Meal Making Marathon (Mmm mmm...)

Last month my Mom and I set out to make 4 different recipes to give us 18 freezer meals each.

We bought all the groceries/ingredients Friday night, and then started the cooking and assembling  process Saturday morning.

6 hours later (not including clean-up), we ended up with 22 meals each.

What we made, # of meals we thought we would get, # we did get:
Chicken Enchiladas, 4 meals each, 4 meals each
Chicken & Biscuits, 4 meals each, 8 meals each
Chicken Pillows, 8 meals each, 7 meals each
Meat Loaf, 2 meals each, 3 meals each

Aside from our calculations being a little off, and having a lot more food than we realized it would be, it was a good day. We got a lot of food to eat and I'm super excited I won't have to cook as often.

Also, I want to give a shout out to my AWESOME husband, Bryce who got me an AWESOME brand new KitchenAid for Christmas. I got to use the KitchenAid with this project and believe me it would have taken us a lot longer than 6 hours if we hadn't have had it. Bryce also was a huge help in cubing some of the chicken for us and cutting the onions and other fun jobs like that, so THANK YOU Brycie!

Vacation to Idaho

Our road trip to Idaho over Fall Break was a lot of fun. We went and stayed with the Nygaard family and had a great time. We split the drive up there into two days but on the way home we decided just to tough it out and drive the full 8 hours.

Here are some pictures of the drive up:

It turns out that it was the end of the Spud Harvest in Rexburg while we were there, so we were able to get a tour of a Potato Farm in action.

Here, the trucks that have just returned from the field, back up to the conveyor-belts to empty out all the potatoes.

A truck emptying it's load of potatoes.

The potatoes go from the truck to the conveyor-belt and workers stand here and watch for and pull out items other than potatoes (i.e. rocks, dead birds, dead skunks, etc...).

The potatoes then go up this conveyor-belt into a new container.

The conveyor-belt would then bring the potatoes through the little enclosure which helps hide the workers from the outside elements. Inside the enclosure workers are pulling out any unwanted items off the conveyor-belt that may have been missed.

The conveyor-belt then takes the potatoes into the cellar where they are kept in a temperature regulated environment until it's time to be shipped for sale. 

This is inside the cellar - see the mountain of potatoes at the back.

I have never seen so many potatoes. I have also never thought about all that goes into getting potatoes - before this, if I wanted some potatoes I would just go to the produce aisle at the grocery store and that was that. 

After our tour of the potato farm we stopped to look at a cellar no longer in use.

Here is the outside view - what you can't see is the roof. The roof is covered in dirt and sod.

This is the inside view.

Here we are standing underneath where the roof caved in - very safe.

Bryce went on a ride with Josh in one of the trucks that was out in the field getting potatoes from this other truck/machine that was pulling the potatoes out of the ground (not sure of all the technical/correct terms). Each trip to the field took about an hour so while Bryce was doing that I went with Heather to walk around BYU-Idaho. I wish I had had the camera then because the gardens there were amazing! 

We played a lot of 'hand and foot' with the Nygaards and now we are determined to play more - so as soon as we got home we went out and bought a few deck of cards. 

It was only a few days, but the trip was a nice break from work and school for both of us and we hope to be able to go up again. 

We Believe, We Endure, We Trek

In July (please bear with me while I play "catch-up") Bryce and I participated in our stake's youth conference, which was a pioneer handcart trek. We were a Ma and Pa and we had 8 youth in our little family. The trek took place up on Cedar Mt (which meant there was a lot less dust and a lot more shade compared to the other treks Bryce and I have been on). There were some difficult hills and a few strenuous areas on the trail but our family of troopers were amazing and did not give up. Thankfully, no one in our family got sick or injured (as long as you don't count the one parkour incident - lol).

Our family's theme was "We Believe, We Endure, We Trek". Our family's 'name', war cry, cheer, gathering chant and motivational yell was "Gryffindor!!!" The trek took place over the weekend that the Harry Potter #7 movie Part 2 came out - so needless to say the kids and I were feeling the pain of missing out on an opening night midnight showing while we were camping out in pioneer clothes, so... we decided that since we couldn't be there to view the show the next best way to honor and remember 'The-boy-that-lived' and how he conquered 'He-who-must-not-be-named' was to adopt "Gryffindor" as our family name, etc... It was awesome! No, it probably wasn't what the stake leaders expected and we definitely got a few strange looks, but it was great! No other family had any type of cheer so when we were pulling our handcarts or competing in pioneer games our family was always the loudest, most motivated and most unified. Maybe I am being completely biased, but we had some really great kids in our family. I definitely think that as the ma and pa we really lucked out.

Now please enjoy some pictures of our trek experience:

Here is our awesome flag - notice the sword of Gryffindor and the sorting hat wonderfully depicted.

"Gryffindor!!"

 Bryce and I watching our family competing in Pioneer games. The camera lady got lucky - this is probably the one moment we weren't yelling and cheering for our kids.

I love this picture because of what we are watching: at this moment we are cheering and laughing as one of our sons, Kelton - a real life cowboy, is trying to chase down and lasso a sheep that wandered into camp. All the other leaders were like "leave the sheep alone." Not us. We were encouraging of the sheep chasing; we participated in parkour at trail stops, and we were up playing mafia until midnight... Good Times :) 
That's right - We were the cool parents.

Family Picture Time!

On the trail again...

More House Pictures...

More pictures coming soon? I bet you didn't think I would follow through huh? Well here they are:

Welcome to a mini-tour of our house. This way is the kitchen...

Here is our awesome kitchen table we got for a steal at Blvd Home Furnishings. You can't see it but it has a bench seat on the far side and the table extends so we have 2 extra chairs too.

 The 2 doors behind the table is our 'his and her' pantries - mine is filled with cookies, home-made bread and cereal, while Bryce has his stocked with chips, salsa and queso ;)

This is the other side of our kitchen.

Here is our "entertainment" room and our awesome couch that we got from Costco that we love. Now that we have a table and a couch we can actually have people over to visit and you won't be forced to share a metal folding chair or a moving box :) So come visit so you can help us break in our new furniture. We can watch The Office or play Cashflow.

Now in here is a view of our front room/library room. Our computer (where I am sitting at this very moment - I have a lovely view of our front yard and our little circle - so basically I can watch all the comings and goings of our neighbors) is cut out of the picture to the left (and yes we finally have the internet at home!) .

Now this is the left view of our backyard (please note our handy shed).

And this the right view of our backyard (what!? a 2nd shed? yes we have 2 handy sheds - both of which came with the house - what luck!).

In our front yard we have this lovely little rose bush. I'm so happy to see it still blooming :)

And this is Bryce's motorcycle. Just thought I would add this in seeing as I forgot to post about it when we first bought it.

Well, thanks for joining me on this mini-tour of our house. If you want to see more you'll just have to come over and see us! :)

NEW HOUSE!!

Here it is over a year since my last post I know but I finally have something to blog about... hurray! After months of searching and putting in offers and going back and forth on our options we have finally landed us a sweet deal. We got the keys to our new house Wednesday night and we are so excited!

(Here's the back view)

More pictures will be coming soon...

Springtime!

Hurray! Springtime is finally in the air!
Some things about Spring can make you smile or laugh: the trees blooming, the garden is planted, the sun is shining and Fofino & Lacy (my grandparents' 2 pomeranians) have taken up a never-ending game of hide and seek (with Lacy doing the hiding and Fofino doing all of the seeking). There are other things about Spring that can cause you to be grumpy or shiver with the heebee geebees: the hundreds of mosquitoes that attack each time you step outside, and the colony of mice that are now living under the porch by the back door, just to name a few.
Overall, I think the ‘positives’ far outweigh the ‘negatives’ in this particular situation... especially considering we just bought some poison for our little mice friends (mwhahaha - evil laugh).
A few more ‘positives’/blessings have arrived with this year’s Spring season. Bryce just started a job at Red Mt Spa as a dishwasher in the kitchen. (Thank you to those family members who put a good word in for him). We are very grateful that he has a steady job.
Concerts are starting up this month at Tuacahn which means I’m starting to get more hours so we are very grateful for that as well.
The biggest ‘positive’ of Spring, is of course the celebration of the Easter Story and the knowledge that because Christ died and rose again, we too can be Resurrected and be with our families forever.
I am very glad that Spring has arrived and am very grateful for all the big & little blessings that come with it.
I hope everyone has a Happy Easter Weekend.

It's a sad sad day in the Ransom household... Bryce sold his Hyundai Accent today and is missing it already. So here is "Farewell" to his peppy little car. We will miss it.