S-N-O-W!!!

We have been hearing **Winter Storm Warning** on television... the radio... the internet.

Ever-ry-where.

Some might be upset by this news. End to WARM weather, less than awesome roads to drive on, etc, etc.

Me? The excitement was hardly contained. Ryan came home from work last night and suggested I make/warm up Tortilla Soup while he constructed a nice toasty fire. I squealed with such delight that my dear husband looked at me like a crazy person. But I kind of really love fires (the pops, the smell, the warmth!), and the tortilla soup from my work is pretty stellar. So it was win-win... can you blame me for the excitedness?

Then my mom called me at 8 PMish to tell me it was snowing. It wasn't here yet, but I knew it would be soon!!

When we went to bed it was little flurries of snow. In the night I got up to get a drink, and the sky was orange. I love how the lights reflect on a winter night sky. Then this morning I looked out the window... and this is what I beheld:

B-E-A-utiful! It was really heavy, wet snow. Our parking lot was covered in branches. Kind of sad, but hey, that's nature. And lucky for us, we had scheduled the walkthrough at our new house for today weeks ago. So we got to drive in the snow! What a thrill.

By the way, our house looks amazing. I did not take any pictures because...um. I don't know why. But I didn't. Perhaps I will post some when we go back next week to close.

P.S. My nose is super congested and I suppose it is making me think a little bit goofy. Hope you enjoyed it.

Sneak Peek

My lovely gourmet kitchen, sans appliances. I would have stayed there and slept on the island if I could have.

Feeling A Little Crafty

Holly and I hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, which was unacceptable since we live in the same town. Time really gets away from me sometimes. Anyway, I suggested to her that we get together and do something crafty since we are both wives now, and I am desperately trying to find the craftiness in me.

So we went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some cute stuff to make shadow box things with scrapbooking paper and other fun treats. We got our inspiration from our friend Whitney's blog. Check it out!

I wanted to do something Halloween themed, and Holly went for a more generic Fall theme.

Here is what I started with:

And with the different papers cut and put it in the holes (this board was called a scrapbooking frame I think):

My finished product:

Holly's finished product:

Are they not so cute and fun?? We bought stands to put them on so that they would be leaning back a little. This allows us to leave the papers unglued from the back of the board so we can make new ones for each season or holiday. I can't wait to make a Christmas one!

Chocolate Marble Bread

Have you ever looked at a picture of a recipe and thought it looked just beautiful? That was what I thought when I saw this bread. (Yes. Bread. Again.) Yesterday the weather was cold and dreary so it was basically mandatory that I bake something. I found this recipe and had everything I needed for it, so I decided to give it a go. I had never made bread this "fancy" before, but was excited for the challenge.

It is called Chocolate Marble Bread and you can find the recipe by clicking here.

The only additional tip I have is take make sure that the top layer of circles are level. I had 3 that were just kind of hanging out on top, and they exploded all over the place (not literally) and made the finished product a little Quasimodo-ish. It still tasted delicious though, so don't worry about it if you're not going for beauty.

This is the bottom of the bread when it came out of the oven (it is baked in a tube pan) - I thought it was pretty!

And here it is, in all its sliced and glazed glory:

Happy Fall Baking!

Broadening My Horizons

Tonight Ryan and I took our taste buds on an adventure. He bought a German cookbook while on his mission and had yet to actually make anything out of it. I looked through it yesterday and picked something out that I wanted to make. There were many things in it that I will never make. Like stuffed pig stomach. I didn't even know what it was at first, but the picture was not very appetizing.

I decided on Semmelknödel mit Pilzen. This means something with mushrooms. Maybe eggy boiled bread balls? Okay, so that sounds kind of gross, but it was quite delicious. Here's the recipe and picture in the book:

What? Can't you read it?? Besides the fact that the print is small on your computer screen, it's in German. So Ryan helped me make it! I enjoyed having him there as my translator.

I'm not going to translate it all for you (unless you BEG me to... which most of you will not), but basically it is day-old cubed bread soaked in milk, mixed with parsley, salt/pepper, nutmeg, onions, and 2-3 eggs. Then shaped into balls and boiled for 20 minutes. It is served with a mushroom cream sauce on top. And oh my. We were both raving about it. It turned out perfectly!! I was pretty excited about that, since I could not even read the recipe.

Here's the bread balls before being boiled:

And after:

And with the cream sauce:

The only thing we regretted was that we did not think to invite anybody over to share them with us. I think we should all give ethnic food a try more often!

Autumn in the Mountains

Since autumn fully commenced on September 23rd this year, we decided to make a special trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend to check out the changing leaves.

They were gorgeous! Splashes of yellow, gold, and orange on an otherwise dark green mountain was beautiful to behold.

We found a somewhat secluded trail that led to an open area with a small creek and a fantastic view of the mountains flecked with gold, and we had a small picnic there.

The last time we were in RMNP was the evening that Ryan proposed. It will always hold fond memories.

It was a very nice way to spend our afternoon, and I hope that going to the mountains to fully appreciate the changing season is something we are able to find time for in the years to come.