Fall Break

The weekend of Fall Break, Nov 20-23, we went on our annual family vacation to Branson. We always have so much fun. This year Courtney couldn't go because she got a promotion at work and was training and Meagan & David are in the Philippines. Hopefully next year we can all go again!

My brother usually rents us a condo so we can all be together. The first couple of years when we started doing this we stayed in hotels but it was so inconvenient to go from room to room. It was hard to really hang out. So we decdided to go the condo route, my brother usually finds us a condo and we just split the cost. this year we stayed at the Meadowbrook. Our condo was on the third floor, the without the porch light on.

This is a little creek that ran behind our condo.

We usually spend most of our time at Silver Dollar City and most of the time we throw in some shopping and/or go-carts. This year we went go-carting Sunday morning before we left to come home. Here's some pictures of our trip, enjoy!

This is my niece Alyssa and my daughter Ashton. Alyssa loves her cousin Ashton and wants to do everything that Ashton does. So when Ashton started working on some homework, Alyssa decided she needed to do some too!

Myself, my mom and brother riding the teacups!

       Tater Patch, one the best places to eat at Silver Dollar City!

Alyssa getting ready to drive her first go-cart!

But I have to say the best part of the trip was Thursday night. Since we weren't going anywhere I told Meagan we FaceTime with her and David that night so they could say "hi" to everyone. During that time Meagan said they were coming home for Christmas, my reaction was "what!?!?" Then they said they were shortening their stay in the Philippines and coming home a month early! So of course I started crying and screaming! So I will be getting my Christmas present on Dec 6 when they come home! Then that weekend we are going to Branson for the Ozark Mountain Christmas and spend some family time together, thanks to David's mom Janie for getting a condo for the week. We are just staying the first weekend and then Janie is coming on Tuesday and spending the rest of the  week with them. I am sooo excited!!!

Until next time!





3 Months To Go

Meagan and David are enjoying their time in the Philippines. I think it's been a big learning experience for both of them. I'm counting down until they come home which is 3 months from today!

Before they left for the Philippines Meagan told me they would be there during typhoon season, which scared me! Meagan and David assured me that it wouldn't affect them so that put my mind at ease. But then my worst fears were realized Typhoon Ramon is heading toward Cebu island. Meagan and David live on Mactan island but it is connected to Cebu island by a bridge, I believe. After I prayed and cried I sent Meagan a message on Facebook and she told me they were tracking it and they would be on the outer edge of the storm and would probably just get a lot of rain. Well, that eased my mind some until I started worrying about flooding! So praying and hoping they will be alright.

Tonight was Ashton's Dessert Revue for choir. She sang a solo, Good Morning Baltimore and then she was one of the emcees. She and all the other choir members did an awesome job.

The theme this year was Travelin' Around These United States. So proud of Ashton and the rest of the choirs.

Next weekend is Fall Break and our annual family trip to Branson! Hoping for good weather and lots of fun! Hopefully we'll be able to FaceTime with Meagan and David while we're there so everyone will get a chance to say "hi".

Until next time!

Reflections

Well, I've survived 2 weeks of Meagan being half way around the world in the Philippines. Yes, I've had my moments where I break down and cry but it's getting better. So far we've gotten to FaceTime with then once a week because they've been so busy. But Meagan said they'll be home the next couple of weeks so we can talk more!

It's been reallyneat hearing all about the different things in the Philippines; transportation, food, way of life and so on.

This last weekend they visited Sunrise Christian College for Dr. O'Neal 9the pres of OC). Meagan said it really wasn't a college but a Christian school for elementary - college. She also said the the people there are fascinated with her hair and skin color. And that they have products there to whiten their skin! pretty crazy! They are doing some medical mission work today.

I've really learned some life lessons since Meagan and David have left. About a couple weeks before they left for the Philippines a friend of mine's daughter left to move out of state to go to grad school. Well, she made the comment that her daughter moving was worse than mine moving. I took that statement very hard and cried for weeks on thinking how could she be so cruel. But after talking to a really good and supportive friend last night at church I've reached this conclusion. She is right our kids moving are not the same, but niether one is more worse than the other. It still hurts a mother's heart whether our kids move across town, out of state or out of the country even if it's just for a couple of months, years or forever. We jsut have to know that we've raised our children to the best of our ability and that they will be best that they can be. As they get older we won't always be there to pick them up and dust them off if they fall, sometimes they need to dust themselves off and figure out things on their own.   Boy, I'm hoping this is making sense!

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now!

Until next time...

A Tearful Good-bye

Bright and early Wednesday (Sept 14) we said good-bye to Meagan and David. For those of you who don't know they are going to the Philippines for 4 months for work with Give a Goat and talking to others about Christ. Don't get me wrong I'm very proud of them and the work they'll be doing and they'll only be gone 4 months but it's still hard to watch them leave.

Thank goodness for technology thouugh! Because we can use FaceTime and be able to talk with them!! I also have their address so I can send them stuff.

I'm so thankful to have such wonderful friends that are doing a great job in helping me get through this. Donna took me lunch at Mimi's after our Wed. morning Ladies Class and then I went running around with her. And my friend Tommie said she has some ways to help me get through the holidays which of course I'm dreading. I will say I am jealous of David's mom who is getting to go there for Christmas. Unfortunately we just don't have the money to do that.

Prayers for:

   The work they'll be doing and the lives they will touch

   Their safety

   That in 4 months they'll be brought safely home!

Let's Start this Blog Over!

Ok. I think we are going to start this blog business all over. Yes, I'm still trying to not repeat any recipes I use and so far have been quite successful! But I thought I'd just ramble on about other things going on!

This summer we took a short vacation to St Louis where my mom and brother (and his family) live. Meagan got to come with us which was nice so she could spend time with family before she leaves for the Philippines.

Meagan and Ashton in front of the Missouri sign at the tourist info stop.

We went to Six Flags 3 times when we were there. The first 2 times we went I was miserable. But we went back as we were leaving St Louis and I had a much better time.

We went to lunch one day at The Boathouse. It's in Forest Park. It's a really neat restaurant and the food was yummy!!

Meagan and I had birthday's coming up so my sis-in-law told our waitress so Meaqgan and I got sundaes for our birthday!

After we at lunch  at The Boathouse we went to the City Museum. This place is really awesome, almost everything in it has been recycled from something else to make some really intersting climbing structures and slides.and just some really cool things to look at. You can pay extra and go on the roof where they have a ferris wheel you can ride. We unfortunately didn't go up there/

On our second day at Six Flags we went to the Big Time Rush concert. I was really inpressed they put on a really good show. Ashton loved it!!

The last day before we came home we went to the zoo and science museum. Then we went to a place in Illinois called Lattawatta Creeek for a birthday dinner for Meagan and I.

We had a great time in Missouri. A special thanks for my brother and sis-in-law for leting us stay with them.

Until next time!

I think I need to blog

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since my last post.

I've been doing really good about not repeating any recipe, WooHoo!!! I had someone tell me that it would impossible to do this but I tried to tell them if you organize the recipes you can do it. It just takes time. 
Nothing exciting has been happening in the Martin household, pretty much boring. Believe me I'm not complaining. The only thing exciting is we replaced our hot water heater and I bought an IPad 2! The reason I bought an IPad is because we have been thinking about buying a laptop. But with my vision problems it's kind of difficult for me to use a laptop. So I told my husband, Phil, that an IPad would work better for me. Plus my daughter and her husband are going to the Phillipines in the fall and maybe to Ghana in May and with my IPad I will be able to skype with them!

All right on with the cooking part of this blog! Here is a recipe for "Baked Spaghetti"' that I made this weekend. It was really yummy so I thought I would post it. I hope you like it!!

Baked Spaghetti  (from Taste of Home)

16 oz spaghetti                                                              1 t salt
1 1/2 lbs ground beef                                                    1 t basil
1 med onion, chopped                                                   1 t oregano
1/2 c chopped green pepper                                         1/2 t rosemary                                    
1 can cream of mushroom soup                                    1/2 t marjoram
1 can tomato soup                                                        1/8 t garlic salt
8 oz tomato sauce                                                         1 c mozzarella cheese, divided
1 c water
2 T brown sugar

Break spaghetti in half, cook according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a dutch oven, cook beef, onion and green pepper until the meat is no longer pink, drain.  Stir is soups, tomato sauce, water, brown sugar and seasonings.

Drain spaghetti, stir into the meat sauce. Add 1/2 cup of cheese. Transfer into a greased 13x9 baking dish.

Cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake 10-15 minutes longer or until the cheese melts.

Hope you enjoy this recipe and see you next time!

It's Been a While

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I've posted! Well, we had 2 major snow storms in a 2 week period with below zero temps and wind chills. Now we are in the upper 70's, kind of wierd. 

Suring the first snowstorm we made some snow ice cream, YUM!  I wante to add some chocolate syrup to it and make it chocolate snow ice cream but sadly we had no chocolate syrup.

Well, I'm doing really good about not repeating recipes. Yay me!! Some of favorites have been Two Cheese Spaghetti Bake, Chicken Stew w/ Biscuts and Snickerdoodle French Toast.  I used a new potato soup recipe to take to a friend from church after her surgery, they said it was really good. 

Tonight I am making my hubby some BBQ Pork Chops and Rich & Creamy Corn for his birthday. I hope he likes them! /I will let you know!.

I have some pictures I've taken of some of the recipe's I've made and I need to get them on here.

Well back to cooking dinner

See ya soon and happy cooking!!!

New Look

Well as you can see I've changed the name of my blog and the background! I decided not to just limit myself to talking about cooking but what it happening in my world.

I had a Thrity One party this past weekend. It went really well except for the fact that I have to close my party earlier than what I wanted. I guess maybe it's someone telling me you need more stuff! But I think that will be my last party for a while. I did have around 22 friends crowded in my living room. My living room isn't very big and we were packed in like sardines.

For my party I made some Cherry Mash Bars, they turned out pretty well! Better than what I thought they would. The only problem is that I found the cherry chips at Wal Mart during the holiday season. I don't think they have them anymore :(

So far the not repeating a recipe challenge is going well! Trying to organize my recipes that I want to try so I'm not always combing through cookbooks trying to find something new.

My eyes are getting pretty sleepy so I'll go for now

Let's Try Something New!

courtney and I have decided we want to make candy! So we went to our favorite craft store Hobby Lobby, and I think we spent about an hour looking at stuff on the candy/cake decorating aisle. We bought some stuff to make some chocolate suckers. I also bought a cookbook called Cake Pops so we thought we would try and make some of those too. When I was wondering on the aisles at Hobby Lobby I realized how much I miss crafting, I really haven't done any in a while. I also bought a book with ideas on making cards. I guess we'll see where this adventure takes me. I really would love to learn how to decorate cakes.

I'm also working on being more organized, I get really stressed out when someone asks for something and it takes me forever to find it. Then I stress myself out and get upset at myself. I will start doing this after my Thirty One party on Friday. I'm too busy trying to get my house clean for that.

Well for the cooking part of this blog I really didn't make a lot of stuff using recipes. I made some things that were prepackaged, I know shame on me. I only tried 3 new recipes
   Cheese bread
   Asian Chicken Skillet
   Quick and Easy Meatball Soup

I have alos lost 5 ibs. Basically just watching my portion sizes and trying not to overeat. Sooooo yay for me!

Until next time!

One week down!

Boy was it hard trying to look through cookbooks and recipes I've printed off the internet or cut out of magazines. Trying to organize it better so I don't feel like overwhelmed when I'm planning our meals for a month. We tried some really good recipes and some that were OK. Some days we ate out or had a quick fix meal. But all in all I tried 7 new recipes, 2 were desserts for Ladies Class and BK. So here they are and where they came from! If any recipe sounds yummy to you let me know and I'll post it. I might try and put some pictures of what I made on here too.

  Maple Glazed Turkey Breat - All Through The Seasons   This was really yuumy and it's a crockpot reicpe!
  Crockpot Sausage and Potatoes - internet   This was OK, would be better as a side without the sausage!
  Chicken Burritos - All Through The Seasons   This was the favorite of the week! It was so simple and
                                                                        everyine loved it!
  Double Trouble - All Through The seasons   This is a cake I made for Ladies Class, it was alright
  Crescent Turkey Casserole - Tasteofhome.com   This was really yummy and very easy!
  Meatballs and Creamy Rice Skillet Supper - Bettycrocker.com   This was really good and also easy
  Red Velvet Cake w/best ever soft icing - All Through the Seasons   This I made for BK. It was really good
                                                                 but the icing didn't turn out right but it tasted good.

So there you go!  If you have recipes you think my family would like please feel free to share!

So until next time. Happy Cooking!!

A New Year

Well today starts day one of not repeating any recipes for this year! Tonight for dinner the reicpe is "Maple Glazed Turkey Breast". It's a crockpot recipe which is wonderful! I will let you know how it turned out and if the family liked it or not. I will post later in the week with other recipes I've tried and let you know how they turned out. If one of the recipes sounds good to you let me know and I'll get you the recipe or who know I might even post it!