Not exactly a plan...

The littlest one that I nanny for wanted to draw with chalk recently.  I tried to teach her different geometric shapes.  If you look closely, you can see three purple spots towards the top.  I asked her what she was drawing.  Without missing a beat she replied, "Your coffee".  Haha - she cracks me up!  (For the record, I do not drink purple coffee.)

It is Tuesday night and I do not have an exact plan for the coming week...we did not make as many meals as I planned last week.  (I think I plan for 4 much better than just Ian and me).  So we are eating up whatever is in the fridge before I go grocery shopping.  Here are a few meals that come to mind:

• Stir fry veggies + Chicken + Brown Rice
• Egg Bake
• French Toast Casserole
• Meatloaf
• Pizza, Puppy Chow, and Spinach Cheesy Dip (Friday night is our turn to host Game Night for my amazing husband and his friends)
• Homemade Granola + Milk
• Tomato Soup + Grilled Cheese

The wee one and I are pretty much the dream team when it comes to chalk: I drew the flower, she drew the stem. 

Fall

I had full intentions to get this done right away, but alas, six weeks have passed and I am just getting to it.  Better late than pregnant, right?  (Let's pretend I did just think that in my mind and then write it on my blog...)

Pretending that I am still in Korea...what to do with your hands during a picture?!?

Anywho, this weekend (six weekends ago), Ian and I headed up to Estes Park to check out the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway.  We took our camera and a picnic supper and hit the trail.  We were a bit early to see all of the fall colors, but we did catch some glimpses.  The Rocky Mountains are gorgeous - no matter the season.

I did laugh at myself while we were driving.  Within the last month (at the time) we had traveled from S. Korea to America (like 50 hours of travel or something crazy like that with all the layovers etc.) then we drove 16ish hours out to Colorado...I thought I would be ready for a break from driving.   Ha! Nope! I was one that suggested the 2+ hour drive to Estes Park and back.  I think the drive home took longer because we did not go a direct route.

Pretty Yellow Aspen Trees Contrasted by the Green Pine Trees - Gorgeous!

I do remember it being super-windy (and chilly) up in the mountains.  We have some pretty awesome pictures of my crazy hair blowing in the wind...but wind-blown is the new classy look, right?

All in all, it was a fun afternoon!

What is your favorite part of fall?

Thursday, a photo essay

We woke up to some snow Thursday morning.  Note: I saw more snow plows on the running trail than the road.  #weird

Before

After (I took this on the la celphona...with weird lighting..but you get the general idea)

After: the back.  I cut off 7 inches and LOVE it. 

Alexz, if you are reading this, know that 3 people told me I look like Julia Stiles yesterday (after I got my haircut).  It made me think of you!

How was your Thursday (or Friday)?

The plan for 10.23.2012 - 10.31.2012

Wednesday :: Company Casserole
Thursday :: Barley Soup  (it is supposed to snow, I thought this sounded yummy!)
Friday :: Mac & Cheese & Whatever else I find in the fridge that sounds good
Saturday :: Chicken and Green Beans
Sunday :: Spinach Pesto Pasta w/ Chicken (I am going to try to make spinach pesto this week...we'll see how that turns out)
Monday :: Leftovers
Tuesday :: Egg Bake (I am not exactly sure which recipe I will do this one, or this one, or I just had a friend email me a new one...)
Wednesday :: Stir fry veggies + brown rice + chicken

Meal Planning and Running Schedule Planning

Interview with {no other than} Alissa!

I can't believe that we have been in America for over 2 months!  I also can't believe how sweet my friends (dare I say, 'community'... a word I never thought I would use post-Greenville) have been with checking in on how transition to America is going.

Instead of emailing everyone individually, I thought I would interview myself (I am pretty sure that all the cool kids are doing it).

Here are some of the most popular questions that we have gotten over the last few weeks/months.

Q: How do you like Colorado?
A: We LOVE it.  The low humidity is amazing.  And it is sunny a lot.  One thing that we are still adjusting to is suburb living.  It is a whole different beast.  I can do city living (like Daegu) and I can definitely do small town or rural, but suburbs are...interesting.

Q: What do you miss from Korea?
A: the.people. No doubt about that.  We do miss some of the food, the simplicity of non-American living, and I miss the financial stability/security of having two incomes (but God IS good and He DOES provide, so we are okay, I just like to feel security in earthly things like a paycheck.)

Q: What do you do?
A: Currently, I am a nanny.  I get paid to hang out with three pretty cool kids (ages 8, 5, and 2.5).  Most days are pretty fun, some days are not so much (those days I come home saying, "we are NEVER having children"  When  you have kids, they live with you ALL the time, like, the parents never come home and you get to leave...yikes!  I think it is a huge blessing that all humans are born as cute, helpless infants.   So glad that no one accidentally pops out a teenager....or a two and a half year old.)  Anywho, it is a pretty good part time job.  I will get a full time teaching job (eventually).

Ian goes to class.  He learns cool stuff and tells me about it.  He seems to like classes and is doing well! 

Q: What do you like about living in America again?
A: the.people.  It is SO great to be near family again.  We love having a car again and being able to communicate easily with people around us.  Our grocery bill is considerably lower as well :-)  There are a lot of little things that are nice too: not needing a proxy to watch Hulu or listen to Pandora, being in similar time zones to most of my friends, knowing that we will have Thanksgiving and Christmas off (YES!), seeing other women out running etc, etc, etc.

Q: How do you like your apartment?
A: We love it!  Usually we do a video tour of the place we are living, it is coming...eventually.

Q: Are you still running?  How is running in Colorado?
A: Yes, I am still running.  I thought I was going to move to Colorado and have about 23,489,302,948 insta-running buddies...not so much.  Running has taught me endurance, so I am trying to endure until I can find someone to run with.  I do go to a running club on Wednesday nights.  They write really hard workouts - which is fun, but the demographic is a bit different than what I am looking for.

I think that is about it...anymore questions?  Ask away and I will be more than happy to answer :-)

Menu Plan 10.16.2012 and the rest of the story...

FYI: We get free bread some times.  It is a perk of being in seminary.  Just thought you should know before you read about all the sandwiches we will be eating this week!  And if you want to see what actually happened with last week's meal plan, scroll down to the bottom.

Wednesday: Chili (we never ate chili last week)
Thursday: Pizza (we have some leftover pepperoni from last week) I think this is what we my amazing husband uses for the crust.
Friday: The Best Chicken Salad Sandwich Evah
Saturday: Chicken Quesadillas
Sunday: Leftover Chili and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Monday: French Toast
Tuesday: Pulled Chicken Sandwiches (basically shredded chicken with bbq sauce)

This has nothing to do with Menu Planning...just a lovely pic from my 10 mile (16km) long run on Saturday

And now for the rest of the story...

Wednesday: Pizza, Salad, and Bread sticks (The amazing hubs is going to whip out the pizza, the bread sticks are coming from the freezer section).   We are having guests and I thought we needed something extra...like bread stick.   Long story short: DO NOT try out a brand new pizza stone 45 minutes before guests show up...especially if the internet tells you to put a lot of oil on said stone and pop it into a 500 degree oven.  THE INTERNET IS WRONG...there will be smoke... a lot of it.  We took our guests out to eat while our apartment aired out. 
Thursday: Meatloaf, Mashed Sweet Potatoes, and Green Beans (This actually happened = Success!  Thanks from coming Alexz!)
Friday: Thai Chicken Pasta (I babysat, Ian had leftovers)
Saturday: Crockpot Chili (I will only use half a pound of beef in this recipe)  I found out around noon that we were having someone over for dinner, so we had the Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole instead. 
Sunday: Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole, (and the other half pound of beef in this recipe) and Broccoli & Cauliflower  We attended Unpacking Atheism. (We were able to attend the Live event!) Of course, an Atheist sat at our discussion table.  We ended up getting home much later than planned - it was a bowl of cereal kind of night.
Monday: French Toast  (This actually happened went as planned...what is better than getting back from a run to find French Toast waiting in the Penguin?)
Tuesday: Leftovers/Clean out the Fridge We had the Thai Chicken Pasta that we were supposed to have on Friday.

What was the best meal that you ate last week?

I can't think of a fun title for this one

My parents came to visit this past weekend.

See?  They came!  And we took them out for some Korean food (YUM-O!)

At some point during the weekend, my mom mentioned that I should email her my weekly menu plans to give her ideas and hold her accountable on menu planning (not that I ever lecture my mom on the importance of making and sticking to a meal plan).

And since I have not blogged in a long time, I thought you might want to read what we will be eating this coming week.  I grocery shop on Wednesdays (hence I start there with my meal plan).

• Wednesday: Pizza, Salad, and Bread sticks (The amazing hubs is going to whip out the pizza, the bread sticks are coming from the freezer section).   We are having guests and I thought we needed something extra...like bread stick.  
• Thursday: Meatloaf, Mashed Sweet Potatoes, and Green Beans
• Friday: Thai Chicken Pasta
• Saturday: Crockpot Chili (I will only use half a pound of beef in this recipe)
• Sunday: Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole, (and the other half pound of beef in this recipe) and Broccoli & Cauliflower
• Monday: French Toast
• Tuesday: Leftovers/Clean out the Fridge

Extra Ideas (in case the menu plan flops OR I don't feel like cooking what is on the list OR we need something to eat for lunch and don't feel like leftovers).
PB and J, Egg Sandwich, Pancakes, Grilled Cheese, Quesadilla, PB crackers...

Be inspired!  Go forth and menu plan!