A New Addition to the Family

No, the baby did not come early!!!!

But we have adopted a doggie.  My sister’s doggie to be exact.

If you’ve been around for a while you know that he’s not the best behaved doggie on the planet.  He likes to eat baby toys and pacifiers and then needs $3000 worth of surgery.  Yikes!  But my sister was going to give him away and I just couldn’t bare to see him go.  So, hubs and I decided to bring him to live with us.

Yes, I know, we are crazy.

I mean, we will have a baby shortly and many toys and pacifiers will be laying around here too.  I am just a sucker when it comes to dogs and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that with some regular exercise and attention he’ll reform.  We may also spring for some additional obedience classes.  You can never have too much training, right?  Currently he knows how to sit.  Alright, so he needs some work.  We’ll do the best we can though and hopefully it will all work out.

Or we’ll cry ourselves to sleep every night.

Today is his first day with us.  I picked him up this morning and brought all his goodies to our house.  He’s a bit confused and wanders around every once in a while.  The real test will be leaving him home alone tomorrow while hubs and I are at work.  We plan to keep him in the kitchen because it’s tiled floor and can easily be gated off.  However, he’s enjoying sleeping in our bedroom right now.

And drooling all over the floor!

 

Do you have any pets?

Have they ever eaten anything and needed surgery?

How have your pets and kids mixed (if you have kids)?

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the new Maple and Mud!!!!  I am so excited to show you this new design and layout.  I love it so much.  Emily White Designs did such an amazing job and I would recommend her services to anyone who wants to give their blog a facelift.  She created such a wonderful blog for me and I love how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you love the new and redesigned Maple and Mud as much as I do!  I still have some tweaking to do so you'll see a few additions in the future (new pages, new About Me, etc.) but some new features already available are the RSS feed, the Contact Me button, the Pinterest, and the Twitter.  I admit, I don't Tweet or Pinterest all that much but maybe in the future I will get more into it.

I'm hoping to add pages to incorporate Spots of Happiness, Books, Running, and Pregnancy/Baby stuff.  I'm excited about the new site and hope you are too.  Please let me know what you think!!!!

I am currently in Vegas for work right now and am flying home today, so I haven't had a chance to blog for a bit.  Too many long hours on my feet working conferences.  I'll write about it all as soon as I get a chance!

For now, take a minute and look around the new Maple and Mud and let me know what you think!

I'm back!!!!

I have finally found my way back to blog world.  And it's lovely!!

I just posted on my other blog a few excuses about my absence and I'm too lazy to re-post them here - so if you're interested head on over and read about it there.

I'll try to update things a bit more - I promise!!  No more three month leaves of absence!

Missed you all though and so glad to be back!

Twelve Dates of Christmas: Dates 1 – 6

This Christmas season Ivan and I are doing Twelve Dates of Christmas.  I stole the idea from rockstar diaries who stole the idea from marci.  But I liked the idea so much that I just had to steal it.  Or borrow it.  Marci seems to be hiking in Switzerland so her dates are way more interesting than mine, but I’m trying.
It only took me three days to convince Ivan that this was a good idea.  He didn’t seem so committed.  Now he’s into it though – he always asks what date we’re on and I KNOW it’s not because he wants it to be over.
Now, before you get some grand idea of our dates – we are broke.  And any *extra* money we have is for Christmas stuff.  So, we had to get creative about what our dates would be.  I think we’re doing good though. 
Here’s a re-cap of the first six.
Date 1: Dinner at El Azteca.
This is our favorite restaurant in town.  Naturally Ivan wanted to start off our Twelve Dates of Christmas here.  Plus we hadn’t been out to eat on a work night in ages.  It was fun.
Date 2: Lunch with Friends

Two things.  One, I had my Lab Practical that morning so was not looking too hot.  Then we were running late so I couldn’t change or fix my hair.  Second, our dates don’t have to be us by ourselves.  We just have to spend time together.  So sometimes others join us, like this day.
We hadn’t seen these friends in forever so it was nice to sit down and chat for a bit.  It was a nice date!
Date 3: Buying a Wreath
I don’t have a picture of our wreath but we bought a wreath together, then bought a door hanger, and then hung it up.  Yeah, that’s a simple date but it was Christmas related.  And we did it together.  I then put Christmas music on but it didn’t last.  Ivan’s not a fan of Christmas music.  They don’t really have that in Honduras.  He also thinks it’s hilarious how obsessed I am with turning our Christmas tree lights on.  He laughs every time I rush over there in the morning or when we get home from somewhere.  He never had a tree growing up so he’s not aware that I am totally normal.
Date 4: Christmas Party
Last night was Ivan’s work’s Christmas party.  Since we went together, it was a date.  Hey, I got dressed up a bit so that has to count for something.  He wasn’t invited to my work party, so this was more a date than that was!  It was fun but I had to rush off to take my last final.  Woo-hoo!  No more school!
Date 5 and 6: ICE Madagascar and Ice Skating
So these dates were both on the same day and were practically the same thing but they cost a lot of money and were two different experiences so I am calling them separate dates.  Plus the awesomeness was so great that it had to be spread into two dates.
ICE Madagascar was a.m.a.z.i.n.g.  Wow!!  We had so much fun!  I invited my sister and her kids to come too because we all know that things like this are more fun with kids.  It was truly spectacular.  Here are some photos:







Isn’t that awesome!  They actually flew people in from China to carve all these statues.  It was chilly inside (hence the huge jackets) so the kids weren’t too happy after awhile.  The slide was fun but I was the only one who got to go down – the kids were too scared. 
As we came out of ICE, there was a strategically placed ice skating rink.  Well, we couldn’t pass it up, especially when the woman gave us a 50% discount for no reason!  So, I took Ivan and my niece ice skating.  It was hilarious!!!



Ivan almost fell like twelve times and my niece wanted to be carried – but we went around at least four times.  I love ice skating but they were newbies.  It’s hard teaching a two year old to skate.  And a 25 year old.  I started skating when I was really young – we went all the time in Japan – so it doesn’t bother me.  I’m far, far, far from an expert but I can get around the rink easily.  I might be going kind a slow, but I don’t worry too much about falling.  Ivan kept doing that trip-almost gonna fall-catch yourself routine.  He was afraid he’d fall and someone would skate over his fingers.  He had fun though.  I promise.
After the rink, the kids when on a little train and then we headed over to the hotel.  Gaylord National is beautiful and was decorated so nicely for Christmas.  Talk about festive!!  We had fun walking around and watching fountain displays to music. 
All in all our dates #5 and #6 were spectacular.  It cost about an arm and both legs, but well worth it! 
Fun times!!!
Stay tuned for Twelve Dates of Christmas #7 – 12!!!!

I’m Thankful for…

This Thanksgiving has turned out to be wonderful.  I had a great Thanksgiving Day and the weekend is turning out quite lovely too.  Before I recap my holiday, I’d like to introduce you to some amazing people in my life – those for whom I’m most grateful.

My Family:

This photo was taken at my Uncle’s funeral.  I still miss him and wish we could have all celebrated Thanksgiving together.  I am very thankful for my family – we’re a great bunch.

My Sisters:

Only one sister was shown above so I wanted to make sure I included the other one.  I’m very grateful for both of them – they have been my best friends since birth.  For as much as we moved around, we really only had each other.  Sisters are the best!

 

My Honduran Family:

My Honduran family has taught me so much.  They are generous to a fault and love me like their own.  I am so glad I was given the opportunity to know them and connect with them.  I am also grateful for fairly cheap phone service to Honduras, Facebook, and IM – because it allows me to keep in touch with them even though we don’t see each other often.

 

My Friends:

These are my friends from college – they are all amazing.  I’m so glad we keep in touch.  Sarah, the girl on the right, is my rock.  I am lucky to have friends like these.

 

This is one of my best friends from high school.  She’s one of my oldest friends that I stay in touch with regularly.  It’s nice having someone who knows and understands you.  I have other amazing high school friends too, but don’t really have a photo of everyone.

 

These are some of my favorite Peace Corps friends.  Love them all!  Another group of people I couldn’t live without.

 

And my wonderful college friends!  I don’t get to see them all very often but I am so thankful for having them in my life. 

 

My Husband:

Of course I’m thankful for my husband.  Although he frustrates me to know end sometimes, he somehow makes me laugh ten seconds later.  He also teaches me so much and makes me a better person.  Love him!

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So that is a snippet of the people I am most thankful for.  I have so many more amazing people in my life, but I don’t have enough space to fit them.  But I think about them all the time and wouldn’t be the person I am today without them.

Who are you thankful for???

Thanksgiving Traditions!!

Today's Plenty to Be Thankful for Blog Challenge is: Thanksgiving Traditions!!!  I love traditions.  I don't feel like I have enough of them in my life.  It is my goal to make as many things a tradition as possible. 

Sadly, for Thanksgiving I don't actually have too many traditions, minus the normal Thanksgiving foods.  Thanksgiving hasn't been a "regular" holiday for a long time.  When I was growing up overseas, our tradition was to invite some host country nationals to come over (that means we invited some Greek friends when we lived in Greece, some Italian friends when we lived in Italy, and some English friends when we lived in England) to celebrate with us.

Actually, now that I think about it, my tradition for Thanksgiving is to celebrate it differently every year!  Here are some photos from past Thanksgivings:

2005

Melanie and me - our first Honduran Thanksgiving

This was my first Thanksgiving in Honduras.  My friend Melanie (also a Peace Corps Volunteer) came and celebrated with me.  I can't remember what we made, but we then headed to some other friends' house for an actual turkey dinner.

Thanksgiving in San Marcos de Colon

After having our little Thanksgiving at my house we headed up to the mountains to have Thanksgiving with a bunch of other volunteers.  Here we had a lot more traditional type foods.  It was yummy and definitely a treat to hang out with a bunch of other volunteers and celebrate the holiday together.

2006

A scrawny looking turkey!

The following year I celebrated with some volunteers too and we found ourselves a scrawny little turkey.  Hondurans don't eat turkey so it's hard to find one!  We celebrated with some JICA volunteers (Japan's volunteer corps) too.  This turkey was the toughest thing I had ever eaten.  It was like turkey-gum.

Full bellies!

Here are some of the other volunteers (and me - on the right) after our meal.  It was a fun Thanksgiving and I was full!  I think I had made the sweet potatoes this time.  I can't remember.

2007

A Texan Thanksgiving - me, in orange, my sister in blue, and my cousin in gray

The following year (I was no longer living in Honduras) I went to Dallas to visit my sister and we headed to my cousin's house in Austin to celebrate.  She had a friend from Washington visiting as well.  We had turkey soup that year, instead of an actual whole turkey.  It was fun to be celebrating with family again.

2008

 Not sure what happened here.  I think I went to my sister's in-law's house.  No pictures....

2009

Me (right) and my sister in Ecuador

In 2009 my sister invited me to go to Ecuador with her the week of Thanksgiving.  So off we went!  The hotel we were staying at in Banos offered a Thanksgiving dinner for $12 so we signed ourselves up!  Ok, we didn't sign up, we showed up and didn't realize we needed to sign up.  Whoops!  It was a fun surprise since we weren't expecting turkey in Ecuador!

2010

I don't have any pictures of 2010.  I think they were on my sister's camera.  It was my husband's first Thanksgiving.  The thing he remembers most about Thanksgiving is that the turkey made him tired!! 

2011

You'll just have to wait and see - but it will be different!!!  One new tradition I'm hoping to start?  I have officially organized a 5k Turkey Trot in my neighborhood.  I have about 10 people signed up and I even made my own race numbers!

So, that's about it.

What Thanksgiving Traditions do you celebrate???

My Favorite Thanksgiving Recipe!!

 

Today is Day 6 of the Plenty to Be THANKful for Blog Challenge.  I have only missed one day!  Amazing!  Friday was too hectic between work and class that it was impossible to get anything posted.  Today was the same – so I figured I would try tonight.  Better late than never, right?

It was hard trying to pick my favorite Thanksgiving recipe.  I love all Thanksgiving food: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, pie.  You name it, it’s on my plate.  Except for green bean casserole.  Can’t get onboard with that one. 

However, the recipe I picked is a simple side dish: Cranberry-Pineapple Jell-O

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That picture is not mine.  And it’s not 100% a picture of the recipe I’m going to tell you about, but it gives you an idea.  I don’t have any pictures of this Jell-O, so I had to improvise.  I’ll try and snap one this year.

I’m not sure where this Jell-O recipe came from, but it’s a good one.  I’d recommend making it!

Cranberry-Pineapple Jell-O

Ingredients
2 3-oz boxes of Jello-O, any flavor (I bought peach this year)
1 3/4 cup boiling water
16 oz can whole cranberry sauce
1 can crushed pineapple, not drained (regular size)
1 cup sour cream

Directions
Dissolve Jell-O in water.  Stir in cranberry sauce and pineapple.
Chill until almost set, pour half into a class bowl.
Chill until firm.
Spread on sour cream.
Pour the rest of Jell-O mixture on top.
Chill

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That’s it!  Super easy!  Don’t let the sour cream turn you off – it tastes amazing with the cranberry Jell-O. 

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving recipe???