It's been a fun few weeks. My boss was on vacation for 2 weeks, so since January we've worked a modified schedule that included 5 weeks of NO SATURDAYS!!! What does that mean for the Bishop family? Road trips! We've enjoyed jaunts to San Fran, Mt Diablo State Park, little Nor Cal Sierra Mountain towns, and even Nevada twice.
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| Hollywood/Downtown Disney |
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| Shelter Cove, WAY north CA in Humboldt County |
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| San Francisco |
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| Mt Diablo State Park |
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| Somewhere on the way to Nevada |
It is so nice to spend time together as a family, even if it is 6 hours in a car. Kody may sleep and "screen time"a bit, but David and I talk and take in the scenery. I'm so excited that my family is FINALLY going to make it out here for Colton's birth; I'm torn about trying to figure out places for them to go b/c not only will I have a fresh, days old newborn, I will also be recovering from major surgery. I've conveniently forgotten what 'recovery' was like, so I may be down and out! We have a DATE! Our little Mav will enter the world on April 1st, some time between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning. Assuming everything goes as planned.
For my birthday, I made the decision to buy tickets to a concert. We haven't 'done' a concert since Labor Day weekend in 2011. It was an ALL day concert that day. We went to the "Rock and Worship Road Show" at Sleep Train Arena and it was AWESOME. We sprung for VIP tickets which got us entry to the venue 3 hours early; as a result, our seats were PERFECT! IMO, seats can definitely make or break a concert! Got to see our favorite, Jeremy Camp, and got to take in the amazingness that is a Newsboys concert. WOW! They were of course the 2 headlining acts and they were amazing. Well worth the wait. The best part of the night was when Kody had a real moment of worship and humbleness during a Jeremy song; I think the words and the meaning really reached out and touched my boy, and I'm so thankful he got to experience that. Waving our hands in the air and singing aloud praising God was really a fun time.
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| Newsboys |
The menu has had some yummy food on it lately! I've made quite a few recipes that are very tasty; I honestly think I've been scared to cook w/ "real food" in the past. My menus have been comprised pretty much entirely of frozen meats, hamburger helper, and processed meals. I feel much better cooking w/ real, whole foods and meats. I'm nowhere near the chef my sister is, but at least I'm branching out and "growing up" lol. Here's a few winners:
Spicy Shrimp Sandwiches Made these tonight. I did NOT make the home made avocado chipotle mayo; I just used Kraft chipotle mayo. These turned out AMAZING! Picky picky son that turns his nose up at shrimp said they were AWESOME, so win!
Cheeseburger Casserole This was actually surprisingly good! I used ground turkey and whole wheat rotini, turned out great.
No boil manicotti I loved how simple this dish was! I simplified by using just the jarred sauce, no meat in it. I also subbed ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese. Much easier to pipe in the cheese to hard noodles vs. soft, cooked noodles. They turned out really good, not hard or chewy at all in the crockpot.
Parmesan meatloaf This one was a big hit w/ the hubs! Pretty easy and VERY tasty. Again, I used only ground turkey.
Spiced pot roast I bought an entire six pack of Guiness beer for this recipe since you can't just buy one 12 oz bottle from the grocery store. It was good, but I think would be very well suited for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sweet potatoes would be a very good side dish w/ this one. Definitely a different and interesting flavor. One of the comments said it was "very bitter", but I didn't experience that at all.
Cashew Chicken This one was a bit of a let down for me. My mouth was literally watering as I prepared it b/c it looked SO good. My problem was the breading on the chicken; I dipped it in the corn starch and only used cooking spray in my pan instead of the oil b/c I didn't want it to be greasy at all. The breading ended up soaking up most of the sauce so it turned out very dry. Even the cashews couldn't save it for me. If I make it again, I'll probably do more sauce, and I may just brown the chicken w/ NO corn starch. Even the overall taste seemed a little off to me, so not sure if I'll try it again.
That's it for now! I'll be working pretty much the entire month of March, and then it's 8 weeks of new baby time. We've been trying to get everything set up and ready for his arrival a bit at the time. Getting a little nervous, but getting excited too.
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| New and from big brother |
