Ground Control to Major Mom

My Very Own Little Tin Tin!

2012-01-17T20:39:00.001-06:00

I know, I've been pretty scarce. Sorry. I was in quite a funk the 1-2 weeks following Christmas. Then I spent last week in Nebraska doing some Air Force Reserve work.

Nothing in particular with the funk, I just didn't feel like writing.

I also have been pretty slow with the camera too, I've very few pictures to offer. I promise that will change next week!

So here's a story for you.

Just before I left for Nebraska two weekends ago, the family went to see The Adventures of Tintin. What a fantastic movie, by the way! Certainly isn't just for kids!

The CGI animation of Tintin reminded me SO MUCH of Timmy. I couldn't help myself...I had to make a comparison, so here it is! This is a picture of Timmy from our trip to the Santa train about 3 weeks ago.

And yes, as one could guess, Timmy wants to be Tintin for Halloween.

Star Wars Politics

2012-01-08T00:07:00.000-06:00

Because I haven't posted too much lately.

Clerks. This is one of my favorite movies. Actually, I enjoy all Kevin Smith films and Clerks. -- IMDB seems to think you need to include that period there -- was his first.

Much of the movie isn't for children, but this is a more family-friendly conversation that goes on about which Star Wars movie is better: The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. I love this scene. Geekiness at its best! What makes this scene even more awesome is the music that starts playing in the background. It's called "Chewbacca" by a band called Supernova.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year! It's Resolution Time....Again....

2012-01-02T15:06:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year everyone! Our family had a fun weekend celebrating with friends and some folks from Dave's squadron. One of his senior NCOs was promoted this week, so he had double reason to celebrate!

As usual, it's time for everyone to come forward with their resolutions.

"I will eat less and exercise more!"

"I will stop using foul language!"

"I will stop spoiling my children!"

I've tried 'em all. Yet here I am, seemingly no different at the end of the year than I was at the beginning. One of the very first posts on this particular blog was about the New Year's resolution. Why use January 1st as an excuse to institute change? If you want to change, just start changing, right?

This year, I resolve to better manage my time and stop wasting evenings. I have started vegging in front of the TV and computer more and more after the kids go to bed, when that ought to be more valuable time to get productive stuff done.

In 2008 I had started knitting and crocheting more after the kids went to bed, and since we moved to Florida I'd been doing less of it -- I think the warm weather has something to do with it, but it's now wintertime and I need to get going again. It's so much more productive than just staring at a screen all evening.

Who else made resolutions?

Happy Boxing Day! I KNOW You're Wondering....

2011-12-26T17:12:00.004-06:00

Fox hunting is now illegal in the UK, but Boxing Day is still the country's biggest hunting day, with the hounds searching for a "dragged scent" instead of a real animal.

Happy Boxing Day! I know for Americans, this is the day we get in lines to return gifts, and hit the mobs of shoppers grabbing wrapping paper, Christmas trees and strings of lights at at least 50% of off! The retail industry has even termed the day "Mega Monday". For most nations in the Commonwealth of Nations, the day AFTER Christmas is also a holiday: Boxing Day.

Have you ever wondered what exactly Boxing Day is? Is it a day where everyone watches boxing?

According to Wikipedia, the origins of Boxing Day seem to come from a tradition where wealthier citizens would give gifts -- boxed gifts -- to their servants or other trademen in service to them (such as their cobbler or ice delivery man) on the first weekday AFTER Christmas...this is when servants would usually get an extra day off, also.

Check out the Wiki for more information.

The Santa Train and Zoo Lights!

2011-12-26T10:18:00.000-06:00

We had a fun couple days sightseeing and enjoying some of the local holiday traditions. Dave's finally getting his "travel legs" back after his surgery and on Friday withstood about 4 hours in the car, to and from the Foley, Alabama area.

We live about 1 1/2 hours from the Wales West RV Park...and Tourist Railroad. Yes, if you can imagine the two businesses coexisting, that's what we have. It's tucked deep in a rural town in Alabama, east of Mobile....

Okay, an aside here: I'm not sure what you officially call that part of Alabama that's due west of the Florida Panhandle and has the Gulf of Mexico as its southern border. I always thought of it as a "stem". I did some cursory research and determined it could be either "South Alabama" or "Lower Alabama". Wikipedia didn't offer too much help.

...anyway, this RV Park offers Welsh Narrow Gauge train rides on weekends, and in December they had an adorable Santa Train experience.

After dark, the train takes riders throughout the extensive RV park, which is brilliantly lit up. You ride to the far eastern side of the park, where you're dropped off: Santa Claus is waiting for the kids in his "North Pole" workshop. The kids meet Santa, photographs are free, and Santa gives each child a wooden toy train to decorate in a craft section at the workshop. What a wonderful way to meet Santa!

After returning to the main train station on the west side of the RV park, the riders get cocoa, cookies and entertainment. There were a traveling petting zoo on hand, and a snack bar/gift shop area.

The facilities were well-kept and the holiday decorations were beautiful!

After the train, we headed over to Foley, AL to a touristy restaurant called Lambert's Cafe. They advertise that they're the "Home of Thrown [sic] Rolls"...and that's precisely what they do: fling the HUGE yeast rolls across the dining room to customers. The boys enjoyed catching them for us! Sadly, I tried and tried to get a picture of the young man just as the roll was leaving his hands.

The menu is "comfort food", like what you would expect at Cracker Barrel, and the portions were ENORMOUS! Dave and I should have share something!

The kid was too fast for me to catch the roll flying through the air.

Look at the size of these rolls! Still warm, too!

There's a paper towel with fried okra in front of me. Servers came around with "pass arounds" all throughout the meal.

On Saturday evening, after Christmas Eve church services, we headed to the Gulf Breeze Zoo for the "Zoo Lights" event. We had a nice time seeing the lights, and even got a sneak peek at many of the animals at night!

Unfortunately, I left the good camera at home and most of my iPhone pictures were pretty lousy. This one was nice, though. The kids were being silly in the foreground.

The Annual Holiday Open House...Cute Party Idea and Recipes to Share

2011-12-23T12:01:00.002-06:00

Why invest in those complicated key-ring-like wine charms when you might have a house full of THESE?

I'd heard about it from one of the GeekMoms. I can't remember whether it was on GeekMom itself, or one of the GeekMoms referencing another website with this idea.

I went through my kids' THOUSANDS of Silly Bandz and found some particularly fun ones that our guests would recognize. Spongebob and Phineas and Ferb bands made it into the batch, along with some sports-themed ones. Folks who had the wine got a laugh out of choosing what charm to put on their glasses from the 20-or-so I had set out.

Mr. Krabs from Spongebob.

Ferb from Phineas and Ferb.

Last night we had our annual holiday open house. We've tried to do this every year...this year we almost DIDN'T do it because of Dave's back surgery recovery. If you had asked in mid-November, the answer would have been a resounding NO. We didn't even decide to proceed with it till after Thanksgiving. So long as folks had about 2 weeks notice, right?

However, I think as time goes on over the years, planning for it gets easier and easier. I set out the cookies that I'd made this week, and set out two fondue pots: one with cheese and one with chocolate. Diced bread, fruits, veggies and pound cake all over.

I make something for my punchbowl each year too. Last year it was a festive rum punch that was too sweet, IMHO. This year I attempted homemade egg nog with spiced rum and I was impressed with the flavor and texture (and I was impressed with how quickly it was consumed). I made a double batch based on Alton Brown's recipe, except with Myer's Spiced Rum instead of the bourbon recommended in the recipe.

I messed up by not taking pictures of my pretty punchbowl filled with egg nog. So I found this picture to inspire you.

We also presented these incredible bacon-cream cheese wraps that we had tasted for the first time at someone else's holiday open house last year. I followed the recipe linked above, except I baked them at 375F instead of 350F. Wednesday night I hand-rolled 3 lbs. worth of bacon roll ups! Not to gross folks out, but the bacon grease gets into the bread some and then toasts the bread up really nicely. Yum! Seems like a rather campy, 1950s-esque hor d'oeuvre idea, but they disappeared very quickly!

My bacon-roll-ups looked like these. Photo by Janetishungry.blogspot.com.
http://janetishungry.blogspot.com/2008/11/bacon-and-cream-cheese-roll-ups.html

We had a nice time -- because it was rather close to the long holiday weekend, many of our friends were out of town, but that was okay. As usual, I made too much food, and I'm convinced we now have more wine and beer than we started with, thanks to our guests bringing so much! Thanks to everyone who could make it.

Holiday Piano Recital

2011-12-20T08:53:00.000-06:00

Our boys after last night's holiday piano recital. Their teacher is in the upper right...

Last night my boys had their holiday piano recital. In Nebraska Jacob only had one recital per year (May), but their teacher here in Florida puts on a nice holiday recital also. They will have a bigger one in May.

This time I brought a tripod to take the video, which helped things out in two ways:

The video isn't wobbly at all.
I could actually watch my sons play, instead of watching them through the viewfinder of the camera.

The boys' piano teacher likes to give a somewhat-elaborate introduction for each student, which I could cut from Timmy's but couldn't find a nice place to cut from Jacob's. Miss Ashley is saying some nice things about Jacob and his playing, but if you want to skip ahead (and believe me, I'm not offended, Jacob starts playing at about 1:00 into the video).

Timmy's "Jingle Bells"

Jacob's "Jingle Bell Rock"

Feels Like Just Six Months Ago I Was Doing This....

2011-12-18T22:14:00.000-06:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

‎"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

It came across my @BreakingNews Twitter feed this evening. Before CNN, before FoxNews...Yahoo news had apprently caught it from Yonhap News Agency.

I did get a grin out of Korea Central News Agency apparently reporting that their "Dear Leader" died of fatigue on a train. Um...okay!

Dave and I were in Seoul, S. Korea from May 1998 - June 2000 (me) and July 2000 (Dave). We had a great time there, but you couldn't get complacent...every 3-4 months some sort of dialogue or action would remind us that there was real evil less than 100 km away. We were in missile range if the poop really hit the fan.

So as I did for Bin Laden 6.5 months ago, I present to you my favorite song when an Axis of Evil leader passes away.

Squadron Christmas Party -- It's Fun to Play Dress Up

2011-12-10T11:31:00.001-06:00

It had been a very long time since Dave and I were able to dress up and go out without the kids. A couple years, I guess. Don't get me wrong, we go out occasionally, like to dinner or a movie, but of course we don't always dress up for those.

Last night we went to Dave's squadron's Christmas party and it was a very nice time. Those who planned the party did a wonderful job. Everyone seemed to leave having had a great time!

For the past couple tours, our holiday parties have been family events. That's fine. Last year's party here was family-friendly, and this year the squadron opted for a more formal event at a local golf club restaurant, complete with a cash bar, prime rib and grilled mahi!

I won't post ALL the pictures (remember, there was a cash bar), but here are a few. The pictures aren't in the right order because we combined pictures from two cameras and the times are off between the two.

There was a scavenger hunt. If there was a coupon taped to the bottom of your chair, you participated. I think they were sorry I was part of it once I clawed at a couple folks to get Dave's Christmas tie.

There was a donation/voting contest where the "winners" dressed in costume and sang a holiday song. Even though he didn't have to, one of our "winners" opted to remain in costume all evening.

Our MC, Todd VonAlmen. He did an outstanding job. Here he's reading the story for the gift exchange. Every time the participants heard key words, they had to pass the gifts, left, right, forward, etc. By the end, the folks only wanted the key words, we didn't really care about the story itself.

The scavenger hunt finalists.

Don is trying to pay off Glen to get out of wearing a costume. There were 5 minutes to pay out before the "winners" were announced.

Dave and Todd are giving the final remarks and are about to give away the big raffle prizes.

I tried to get a couple nice pictures of the whole room. This was tough -- I think our camera is done.

Cranberry Almond Biscotti: From 2008

2011-12-04T17:43:00.001-06:00

I made these last evening also. I didn't have enough almonds, but had plenty of almond extract so these taste SO GOOD this year!

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Cranberry Almond Biscotti. This is a recipe I've been making for over 10 years. This is one sophisticated cookie...cranberries are always so, well, holiday! What's cool is that the only fat in the cookie is in the eggs (well, the almonds, too, I guess)!!!! So that makes them as healthy as my Holiday Surprise Cookies, right???

So here we go...

The dough mixes up pretty straightforward in the stand mixer:

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

This dough will be sticky...be prepared to keep your hands floured for the next part:

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

Now, divide the dough into portions and pat it into logs of 2-3" width onto an ungreased cookie sheet, or, in my case, baking stone.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

You'll bake these in two shifts. The first shift is at 325, so don't expect the logs to be browned when they're done, just a little puffier.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

Remove these bars to a cooling rack. I use two spatulas, one on each end of the bar, to move them.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

After about 15-20 minutes of cooling, you will then cut the bars into 1/2 - 3/4" wide slices.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

Move the slices back to the baking stone, this is going to bake at a VERY low temperature, so don't be shy: pack 'em in!

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

These will bake at 300F for another 15-20 minutes, until super crispy-firm-dried-out. The way biscotti's supposed to be.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

Unfortunately, on this batch, there was leftover sugar on the baking stones from the Holiday Surprise cookies, so pardon the green sugar on the bottom.

From 2008 11 25 CranberryAlmondBiscotti

Happy Holiday Baking!

The Neiman Marcus Cookie: Legend Turned Family Tradition -- from 2008 Post

2011-12-03T10:47:00.001-06:00

Another post from 2008, and the next cookie recipe headed into in my stand mixer this afternoon. This isn't really a Christmas cookie, but it's among my most popular (after the Holiday Surprises).

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I'm not going to waste time going into the legend of the Neiman Marcus cookie. I will simply refer you here and you can read all about the legend. Whether it's true or not, every time I've made these cookies, they've been a huge hit and I'm always asked for the recipe. No problem! No big family secrets here!

Neiman Marcus itself has even embraced the legend and provides a manageable sized recipe also.

For the photos here, I'm making a 1/2 recipe from the version on the Snopes page. I did a full recipe on 11/22, and it filled the bowl to the brim when I added the chocolate chips and nuts to the mixer.

First you cream the butter and white/brown sugar. I'm very particular about this -- I set the mixer on medium and let 'er rip for about 3-5 minutes until it's fluffy.

Then I add the remaining wet ingredients: eggs & vanilla. Beat it to a pulp for another couple minutes.

Then start adding the dry ingredients. Alton Brown and folks like that will tell you to sift all the dry ingredients together: all-purpose flour, blended oatmeal, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Then add it slowly as the mixer is running on low. I don't do that...call me lazy. AB, I love you to death, but I just want my cookies! I add the dry goods directly to the mixer one ingredient at a time.

From 2008 11 25 NeimanMarcusCookies

Once the dough is all together, slowly add the grated Hershey's bar (I ground up leftover Hershey's Kisses from my Holiday Surprise cookies - refrigerate the chocolate for about an hour and then run it through the food processor), chocolate chips and nuts. You'll want the mixer on the slowest setting possible, or you can even hand-mix it. The dough will be VERY thick, and my mixer actually struggles quite a bit on the full recipe once all the ingredients are added.

From 2008 11 25 NeimanMarcusCookies

Now you simply roll the dough into 1 - 1 1/2" balls and pop them onto your handy-dandy cookie sheet or baking stone.

From 2008 11 25 NeimanMarcusCookies

A closeup of a finished cookie for your enjoyment:

From 2008 11 25 NeimanMarcusCookies

I'll tell you what, you do this recipe right, and you'll have mostly chocolate and nuts in each cookie, hopefully you see it in this shot:

From 2008 11 25 NeimanMarcusCookies

Holiday Surprise Cookies: Revisit of 2008 Post

2011-11-30T08:20:00.001-06:00

Instead of recreating a blog post about one of our favorite cookie recipes, I've "repurposed" my November 2008 post. Many of the commercial links from 2008 had to be changed, so I've updated the links to the recipe, some of the ingredients I like and the cookie-making equipment I recommend.

Similar to 2008, this will be the first cookies we make for the season, and I the kids once again have to deal with unwrapping about 150 Hershey Kisses.

What I will do differently this year is bake and store the cookies in batches according to the filling. In years past I've jumbled everything together: Timmy doesn't like milk chocolate, Jacob doesn't like dark chocolate!

Enjoy!

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The first batch of cookies: Holiday Surprise Cookies, courtesy of the Quaker Oats company. Hit the hyperlink to go to the recipe straight from the horse's, er, Quaker's, mouth.

I gave Dave the camera tonight and asked him to document our experience so I'd have some nice pictures with which to blog. He told me, "Okay, I'm going to be like Maryann!". He did a great job, he took almost all the photos...

So, to start, we have to come up with a filling...this is the "surprise" in the cookie. In years past, we'd used Wilbur Buds, a Lancaster County, PA staple. In fact, the first time I made this recipe was to keep Dave and me from eating an entire bag of Wilbur Buds we'd gotten for Christmas in one sitting, I think. It was either 1999 or 2000...I can't remember. The beauty of Wilbur Buds is (a) you can buy a combo pack of milk AND dark chocolate together and (b) the buds aren't indivually wrapped.

If I'd had the foresight to order the Wilbur Buds ahead of time I would have. But it was much easier to pick up some assorted flavored Hershey's Kisses from my local mega mart. As can be seen in this photo, we had a lot of unwrapping to do.

From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies

As the boys were unwrapping about 100 Kisses, in 3 flavors shown here, I was preparing the dough. It's essentially a sugar cookie dough replacing about 40% of the flour with oatmeal.

From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies

Look at those oats -- your cholesterol is lowering just looking at it, right? Don't worry...won't happen: there's 2 sticks of butter in the basic recipe...and I doubled it tonight!

Once the chocolates were unwrapped and the dough was ready, I set up the assembly line in the dining room. The boys were great -- Jake stuffed the chocolate in the dough, and Timmy rolled the little ball of dough in the colored sugar and placed the ready-to-bake cookie on the baking stone. My job was quality control -- I pre-measured wads of dough for Jake to stuff so they'd be uniform in side, and I made sure the cookies were properly spaced on the stone.

From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies

Does that look holiday or what?

From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies

We tested the cookies, of course, and everyone in the Vollmer clan gave them a thumbs up!

Pumpkin "Style" Pie? What WILL They Think of Next?

2011-11-29T20:06:00.001-06:00

Took this picture yesterday at the Commissary. I'll let the picture speak for itself. The subtitle below says "Creamy taste and texture of pumpkin pie flavored with natural cinnamon & ginger".

I don't know what to say about this pie-ish product. Many times you guys have known me to whine about processed foods. That's not to say I keep my house free of them. Depending on how busy our lives are, I've been known to stash a tray of frozen chicken enchiladas in the freezer or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in the pantry.

You've also known me to buy some of these crazier foods and do taste tests with my kids comparing it to a homemade version.

But I couldn't bring myself to buy this. Heck, I'm even somewhat uncomfortable buying canned pumpkin for pie, although according to the can there's nothing in the can except pumpkin, right? Mashed steamed pumpkin makes the pie SO good!

That's all I have to say 'bout that...

Dave goes back to work tomorrow. He's in really good shape to return and is ready to get back to society. Not 100% pain free, but most of his day he's pretty comfortable. He's tapered off his meds enough that I think he'll be okay, so long as he takes it easy physically. I think mentally he's definitely good to go for returning to work!

And then I can get my house back! And clean things up some! It's been utter chaos...Dave has traditionally helped with SOME of the housework -- whether it's folding laundry or washing dishes a few times per week. I've been able to keep the house clean...i.e., free of dirt, but it's been cluttery beyond even MY personal standards!

Also, tomorrow's the last day of NaBloPoMo. I didn't succeed in the full challenge, but I am proud for having blogged every day in the month of November so far, except for the 20th. Where I simply had a brain fart, I guess.

Later this week I'll be dusting off my holiday cookie posts from years past. I make a couple of fun, unique cookie recipes, along with the classic sugar cookies and spritz cookies. I'll just re-boot the older posts. I don't plan to change anything this year, I promise!

A Quick Holiday Craft Idea

2011-11-28T19:49:00.001-06:00

I've been contemplating holiday crafts for Dave's squadron's Christmas party. I'm helping to set it up.

(Oops, did I say "Christmas?" I mean, um, "Holiday".)

I recalled doing God's Eyes in Girl Scouts and Sunday school when I was growing up. With all these remnants of yarn hanging around from my HAP afghan rectangles, and a huge box of popsicle sticks in my craft drawer, this was an easy one for my kids!

With standard craft popsicle sticks, these are perfect size for the Christmas tree!

If you don't have popsicle sticks on hand, just march out to the backyard and pick up two sticks!

It's fun to see my kids grow in dexterity and pick up on more difficult crafts!

The kids "tested" out this craft with some multi-colored yarn, but I have a bunch of holiday colors for the party.

Timmy's alway been my "craft" kid, and he did most of one of these with a smile!

This one is Jacob's completed God's eye. Hanging on the tree!

Because I Got a Bit Busy Today...A Review of Disney Universe for Wii

2011-11-27T22:18:00.001-06:00

Disney Universe for Wii retails for $45-50. Click this link to go straight to Amazon's listing.

At the last minute, I decided to stamp/crop our family Christmas cards this year.

I'm tapping into a lot of the materials I have on hand to save a little money, and I used the Splitcoaststampers website gallery to search for design ideas for the Stampin' Up sets I have on hand. All I had to buy was some gold ribbon, clear envelopes and a gold pigment ink pad.

I guess I'll need stamps, too.

Because I got a bit busy with the cards, for today's daily post I'm just going to direct you to the Disney Universe for Wii video game review I did for GeekMom.com a week ago. I was so pleased that the review got picked up by the BlogHer network for further sharing. The week it was released, I wrote to Disney Interactive for a "review copy" of the game and I received one 5 days later! Wow!

To summarize, the kids love the game, and I was a bit surprised at how twisted it is, considering it's Disney. It's clear Disney was trying to replicate the incredibly popular LEGO video game style made popular by Travelers Tales games.

This week I'll be working on another free-game we received for review: Cabela's Adventure Camp for Wii. I'm kinda liking this GeekMom gig :-)

Holiday Lights!

2011-11-26T23:10:00.001-06:00

Today the family more or less was lazy around the house, every once in a while working on the holiday decorations. I whipped together three recipes of sugar cookie dough for this coming week, and we finished decorating both Christmas trees.

This year, for the first time, we put up two Christmas trees. We started to run out of room on the one tree we'd had for years with the kids' craft ornaments. Yes, how "first world problem" of us, right?

But since this house had the space, and last year right after Christmas we could get a 6 1/2' pre-lit tree for about $10, we decided to give the kids a tree of their own.

Jacob chose the garland, star on top AND the bow on top!

If you look between the two tail pieces of the big bow at the top of the kids' tree, you'll see my new Pensacola Beach sign ornament, courtesy of my thoughtful husband. He knows how much I love this sign!!! This ornament connects to the light string and blinks similarly to the real thing. The connection is compatible with the boys' new little tree, not the grown up tree, unfortunately.

The "grown up" tree!

This afternoon we put up the outdoor lights. And by "we", this year it had to be "me". Dave was considering just wrapping the lights around our small bushes, but I really really like lights on the house, so I offered to do it this year. There was no way Dave should have been doing this stuff!

I've been on roofs of two-story houses, no problem. But for some reason, on this one-story house, I got myself in an awkward place when I first tried to climb up to the crevice between the upper and lower roofs on the left side. Then I freaked out and had to come down for a little bit. I hadn't had fear like that in a really long time. Strange...

I counted to 10 a few times, got a hug from Timmy, and went back to work. I only actually had to be on the roof for the two transitions between the upper and lower roofs, but the rest of the time I was on assorted ladders underneath the soffit tucking the light's wires up into part of the soffit moulding.

Here's this year's finished product, courtesy of Dave's iPhone camera that worked better in the sunset than mine. You can see the boys' Christmas tree in the window just left of the front door.

Black Friday...Laid Back Style

2011-11-25T19:18:00.001-06:00

Happy Black Friday friends!

I occasionally have done the first-thing-in-the-morning thing on Black Friday. Of course, that was back when Black Friday had a morning to it. Now it's more of a Black Thursday Night, since that's when you have to get going to make it to the stores for the "doorbusters". I'm too old, too busy, and too fond of my sleep to go any earlier than about 5am.

It's fun when you're with a friend and you can just chat it up while waiting in the long lines.

But this year, with much of the shopping about 30 minutes away, and the beginning of the Best Buy and Kohl's sales were too early, I decided to do Black Friday on MY time this year.

After lunchtime, Jacob and I went out and spent an insane amount of money. Jacob had some more of his birthday gift cards to spend, and I'm so proud of how he got the Electronic Monopoly at the Black Friday price (under $20) with his $20 gift card! He also chose some Pokemon cards and the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid DVD.

There were no crowds to speak of this afternoon, which was great! You could see the remnants of the mobs from this morning at Walmart and Old Navy, but there was plenty of whatever we were looking for.

I misbehaved the most at the Hallmark Store. I have quite the collection of singing snowmen (called the "Jingle Pals"), and today I got the 2011 version. I didn't get the 2010 version (I couldn't find it in this area last year), but maybe I should find one at eBay or something. I marched right into the store with my arsenal of extra Gold Crown points coupons, 20% coupon and reward dollars.

Jacob saw ads for Hallmark's "Jingle the Husky Dog" and begged and begged for one. Jacob has such a soft spot for Siberian huskies, so I gave in. We got the stuffed dog home just in time for the companion TV show tonight on the Hallmark Channel. If you turned on the dog and sat him near the TV speakers, he'd react to some of the lines of the show (same as the book he came with).

While Jacob and I were out, Dave and Timmy worked with some of the holiday decorations at the house. The boys have been a great help so far this year (knock wood!).

Happy Thanksgiving: A Pecan Pie to Peruse

2011-11-24T22:13:00.001-06:00

Pecan pie anyone? This one is extra special!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today the family headed over to the Yurack Family's house. Jim and Amy are friends from my dorm at Penn State way back when. Amy lived across the hall my freshman year! 20 years ago! The Yuracks have three kids, and let me tell you, when our two boys get together with the Yurack kids, happiness seems to abound. They really do get along well, it's nice to see the kids play good old fashioned games like hide and seek and tag.

Amy's family enjoys a gluten-free and dairy-free diet, so when we accepted her invitation to join her and her extended family for Thanksgiving, she and I discussed some gluten-free variations on classic Thanksgiving dishes.

If you think about it, you can get away with quite a bit of the Thanksgiving dinner WITHOUT gluten or dairy, right? Turkey, check. Cranberry sauce, check. Sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes, can be check if you easily substitute soy milk or non-dairy creamer. Amy made GF cornbread from scratch, which she made into the dressing, check! Easy easy!

Cooks all over have experimented and perfected other GF and dairy-free variations on Thanksgiving classics, such as this version of green bean casserole that sounds really yummy!

So I offered to try out a gluten-free/dairy free pecan pie.

Geeky fact: Did you know the pecan pie is one of a culinary class of pies called chess pies? A Lancaster County, PA classic, the shoo-fly pie, also falls into this class. So does the Derby pie.

It was very yummy! The crust is to DIE FOR! BUT:

I wish I made more than the basic recipe for the crust.
I wish I used more pecans so they didn't all float to the top.
I wish I had taken the pie out of the oven sooner.

I should have taken it from the oven about 10 minutes sooner. However, the critical flavors were exactly as they should have been: pie crust, pecans and syrup-y tastes abounded!

I'll walk you through the steps...

First, the pie crust. I had some Gluten-Free Bisquick on hand, and a simple Google search yielded an easy recipe (I only used the crust part of this recipe). I pulsed the GF Bisquick with Earth Balance (Gluten free) Buttery Spread and ice water in the Cuisinart. Lard or shortening would work for the fat, too. Ball it up in a zip-top bag and chill for 3+ hours.

Here is the cast of characters for the filling. This is from a basic pecan pie recipe on the Karo syrup label. I used the Earth Balance spread in place of the butter. Otherwise, everything else is the same.

The recipe doesn't specify one way or the other, so I chop 1/2 of the pecans and leave the other half of them whole....well, halves...you know what I mean!

As for the crust, I had to work VERY carefully to keep it together, I might have needed more water to hold it together, so I used the zip-top bag to keep pressing it together while I rolled it out.

I cut open the bag, peeled back the top of the plastic, and then flipped it into the pie pan.

Like so!

I think I needed more crust. I did the best I could to press the crust up the sides the best I could.

Whisk together the filling ingredients (except for the pecans).

Toss the pecans into the crust and pour the filling on top. But I noticed a couple things when I did this. (1) These pecans floated to the top and (2) I wish I had more crust.

It baked up really nicely in the oven! Smelled SO GOOD!

The verdict? The crust was WONDERFUL! Think about it -- no gluten means the crust has no choice but to be flaky, right? I just wish I made more. As for the filling, those pecans really truly did float to the top and the rest of the filling baked into a cakey-textured filling. It was tasty, but I wish I had more pecans, more crust, and had taken the pie out of the oven about 10 minutes sooner.

The Sweet Potato Casserole....

2011-11-23T22:35:00.001-06:00

Let me start with a Dave Update: Dave's days are doing pretty well. He's in a bit of a conundrum because as his leg muscles tighten up overnight, he awakens every morning with VERY uncomfortable leg and glute pains. Within a few minutes of awakening, he's much improved. But he says that the morning pains are pretty bad. He keeps meeting more and more people who have had variations on the spinal fusion he's had and they all assure him that by 6 months he'll "feel like a new man" or he'll "feel like a million bucks" or he "won't believe how much better things will be". My fingers are crossed!

As I'd mentioned in yesterday's post, I made the sweet potato casserole I'd referenced. This ended up being a very yummy, but plain, sweet potato casserole. I made the recipe with six pounds of sweet potatoes and it filled up a disposable paper baking dish amply for Dave's squadron Thanksgiving pot luck today.

I diced and steamed the tubers last night and mashed them ahead of time. The steaming technique is faster than baking; I learned about this from Alton Brown's sweet potato episode of Good Eats. This morning, I just stuck everything in the stand mixer and let 'er rip with the other ingredients.

It was then that I noticed that this recipe didn't have any cinnamon or cloves. This was a first for the few times I've made sweet potato casserole, but it turned out really good just the same. I guess it's more child-friendly that way?

Tomorrow we'll be spending Thanksgiving with a family who lives near Eglin Air Force Base, right up the road from us. We all lived in Irvin Hall at Penn State back in the day. And now we're practically neighbors! Hubby's in Afghanistan for the holidays, and wifey has a house full of relatives visiting and she's doing a classic Thanksgiving get-together tomorrow. The kids are looking forward to seeing each other, and Jacob has asked to bring his new Apples to Apples game to play. I offered to bring several vegetable dishes and a pecan pie. I'll write about the pie tomorrow -- it's special and I don't want to write about it until I can offer the thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict.

The paper baking pans are great! These are by Hefty.

I know not everyone likes it this way, but I like the mini-marshmallows on top. Because there simply isn't enough sugar in this recipe, right?

There were two casseroles at the pot luck and this was all that was left of either of them after about 50 people went through the line.

Sweet Potatoes -- Veggie or Not Veggie? Take My Poll!

2011-11-22T19:52:00.001-06:00

I recently fell in love with sweet potatoes. I wrote about it in 2009.

Incidentally, Dave had a similar epiphany in 1997 with onions. He went from hating them to loving them. I tolerate them, but certainly don't love them. He doesn't love sweet potatoes, so I guess we're even.

Anyway, since there's no point in my making sweet potatoes for holiday meals at home, I often take advantage of pot lucks to make it! No pictures of my own recipes this time around (I'm actually making it tomorrow morning), but I wanted to share the classic recipe I plan to be using for Dave's squadron Thanksgiving pot luck tomorrow. Except no cornflake/pecan topping, just lots and lots of marshmallow. Because I like it that way. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Stay tuned as I start sharing this year's suite of holiday cookies that we'll be making starting this weekend. I can't wait!

So please complete the poll in the upper right corner of the main blog page.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit...

2011-11-21T20:37:00.001-06:00

It's been hard this year. The media has been inundating us with holiday-related retail commercials and the radio stations are already playing Christmas music. I guess it started the same week as Halloween, which seemed pretty crazy to me. Has it always been this early?

Don't get me wrong...my family and I LOVE Christmas, we have a wonderful time discussing the story of Jesus' birth, and celebrating the many holiday traditions we have.

However, we Vollmers have a strict policy: no holiday decorations until Thanksgiving Day. No big holiday shopping till after Thanksgiving. Really, all we do on Thanksgiving Day itself is drag the dozen-or-so plastic Rubbermaid bins from the shed, and we use the rest of the weekend to break out everything and get it displayed: tree(s), lights, etc.

Later this week I will start planning my cookie baking, gift shopping and Christmas card designs.

But today we couldn't help ourselves. I picked up two Wilton Pre-Baked Gingerbread House Kits from A.C. Moore after the holidays last year (2 for $5? I think) and we broke out one of them this afternoon. Timmy chose the design on the box to copy and we went to work. I remained in charge of the icing (could you imagine Timmy with the icing????) and Timmy placed the candies.

Jacob was our photographer today. Enjoy!

NaBloPoMo FAIL

2011-11-21T09:19:00.001-06:00

Why I FAILED to post yesterday, and thus FAILED at the NaBloPoMo contest for this year.

1.) I was playing Glitch quite a bit on Sunday. I was trying to earn enough money for a super-big new house and that took about 3 hours of my day.

2.) I was busy with Cub Scouts. Timmy's den took a hike at the Naval Live Oaks nature area and then I spent some time catching up with planning afterwards. Here's a picture to enjoy!

After our hike we did leaf rubbings with discussed the kinds of trees we saw.

3.) Dave's parents took us to a nice dinner at one of the family's favorite restaurants, Mandarin Moon, in Gulf Breeze.

4.) I have a lot of TV to watch on Sunday nights! Amazing Race, Dexter, and Boardwalk Empire are all on! Typically I do my blogging during TV time in the evenings, but last night I think I was vegging more than usual.

5.) I just plain forgot. It had crossed my mind to write more about the Naval Live Oaks hiking, but simply didn't get to it. I might still later today, I have some nice pictures from other times we'd been there, yesterday I only got a couple pictures.

Apples to Apples -- What Fun!

2011-11-19T22:13:00.001-06:00

Jacob received several gift cards for his birthday. Unfortunately, things were so hectic after his birthday, between my two reserve tours and then Dave's surgery, we sorta forgot about them.

With Grammy and Grampy Vollmer visiting, we made a trip to Pensacola today so Jacob could visit Toys R Us and spend his gift card. Jacob immediately chose the game Apples to Apples Junior and I am so happy about this choice. He said they play it at school and he really enjoys it.

Tonight we played and it was SO MUCH FUN! The winner is supposed to have won the round 5 times, but we just played still we didn't feel like it anymore, so the winner had won 23 times. Dave and I had played the grown-up version with friends in Nebraska and this version is tailored to 9-12 year olds. There's still some GREAT humor in the game even for this age group.

Over the past few months, Jacob and Timmy have been really getting good about playing card games, board games, and even chess together! They typically will last a good 30 minutes before one of them either gets bored or else doesn't get his way and stomps away mad. I'll take 30 minutes!

Hurlburt Spouses' Club Charity Auction

2011-11-18T23:04:00.001-06:00

I just got home from the Hurlburt Spouses' Club Charity Auction. This year was the 25th year of the auction. The auction is the year's biggest fundraiser for the organization's scholarship fund.

Being that this was my first HSC auction experience, I didn't really know what to expect. All the ladies said "It's a really great time!" and they were right! I saw dozens of planning e-mails (I'm on the Spouses' Club board and I was privy to a lot of the planning information, although I wasn't on the committee this year) and heard dozens of stories of everything that goes into a successful auction. It was amazing seeing it all come together for a very successful evening.

A sampling of the items offered for auction. The framed items on the table are tickets to attractions (such as Disney World), a pair of plane tickets for any day/anywhere in the U.S. on Southwest Airlines, and several weekend getaways at area golf resorts and casino hotels.

Dave's Mom joined me tonight and she and I had so much fun! Seeing the team spirit at many of the tables and the crazy antics during some of the more creative auction items was great! (Such as the auction for the Wing Commander's family cooking dinner for the highest bidder -- which he then converted into TWO dinners and he turned one $500 bid into TWO $500 bids in an instant.) Above all, the generosity was phenomenal!

One of the part of the event is the "Decadent Dessert" auction. About 15 of the items are auctioned off early on in the program. The winner has the option to serve up the dessert right there at their table. Out of over 50 desserts, I was thrilled that my cake was one of the ones to be offered up for the tables.

Two boxes of Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate cake mix. The icing? Are you ready for this? Whisk 12 oz. of heavy cream with 12 oz. of semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler. After it's smooth, stir in 3 Tbsp. of Kahlua coffee liqueur.

I was tickled to see some of the first desserts bring well over $100! They were definitely worth it! The cake I made brought in $50 for the scholarship fund, but I will say that my cake plate was one of the less-elaborate ones. Many got into bidding wars just for the pretty holiday platters that some of the cakes were on.

Even though I had my heart set on only one thing -- a Keurig Elite coffee maker, which I won, yay -- it was thrilling to see the bidding wars on many of the bigger-ticket items: over $600 for a Gibson acoustic guitar signed by the members of Sugarland!

I'm looking forward to hearing how much money was earned for the scholarship fund, and I know the spouses are incredibly grateful for the donations from around the community -- actually, from around the country! My hats off to the ladies of the club who worked so hard to make this evening a success! I become more involved in the spring for our 2nd largest fundraiser: The Golf Scramble, which is scheduled in mid-April 2012!

A hand-knit American flag afghan, knit by a member of the Hurlburt community. The stars were hand-crocheted also.

A full house -- nearly 200 people present!

A Cool Find at Our Local Commissary

2011-11-17T22:49:00.001-06:00

Today Dave's parents came into town. I had to drive out to Panama City Beach to their relatively new airport to pick them up. It was a nice drive, about 90 minutes. Once you get east of the congestion in Destin, the highway really opens up and it's a very low stress drive the rest of the way.

We're looking forward to a nice weekend with Dave's parents.

Dave continues to improve daily. Today he took his first drive in over 2 weeks, just heading over to Jacob's school for a Thanksgiving lunch. 5 minutes.

I wanted to share this cool find from my visit to the Hurlburt Field Commissary last Tuesday. Apparently these retail for $25 or so, but I could have bought these for about $20. This set was released this past September with much fanfare among Pez collectors. Note the shorter Hobbit and Dwarf and Gollum dispensers!

I didn't buy it, but I might!

How many of you remember my Pez Peeve? It was one of my very first blog posts!