Strolling Along

Why hello there! Hope this post finds you all happy and healthy and ready for Christmas! I can't believe that it's almost Christmas! 70 degree weather isn't helping that cause any, though- ROFL!

Anyway, I woke up around 8am, and chatted with my mom for a little bit. She was on her way to work. I hadn't chatted with her in a few days, so it was nice to catch up. My sister and her two little girls had flown out for Christmas at my parents house in Oregon, so I heard how busy everyone was :) Sounded like they were having a great holiday season :)

Kids were doing fine, most of the chores were done, and they were playing games and watching movies. I have such great kids :)

Captain America and I got ready for our exercise, and soon headed out for our hike in the mountains. I was SO excited to take him on a hike. The one that Laurie and Kari and did on this side of Transmountain. It's one of my favoritests.

We stopped by housing first, to see what the procedure was for registering a dog on Ft Bliss. We have 10 days to get him signed up with the Vet on post. We'll go over tomorrow and show them the paperwork.

And then we headed to the hiking trail. We paid the fee, and decided that we needed the year pass. It would be cheaper tha paying the fee each time we went. And I really enjoyed my hike with Captain America. I was very pleased with my exercise level, and that I was able to keep up a good pase on the hike. Because he's such a PT stud, you know :)

Here's us in the truck before we got out to hike.
W started WAY down below, and climbed up pretty high. It amazing how looking at it from the bottom, it's SO far away, and seems like an impossible task. But you just take it one step at a time, following the trail, and before you know it, you're way up in the sky. It was pretty darn cool!

You know, what is it with the male species and wanting to pee off of things???

We hiked for about an hour, and got a pretty good workout. And I didn't even have to carry the backpack. hehe. I should bring him as my "mule" all the time :) ROFL!.

We headed back down the mountain, and decided to grab some lunch. So we went to Chili's. Because they have the unlimited soup and salad and chips and salaa for $6.50. Not a bad price :)

We had chips, and I had a salad, and I got the chili, and a cup of potato soup, and a few waters, and I was STUFFED! I couldn't eat another bite!

And check out this SWEET Transformers Bumblebee car we saw in the parking lot! Cool, huh?

Lowes was in the same parking lot, so we hopped over there next. Captain America needed some wood for a garage project he's gonna start working on, and Lowe's offers at 10% military discount, so we always go there :)

I thought these boards were funny. Stud....

There's only so much wood one can take before getting tired, so I sat down on some cinder blocks for a rest. And I realized that I hadn't had any caffeine yet for the day, and that probably explained the lack of energy. Next stop was DEFINITELY gonna be Circle K.

At the check out, they had Christmas Plants on sale for 60% off! So I got 4 of these adorable poinsettas for $1.50 each. Loved the pot, too! And a Christmas cactus.




Captain America ran into Circle K to grab up some Diet Mt Dew. Actually, I wanted Diet Dr Pepper, but it was broken. At least they had Mt Dew! Most places only have Diet Coke as an alternative!

And then we headed to LIttle Casears for Pizza for the kids. But saw Pet Barn on the way and stopped in there. We'd gotten monthly coupons for free 20 lbs bags of Activa Dog Food from Pet Barn. One coupon per month, we just needed to pay the tax. So I ran in and picked up our December bag, and we headed on to Little Casears.

OK, side comment, but how much food do dogs eat each month? We were told by the humane society to give Boxer 5 cups of food a day. And we bought a 50 lb bag of food, and got a 20 lb bag of food today. Does that last a whole month at 5 cups a day? Anyone???

OK, back to my trip. We pulled into LIttle Casears, and they had a drive thru, so it was super easy to get the pizzas. And off to home we headed. The kids were SUPER excited to see us. And the pizza, of course. But the poor dog kept looking at the kids like, "where's my pizza". hehe. Jake gave him a milk bone as a consolation prize - hehe. We know nothing about pets, so when the humane society said to give him 5 cups a day, no people food, that's what we're doing. Hopefully that works for him. And up to 5 milk bones a day, as treats.

I laid down for a little while, trying to recover from my lack of caffeine. Laying down for a little while helped. And then I went out to play with the kids. Eme and I made some cookies. With the Nestle Dark Chocolate Chip and Mint Chips that we'd bought the other day. And used the recipe from the back. They were DELICIOUS!!! I'd definitely recommend this recipe! (we used 1 stick of butter and 1 stick of margarine)


I cleaned off my kitchen window sill, and put my little poinsettias up there. They're SO cute! I still need to find somewhere for my Christmas cactus. I wanna hang it, since it has that kind of pot...
This was the FUNNIEST thing. While making cookies, Jake found his pointer light, and played with it with Boxer. ROFL! It was the most excited I've ever seen him get. He chased it around, and tried to catch it. If it ever went on a person, he'd stop and wait for it to go back on the floor. That was sweet :) And Jake would let him "catch" it occasionally, and praise him for it. SOOO stinkin' cute!

Captain America came in and serenaded us with guitar songs, and I'm not sure what the dog thought about it. He just kinda watched Captain America real close. hehe.

Tom and Joe got to lick the beater on the mixer, and Eme got the wooden spoon, so Jimmy got the bowl.

They were SO good. Still warm and gooey and soft in the middle! We each had a few, and I hid the rest for Christmas eve. We've gonna have cookies and pie and cheese ball and veggies and such. And then Christmas Dinner the next day. Does anyone remember what my families traditional Christmas dinner consists of???

We watched the end of a movie together as a family, and I cooked dinner for everyone. It was this DIVINE casserole thingy that I whipped together. I took 2 packs of refridgerator biscuits, and cut them in forths. Then put them in a large bowl. And cut up mini bite sized pieces of turkey, and shredded about a cup of cheddar cheese, and 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup. And mixed it all together, and put it in a BIG casserole dish. As small one won't cook well.... And sprinkled more cheese on the top. And baked it at 400 for about 30 minutes. OMHeavens, it smeeled and tasted good. I just had a little bit, though ,and ate my cheese sandwich for dinner.

After dinner, we all got long sleeves on, and shoes, and headed out for a walk. Down Colonel Row, there's a GIANT tree decorated for Christmas, and a nativity scene under it. We wanted to walk as a family to see it. It was about a mile walk, not too hard. The kids and dog LOVED it, once they got going.

Here's everyone as we headed down the block. My phone's battery was almost dead, so the flash wasn't working. ...
It was a lot of fun on our walk. We were back home in about an hour, and put kids to bed. Captain America did some computer work real fast, and I blogged, and here it is, 9:30pm, and I think we're gonna watch a movie on the couch. That sounds like the PERFECT end to such a wonderful day!!!

Since we went on a family walk tonight, I decided to make this WordArt for ya! Hope you can use it! Click on the link below to go to my account to download the pNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

4shared is stupid... i mean, isn't working for me at the moment...
box.net

Layout by Sharon (awesome, as usual!)