Life Transplanet

After the crazy wind died down on New Year’s Eve, we went out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse, a Texas-themed steakhouse where they play country music and you can throw peanut shells on the ground. The perfect type of place for Greeley. And it was full of people. Thankfully, Britton had called ahead and we walked right in with no wait. We felt like VIPs!

At Texas Roadhouse in Greeley

Then we went over to our friends Matt and Jamie’s house to play some Texas Hold-Em poker (a very Texas night for some reason) and ring in the new year. We played tournament style which takes way too long for my patience, but is fun for a night counting down the hours, minutes and seconds to the new year.

After about three hours of playing everyone starts getting restless and not paying much attention to the game and instead starts telling jokes and messing around.

Me and Hailee playing around

To add a little spice to the night, Britton and I had  decided beforehand to play a practical joke. We found some “untearable toilet paper” at the dollar store the other day. Britton inconspicuously traded out the regular paper in the bathroom for the un-tearable kind. We thought about removing all the regular toilet paper under the bathroom sink, but thought that might be too mean, so he just removed and replaced the roll on the spring.

After about 2 hours of playing poker, finally someone went to the bathroom. Britton and I waited to see what would happen. Finally, our friend Erin came out and said “Matt and Jamie, what IS this stuff? It’s just about impossible to tear. Are you trying to re-use your toilet paper?” They were mortified and said, “We just bought it at Wal-Mart the other day.” Britton and I just laughed along with everyone else, and no one knew it was us for the longest time until we came clean. We were just shocked that Erin was actually able to pry it apart and even used it!! That takes some doing. It was pretty hilarious.

Erin with the TP around her neck

Finally as we were nearing midnight only Britton, Erin and I remained as the last three in the poker tournament. We decided to call it and Britton and I took first, and she took second. So we walked away with $60! Not too shabby!

This was the final table. I had the most chips (on the right)! Yay

Erin, Jamie and Me- Making the Money-haha

It was a fun night out with friends and a great start to the new year. We hope everyone has a wonderful and prosperous 2012!

Britton and I both had a four day weekend for the Christmas holiday but most of it was filled with activities.

Friday we baked cookies all day long. Then Saturday we spent the evening with Britton’s family. On Sunday we went over to my grandma’s for Christmas dinner. And on Monday we took Britton’s niece and nephew out to lunch and to pick out a present of their choice. So while it was nice to sleep in, we didn’t really get much of a break otherwise. The time went by rather quickly and 2012 is rapidly approaching as well. We hope you all had a nice holiday with friends and family.  Britton and I are looking forward to 2012 and our next trip to Puerto Rico which will be at the mid to end of January.

This Thanksgiving was pretty low-key. We went to my grandma’s  new house here in Greeley.

Thanksgiving 2011 at Grandma’s house

Then we went over to Britton’s family’s house for another meal. So we were highly stuffed.

While we are happy to have a four-day weekend, in some ways we are ready to get back to the normal work week for a few reasons. 1) My car broke down when I was out doing inspections on Wednesday. We had to get it towed from Fort Lupton back to Greeley. Because of the holiday they won’t even look at it until Monday. That makes me a little anxious. And 2) Britton is on-call this whole weekend, so on Monday he’ll get to turn the pager over to someone else.

Other than that, we’ve been enjoying the time off and the opportunity to think about our lives and be thankful for all we have. We’ve accomplished so much this year! It’s amazing. We are so thankful. Since the holidays are about bringing family together, it also made me remember how much I miss my dad. Holidays are hard like that. Sometimes in a weird way, I am happy I still have such strong feelings about my dad inside me though. It makes me feel like he is still here, somehow.

We’ve taken a couple of walks and even walked down inside the Greeley ditch (since it is empty this time of year) to stay out of the crazy wind. It’s like finding a new world to explore down there. Old ditched (literally) rusted bicycles, tree branches and crawdads line the bottom. We avoided Black Friday like the Black Plague and stayed inside and made turkey sandwiches, tea and brownies. We played Wii Frisbee golf, bowling, and the airplane game on Wii Sports Resort.

This week we also got our medical student who moved into the basement bedroom, but she is with her family this holiday weekend, so we have the house to ourselves. We also got our vacation time approved and are planning on going back to Rincon toward the end of January! We are already making a list of all the things we want to do when we are there!

Anyhow, that’s what we’ve been up to lately -the highs and the lows. Happy Thanksgiving!

My aunt Laura invited us to an avocado tasting party put on by the Avocado Diva and Vintage Inn in Eaton/Galeton. We had so much fun! The bed and breakfast was a beautiful house and the hostess is a terrific cook. There were all sorts of different foods to try that had a little avocado in them. From chocolate/avocado fudge and avocado salad to delicious guacamole and avocado leaf tea!

A nice spread of avocado and other snacks!

The Avocado Diva brought all of these avocados straight from small-scale farms in California. We learned all about different types of avocados including such varieties as Zutano, Bacon, Pinkerton, and the most famous: Haas. The type we were most impressed by was the Mexicola! According to the Avocado Diva, Brenda, this is the original wild Mexican avocado. It looks sort of like a fig or a plum and the skin is edible! The skin has a sort of nutty flavor to it. This is also the variety that you can use the licorice smelling leaves in iced tea. What’s more, is unlike most of the hybridized varieties, this one you can grow true to form from the seed. So we are going to try and sprout some here and maybe in PR too!

The small black, smooth-skinned Mexicola Avocado in comparison with another variety

We bought a variety box of them and are looking forward to enjoying our gourmet avocados for the next couple of weeks! Yay! We did find two or three avocado trees on our property in Rincon, so this makes us all the more excited to eat off our land! We learned today that there are avocados that mature at different seasons. Some are summer varieties and some are winter while others are year-round producers. We would love to be able to eat these all year round!

Holding a small Mexicola next to our box of goodies

This Friday Britton and I are planning on going to the Greeley Spook the Plaza Zombie Pub Crawl. We will be dressing as zombies and even performing the Thriller song downtown. I think they are even going to close off the roads so we can zombify them. We might go to Kress Theater for a free scary movie afterward also. If you want to meet up with us, let us know (but we might not be recognizable as the un-dead- haha).