Booked

**Pic above from the website of the Couples Sans Souci.

Our holiday trip is booked for Christmas! I know I blogged about this before, but we decided to shorten our trip this year since we have new staff starting at the office and I don't really think I should be leaving for two weeks right now. So, we are going to take a longer trip sometime in the beginning of 2012 to make up for the missed time off. Anyway, I wanted to pick someplace where we could both relax and take some little day trips to do things outside where we would be staying.

I started looking at Jamaica (Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril) and Mexico (Puerto Vallerta and Cabo). Went back and forth for a while before booking today, and the winner is:

Ocho Rios! :)

Can't wait. My resort requirements were adults only (preferably, couples only), wireless internet in room (preferably for free), gym on premises of hotel (with weights and cardio) and large rooms. Ended up booking at the Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios. After searching and pricing things out, ended up getting a Penthouse Suite for the price of a normal room on Travelocity, so I was happy. I had a really hard time picking a place, but this one had everything we were looking for. I like this place too as they pick you up for free at the airport.

There are already a couple tours I know I want to do while there, like this kewl ATV tour up a mountain, and another to a waterfall. There are some with dolphins and sharks............................

First week with Angie at the office has been awesome. She has been SOOO much help with hearings and phone calls and paperwork, and she has only worked one week so far. Everyone else loves her at the office too and she fits in perfectly. So happy about this decision that we made to hire her.

Off to bed, happy weekend! :)

Recipes

I bought this cookbook that is AWESOME. Rebecca forwarded me a coupon to use when we stopped in a bookstore after lunch the other weekend, for 50% off one book. I ended up buying a cookbook, which is not a normal purchase for me since you can get almost every recipe online these days......Anyway, I bought this one. All the recipes are low fat (which is super important to Kurt and I), as well as vegetarian and a lot of them are even vegan. Also, most of the recipes seem super simple and pretty quick.

So far, I have made two recipes for Kurt (and stole a bite of course), and they were both awesome!

First, yesterday, I made garbanzo bean soup. Decided to make this because Kurt LOVES garbanzo beans. It was very simple. Recipe as follows (I modified the recipe to make 2 servings instead of 4):

1 medium onion, chopped (I used a red onion cuz they were the cheapest at the store and used half a large onion)

1 garlic clove, minced (used a jarred one) and my garlic press

2 cups vegetable stock (I used Kroger brand cans)

1 can garbanzo beans (used organic Kroger brand)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves

salt and pepper, to taste

1/8 cup of sour cream (I eliminated this totally)

paprika or chili powder, as garnish

Saute onion and garlic in lightly greased large saucepan until tender, about 5 minutes. Add stock, beans, cumin, and thyme and heat to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

Process soup in blender until smooth (could also use food processor according to book); season with salt and pepper. Top each bowl of soup with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with paprika.

This was great. Almost tasted like hummus soup! And we all know how I love hummus.......

Second recipe was Black Bean and Jalapeno Pizza with Cheese Pizza Dough

First, make the cheese pizza dough. Take 1.25 cups of flour and mix with half teaspoon of sugar and 2/3 cup of very hot water. Mix. ADd 2 TBSP of parm cheese and another .5 cup of flour. Knead in .25 cup of cheddar cheese. I used fat free cheddar and parm, kraft for both. Let sit covered for 15 minutes before spreading on 12 inch pizza pan. (I let sit much longer as I worked out before making the pizza, and it was fine sitting for much longer).

Spread .75 cup of salsa on dough (i used a medium salsa). Lightly mash black beans (I used organic) with 1/4 cup of salsa. Spoon over pizza. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup of jalapeno chilies (I used banana peppers instead) and 1 cup of fat free cheddar cheese. Bake at 425 degrees until crust is browned, 20 minutes.

This crust was aMAZing and my first attempt ever at pizza crust. I would have never guessed the cheese was fat free, SO GOOD. Kurt ate almost the entire pizza, so I guess it was good! :).

Lack of Posting

Life has been pretty chaotic. When I do get downtime, I truthfully have not really felt like coming on here and blogging. It takes enough keeping up with everything else with email, facebook, reading friends' blogs, etc.

Good news with the office though! I finally talked Kurt into letting me hire another associate. After Holly left in April 2011, Kurt was kinda thinking he did not want to hire anyone else. Prob was, the associate that works with him was still working, which meant the bulk of the family law was mine and I had no help. I had someone in mind, a friend of mine who actually interviewed with us back in January 2009. Had no idea if she actually wanted a job or not, so once I got the support of Kurt, contacted her, she came in to meet with us, and she took the job the next day. She starts tomorrow, and I am hoping once she gets into the swing of things, I will be working less hours and may have time to do things like post on here. :). We had dinner on Friday night with her and her boyfriend and had a great time. Her boyfriend is strangely similar to Kurt......

Went through my closet last night and cleared out 5 more bags of clothing. I kept wondering why my closet was so full, but I never felt like I had anything to wear. Yea, that's cuz most of the clothes are too big. I still prob have another bag of clothes to bag up, but 5 bags was all that would fit in the car. Took it over to my friend Joni's house today so she could go thru it and keep what she wants before it's donated or trashed. My closet is strangely empty now. Except for shoes, since those are always the same size, pre-63 pound loss and now! :). Headed to NY and Co to use some coupons I had. The store was having buy one item, get one for half off, I had a $20 off coupon, and I had a 50% more off coupon. Amazing deals. I got the following stuff, some for work, some for casual, and some that works both places! I really, really need a new red winter coat. I had to donate mine and was NOT happy as the coat I had was the perfect red coat but it was HUGE on me when I went to put it on and looked bad. Boo. I need a birch run trip for shopping, that's where I found the last one super cheap. Anyway, back to the shopping!

Necklace one: (this one was only $2.66 after all coupons were applied)

Necklace two: (fell in love with this one when I saw it, and ended up with the one above since they had buy one necklace, get one 75% off plus another 50% off with my coupon)

Sweater, in white: Super comfy and can wear with dress pants to work or with jeans on the weekend.

Shirt, in green: prob will wear with suits at work

Sweater in white: cute over tanks at work.

Shirt, in blue: more for work under suits.

Jeans: I think I just liked the rhinestone detail, ;)

Blazer: tried on the matching white skirt and pants, and I just cant bring myself to buy white for skirts and pants. I know I would sit in something or rub against something and ruin them.

Sweater in grey: for casual, wore today, love it

Sweater in green: for casual

Jeans: could not find pic of these, but they are dark wash flare.

Stopped at Lowe's today and bought some plastic divider things to help organize things. I am pretty organized in my closet, except wanted a better way to organize my tights, socks, etc. other than throwing them in a bin. Started working on that, and got all my tights and nylons all organized. Moving on to socks next. Yay.

I am excited to report that Kurt is back to running, and not feeling injured at all! We were supposed to run in a race yesterday, but work got in the way of that, and Im kinda glad as a friend of mine reported the race was chaos and not very well organized. I am supposed to run in one on Tuesday night as well as Saturday.

Still trying to figure out our Xmas trip this year. Because of the new employee, we we are thinking our Xmas trip will not be super long, like usual, and we will take our longer trip of the year in late January and celebrate Kurt's bday then as well. So, I was being boring and looking at all inclusives in Mexico (cabo) and Jamamca. Then, our Costa Rica realtor emailedus a piece of property that looks amazing and is a fabulous deal, so we may be going there to look at property. I think if we go there, we will fly in, look at the property and take a side trip someplace else. leaning towards the Nicoya peninsula, since we have not yet been there, but don't really know. We could also fly to Bocas del Toro for a couple nights, or maybe the Osa? No time to figure it out, but that's most likely where we will be.

Anyway, gotta get to bed, going to have a busy week training Angie and we have a TON of court as well. Hope everyone is doing awesome!

The Penn State Scandal--My Thoughts

To all the Penn State students who think Joe Pa is a saint and amazing person and did nothing wrong, legally or morally, read the following. It is disturbing and disgusting. Because of Joe Pa and others not reporting this to the proper authorities and acting like this was "no big deals", a lot of kids were molested, raped, etc.

Did Joe Pa commit a crime? No. But because of his desire to protect his image, protect the university's image and protect his precious football program, he decided that kids being raped and molested was *OK*. He weighed the two, and decided that it was more important to protect his school and friend than to protect young kids. So morally and ethically wrong. Especially since he is a father himself, to allow this to continue happening to others is a disgrace.

And the students at Penn State should stop acting like children. I get it, you love Joe Pa. He is a legend there and in college football. I actually feel a little bit badly that after so many years and an amazing career, he had to leave on this note. But, when you are out there rioting and causing stupid scenes, step back for a second and think about the victims here, and have a little bit of respect for them.

http://sbmblog.typepad.com/files/paterno_grand_jury.pdf