I have had a rough couple of weeks so I am just now catching up with our travels. We had a glorious time in Florida and on our cruise to Cozumel in January. When we returned however, it got a bit chaotic as Liz had an emergency appendectomy and I was in the hospital with a hernia due to a previous surgery. Now it is time to catch up.

Juan and I don't get a lot of time together as our free time is often not the same. We decided that taking a long weekend trip in the winter to somewhere warm would be a welcome change to our routines. We decided to go to Tampa for a day and then off on a 4 night cruise to Cozumel.

Juan claims he gave me details of the day in Florida but I still claim that I did not get those details. I would have remember these details. None-the-less it was great.

We decided that it was probably a good idea when traveling from a cold winter state to a warm state to catch a cruise ship that we should go a day early in case of weather delays. Juan arranged for us to stay in a Cuban neighborhood in Tampa, Ybor City. It was full of cigar shops and bars. No surprise, right? We really had a great time and plan to return even though I am not interested in cigars.

The warmer weather was welcoming. Our hotel was right on the main drag. We compared the area to Broadripple in Indianapolis. There were lots of restaurants and areas with Cuban, Spanish, and Italian influence. On our day in the area we spent quite a bit of time walking around and checking out the local sites. About a good mile from our hotel it started to rain quite heavily and we ended up soaked before we were able to get to the one cigar shop Juan really wanted to go to. We both laughed and turned around before our destination to walk as fast as we could back to the hotel get out of the rainy weather.

Lunch was a Cuban sandwich and delicious Cuban coffee. I was there to relax and that we did. Juan smoked a cigar while I did some people watching at the outdoor cafe in front of the King Corona Cigar shop. We also visited a couple other shops. We were able to watch a woman roll cigars. She sure made it look easy but I am thinking it is not and that being precise is a priority.

Once we got out of our wet clothes, we took the hotel shuttle to the other locations we wanted to go to before the rain. Juan wanted to go to Fuente Cigars where we met the owner, had our picture taken, and had a great chat. We were also able to get the owner to sign a cigar box. He suggested a few restaurants to try before we walked back to our hotel. Juan went for another cigar while I went and had my hair cut at a local salon. The wet and humid weather was driving me nuts because I felt my hair suddently looked as if I had a mullet. 

We will definately return to the area again. It is worth another look and a great place for rest and relaxation. Back on the bucket list!

It is finally here, Superbowl Week! This is an exciting time for Indianapolis and I am happy to part of the excitement. After hearing about all the hoopla for two years we finally get to see the results of the planning.

Tonight the kids and I took a journey to downtown Indianapolis to participate in this super celebration! John continues to volunteer all week at the NFL experience but had to work tonight so could not join us. Bummers.

Indy you did good! What an amazing place. The atmosphere was fantastic. Made me proud to be from the Indianapolis area. What was especially fun was to see all the people who were wearing Colts spirit wear. What a great opportunity for the Hoosiers and all the locals to participate in the event. Tonight was the perfect weather night as well, 55 degrees in January!

My friend Martha shared with me how she used an online site to
purchase a parking spot. I went online earlier today and was surprised to find a spot at Pan Am Plaza. Pan Am Plaza is smack dab in the center of Super Bowl Village. I paid $26 to park. I know a bargain for my Chicago friends. That same spot is $500 on Sunday. I needed to find a spot that would reduce the amount of walking Liz would do because she just had surgery 6 days ago. More on on a future catch up blog.

The traffic in the downtown area was very congested and the sidewalks packed with people. We were patient but found that it took twice as much time to get downtown than any other evening. Once we parked, the elevator popped us out right at the end of Superbowl Village. Once in the area there was much to see. It was crowded but that was to be expected.

I liked the Indy cars decorated with the two teams that are playing on Sunday. There is actually a car for each team. At one time there were downtown but now they are spread around Indiana for tourists to see. 

Along the Superbowl Village there were three stages with huge televisions
around to see and hear different bands. There were lots different displays such as lighted areas with the NFL team logos. The zip line was very popular but there were no tickets to be had tonight. They have been sold out now for quite some time. There were warming areas and Fire and Ice areas. The Fire and Ice areas were bar areas where there were heaters along with outdoor furniture and of course lots of beer. I bought Liz a beer because this was the only time you can walk down the street with an open container of liquor in Indianapolis. Poor Mark had to wait. He is a couple months shy of being able to drink legally.

We walked down to the circle and saw the big roman numerals. That was really cool. There were images being projected on them choreographed and with music. It was a great light show.

So glad we did not miss this opportunity. I was hoping we would run into someone famous, that did not happen or at least if I did bump into someone famous I did not recognize them.

When I first moved to Fishers, I was very organized about making nice meals for people coming in town to visit. I would do plenty of shopping ahead of schedule and try new recipes. Having slumber parties was new. It was quite the novelty to have weekend guests. I don't cook quite as much as I use to but I do continue to make my now famous coffee cake.

One of my favorite recipes is a super simple coffee cake. I was watching the food channel and came upon it. You basically take a Rhodes bread loaf and let it thaw in a plastic bag sprayed with non-stick spray. I put mine out the night before and wake up to bread that is already proofed.

 I roll the dough out on my special cutting board that has gutters to hold the dough in a rectangle and put in a filling. My favority flavor is prune. Yup, prune. If you have a strong aversion to prunes, I won't tell you that I used prune filling until you tell me how delicious it is.

I used this trick on my future chef Mark. I made two batches of prune coffee cake with cream cheese icing. I know my sister and mom knew what flavor it was but I decided that I would not tell anyone else. Lots of positive comments about how this was my best coffee cake. Then the reveal. Prune.

Prune filling cannot be found in the Fishers area, at least I cannot find it. I did get a call today from Mom that she picked some up for me at her grocery store. Mark will be quite happy, prune coffee cake later this month.

When the family came for a visit over the holidays, it was definitely a perfect time to spend the afternoon bowling day. We hoped to go downtown and do some duck pin bowling but those lanes closed earlier than we could get there. Instead we went to the local bowling alley, Pinheads.

Liam got bumpers but no one else. Sad, nobody broke 100. Since the boys were off playing arcade games while we were registering to bowl I decided that I would give the boys "special" bowling names to be placed publicly on the scoreboard. Mark was Smurf and Nick was Pooky.

Mom and I decided to be part of the audience. I am nursing a sciatic nerve pain and did not want to irritate it. Mom, arthritis. We had more fun watching them all bowl. There was no technique. No style. No special moves. Lots of fun.

It is very interesting to spend time with two older boys. There were lots of rude comments; inappropriate jokes and gross discussion. Guess they are not likely to change anytime soon and that is just fine with me. Loved having my oldest nephew Nick on holiday leave from the army. I look forward to seeing him again in the summer. In the meantime I have lots of photographic evidence to mail him in his care packages this year.

While my holiday guests were in town, we got to talking about cake. That tends to be my sister's favorite food and subject. It did not take long before we decided to go and buy a cake.

I thought it would be nice for us to try a cake from the local establishment, Taylor's Bakery. As we were driving to go and pick one up, we got to laughing that we had to have some kind of reason, no matter how lame, to buy a cake and celebrate. We decided on the fact that Liam recently got his striped yellow belt in Karate.

While in Taylor's Bakery, my sister was beyond excited that they had a large selection of donuts and quickly eyed some with white icing. She inquired about the filling and to her surprise it was her favorite, Frosted Raspberry Jelly donuts. She was delighted and bought a half dozen for the next day's breakfast.

We took in the information about several different cakes and settled on a Lemon Ganache. It only made sense since we were celebrating Liam's yellow belt and the cake was yellow.

For dinner that evening, we each had a piece of cake. It was amazing and delicious. Not only did it have a butter cream filling but also lemon. I am not sure what they use to create the ganache on the outside but we deducted it was likely a white chocolate. OMG was it really good. What a great reason to buy and eat cake.

What a great couple of days! My sister, mom, Liam and another nephew Nick came to town to spend some time with me and the kids. Nick has been on a brief leave from the Army where he is stationed in Monterrey, CA. I have not seen him for a while so it was a real treat to have him spend time with us.

I decided that the best way to provide time for all the cousins to hang out with their age differences was to create opportunities for them to be together while at the same time let the "big" kids have time to do things they wanted to do that might not be appropriate for a nine year old.

One such activity was going to the new trampoline park in Fishers. Skyzone recently opened in town. My friend Katie shared the idea with me as her son has been a regular since it opened just a few weeks ago. What a really cool place to go and have fun. I went a few days earlier to buy the tickets to be sure we could get in. That turned out to be a good idea because they are very busy; partially because the place is new but also because all the local kids are on winter break.

Once we got in, we were hoping to leave the kids and go to the mall but Liam jammed his thumb playing dodge ball so we stayed to be sure everything was ok.

The place has several locations the kids could jump. There was a dodge ball area for bigger kids and one for little kids only. Liam wanted to play with the big kids as did some other boys. It was a lot more intense than the other game which is how Liam jammed his thumb. A ball came whizzing by and as he tried to catch it, it caught his thumb. He was not a happy camper and sat out for a bit. However, it was not long before he was back again and in the big kid game. 

There was an area with a large number of different sized trampolines all a part of the "floor". The kids tooks turns bouncing off the walls. Liz liked this area best because she could do flips. There was also a place that you bounced right into a foam pit. That was pretty funny because it was hard to get out.

Sarah, my mom and I did plenty of people watching. Jeeze you should have seen some of the outfits we saw there. I thought knee-hi socks with short shorts went out of style? There were also people of all ages. The people with the most interesting clothing styles were those waiting on their kids. There were a couple woman sitting waiting for their children up on the trampoline deck putting on make-up! These were grown women not teenaged girls. I figured if you were silly enough to do that in front of so many people than you get to have your picture on my blog. You can tell the Skyzone monitor found it a bit odd as well.

The last area was a place where you could jump and dunk a basketball. I don't remember seeing Mark or Nick try it. Liz and Liam however really need some practice. They sure looked silly and basically just tossed the ball while jumping rather than slam dunking.

We had a two hour pass which was long enough. Everyone was exhausted but had an outstanding time. We went home so the kids could shower and we ate lunch. I prepared several meals prior to my guests coming which turned out to be very convenient. It was not long after eating the big boys went off to skeet shoot.

My sister sets herself up to be my blogging subject. So she did not disappoint at Christmas.

She loves pandas so finding anything with a panda on it can be the perfect gift. My nephew likes penguins. Anything with penguins. That made things easy for his Christmas stocking as well. I once again am looking for some type of theme that I can live with. She decided on one for my stocking. "White Christmas"

This was a stretch. A real stretch. When she presented me with my stocking. This presentation started with a song that she made up to go along with "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". Along with the lyrics came some matching gifts. Sarah, stick to your day job :)

White Christmas Extraordinary Holiday Stocking

Gifts given in (). 

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas, Just in time to have a drink. (Got a bottle of wine)

Where the birds are flying. (Angry Birds pencil topper)

and you are lying to hear bubbles in the tube (this is how she spells tub) Gotta know her, she just cannot spell and obviously spellcheck does not always work. Love her! (Soap and bath sponge)

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas. With every cholocate that I lick. (white chocolate)

May your cakes be yummy and removable (not sure what that rhymes with)(spatulas)

And may all your pops have a stick! (cake pop sticks)

In addition to these goodies I did get a Baby Cakes machine. It makes cake pops without having to smash the cake with icing. I am thinking they will be a perfect treat for this week.

I am on vacation this week, taking some time off to prepare for my upcoming guests. In just a couple days I will get one young nephew, a grandmother, a middle aged sister and her husband, a soldier boy, 3 extra dogs, and friends from Michigan City all staying at our house. I can't wait, we will have a blast!

I work in a wonderful place. We work hard together but also take time out to enjoy and support each other. This month we had a breakfast to celebrate the first semester and the holidays.

I thought that being the newbie I would start a new contest. I asked my colleagues to wear an ugly sweater. Yah, I know that seems to be the in thing to do around the holidays but I wanted in on the fun and asked everyone to wear their favorite ugly sweater.

I have not laughed so hard in a really long time. Actually brought me to tears. One sweater looked like a poodle lost its life to be the accessory. Another as so small that it had to be stretched and pulled just to get on the guy. What was especially funny was he ironed on an image of another colleague and had a bag of fake hair we could glue on the head if we so chose to.

The weird thing about asking school-type people to wear an ugly sweater is that these are the kinds of sweaters that are still being worn in schools across America. Educators have a unique way of dressing, especially those that work with elementary students. What was ugly at the breakfast was likely to be in fashion back at the school. 

Fun was had by all and I look forward to this being a part of our annual event!

My new arrival is not going to be as exciting to all of you as it was for me and Mark today. We finally got our new gas range!

This has been a project we have been working on since summer. I was a bit distracted with getting school started and then with changing jobs. Fortunately Mark took the lead during the last month to see that this project was finished up and now done.

When we built the house in Fishers, I thought that I wanted a ceramic cooktop electric range. My thought was how much cleaner it looked and how much easier it was to keep clean. Well, that it is. Cleaner looking but quite honestly I have hated it since day one. I just have not been able to get use to the way it cooked and missed a flame. I have not been able to toast tortillas or scald butter. I cannot use iron skillets or griddles. When Mark started culinary school he too found that cooking on electric was just a pain.

We started to look at a new gas range. Went to several locations, did an internet search. Our favorite turned out to be the GE profile with the convection oven and the second lower oven. He was interested in an oven that would help proof his dough and he loved the automatic meat thermometer and the built in griddle. I wanted a gas range and decided I did like the convection feature. After looking around we decided on the stainless version. We liked it because it had a lot of black which would match our other appliances or if one day we updated to all stainless it would be fine too.

Late summer I pulled out the range and to my disappointment I found that we lacked a gas connection. I swore I had it put in as an extra because I was tentative about using electric. Nope. Needed to get a quote and get that installed. It cost twice as much as I expected but I am ok with that. Then, last weekend while looking at the online owner's manual it dawned on me that we also needed an electric outlet.

Mark's suggestion to handle the electric outlet was drill holes through the back of the cabinets to plug under the sink. I explained that was not going to happen so I sat at the kitchen table with my iPad searching for Indianapolis electricians when I came across Service Magic. It is an online resource to look for services.  Not 15 minutes later, I got a call, set up an appointment to get a quote on Monday and had the new outlet installed on Tuesday.

The next problem was dealing with the hilarious paint job. Check out the picture. When I pulled out the range, I noticed that instead of painting behind the range the painter went around the range. Needless to say, Wednesday we painting night.     

Here it is! I am so excited. Merry Christmas to myself! It was worth all the hassle. Check out the middle burner. It has a griddle to add so we are having pancakes this weekend! I love to cook but will love it even more now with my new range. Mark is just as excited. He already has plans for what he will be cooking. I think we are looking at every Thursday. So, mark you calendar and come on over for some of Mark's weekly homework. When you eat homework the calories should not count, right?

I have so much to be thankful for however I am most thankful for my awesome new job! I love it and the people I work with. I am back doing full time what I love the most, curriculum, curriculum, and curriculum. I am so lucky to go to work and love what I do. This month went by so fast as did all the weekends.

I decided to stay in Fishers for Thanksgiving. Mark had to work at 11:00 PM as Frye's was opening at midnight. John, Mark, and Liz all had to work on Friday. So me, well I relaxed and totally enjoyed my four day weekend. 

Thursday started with me watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in my jammies with a great cup of coffee. I really missed my sister though because we like to watch it together. That part was a bummer. Last year we texted back and forth that entire morning. I also spent the morning preparing dinner. I decided on a 20 lb turkey because I really wanted left overs.

With a culinary arts student in the house you would think I had little cooking to do but I gave him the day off since he had to work that night. I made my version of Mom's cranberries. They were good but her's are so much better. I think anything someone makes tastes better than my own. Made regular and sweet potatoes and of course green bean casserole.

Friday I was having a cleaning frenzy. Lots done including the carpets getting cleaned. I was not going to go out shopping on Black Friday with those crazy crowds looking and potentially buying things I really do not need or were not even on my list. So started with some jammie time, cleaning and a pedi. It was a treat since I was the only one home.

Saturday we drove to Michigan City for Levi's birthday party. He is one! That is always fun. He was not feeling well and turned out has an ear infection. It was great to see our friends from Michigan City and enjoy the day.

I actually went to work feeling very refreshed. I did have a hard time falling asleep Sunday night. That often occurs as I over sleep on long weekends and it messes my sleep pattern and I accumulate too much. Drats December is almost here and so will the snow.