Nick and I were so excited to have weekend guests!  Our wonderful friends Dawie and Amanda drove up on Friday evening and we had the best time catching up with them.  When we had seen them briefly at the end of August, we talked about that fact that we had never been to a costume party and had made plans to remedy that when they visited.  This is after all the time of year when costumes are easily accessible and readily accepted.

The party was in our little abode, so Amanda and I made Chili and Spice Cake Balls for the party in between lying around the house all afternoon on Saturday.  Dav and Nick crammed their time with deep conversation and a tour of campus, but we girls were happy to do as much nothing as possible.  I had told our friends that costumes were mandatory.  I had purchased a package of fake mustaches at the Dollar Store for anyone who tried to sneak in looking normal.  I am so thankful for our friends – they did not disappoint.  We did a faux photo booth, just having all the guests sit against a blank wall in our kitchen.

Nick and I wanted a costume that went together, without being something too cliche.  We also didn’t want to spend any money if we didn’t have too.

So after much debate we settled on Dwight Schrute and Sprinkles the Cat from the show The Office.  I think Nick pulled off the Dwight look pretty well, considering that he is much too handsome to truly look like Dwight.  Since he didn’t actually have a shirt that ugly, we decided to make one using a white dress shirt that has always been too big for him (tags were still on).  The first step was to cut the sleeves to an awkward length and then find a way to color it using stuff from around the house (leftover coffee and apple cider mix).  I procrastinated in hemming the sleeves until the last minute, but it did get done.  He completed the look with the calculator watch he already owned and a pair of had-been aviators.  I had it easy – I layered lots of white clothing and fuzzy white socks and and made my ears with fabric scraps and a headband.  Do I look like a cat that has been euthanized?

We weren’t the only characters from The Office to attend.  Jim and Pam showed up too.

Kudos to Daniel and Jenny for their thorough research to perfect the Jim and Pam look, even down to the parts in their hair and the pregnant belly.

Of course, we needed a picture of Dwight and Jim together.

I loved Dav and Amanda’s costumes – Benjamin Franklin (who has actually made an appearance in The Office) and a Snuggie Model – complete with her book light!

Josh and Ashleigh moved away this Summer, but they used to be our upstairs (and one over) neighbors.  I was so glad they came!  Josh was very creative with his Biggest Loser champion costume and Ashleigh was a Soccer Star.   Plus, Ashleigh makes a super yummy pizza dip, that is always the first thing to go!

These next two took the prize for best costume.  I can always count on Reed and Emily to make an entrance and they completely did, by coming as Green and Purple Grapes.

They took up our whole couch, so there was no way that they could both fit into one picture.

Reed was feeling a bit like sour grapes at this point, because his football team wasn’t playing very well.

We had a great time!  I am so thankful to everyone for going all out with their costumes, but mostly I am thankful for these friendships!

This is one of our Fall and Winter favorites.  Now I have always liked meatloaf, it was one of my Dad’s favorite.  But, I have heard that some people are actually afraid of meatloaf – that somehow, the thought of slicing a loaf of meat is unnatural.  This meatloaf is to tempt those people, that is as long as those people like meatballs.  If you don’t like meatloaf or meatballs, I can’t help you.

Ingredients

1 pound(ish) of ground lean beef or lean turkey (I usually use about 1 and 1/4 lb.)

3/4 to 1 cup plain breadcrumbs

1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese + a little extra

an egg (or 2 if you are feeling decadent)

*1 cup marinara sauce OR Petite Diced Tomatoes in Juice

Basil

**2 Cloves Garlic minced

**1/2 cup Vidalia Onion minced

Olive Oil

*If you use diced tomatoes, make up a quick no cook marinara, by mixing the tomatoes with a little salt, pepper, olive, and olive oil + your favorite spices

**If your tastebuds didn’t grow up in NJ and you are already using a seasoned marinara sauce, you might want to ease up on the garlic and onion.  I use marinara sauce and the garlic and onion… 

Directions

In a bowl mix together the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, egg, garlic and onion.  When everything looks mixed and sludgy, add most of the marinara sauce, a tsp of dried basil (or 2-4 fresh leaves chopped), and a little bit of olive oil and mix well.  When everything is mixed add the ground meat – I find it is easier to add in chunks.  When this is mixed it is usually not as stiff as a traditional meatloaf mixture, but it should somewhat hold a shape.  Lightly grease a loaf pan and dump the meatloaf mixture into the pan spreading it flat. Cover the top with the remaining marinara sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil (shiny side down) and bake in a 375 degree oven for up to 1 hour, uncover for the final 15 minutes.

Disclaimer:  I wrote this post while on Benadryl.

We had such wonderful visits with family last month.  All year long, we look forward to seeing family.  An while I get to take trips to New Jersey a few times a year, we only get to Virginia three times at the most – this year it was twice.

Our trip started out with us tying the hood of our Jetta down with Nick’s Honor’s Tassels from his college graduation.  The latch on his hood was broken and we weren’t able to fix it prior to leaving, but don’t worry the car sported the yellow cords in style.  We made our trip in pieces, NJ, VA, and NJ again.

It was back to school week in NJ, so things were very busy, but we  found time to dye my gorgeous sister’s hair.

So lovely.

Jonny helped Nick to secure the hood a little better before we headed back on the open road.

We kept our NJ time very simple, we visited with our close friends, ate dinner with my family, stayed up late talking with Jon and Ainsley.  Listened to Josh tell stories about the culture of Valet parking.  Such special treasured moments!

In Virginia we did much the same, except with more Dessert! (oh my did we have desserts a plenty).  We went kayaking one day and Nick and I tried a double kayak which was interesting.  By the end we had learned how to work in sync, but it was much harder than I thought it would be.  Mike and Karen had a Canoe and they seemed to have a much easier time of it. 

We spent one day at Maymont Park and we saw:

Farm Animals

Birds

And a Butterfly.

We had fun.

But were pretty hot and tired by the end.  No worries, Rita’s took care of that!

Lindsay and I had the adventure of highlighting Karen’s hair (maybe Karen was the true adventurer).  Mike and Joey helped cut foils and make runs to the drugstore for us, while Nick and Mom W. picked Nick’s car up from being repaired.

Jack of course was thrilled to have his family around him.

We snapped a few family photos.

The J’s

The W’s – doesn’t Karen’s hair look great?

Mom W with the girls – the chiquitas were kinda done with having their picture taken.

Grandma H with her girls.

Us of course.

We have these cute pictures of us with Hannah, but none with Ella.  Don’t worry though, Ella and I had tons of fun sneaking up on Uncle Nick while he was working on his computer.  Lots of giggly girl time!

Here’s a pretty one of Ella – she looks like a china doll!

And one of Hannah too – fresh out of the pool.

Then it was back to NJ to spend a little more time with these folks…

…and the rest.

But don’t think we made it without an adventure.  As we passed Philadelphia, Nick and I heard a strange clunking noise and pulled to the side of the highway to discover that a bolt had fallen out of our front right brake.  We called AAA immediately, but their main line wasn’t working.  Finally we hacked our way into their system, and they told us that they could tow us anywhere within 100 miles.  Since my parent’s house was within that range, we were able to ride in the tow truck the rest of the way home.  It was slightly bizarre, but not awful if you can believe it.  We only arrived 1/2 hour late for dinner.  Josh drove Nick around until they found a bolt that would work to hold Nick’s brake on (although we still need to buy the OEM part)…thanks Josh!  We stayed for another day and then headed home with hearts full and ready to start our last year at Gordon Conwell.

Thought you might want a sneak peek of our new addition.  Isn’t she pretty?

I am going to post about our trips to visit family in my next post, but I thought I would quickly post some images from our busy Summer before I proceed to my regular posts.  Being that it is September and some of these pictures date back to the end of May, I thought a smattering from various events would be better than full posts about all our little adventures.

Flowers Bloomed

We visited the beach.  This is from our trip to Old Orchard Beach in Maine.

I took lots of pictures of this pretty clotted cream sky.

We goofed off and took pictures of ourselves, celebrating 2 years of marriage.

We ate Jenny’s pie…

…and watched fireworks on the beach to celebrate our nation’s independence.

Making sure to visit Newburyport,

and Plum Island.  We enjoyed the hot (and sometimes chilly) sunny beaches,

pausing more than once to appreciate the beauty of the salt marshes.

We have been happy and busy and happy some more.  Good bye Summer!

“By all these lovely tokens.

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather,

And autumn’s best of cheer.”

taken from September by Helen Hunt Jackson

We just haven’t had much time for blogging lately.  But, we did travel down and up the East Coast seeing some of our best people, so hopefully soon we will upload and then blog those pictures and stories!  The weather here has been amazing, we hope it is the same where you live!

Nick and I have been doing well food-wise.  We have both felt encouraged to move beyond our old version of a healthy lifestyle, to expect even more of ourselves.  And it’s working, we feel great and I am almost back to pre-marriage weight.  As in the weight that I was before I got married and confused my married name to be Paula Deen rather than Mrs. W. 

Anyway, there aren’t very many indulgent foods in the house, which is a good thing – really.  However, I am me…and I am easily inspired – especially by food.  From the time I was young, The Boxcar Children made me want to eat brown bread and milk, The Hardy Boys inspired cravings for foot high slices of chocolate cake, and Nancy Drew’s best friend Bess made just about anything sound delicious and desirable.  Even now, our menu is influenced by the books that I read.  But this time my inspiration came from something we have been watching.  We rented the HBO series John Adams from our Library and have been watching a part every night (it’s pretty good, although I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it on account of it hasn’t been entirely clean).

Anyway, I don’t think they actually have showed cinnamon rolls, or any other specific food for that matter, but I was inspired to make cinnamon rolls nonetheless.  I didn’t have many real ingredients, so I scoured the internet for ideas.  I read several recipes and after taking inventory made up my own recipe.  Here it is:

John Adam’s Cinnamon Rolls

Dough

2 1/2 Cups Pancake Mix (I used an organic, whole wheat, buttermilk and honey mix)

2 tsp baking powder (because my mix contained baking soda, but not powder)

2 tblsp white sugar

2 tblsp plain yogurt

1-2 tblsp butter or butter substitute (I used Olivio)

2/3 cup milk

Filling

1/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark brown)

1/8 cup white sugar

enough cinnamon to your taste (I used a little nutmeg too)

1/4 cup raisins (I use Trader Joe’s raisin trio)

butter for spreading (maybe 2 tblsp)

Mix all the dough ingredients in a bowl and form a ball.  Place ball on a floured surface and roll flat in a rectangle about the size of a piece of paper or a little bigger. Use flour or pancake mix to keep the dough from getting too sticky.  Spread butter (or Olivio) across the entire surface.  Mix remaining brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon into a crumbly mixture and sprinkle evenly on top of buttered dough.  Sprinkle the raisins evenly across the top and roll dough into a log sealing the seam by pinching the dough together.  Slice into 1 inch thick pieces and arrange in a pie plate or other circular pan.  Cook in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Verdict

These were pretty good.  Not super sweet, kind of old fashioned, more roll than cake, Nick called them savory.  We had them alongside our John Adam’s inspired dinner, rather than as a dessert.  They would go well with a mug of coffee or tea.  I think they would also be nice with chopped apples and pecans in the filling.  Of course a glaze would improve them as well.  While I probably wouldn’t make these if I had yeast or more normal ingredients on hand, I would make these again as a good stand in.

Nick was nice enough to take a picture so that I could show you what they looked like.

Italians call it gravy.  I am not Italian, so I call it Red Sauce.  Pasta with red sauce is a big favorite of mine.  When Nick and I were first “friends” and he started joining us for dinner, I think it scared him a little to see just how much I could pack away.  Really, I could eat 1/2 a package of pasta without thinking about it – thus the reason I was so excited to rediscover Spaghetti Squash.  I love to make my own sauce because I like to know what goes into it and the way I do it is almost as easy as opening a jar.  I never make it exactly the same way, but this is one of the variations I make.

For Spaghetti Squash I made a thick and spicy tomato sauce.

Ingredients

I small can tomato paste

1 cup fresh diced tomato (no skin)

2 large cloves garlic

1/4 cup Vidalia onion finely chopped

1/2 cup white cooking wine

1/2 lb. lean ground beef or ground turkey

red pepper flakes   (or your seasonings of choice)

olive oil

Pretty basic – chop the onions, mince the garlic, and let them cook up along with the lean meat – add a little olive oil for some extra fat if you need it.  When the garlic and onion are soft and the meat is cooked through (and drained) stir in the tomato paste.  At this point is will be super thick and not very appetizing.  Thin it out slowly with a little water, the cooking wine, and a little bit of olive oil.  When it is a pleasing consistency add the chopped tomato and your preferred seasoning.  Simmer and serve (over spaghetti squash if you like).

If you aren’t into meat, I think a veggie laden recipe would be equally nice.  Try using vegetable broth to thin the tomato paste, or start with whole tomatoes in juice.  Add in zucchini, carrots and celery (in addition to the tomato, garlic and onion).

Keeping with tradition, Nick and I did another do it ourselves Anniversary Session.  Over the years there will be a lot of these, but we also have big plans to someday hire our favorite photographers to do a big session with us.  All in all though we were happy with these.  I think they show a big improvement from last year, and we had alot of fun doing them.  The location we found had the most amazing natural light – it almost looks manufactured – but I promise it wasn’t!

The location also housed about a billion mosquitoes, but you can’t tell from our smiling faces. 

I love being married to this guy!

This one (above) is Nick’s favorite from the shoot.

And I like this one even though we look really serious!

The two shots above were ones that I had in mind beforehand, I was pretty excited to get them.

Don’t worry, these are just most of my favorites!

Have you discovered the joys of Spaghetti Squash?  What’s that?  Oh, you don’t like Squash…are you sure you won’t like this one?  It tastes like sweet buttered pasta and only has 1/4 of the carbs.  How do you pick Spaghetti Squash?  Look for an even, golden yellow, relatively heavy squash.  You have one last question…go right ahead…  How do you cook it?  I thought you’d never ask!

In all seriousness, I love spaghetti squash!  My Mom made it semi regularly when I was growing up, but I completely forgot about it until recently.  I made it the other night and Nick and I were fighting over the leftovers the next day.  Actually, we very nicely shared them the following day.

There are many ways to cook Spaghetti Squash – you can even use your crockpot for some, but we baked it.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Next cut your squash in half long ways.  I would recommend cutting off the ends first so that it stands up and please BE CAREFUL.  I had a hard time with this part…it could just be me though.    Give a baking sheet a coating of olive oil and about 1/4 cup of water and place the squash cut side down on the baking sheet.  Poke several holes in the top of the squash and pop in the oven.  Leave it there for an hour or until soft.  Scoop out the insides and serve.

I made a thick and spicy red sauce with lean ground beef and it was delish.  Also good would be a marinara base loaded with lots of veggies (think carrots, celery, zucchini, etc).  I will try to add recipes for those soon!