Black Saturday

Black Saturday is the last home game of the season here at Appalachian State. It is "Senior Day" and a big deal for all the graduating seniors. We got tickets for the grass under the video board. One advantage to having a field stuck in the side of a mountain is that sitting on the hill meant we got pretty decent seats. It was kind of difficult getting up and down or finding a flat place to put a drink. It was kind of cool, and as night closed in it got pretty chilly. The game was good. Not our usual OU standard of play, but still a decent game. ASU ended up winning 33-28, mainly because of the 4 field goals that were kicked.

The past few weeks have been fairly busy around here. After Sandy came through (we just got snow for 3 days straight) and the Nor'easter Pete (another 2 days of snow) this weekend has been beautiful. We got to test the new car in the snow and it does wonderfully. Chris had to shovel in and out of the drive in the Focus while I just zipped in, just for a comparison.

I've also managed to get a fair amount of quilting done. I really like this top and hope that the little girl it is going to likes it just as much. I've had quite the time with the corners and things measuring out right, as you can tell by this picture. The skulls have pink hairbows, as you can see in a few different places.

A has decided that "No No No" is her favorite word/phrase. She especially says it when we go to change her diapers. She wants to go on the toilet, and has managed to a few times, but not with enough consistency for us to feel confident letting her run around in underwear. Maybe some training pants are in our future...

She is also really liking to dress herself. If she says, "No" to something we will let her pick something else out, and normally that is a good compromise. We really do try and allow her to tell us, "No," provided it isn't something major. We also have a Tennessee Smokey Dog that is her favorite. Now if one of our wonderful OK family could get us a similar Boomer then we'd be in business. Smokey goes everywhere and does most everything with A. Here was one of her more entertaining outfits this week -- a pink crinoline skirt, with a skater type tee and her blue fleece hat that occasionally she let stay on longer than thirty seconds.

I hope you all have had a good couple of weeks!

Wow, more to come

Hurricane Claims Famous Tall Ship Off NC Coast

Bracing for Franken-storm

Well, we are due to get a lot of rain and snow this week. Hurricane Sandy is going to give us bad winds and there is apparently a massive cold front coming through. They are supposed to collide somewhere around us and give us an interesting week. We have wind advisories and winter weather advisories already for Monday through Wednesday. We will see how well everything goes with this commuting thing. Since all this collision is supposed to happen between now and Halloween, the experts have dubbed it "Frankenstorm" and that seems to be a good name for it.

This week A starts at a new daycare. It is a lot closer to work and seems to be a better place. Hopefully she will fit in well and not take any of her bad habits from the old daycare with her. We will see how she does. It also will adjust my schedule a bit as the daycare closes at 5. (Who ever heard of that?!) I will be working 730-430 now, so hopefully it goes well.


In our efforts to brace for this wonderful storm, Chris's father and step mother are here. They came for the weekend and it has been nice having them. On Friday they took A around lunch time, had lunch with Chris, and then hung out for the afternoon. Yesterday we went trick-or-treating at Grandfather Mountain. They had different keepers dressed up as animals, and A went as a butterfly. We didn't really get any good pictures of her since she was shy around the keepers. We went across the bridge though and A loved that. She walked across (again) and was trying to play around on it.

Here are a few pictures that my father-in-law took at the mountain. The animals were out and having a grand time in the pretty weather. It was overcast and dark clouds were definitely coming in, but it was warm.

Who knew bear tongues were so long?

We will see how this week goes and how our new car does in the bad weather. This past week it did well in the beautiful weather. We all like our new car, A especially. I hope all is well with you and that you have a safe and happy Halloween.

Shoes!!

Well A's favorite word is, "Soooos!" I got some new running shoes and her she is demonstrating them for you. I think she just likes the color of them. She figured out how to walk in them at least, but they were definitely clown shoes for her. Who knew, they even match her outfit!

Divergent Paths in a Yellow Wood

Yesterday I went for my 8 mile run. I did it on carriage paths at a near by lake. With all the trees being yellow I couldn't help but think about Robert Frost's yellow path poem. I did all 8 miles and I averaged 10 minute miles so I am happy. Here are a couple of pictures from the run.

After the run we watched Oklahoma trounce the Longhorns. :) I had a friend come over from Virginia to watch the game. We also had a friend from work come up so he got to see the craziness. A has learned to put her arms aside her head signalling a "touchdown" so it was fun to watch her do that yesterday.

Today we went to grandfather mountain and got to see a lot of trees. We are getting close to the height of tree season so it was quite crazy getting to the drive up the mountain. Thankfully we are season pass holders though, so we got to go through a special drive and by pass some of the craziness. One really interesting thing was how we were in the middle of the clouds. The mountain is 5800 feet up, so we were above the clouds and in the clouds to some extent. It was windy and we still went across the bridge. A loved doing that! She just held on to Chris's hand and on she walked. It frightened me, but she did well.

Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Over the mountains with the cloud layers casting fun shadows

 

 

Hiking to the swinging bridge

On top of the mountain. Normally you would get a nice tree filled background from here.

A and Chris on the Mile High Swinging Bridge

As has been common for a while, A loves to talk on the phone. She will regularly bring the phone to us and want us to call someone. She rarely cares who, but wants to wave and smile at whoever is on the phone. She has had her bath and is ready for bed, but wants to talk on the phone!

Overall there really isn't a lot new here. We are working on getting a car that we want. We have decided that we want the new Mazda CX-5, now to just get one. This is the first model year and they are kind of hard to get. They are super fun to drive, incredibly comfortable, and incredibly safe. We are getting AWD, and for some reason the dealerships here don't tend to stock that option. We will hit 100k miles on the Focus this week, so here is to 100k more. :)

This past week was break for Chris so it was quite nice to get a bit of a reprieve. UIC never did a fall break of any form so the fall term was long and arduous. Now we only have a few short weeks before Thanksgiving and then the term will be over. His classes are going well, though he complains about students not knowing how to write sentences or tell him basic things, like the student who didn't mention he was colorblind.

I've been dealing with people not writing sentences as well. I've been looking at SOPs and trying to make them legible. The grammar is so horrible in some places I'm not entirely sure it is in English.

A is running after stuff and dragging us where she wants us. She will come up to us and then drag us (sometimes literally) to where she wants us to be -- today she assigned us seats, she showed us she wanted food and water, etc. She is starting to emit sounds that could be interpreted as words, but only if you kind of have an idea of what she is trying to say.

Pumpkin Scones

Well it is pumpkin season. Now to get into a million ways to cook and bake pumpkin. :) We bought a few from the fruit stand a week or so ago, and now we need to use them! Chris started by baking the daylights out of the pumpkin. He literally scooped all the goop out and then baked it for about an hour. The skin ended up peeling off and we got around 5 cups of pureed pumpkin from the small one. We also got a lot of pumpkin seeds. Since I've already made pumpkin bread, I decided to make pumpkin scones. I made some modifications to the recipe that is found here.
Since it only made 8, I doubled it, changed the flours and a few other things as well. They turned out pretty much exactly like the picture!

• 1 cup Millet flour
• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 c brown rice flour
• 1/2 c tapioca starch
• 1/2 cup gf oats
• 4 tsp guar gum
• 2 tsp gelatin
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 TBS pumpkin pie spice
• 12 Tbsp salted cold butter, cut into chunks
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 4 Tbsp milk or cream
• 2 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dust the parchment paper with brown rice flour. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, place all of the dry ingredients. Run the mixer until the dry ingredients are well blended.
3. Add the cold butter, and mix on low until butter is cut into pieces, about the size of a pea. Add the pumpkin puree, milk and egg. Run mixer just until dough comes together in a ball.
4. Turn the dough out onto the baking sheet. Dust your hands with brown rice flour, and quickly form the dough into a 10-inch circle, approximately 3/4″ thick.
5. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into wedges. Carefully move the wedges apart, leaving at least 1″ between them so that they will not touch when baking.
6. Brush the tops of the scones with milk or egg white, and sprinkle with course sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown. -- I didn't brush or sprinkle my scones and they are tasty.
7. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Drizzle with Spice Glaze and serve.

Using the fresh pureed pumpkin made these very fresh. There also isn't a lot of sugar and a low carbohydrate index since the flours are more protein based then carbohydrate based. The spice glaze is also found in the link, but it is basically a TBS of milk to 1/2 c powdered sugar and some pumpkin pie spice blended. 

Overall we had a great weekend for cleaning house. We got a fair amount cleaned, so now to simply keep it clean. We have a bit more time at home this week since Chris doesn't really have students to deal with, so there may be hope for us after all.

I've looked at a different daycare center and will hopefully be able to start A there sometime soon. I got a weird look today when her teacher told me she was trying to bite another kid and my response was, "Well, you created this problem so you have to deal with it. She doesn't bite anywhere else. I asked if this would happen a couple of weeks ago, and you said probably not. I've worked hard with her and not biting, so since you taught her to bite, you get to teach her not to bite." (In case you didn't know, A was getting bit at least weekly there for a while. She even got bit twice in one day by the same child once.)  I've got to talk with them about the cloth diapers yet. They were thinking safety pins and plastic pants, so hopefully we will be game when I make an application appointment.

Work for me is interesting. I am learning a lot and liking it. I've sort of become an editor of sorts, and have decided I really do enjoy technical writing. I'm working with SOPs and Test Methods, and Method Validations and all sorts of documents. Hopefully it will help the people at work be more efficient and get stuff done.

Big Roar!!

Most of you know by now that A likes to roar. I finally got a good video of it in the bath last week. We think she has been working on some teeth since she's been cranky and gnawing on everything. This is the best way though to get her to open her mouth so you can look. She will NOT let you touch her lips, gums, or teeth in any way though.

The other fun thing with this roaring is that Chris regularly says, "Lions don't squeak, they roar!" and she will then roar as opposed to squeaking when she gets angry or upset.