Drum Roll Please.....

Introducing:

Baby Gerow: affectionately know as Cletus the Fetus.

Arriving sometime on or around May 9, 2010!

Bikes and Mini Golf and Pasta

teaser: we've got a super-duper post coming up, so be ready!

So Daniel and I took our "new" bikes out for the first time on Saturday. Let's just say that I'm now more worried about the bike portion of the triathlon than the swimming. We took on a monster hill and I thought my lungs would quit on me. It was tough! We didn't go very far, but then we also did some running and some swimming. That's the first time we've done all three in one day. Overall I think it went better than I expected though.

Saturday was such a beautiful fall day (it felt more June than October) that we decided to go minature golfing and we invited Jared and Khristen to come along. It was great fun. Here are some shots of the pro-putters (I thought I had taken more pictures -guess not).

And to finish off the night, a new recipe - and once again I forgot to take a picture until the meal had been devoured. We had Spinach Ziti for dinner tonight. I was a little worried because my last couple attempts at cooking something new kind of fell flat, but this one turned out to be a winner. It was very easy and pretty healthy. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and tweaked it a little, of course. I used frozen spinach (from our garden) instead of fresh and doubled the cream cheese (used light) and we didn't have nutmeg so I just added some other herbs to the tomatoes (basil, oregano, garlic powder and fennel seed). It was quite tasty!

Harvest Time

Last week we went to the garden. It was kind of sad - it wasn't as lush and green as it was the last time we saw it. The corn was all chopped down, the plants and vines were all turning yellow and brown. Those darned cucumbers were still growing!!! But we were there to finish the harvest -almost. We picked about a dozen butternut squash and pie pumpkins. Then we turned over some of the sweet potato vines to see if they had produced anything. Sure enough there were potatoes down there. It was too late in the day to dig them out, but we at least had peace of mind knowing there was something there to actually dig out.

Today (Monday) I turned one of these beautiful gourds into Curried Squash Soup. It was -interesting. I forgot to take a picture, but just imagine what baby food looks like.

I used this recipe from Pillsbury.com. It was very easy to make (aside from cutting up the squash) and had relatively few ingredients that were easy to find.

But, it wasn't fantastic. It was one of those foods where during the first couple bites you're thinking 'hey, this is pretty good.' Then during the next several bites your enthusiasm wanes. Finally you can't bring yourself to even finish the last little bit that's in your bowl.

I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out really thick - like pumpkin pie filling. I would definitely recommend this as a first course or as an accompaniment to a main dish. It doesn't hold it's own as a main dish. Small portions are best.

Daniel suggested that maybe it would have been better had we not pureed it and left it chunky and more soupy. Oh well, I'm glad we tried it. Now for a new, better butternut squash recipe...if you have any tried and true please pass them on. We've definitely got more squash.

Relaxing Weekend

We have enjoyed a nice weekend of sleeping in and watching a great General Conference. There's nothing much else to note other than Daniel finally bought a bike yesterday. We have just over a month before the triathalon and I'm getting a little nervous. My training hasn't been going nearly as well as I had hoped, but it's still ok if I come in last place right?

Cobbler - not just a shoe maker

We made some cobbler for a function the other night and got compliments on it so I thought I would post the recipe. The base recipe I got from allrecipes.com, but I tweaked it a bit.

1 (29 oz) Can sliced peaches
1 (29 oz) Can sliced pears
1 egg
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart baking dish. (I actually forgot this step and it turned out fine)(oh, and I used a 9x13 glass dish which worked just fine as well). Drain the peaches and pears and arrange the fruit in the prepared baking dish.

In a medium bowl, beat egg, sugar, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon (I also added a dash of allspice because I didn't have any nutmeg); stir into the egg mixture. Stir in vanilla and melted butter. Cover the fruit with the batter mixture.

Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven. Cobbler should be bubbly and lightly browned. Serve warm with vanilla icecream.

Birthday Surprise

Friday was my 28th birthday. I can't believe how old that looks on paper - so close to 30. When I got to work this is what my desk looked like.

The theme was "Creepy Crawlers" because I'm always bringing in pictures of the bugs we find in our apartment to show my co-workers. The decorations were topped off with this super-huge hairy arachnid perched atop my computer - ewww!

Later that night just as Daniel and I were finishing dinner, his brother Mat called and said that his parents had a gift they wanted to give to me that night, so we headed on over.

But when we walked in I was greated by about 2 dozen friends and family all waiting to surprise me! Sneaky Daniel and been planning a surprise party for weeks! He did a great job of keeping it secret and pulled it off beautifully. It was so much fun to see so many people there - family, co-workers, old roommates and even mission buddies.

He even made and decorated a special cake for me! Do I have the best husband or what!?!?

Here I am blowing out the candles.

And speaking of creepy crawlers, here is the latest find from our apartment - gross!

Lately

After a two week break from school Daniel started fall semester on the 31st. But it's the beginning of the end - this is his last year!!!

We officially accepted a job offer with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston for next fall.

I have been all work, work, work and trying to keep my food down. (Thanks Maria for passing it on!)

We raided the garden last week of all the cucumbers, corn, peppers, onion and tomatoes. On Wednesday I played hooky from work and mom Gerow and I canned some salsa.

Today I made some really good food. Daniel said "these are the best pork chops I've ever had!" Yay me! I made spanish rice and pork chops in the slow cooker - tasty!

Last weekend we went down to Arizona for my nephew's baby blessing. My sister Amber had a bouncing baby boy - Spencer Kirk Lundell - on August 18th. Here are some photos from that trip:

This is my favorite picture - Spencer in his cute (and way oversized) cowboy bib.
How cute is that!

Baby Spencer in his cute blessing outfit.

The proud Lundell Family.

Here's the gang. Jared, Khristen, Emily, Daniel, Erma, Spencer, Amber, Stephen, Adam and Corrin. (Mom's taking the picture).