Thanksgiving Run-down

Thanksgiving stretched over 2 days for me, along with a busy weekend. Here is a run-down of what I did.

Thursday: Started off with making myself (Ben had already run out to do a few errands by the time I woke up) a decent breakfast (scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce) to get my metabolism going, but not too heavy, so I'd be good and hungry for lunch.

Went to my aunt Tammy's house for a feast with a lot of my cousins, aunts and uncles, my grandpa, my parents, and a few close family friends.

The Feast

My mom and I

My cousin Jason, Ben, and I

Our friend Liz and my cousin Amanda

While waiting for our food to settle before going for round 2 later in the evening, we started Christmas a little early and made gingerbread houses. Gingerbread houses are a Christmas tradition for our family!

Ben's park (we ran out of graham crackers for him to make an actual house with- he gave up on it after a few minutes though)

My cousin Ryan's "Nike Factory"

My cousin Jason's house (again, graham cracker shortage so just a small house- love that it has an address on the front!)

Our friend Liz and her house

My house and I

Back of my house

My cousin Haylee's house (after monsters attacked it, she said)

My mom's house

Besides the gingerbread houses, we also played the piano, played some video games, and just lounged around and enjoyed good company.

Great way to spend Thanksgiving!

Friday: We went to my parents' house for lunch with them and Jenn, Scott, Wes, and Leslie. Another gourmet feast!

And a cute little tablescape!

Didn't get a lot of pictures on Friday, but after lunch we played Balderdash, drank eggnog, and ate dessert.

My parents left the next day for a cruise, so we got to split all the leftovers amongst the kids (although they would have done that anyway without the cruise!). Yum!

Went home around 5 so Ben could go to work and I could study for the GMAT on Saturday. Took a practice test at home, did decent, but was not feeling overly-confident about taking the real thing.

Saturday: Went to a testing center and took the GMAT from noon until 3:15. Ended up with a 610, even higher than I expected, especially since I felt like I was doing terrible! All I needed to get to apply for grad school at IUS was a 450, so I'm happy with that score!

After a mentally exhausting afternoon, I lounged for a while and wrote my application essay for IUS. Later, I went to my friend Ashley's parents house to meet up with Ashley and her mom and plan the Bible Bowl Christmas party we're having a week from Monday during practice.

Sunday: Church, lunch, and blogging! Ben is doing some yard work before going to work tonight. I plan on cleaning up the house and then starting the Christmas decorating finally! Of course, there will be lots of pictures to follow on that!

This Thanksgiving and weekend was great and I am again reminded of how blessed I am! Wonderful family and friends, a loving husband, a warm home and an abundance of great food. God continues to provide for us and we are so thankful!

Puffy Face: Day 3

Day 3: My face is getting better:

Still not completely back to normal, but definitely a big improvement today- mostly gone, I would say. It is much less sore to the touch, as well. If I remember correctly, when this happened over the summer, it took about 1 week to go away. I think it's going away more quickly this time.

Yesterday I started taking chlorophyll, which is a natural remedy for cleansing the blood and killing viruses. When my dad was diagnosed with Bell's palsy (paralysis of the facial muscles on one side of the face- his face muscles just stopped working one day!), he took chlorophyll and it went away in one week, while some people deal with it for years or sometimes forever. Anyway, chlorophyll is good for anything virus-related. This is the first time I've bought it and taken it myself, so needless to say I was a little scared to drink this:

It is just dark green concentrated liquid that you add to juice or water. It doesn't have much flavor (luckily) when it is added to water, only just a slight grassy flavor...sounds gross, but really not bad. Hopefully I don't turn green or else I really will look like a monster!

Have a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Puffy Face: Day 2

Here I am this morning:

I think the puffiness is slightly worse. I called the Anthem nurse hotline to see if they had any advice, and all they said was to go to a doctor for a diagnosis since it has happened before. How annoying- I thought the advice would be something more like a possible diagnosis, not advice telling me to see a doctor. I don't have a primary care doctor, though, so didn't really feel like finding one just for this. Guess I'll just take my home remedies and hope the swelling goes away like it did last time.

Also, please take some advice from the Everyday Megan hotline- don't take pictures of your face this up close because it will make you feel like your nose and forehead are huge and all your features are lopsided. Thank you.

Puffy Face

The last couple of days, I could feel that the glands in my neck on the left side were really sore and swollen. But it feels different than the usual swollen glands- it's like right under my ear it just feels hard as a rock! I had this happen this summer while I was in Europe, except on the other side of my neck, and it caused my face to puff up and everything! I took pictures of it then because I thought it looked so weird. Well, I said yesterday to Ben that this feels like the same thing happening again- and sure enough, I woke up today with my face all puffy and swollen.

I know it's hard to really tell, but it feels so noticeable to me, like my face is twice its normal size! So here are the pics- this first one is me this summer where the right side of my face (left side of the picture) is swollen:

This is me today, with the left side of my face (right side of the picture) swollen:

I feel like my face looks so distorted in these pictures! On a side note, my hair has gotten pretty long since then.

So this face swelling isn't the only weird thing. I also get random shooting pains in my jaw and ear on the swollen side, and my throat is a little sore too. I decided to stay home from work today and take it easy to help fight off whatever it is making my glands go crazy- don't want to be sick on Thanksgiving! I did go to the chiropractor this morning with Ben though, which is why I'm in the car in the picture from today. I will post more pictures tomorrow if this gets any worse, because in the summer it did get worse after the first day of being swollen, so I'm sort of expecting that to happen again. I guess I'm a monster or something.

Weekend Festivities and Good Food

The last couple weekends have been full of fun stuff. Here is an overview:

The Saturday before last, Jenn and Scott had us over for another wine and cheese tasting and fabulous dinner. We had French white wines, along with some brie and gruyere cheese.

Dinner was pumkpin ravioli (and Jenn even made the ravioli herself!) with cubed chicken and a garlicy sauce on top. Here are some of the raviolis before being boiled:

To die for. They also served bread, brussel sprouts with turkey bacon, and mashed sweet potatoes. What I wouldn't give to be eating that again for dinner tonight! After stuffing ourselves with all that food, we got in the hot tub. Wine tasting, great dinner, and hot tub are becoming a ritual for us over there!

This past weekend was Christmas-come-early. I'm not sure what happened to Thanksgiving, but Friday I helped Jenn put up her Christmas tree in the basement...

...and Scott and I sat in front of the fire and watched as her and Mikey (a friend of Jenn and Scott's) put up her Christmas village around the mantle (Scott says he did his part by building the fire and I did my part with the tree :)). We were rewarded for our hard work with the yummiest semi-homemade pizza ever!

I say semi-homemade because Jenn bought a freshly-made veggie pizza from Whole Foods, then added hamburger, chili peppers, kalamata olives, and lots of cheese herself.

Saturday afternoon I went to my cousin Amanda's house for a Christmas gift party, where I bought this awesome jewelry that Amanda makes and sells to raise money for her and her husband's adoption:

Her stuff is really cute and inexpensive! Sorry gals, I bought all this jewelry for myself. But if you're interested, you can purchase it on her website, http://www.wix.com/amandamay24/jewelry.

The next night, I went over to Jenn and Scott's again for "Godfather Night" in which they had a bunch of friends over to watch The Godfather and to eat lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and cannoli ("leave the gun, take the cannoli"). Had to get a picture of this cute little wine charm:

I got there late so didn't see the beginning of the movie. I'll have to watch it again someday since I've never seen it all before. After dinner, everyone watched The Godfather II, but I went home since Ben was getting off work.

Today after church, Ben and I went to lunch with Mom, Dad and Wes (Leslie is visiting a friend in Seattle). We ate at Ichiban, one of those Japanese restaurants where you sit at a table with a bunch of people and they grill all the food right in front of you. I happened to snag a shot of the "onion volcano".

The people on the other side of the table are actually parents of 2 coworkers of mine. They go to Southeast as well, so we run into them there a lot since it's really close to church and a good Sunday lunch place.

I hate to see another weekend come to an end...but looking forward to only working 3 days this week and lots more good food for Thanksgiving!!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at Macaroni Grill. Ben and Leslie had to work, but Wes, Jenn, Scott, Mom, Dad, and I were able to go. One thing I love about Dad is that he enjoys spending time with his family. We had a good time just telling stories and eating dinner. Nothing like salty bread dipped in olive oil and cheesy pasta to make a birthday happy!

...oh, and a Snuggie! Ben and I bought Dad one for his birthday. For anyone who doesn't know, a Snuggie is a blanket with sleeves so that you can still use your hands while remaining under the blanket. In other words, it is a robe that you wear backward.

We all laugh and make fun of these things when we see it on tv, so I knew it would be hilarious! And even though it was a funny gift, I knew it was something he could still use.

If you've ever met my dad, you can immediately tell what a sweet person he is. He makes friends easily and really comes alive around people. Doesn't talk much, and yet he can get a good bargain out of any salesman, and is a great salesman himself. He works harder than anyone I know, and he loves to do his work with excellence. He's a problem-solver, very intelligent, mathematical, good with strategy. He studies his hand in a card game and always ends up winning. He is one of those people that can pick up anything and be great at it. He is amazing at building and remodeling, seeing the end result in his mind when others can't. He loves to give to his family, is extremely generous, and would give you the shirt off his back. He has patience, rarely gets upset, and is easy-going. He is a godly man, sensitive, and humble. He makes it easy to picture God in the role of Father, as a loving, caring, forgiving father himself. What a lucky girl I am to have been raised in such a way!

Love you, Dad! Happy birthday and enjoy the Snuggie!

Girl's Game Night

Around a year ago, my sister decided to start girl's game night once a month with me, Mom, and Jenn's mother-in-law, Sharon.

Jenn hosted the first month's game night at her house. We had dinner, then played a card game called "Oh Fooey". We all put in $5, and the winner got the $20 and a little traveling trophy Jenn made that says "the winner!". The loser has to host game night the following month. We decided to stick with these rules for all our game nights.

We had game night 3 months in a row, playing a variety of games like dominoes or a board game or cards, but then I went away to Germany and sort of messed up the pattern. But Thursday night, we resumed game night, this time at Mom's house. She had everything so cute, as usual! The table was set beautifully with these leaf dishes and fall tablescape.

She made chicken tortellini soup that was delicious!

She also had warm bread, brie, an assortment of crackers, olives, tomatoes, and peppers to munch on.

Of course, there was dessert- homemade pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate toffee fudge.

Let's just say I gained a little weight that night.

The game of the night was Bunco.

Bunco is usually played with 12 people at 3 tables and all the partners move up or down depending on the winners, but we just played our own little version where whoever won the round got a point and the person with the most points at the end wins. We played 2 rounds (1 through 6 twice), and the winner was...Jenn!

Jenn won the last game night as well. Mom won game night #1, and Sharon won game night #2. Now, this may come as a shock to all of you who constantly tell me that I win at everything, but I have never won game night. I have been the host once, though, and this time Sharon and I tied for last place. We rolled a dice to determine who would host the next game night in December, and the lot fell to Sharon. I'm looking forward to it already...maybe I'll finally come out victorious! I'm not holding my breath, though.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Last week I made Ben's dad some peanut butter fudge. I've never made fudge before, but it was a really simple recipe, so I decided to try it. If you would like to try it, too, here are the details.

You'll need 4.5 cups of sugar (did I mention how healthy this fudge is?),

1 7 oz. jar of marshmallow creme,

1 12 oz. can evaporated milk,

1/2 stick of butter (melted, although clearly not melted in this picture...)

and 1 12 oz. bag of peanut butter chips.

Put all the peanut butter chips in a mixing bowl and set aside. Mix all the other ingredients in a big pot (and I mean big!) to cook on the stove. The mixture will start off looking all lumpy and weird like this:

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a rolling boil:

Now remember how I said to put it in a big pot? Mine was not big enough because the mixture was so dangerously close to pouring over the edge once it started boiling, and it was splattering everywhere and I had to wear an apron and oven mitts to guard myself...so I would recommend using a big chili pot.

Back to business. Keep stirring the boiling mixture for 5 minutes, then immediately poor the mixture over the peanut butter chips in the mixing bowl. Stir until the chips are all melted and smooth and the mixture thickens a little.

Line a 13x9 dish with foil:

Pour mixture into the dish and let cool.

Once cool, you just cut it into squares and enjoy! Now wasn't that easy?

Warning: this makes 4 pounds of fudge, so probably best to give some away. :)

Sadly, I cannot even eat peanut butter, so I didn't get to try my creation- although it looked really yummy. Ben said it was great, and when Ben took it to his dad's office the next day, Carl called me and was freaking out over it he was so excited- so hopefully, it did not disappoint!