Carmel Apples and uh....

So tonight we had delicious carmel apples made with the apples from the orchard in Canton, and I almost cut off my fingertip making them. The apple slipped , causing the knife to slip, causing my finger tip and fingernail to be sliced and IT HURT...HURTS. I have it wrapped up with bandaid, and am typing with nine fingers, but I type for a living so tomorrow is going to be alot of fun. Wish me luck. One day down....four more to go!

Mmmm....apples...and squash

How bout this weather, eh? What a gorgeous, amazing day.....if it was OCTOBER! This weather is so strange, it makes me wonder what the winter will have in store for us. Oh well...it was a great day for the farmer's market. We bought alot today. I bought another eggplant, onions, a watermelon, acorn squash, sweet dumpling squash, yellow pepper, an italian summer squash, and a bag of the most amazing gala apples from a local orchard. The apples were the most expensive thing we bought, but I'm not kidding you they are worth every penny. AMAZING, local, organic, and good for us.

Tonight we have a birthday party for two of our friends to go to. It should be a lot of fun. We haven't been able to hang out with our friends for a long time so it will be really great to see them.

Bad News/Good news

I'll cover the bad news first. Yesterday Allen received his "dear john" letter in the mail from Hannibal Police Dept. . We were both pretty disappointed, but by not hearing anything until yesterday , we pretty much knew it was coming. Too bad for them...Allen would have been great at that job. Oh well, it truly must not have been meant to be.

Now, the good news. Today Allen received a callback letter from General Mills. They want him to do additional testing and a first interview on Friday 9/11. Keeps him in your thoughts and prayers. This is really starting to look up. Where most places are laying off, General Mills is actually hiring. It's a good company that seems to invest in their people. The starting pay is pretty good, and after a probation period Allen will be making almost as much as I am. It will like doubling our income. Which is good for our savings and good for finding a home and...you guessed it...BABY COOLEYS! :)

We can't believe it's already Friday. This week went by SOOOO fast. Not only is it Friday, but the very last Friday in August. Can you believe it's September next week?!?! Where does the time go!

Love you all!

Useful little Penny

Tonight Josh and Lindsey came over for dinner. We had mushroom and swiss burgers that were delicious! Then we went to the tennis courts, and this time we took Penny with us. They are fenced in, so after she went to the bathroom we were able to let her run free. I wish I would have had my camera with me. It was almost the cutest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. Penny LOVED it! She chased those balls all over the court and she was our little ball retriever. She was very very good at it until she realized that there were tons of tiny bugs all over the court. She had a great time and we did too! We can't believe that tomorrow is already Thursday, just one more week and a few days and we'll be on our way down to Sturgeon! :)

Wonderful Weather, Wonderful Weekend, and Penny is ONE! :)

Today is Penny's first birthday! YAY! :)

This weekend was a wonderful weekend. I'll start before the beginning of the weekend, Friday morning. Allen took his test for General Mills. It ended up being a very simple gen-ed test, which Allen feels very confident he aced it. Mom is fairly certain Allen's going to get the job, and now we just have to wait and jump through the last few hiring process hoops. It's important to note that we also haven't heard anything back yet from the Hannibal Police Dept, but since they were still doing background checks last week, anything is still possible.

Allen's mom and dad made it here on Friday around 4:00 p.m., I didn't get off until 5 p.m. We went out to eat at the Mayan Mexican Restaurant. Then Saturday we went to the farmer's market. It was a family event. Even Penny got to go! There were a few more vendors this week than there were last weekend. So much good fresh produce, it was hard to just pick a few things. I came home with another eggplant, a few yellow and red onions, some poblano peppers, and these really awesome heirloom cucumbers. Here is a description: They are called Poona Kheera , grows in 60 days. Cream/light green fruits, very delicious flesh, crisp, juicy, sweet and mild, one of my favorite varieties. Fruit shaped like a potato, with skin turning brown as they ripen. One of our best varieties for disease resistance and very hardy. Vines produce early and with very heavy yields. A wonderful heirloom from India that has become our most "asked for" cucumber. The guy at the farmers market was selling them at a very reasonable price also. I only paid 75 cents for two of em! :) They are delicious. We made some cucumbers and onions out of them. Mmm mmm good! After the farmer's market, we headed to Hannibal with the intent to eat at Sawyer's Creek Restaurant, then go to the Christmas Shop and then to go through Cameron Cave. Turns out Sawyer's Creek has been shut down all summer long. I guess the person who owned it went bankrupt and there hasn't been a buyer yet. This made me very sad because I have fond memories of going to Sawyer's Creek as a child and wanted to share this with Allen and his family, but no such luck. So, we ended up eating lunch at the Mark Twain Cafe. Everyone ordered the home made root beer, of course, and it was GOOD! :) We went to the cave but the next tour wasn't leaving for over an hour, so we decided against waiting, instead we walked through the rock shop and then the candle shop. It was really neat because we got to watch the girl make a few candles while we were there. Here is an example of what the candles she was making looked like. Truly pieces of art. Phil bought Brenda a beautiful one!

After the candle shop we stopped by at Lovers' Leap to take a few pictures. The day was BEAUTIFUL, the weather was amazing!
We grilled pork chops, had sweet corn on the cob (from the farmers' market of course), cucumbers and onions, greens beans (sadly, not from the farmers' market...) and these cheddar zucchini muffins I tried for the first time for dinner Saturday night. We decided against German Fest. We were having too much a good time just hanging out , the four of us together, we didn't figure we needed to go anywhere else.

Then they had to go home. :( But we will be making it down to Sturgeon in two weeks for a three day weekend! WE CAN'T WAIT!

Today, Allen had to work, and then we went to eat dinner at Mom and Dad's. We had grilled steak, sweet potatoes, homemade mac n' cheese and I brought a tomato and corn salad I whipped up today. Mom's grape tomato plant is producing TONS of tomatoes and we still had some in the fridge leftover from last week. I knew we would be getting more tonight, so I figured I better use up what we had, plus we had three ears of corn leftover. I made up my own recipe for the salad using ideas from other recipes I found online, but I ended up really liking it and my mom loved it. It's a good way to use the large amount of grape tomatoes up! I'm calling it Tomato and Corn Salad with a bacon basil dressing. If you want the recipe let me know! It was easy and yummy!

Tomorrow it's back to work for me and a day off for Allen, but not really a day off because I have a flat tire and he's gonna take it to be fixed and then he's probably gonna take my car to the mechanic to have then take a look at the wheel bearings...Phil said that we definately need to get them checked out. Niether one of knows anything about cars, so we're gonna take his advice of course! :)

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

Hurry up and get here weekend!

Happy Birthday Nicole! :) We LOVE YOU! :)

Tonight we bought a new coffee maker at Wal-Mart. The one Grandma and PopPop gave us bit the dust. Our new one is pretty neat digital coffee maker! It's a GE, so it should last a while. Allen's parents are coming over tomorrow night and are going to stay the night with us so that we can spend the day together on Saturday. Not sure what all we are going to do yet. We were thinking about heading to South Park for the German Fest, there's supposed to be an authentic german band playing and german food and german beer. Everytime we go over to Allen's parent's house Brenda always has something delicious for us to snack on. So I made a dip for them. I tried a new recipe and I think I found a winner. It's called BBQ Bacon Ranch Dip. We taste tested it and Allen REALLY liked it alot. In fact he told me that I should make it for our bigger family gatherings too! :) If anyone wants to have the recipe, click here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/BBQ-Bacon-Ranch-Dip/Detail.aspx . It can be made a little bit healthier with 1/3 less fat cream cheese or even fat free cream cheese and less bacon. I used the 1/3 less fat and it still tastes AWESOME. I'm going to serve it with ritz crackers. (Not really ritz...the cheapy Hy-Vee crackers actually...) Tomorrow I'm going to make my first zucchini bread. I'm going to try a blueberry zucchini recipe. Hy Vee has their blueberries on sale. I'll let you know how it is. Recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blueberry-Zucchini-Bread/Detail.aspx .

Can't wait for tomorrow's work to be over and for the weekend to begin!



Tomorrow is Allen's test. Any prayers and positive thoughts his way are appreciated! :)

Seriously?

So yesterday ended up being quite the day for Allen. He dropped me off at work and went straight to Hannibal to the unemployment office to fill out the application for General Mills, where he was unexpectedly told he had to have a copy of his high school diploma or high school transcripts with him to even apply! (He's a college graduate for goodness sake, but they absolutely would not talk to him unless he had a copy.) Luckily, Grandma and PopPop have a fax machine so he got ahold of his high school back in Sturgeon and they faxed a copy of his transcripts over, but by the time he got the fax and went back to apply, their quota was already filled! They were only accepting 40 applications for General Mills! Can you imagine? If 600 people applied for the animal control office, can you imagine how many would have applied for this factory position!?! Allen said when he got back to the office there was a sign on the door letting people know that there were no more applications available. He was seriously bummed out, but then I got a text message from my mom at work. See, in the morning she had turned in the referral form for Allen and she said that the HR rep actually came to talk to her while she was out working on the floor. He told her that he was very interested in Allen and that he would be sure to have Allen's application pulled to the top. I of course called her immediately to let her know that he didn't even get to fill out the paper work, but lucky for us, Allen had already gone online a long time ago to fill out the very intial paperwork required by the unemployment office, so she let the HR rep know what had happened to Allen and the guy actually called the office to tell them to pull his app and to get ahold of Allen so he can take their math tests and other tests required for an interview! So, Allen gets to take the test on Friday! Sometimes it really does help to know someone on the inside! :) Oh and some other very exciting news, Allen stopped by the police dept to see if they had officially filled the position for animal control yet, and the lady said they were still checking backgrounds! :) So, there is still hope!

We have joked, that wouldn't it be wild after all of the applying Allen has done in the past year, that all of a sudden he will have two positive job opportunities!

Tonight we went swimming, and that's about it!

Brenda and Phil we are glad you made it home safe! Can't wait to come and see you again!

Love you all!

PLEASE VOTE!

Before I give a wrap up of the weekend, everyone please help us win a $50 gift card to game masters with this ADORABLE picture of Penny. The Quincy Herald Whig is having a "Catch and Click" photo contest. You can only vote one time from one computer, so send it to your friends that live in the Hannibal/Quincy area too! Family in Sturgeon, we're sorry but we don't think they will allow you to vote, because of a 60 mile rule.

Click on this link to help Penny be a winner! :) http://whig.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?p=A&c=8564&s=1339550&i=3&m=X#SD

Friday night we ate breakfast for dinner! Pancakes, eggs, and sausage with peppers, onions and mushrooms! MMmmmm! Then Saturday night we went to visit Grandma and Popop. Caleb was there too, we played some pitch, Apples 2 Apples, and Wa-Hoo. As always it was a lot of fun! :)

Tonight we ate dinner at my Mom and and Dad's. We had roast cooked on the grill with homemade macaroni! Yummmm! Ooooo and we cut up the watermelon we bought from the farmers' market and it is DELICIOUS! :) We came home with a giant sack of tomatoes and green peppers too!

Mom filled out a referral form for Allen tonight. Tomorrow he is going to apply for a postion at General Mills. We haven't heard anything back yet from Hannibal, so by this point in time , we can only assume the position was given to someone else, which as hard as it is to say, must mean it wasn't meant to be. General Mills is hiring and this is a great opportunity to get a full time steady position. My mom has worked for them for 15 years , of course it has changed hands over the years, but has always been a good place to work. Mom said she feels she can at least get Allen an interview with her referral! :) This is good news. We will keep you updated on this!

Oh , and one last thing, when we came home from Grandma and PopPop's last night, this is what we had on our porch! IT WAS HUGE!

Can you believe this?

It's Saturday and Allen has to go to work today, but we got up early enough today to go to the farmers market, a new local bookstore, take Penny for a walk, snap green beans and blog! :) We aren't ever very great morning people. We usually love to sleep as late as possible; but we did it today and it definately paid off. Now we are going to have fresh green beans for dinner! We bought some yellow squach, a giant zucchini, some garden onions (red and white), a sugar baby watermelon, the green beans, and one beautiful purple eggplant. Eggplants are truly the most beautiful vegetables. There's just something about their shape and color. I've never in my whole life cooked an eggplant, so it will interesting. If anyone has any good recipes let me know! Hope everyone has a great Saturday! Maybe we will blog again later...toodles! :)

New Tennis Partners

Well, sorry we haven't blogged very much this week. You didn't miss anything on Tuesday. It was just a regular day...same ol same ol, but yesterday was a little bit more eventful. Yesterday I found out that the corporation I work for laid off 650 people. I have been told my position is safe, but it was still very bad news. There were a few people out of our office let go, but it was all upper management. Most of the layoffs were in Texas though. We are the second largest office next to Chicago, and we are a highly productive team. A lady from corporate came to speak to us about it and it seems that the cuts that have been made will carry us at least through next year depending on what Obama ends up doing with the healthcare situation. That's all I'm going to say about it for now...I'm so sick of having to talk, think, and worry about healthcare reform. I live and breathe it every day. It's stressing me out. I wish I could take a break from it, but there isn't a break. Everyone everywhere is talking about it in their daily lives, and my job is centered around it. I've never felt such pressure from impending legislation in my whole adult life. I've never been much on politics. I've always had my opinions of course, and I have voiced them in the past. Sometimes I feel I'm right, sometimes I've been wrong, but I've never felt educated enough about the issues to take too much of a political stance. Now, I'm right smack dab in the middle of a political issue that I have way more information than I want to have and it makes my head spin. But enough talk about that....

Josh and Lindsey came over for dinner Thursday night. We had philly beef sandwiches and they were yummy. Then despite several attempts to talk Josh out of it, we went and played tennis. We only had the two rackets so Allen played against Josh while Lindsey and I sat on the sidelines getting eaten up by mosquitoes, then I played Lindsey. It was fun and I was glad to get to know her a little bit better. Next time they come over they are going to bring their own rackets and we will play doubles. I'm looking foward to it.

I'm also looking forward to the end of tomorrow , for the weekend to begin!

Oh, and Allen and I have found a new show to watch, and we are SERIOUSLY into it. Netflix is the best $9 /month investment ever! We are watching season one of Heroes, and the show is amazing! Alot of thought went behind this show. There are four seasons so far. I really hope that it continues to be as good as it has. The storyline is amazing, characters are very round and well thought out. The writing is smart, and we love it! The best part of watching it online is no commercials and we can just watch one episode after the other if we want, no cliff hanging until next week! :)

Did you know storks bring more than just babies?

So this weekend was tax free weekend at JC Penney's and Wal-Mart in Hannibal. Picture of Caleb above, is towards the end of the shopping bonanza. I took Caleb back-to-school-shopping for mom (yeah, I know, WHAT WAS I THINKING!). Wal-Mart was a madhouse , so was Penney's but we got some really great deals. I bought three pairs of jeans and two shirts at Penney's for 56 bucks! That's pretty AWESOME! After a super long day of shopping, Allen got off work, and Josh came over to spend the night. We did a tiny bit more shopping for Caleb, all four of us together LOL! Allen, Josh, Caleb, and me...I was definately out numbered. It was a lot of fun though. We ate out at Taco-Bell, played Taboo together and ate junk food all night! Josh and Allen beat me and Caleb. Caleb was WAY off his game. I was trying to get Caleb to say Abraham Lincoln, so my hint was "He freed the slaves..." and Caleb's response was "Oh what was her name?!?" I'm not even kidding that was his answer. Josh got Allen to guess "stork" by saying, "It's a thing at the beach with wings that brings puppies." There were some other pretty good ones too. Then on Sunday of course we went over to Mom and Dad's for dinner. We ate hamburgers with garden fresh tomatoes...mmm mmm good! AND got to meet Josh's new girlfriend Lindsay. She seems like a really nice girl.

In other news, Josh injured himself horseback riding with Lindsay. He has a pretty bad bruise/sprain of his left elbow, but he's gonna be ok.

Tonight we played tennis after we had spaghetti for dinner, but before we went we worked with Penny on learning the "down" command. She does really well with "sit", so I decided I want her to learn "down". We gave her one of our old tennis balls the other day and she LOVES it. We worked with her on it this weekend, but tonight she actually did it all by herself. Now, she only did it once, so she's definately not trained to do it yet, but she is on her way. She's sooo smart!

Penny needs a bath...

SHE STINKS! :) Seriously, it's about time for the little girl to get clean!

LOL! Love you all and hope everyone has a great weekend.

Birthdays, Burritos, and Tennis

First off, we didn't get to blog last night, but we wanted to say Happy Birthday to Mom (Brenda). Yesterday was her birthday, and Happy Birthday today to Matt and Dustin! We love you!

Tonight Josh came over for dinner. We had my black bean and sausage burritos and then we decided to go play tennis, naturally only two of us could play at a time; but it was fun. It was Josh's very first time playing and HE IS REALLY GOOD! He's already serving super fast. We'll probably do it again soon. Pretty much that's all to report. No news yet on Allen's job, but the interview was only on Monday and they have to do reference and background checks yet.

Grille de Cooley

Well, as it goes...you know...back to work yesterday; but before I begin on the normal everyday happenings, how bout a quick recap of this past wonderful weekend?

We went to Sturgeon where we had a great time. It was sooooo good to get to see everyone. Matt and Nicole have a new house that is a really neat house. We are VERY happy for them. We had the most delicious food ALL weekend! We felt like we were eating at a five star restaurant! No kidding, we had New York Strips on Saturday night and we had smoked BBQ ribs Sunday night, not to mention the delicious brunch we had on Sunday too! We played an AWESOME game of trivial pursuit. We bought the latest edition, "Best of Genus", and pretty much Phil whooped all our butts! Talk about a walking history encyclopedia! It was a lot of fun, but we ended up playing for over three hours before Phil took his team to victory. Afterwards, I seriously think my brain hurt! LOL! :)

Then, as always, the weekend had to end, back to the regular routine...bleh...well almost regular routine. Allen did have his interview yesterday and he said it went really well. He feels pretty confident about it. Now the waiting...we hate the waiting; but it's out of Allen's hands now. He has done all he can do. If it's meant to to be, it will be. ( OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE LET IT BE! :) )

Last night I made one of my mom's famous casseroles for Allen. Taco Biscuit Casserole. It is a prize winning recipe she makes from one of the Pilsbury great Bake-Off cook books. Allen loved it! If anyone would would like the recipe let me know. I'll hook you up!

Tonight was played tennis again. WHEW! IT WAS MUGGY! We were sweating up a storm, but it's good for us! I'm still not very good, but I'm going to keep practicing!

I can't wait for this weekend!!!! It is a tax holiday in Hannibal, and I'm going clothes shopping! :) It's going to be expensive but I am in dire need of some office appropriate clothing and a few pairs of jeans. Allen could use a few more good collared shirts as well. I wish clothes weren't so expensive, but if I can buy em without having to pay taxes for em, you betcha I'm gonna do it!!! Nicole, if you're reading this and you feel like making a trip up here this weekend to go shopping and want do it tax free, let me know, you guys can stay the night at our house! It's seriously a VERY good deal and it only happens once a year. Dustin and Jessica, if you read this , same thing to you guys too! :)

LOVE YOU ALL! (AND CHECK OUT THE PHOTO BUCKET PICS, LINK IN THE SIDE BAR!)