different than last year's as we also scored some smokin' deals on clothes. I purchased each of these shirts for under $10 each. Two were Columbia brand and the colorful one in the middle was such a fru-fru brand that it was $75 at regular price!!! YIKES $75 for a fricken T-Shirt?!?! WTF?! Get outta town!

I also scored this blouse & vest. The vest was 8 bucks and change and the blouse was the most expensive at just under $17. I love the detail on the white blouse. Can't see much of the detail on the vest in this picture, but trust me, it's lovely.

All in all the day was a success. Regular price total added up to $480 and I got the lot all for around $135. Toni's spoils at regular price was close to $300 & her actual cost $60-something. Next year, praying we're both happy & healthy, we will attack the day with even more vigor! I can't wait.

A Letter to 2009

Hi, 2009. Nice to meet you. I just woke up. :)

You look good so far. Windy but good. Lots of mostly good times and hardly any bad with your friend, 2008, but I am looking forward to seeing what you have to offer to my life all around. I am hoping you will bring a multitude of peace & prosperity in all facets to us and to all our friends and family alike.

I am now getting ready to go on our 2nd annual shoe shopping event with my sister. We are doing our part to help the economy get better during your watch. . . no need to thank us, you know the score.

See you around,
your humble servant
~K

New Traditions

This is the first Christmas that my mom has lived out of state and J's mom and dad have snow birded. This is also the first Christmas as a married couple. Since times seem like they are a changin', we decided to do something completely and utterly different this year on Christmas Day.

We decided to rent snow machines up in the Snowy Range area and drive up to the cabin! Sounds like a great adventure, doesn't it?! Well, it was one of the best Christmases I've had as an adult, I must say.

We woke up and were ready to roll at 730 on Christmas morning. The couple we usually travel with met us at our house for the ride over to Albany. We rented two touring snow machines at the fun and friendly Albany Lodge which is located about 30 miles south of Centennial, Wyo where we were married.

We started our snow machining trip from Albany and took the trail that led us past Rob Roy Reservoir and headed to Hwy 130 via the Libby Flats trail. The trek across this icy tundra was the coldest and most windy part of the trip (2 hrs one-way). I was a little peeved because I thought my snow boots broke because my dang feet were FREEZING! I had 3 layers on underneath my coat, but the wind easily cut through the fabric and iced up my skin. Also, this was the bumpiest (did I spell that right) part of any of the trails. I almost got bucked off plenty of times. Later when I asked J if he heard me screaming for dear life, he said he thought I was just having a good time. NOT!!! Well, it *was* fun, but it wrecked havoc on me poor back.

Here we are taking a break right in the middle of Libby Flats' icy tundra wind tunnel! Don't ask me why we stopped in this god-forsaken area or what I was doing with my arms! Heh, heh, I think I was adjusting my balaclava between my helmet & coat:

Once we got past the Libby Flats Lookout and turned left on Hwy 130, we saw the Range in all her glory. ((GASP, GASP!!)) She looks more lovely, larger & closer to the road and more foreboding in the winter than when seeing her in the summer. I was amazed to see one of my favorite places in the world wearing a different season than I was used seeing. She wears winter like a royal majestic cloak and reigns supreme through the stormy clouds. I love this place.

The drive to the cabin took a couple hours and couple trails (5 different trails to be exact) to complete. For an area I know so well, the surroundings looked so different that we drove right past the entrance to the cabin. Do you realize how hard it is to flip a U-turn on a snow machine on a tiny trail? Oy. Very.

We backtracked to the entrance of the cabin "neighborhood" and snow shooed about 1 mile in to our humble abode. Man, was that hard breaking trail in waist-deep snow! Thank goodness for our good friend Jeanne who did most of the breaking! What a trooper! We got to the cabin exhausted but warmed up from the work out that trompin through the snow provided. My feet finally warmed up so my boots weren't broken after all :), but I did get into my stash of clothes I left up at the cabin this past fall, donned on an extra pair of socks and two extra layers of shirts (1 thermal long-sleeved & a fleece hoodie) for the ride home. Jeanne had made & packed in some awesome turkey noodle soup and hot schnocolate (hot chocolate with schnapps & brandy. . .yuuuuuummm!) that hit the spot.

Here's me at the entrance to the cabin! Whew, I had never been so glad to reach a destination in my entire life:

Since the trek in took us longer than we expected, we had to hurry and close up cabin and get our booties back to the snow machines that we left on the side of the trail. Funny thing is that the trip back only took 1/4 of the time as going in because the trail had already been broken and we had some brandy running through our veins. We were good to go.

I took this picture from inside the cabin before I locked up as J was making his way back down the snowshoe trail:

We got back to the machines about 3:10 p.m. which was perfect timing since we had to be back at the lodge by 5:00 p.m. The air in the area had warmed up so the trip back found us enveloped in a light snow storm which was kinda scary but spectacular at the same time. Libby Flats mogul tundra pretty much sucked as much as it did on the first leg of the trip, but we made it through and got back to Albany Lodge at exact 5:00! We all had a beer in the lodge and reminisced about our day's journey before setting off to make the drive home.

Our round trip mileage ended up being 100 miles which is like driving a snow machine from Cheyenne to Denver. Pretty daunting task when you think about it. What an awesome day!! I hope we do this every year for Christmas. What a fun, adventuresome and invigorating way to spend the holiday. Come join us next time :) Kisses.

Although it's been said. . .

many times, many ways. . .

Merry Christmas to you!!

Love, Santa & the boys

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Good day! I hope everyone is having a great time so far. J & I woke up at 6:30 a.m., drove down to Greeley Colo to run our 1st annual tradition of running a race on Thanksgiving. We had a good time. We ran the 2k but wished we would have run the 5k (even if we had to alternate walking & running). The weather was gorgeous and perfect for running. No wind and not too cold, once you got moving, at just above freezing 36°F.

Here are some pictures to capture the moment:

Before picture K getting psyched up:

The crowd. There were 2,016 participants this year:

K in an action photo toward the end of the race:


After picture not much more than 10 minutes after we started:

This was really fun for us. We are planning to do one next year as well. We also are looking at running a real 5k for Christmas weather permitting!

Have a nice day and don't eat too much. . .you'll regret it!!! :)

Happy Halloween

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. The Force and the Bark.

Bark all day at you can I." ~Yoda Artie
“Powerful you have become, the dark side I smell. . .uh sense in you.” - Yoda Luke

J's elaborte costume is beyond words.

Artie looking more like a Gremlin or Animal from the Muppets than Yoda in this picture which is, by far, my favorite.

I hope everyone had (or is having) a safely scary Halloween. Ours has been pretty low-key. Watched that old movie House on Haunted Hill - the one with Vincent Price from like 100 yrs ago. My niece and her kids came by to Trick or Treat. One of the girls was Hannah Montana which was scary enough by itself. The baby was a peapod. . .too cute. The other girl was Sleeping Beauty, but she wasn't staying in character. She was more like ADD Beauty. Ah, what can I expect from a 3-yr-old. The two big kids were Fiona & Shrek.

Those were our only ghouls for the night. After I post this we're going to eat some scary pizza (from Blackjacks) & watch Spider-man 3. Not sure if that's the most appropriate movie for Halloween night, but it's the only Netflix we have left to watch!