Bye Buddy

My mom and sister should be landing right about now at LAX. Here are just a couple of pics from their trip.

I hope you guys had a decent flight home and recoup quickly! Love ya.

(And just so everyone knows 25 days until Christmas!!!)

Just Thankful

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! I think the food tastes better when you actually do the cooking. This was my first year cooking and hosting for thanksgiving. I made that sweet pie from scratch! I am not a huge pie fan but that was freaking good ;) Alan said it was the best pie he had ever had...but he may be biased. The fact that I served it to him warm and with a scoop of ice cream may have swayed him as well. The little things on top are suppose to be Christmas trees. It was also my first time cooking a turkey, and that turned out yummy too. (See pictures below)
My sister is thankful for PJ's. She wore them all day! We watched Christmas movies all day and cooked, so she just stayed comfortable. Funny how different we are, I would rather look all cute and she is just chill and like pshhh I'll stay in my pajama's. This time last year she was sick on Thanksgiving and little did we know that she was getting very very sick. I am thankful that she isn't sick anymore! I love this girl.

I think it may be a problem! I obviously know how to spell thanksgiving...but for some reason I rush ahead on holidays. We made "our first Christmas" ornament a couple of years ago and I spelled Christmas wrong on it too (No "t"). My family especially a 16 year old who shall remain unnamed thinks it hilarious.

Meet Frank...my first turkey. He was a yummy turkey! I usually don't like thanksgiving food that much, but this year was fun. I like cooking, I think this made me like the food better. I brined this turkey! I did some turkey research and made up my own recipe for the brine. Oh the wonders of wiki how. It actually made a huge difference though. There wasn't a dry piece on him. (Oh yeah I know you like my morning hair, ehhh?)

This is him all cooked and ready to go. Of course my first thanksgiving couldn't be without a hiccup. So.... do you see it? behind the orange bowl? It is the sweet potatoes, you know the kind with marshmallows on top? Well apparently marshmallows don't like fan ovens (do you have those in the US?) or something because the marshmallows exploded all over my oven! Luckily they were the last thing I was heating up so I didn't need to cook anything else in my marshmallow oven.

OK here's the Thankful list!

• I am thankful for being saved!!! First and foremost.
• I really am thankful for this sanctification process even though it really hurts sometimes.
• I am so thankful for Alan, that I have a wonderful husband who loves the Lord and it shows.
• I am thankful for our families
• I am thankful for my friends new ones in Oxford, and old ones in America. I miss you guys so much!
• I am thankful for our phone! So I can talk to those old friends! (also facebook, skype, and email)
• I am thankful it's Christmas time!!!
• ....and I am thankful that I have to die to myself in order to live for Him!

It's the little things

It seems like they have a lot more kinds of cheese here, but one thing I hadn't seen was monterey jack cheese, which I think is oh so yummy! Today they had one bag of it at our grocery store so I snatched it up and am trying to decide how to use it best.

...stay tuned for pictures of Frank, my first turkey :)

The Rideout girls have come to town!

We had a really fun day of walking around Oxford and trying to give them as much history as we know. We shared our favorite place to eat with them for lunch. Can you guess why we like it so much? It reminds us of some other place we know of.

It is SO yummy!

I have missed her so!

My mom is Santa, or at least one of his helpers.

My mom brought a whole suitcase full of fun presents!!! We felt so loved and were very blessed! Alan got hooked up with the mac n cheese and he's already had a batch.

Hallie used chipotle bags to wrap our presents :)

Look at this bag of Swedish Fish!!! I will be set for a while! This is our suitcase o' presents. Thanks so much everyone for all the gifts it was such a blessing, I can't thank you enough!

Christmas in a cup!

The suspense is over!!! English Starbucks have red cups and my favorite holiday drink :) I had to explain how to make it, but it was delicious! Ahhh the holidays can begin now.

It has to be chronological!!!

I am sorry I know you must be expecting pictures of my mum and sister visiting and don't get me wrong I have got them, but I have to keep it chronological. Stay tuned for future blogs soon about their visit. I won't let it be so long in between posts.

I started my new job about 3 weeks ago and on my first day this was waiting for me when I got home :) My oh so wonderful husband made a yummy dinner for us. I am so blessed to be his wife!

I am working at an after school program. One day I made pretzels with the kids and of course we needed to make sure they worked!!! ;) This is the result, I think Alan kinda showed me up! That is an XBOX controller. These were pretty yummy as well and super easy to make.