Happy Birthday John!!!

Happy Birthday (a day late - oops) to my amazing younger brother! I have the best brother ever...How lucky :) Here are a couple of pics that illustrate what I love about him...

He's the most laid back person I know - When I'm with John I try to take notes on how to chill out....I have a long way to go!

He can find fun everywhere he goes....even when I drag him to a farm day.

He gives great hugs...I'm posting this one even though it's super old because it's my favorite ever of us!

He celebrated with his girlfriend Nicole yesterday :) Aren't they cute?

I love you John!

I've been running...

Did I tell y'all I'm training for a half marathon? Hence my need for all the cold weather running gear. It sure has been keeping me warm on our cold February days (except for today...it was 46!).

I'm running the Middlebury Maple Run - a half marathon - with my friend Katie. It will be my first half...the longest I've run before was a 10K!

Here is the race description - how very "Vermont".

The first half of the course is a loop--runners will come through Middlebury’s picturesque downtown and cross the Pulp Mill Covered Bridge (Vermont's oldest covered bridge) into Weybridge where they’ll pass UVM’s Morgan Horse Farm and eventually head back into Middlebury via Sheep Farm Road. The halfway point (and relay exchange zone) is on the beautiful and historic campus of Middlebury College. Runners will traverse the campus, pass by the start area at about Mile 8. The last 5 miles of the race are out-and-back on South Street Extension, a hard-packed dirt road.

As the saying goes, "Vermont Ain't Flat." The race is run on a 50/50 mix of paved and hard-packed dirt roads with several elevation changes—some long grades but nothing too steep. Runners will enjoy beautiful views of the Green and Adirondack Mountains and green pastures throughout the race.

Check out the cute logo - I'm a t-shirt nerd so this line was what first caught my eye....



Free, high-quality t-shirts with our signature eye-catching maple leaf logo are available for all runners.

On another running note, I'm also running in the Burlington City Marathon. No worries. I'm not running the whole thing alone. Cousin signed us up to run as a relay team (a group of 5).



I hope we have as much fun as this lady they feature on the website!

The best part of running in Burlington is that this will be our view for most of the race :)



Ahhh.

Recipes

I recently discovered this amazing website....

I tried 2 of the recipes recently....Matt liked them both even though they had no meat! Don't worry, she has some meaty recipes as well if that's what you're looking for.

The Best Vegetable Lasagna

AND

Mexican Polenta Casserole

They are both super easy to make (I mean took me less than 20 minutes or so hands-on) and delicious!

Try them!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wouldn't call my self a "romantic," so Valentine's Day has never been a really big deal for me. Nice for Matt, huh? He's off the hook to come up with some grand gesture. He did get me some Valentine's treats at the grocery store :) His specialty. I do appreciate that V-day brings out the special treatment for some ladies that enjoys it - my brother made his girlfriend a nice dinner last night - how sweet.

I received two really nice Valentine's Day gifts this year. My mom made me this wreath. Isn't it pretty? It gave me the kick in the pants I needed to take down my Christmas wreath and put this one in its place.

My mother-in-law sent us a gift card to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (one we can't usually afford often)!

I made these. YUM. I, like other blog friends, attempted these delicious treats after reading Darby's blog about them.

Just a warning - if you have no willpower (like me) - this will be a hard recipe to make. I made the mistake of opening the chocolate chips while I was making the peppermint mixture and ended up eating half of a bag. Oops. Good thing I bought too many of them.

A second warning - I have one word to describe this recipe if you, like me, are not a melted chocolate expert. MESSY.

I used fat-free sweetened condensed milk and thought they still tasted good. You might notice a difference so don't take my word on it.

Of course I wasn't prepared completely and didn't have any wax paper. Good thing I had this SILPAT liner. One of my unexpected favorite wedding gifts.

On my first attempt, I used these pans. Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention to the chocolate and burned it. Dang. I used it anyway (hopefully nobody will notice?). I put chocolate in the bottom, froze it, then added a patty. I then put chocolate on top and froze them again.

I melted more chocolate. On my second attempt, I tried to dip the patties in the chocolate as the recipe says. See patties on the right in the picture below.

On my third attempt, I ended up just putting a dollop of chocolate on top of each patty. See patties on the left in the picture below.

When I was done, I froze the (very few) remaining chocolate chips just like my Grandma does :) I'll let you know what Matt thought when they're frozen enough for him to try!

On another note, it was 40 degrees here today...that's right - 40 (above 0)! I ran in a short sleeved t-shirt (I'm crazy I know). It's supposed to be a high of 11 tomorrow, which means all those puddles that formed today will turn into solid ice (yipee).

xoxo

Frozen

It's still cold around here. We're supposed to get a heat wave this week....in the 40s! Unfortunately, that also brings rain, which is NO GOOD for skiing/snow :( Oh well. We took advantage of the good conditions this weekend and did some skiing at Smugglers Notch. We also took a day to go and check things out at the lake house.

Check out the frozen lake as seen from the top of Mt. Philo.





We went to check it out up close and decided it was frozen enough to walk on...





Pretty cool to see the house from the water...not in a boat!





We even saw some ice fishermen...brrr.



I was kicking myself the whole time because I forgot to bring my new camera. These were taken with the iphone. Hope you had a good weekend!

What would you do...

If you got in your car at 6:30AM, running late to start your 50+ mile commute on once again partially icy/snowy roads, and saw this



and then this?



I'm guessing you'd stop at the gas station?

Next, you pull up to the gas station and hit the button to pop open the gas tank flap and then get out to fiddle with the credit card and pressing buttons. You're freezing your buns off (literally because you fell in the snow on your way to the car) and you look down to realize the flap didn't open. *&%!. You press it again. Nothing. It's frozen. What now?

I'd love to hear some of your creative responses to that problem. Never happened to me before.

I wish I could say I kept my cool. Nope. I banged on it while cursing (not under my breath) and kept pushing that button over and over and banging harder and harder until it finally popped open.

HA!

Don't worry - My day turned itself around once I was on the road, where God reminded me of how lucky I feel to live here with this spectacular sunrise (that my iphone camera could never adequately capture) followed by a day full of sweet children and grateful educators who make my school such a fun place to be!



And I don't want to forget about most exciting event of the day....the HUGE DUKE victory over UNC last night! Hell Yes! Things weren't looking good the first half but they managed to turn it around. My sister and Dad were there last night - what a game to watch :) She sent me this afterwards...

It just keeps coming...

The snow I mean. We received another 4 or so inches last night. We've had so much this week they're having a hard time keeping the roads and sidewalks plowed (which is saying a lot around here...I keep trying to get a picture of the mini-plow they use for the sidewalks)! That means a stressful drive to work and a treacherous run with Willow when I get home :) However, I do love the snow. Right now I can still find a few reasons why...

1. When it's cold enough to snow, that means it's too cold to rain! I do hate the rain, especially in the winter when it's chilly. I think that's why November was my least favorite month so far up here. It rained. A lot. It was cold. Too cold to be considered fall.

2. We have a wonderful landlady who shovels our roof for us. Shoveling the roof is probably about as safe as it sounds. You can either stand on the roof itself and shovel it off OR you can stand on a ladder and use one of these.




I'm ready for the snow to keep coming, but after the winter I probably won't want to see my shovel for a long while. I will definitely be taking Santa up on his offer for one of these next Christmas. I'll just have to learn how to use it.



I'm going to leave you with a cute Willow pic.