Christmas 2007

Christmas here was very low key, my mom and dad drove down from Idaho to spend a week with us. Alex was very excited to open her presents on Christmas morning. She had a hard time waiting for everyone to finish breakfast. She had a princess Christmas (for the most part), she got three princess dresses, an Ariel doll, a Cinderella baby and a Princess pillow snuggler.
Logan was more interested in eating the paper than playing with the presents. He got some cars, books and a little piano. The rest of his Christmas comes when we move. We are getting him some stuffed animal heads and a bear rug for his room from Cabelas.


Other than opening presents, we relaxed and played games. We had a nice ham dinner with mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and rolls. We didn't have any snow, but I have a feeling next year we will have a white Christmas.

Pudding on the Rice - Ty and Erin Style

I've been looking for a rice pudding recipe ever since Mom and Emily introduced us to Pudding on the Rice.  Until PotR, I never realized just how good rice pudding could be, and now I'm addicted.  Below is the best rice pudding recipe I've found - really good, really easy, and super rich!

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup uncooked white rice

2 cups milk, divided

1/3 cup white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Other flavorings in combinations only limited by imagination

Directions:

1:  MAKE RICE:  In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil.  Add rice and stir.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.  (Prep Notes:  we had rice for dinner, and I had some left over which I used to make the pudding - worked great.  Also, since water didn't show up in the ingredients list and I can't read...I started with 1 1/2 cups milk in the saucepan instead of water.  It didn't mess anything up, since I used it in the next step - but still...)

2:  MAKE PUDDING!!:  In another saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt.  Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy (15 - 20 minutes).  Stir in remaining 1/2 cup milk and beaten egg.  Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.

3:  EAT PUDDING!!!!!!!!!:  We let the pudding cool for about 1/2 hour in the fridge (freezer would even be better).  Then, we rough-chopped some chocolate chips and stirred them into the pudding.  The pudding was just warm enough to melt the chocolate as we were eating every bite of the batch!  Next time, I'm going to get some ameretto extract to make my favorite PotR flavor, but it I don't make some chocolate chip for Erin, she'll strangle me.

FINAL NOTES:  This is one of those recipes that is simple enough to experiment and play with.  Next time, I think that I'll use a little less sugar, since ours turned out a little sweet with the addition of chocolate.  

Try it, and please let us know what you think!!

San Juan Finale

I'm really going to miss fishing the San Juan River. That has been one of the most rewarding and adventurous things that I've done while in New Mexico.

Last Saturday, five co-workers and I drove up for a proper finale event. We left at 4:15 am on Saturday morning in one of the hardest rains that I've ever seen. I didn't think it rained like that in Albuquerque, but we could hardly see to drive. The weather cleared up as we headed north, but we were a little concerned about the weather for the day.

By the time we reached the river, three hours later, it was cloudy and dry. The river was really low, and we had trouble finding fish. We fished all day in on-off showers before I finally figured out the program. I found a nice channel with trout all over in it, and caught three nice rainbows before calling it a day.

That night, we all had pitched in for a lodge on the river. We stayed at a place called the Stone House, which wasn't too bad (adobe and rock walls). Dinner was an event. We ate at the only place in Navajo Dam, NM - The Sportsman. This place had character, from the clientele to the waitress to the decorations to the music. They had some of the weirdest Christmas music playing that I've ever heard (and it was blaring). Oil truck drivers were lined up at the bar. The waitress could have passed as an oil truck driver. And I had a chicken fried steak where the gravy could have passed as oil.

The next morning was cold and clear. I went back to my special spot and had an all-time day on the river. I caught seven trout in about three hours, and some of them had really good size. The jewel of the trip was a beatiful brown trout that I caught while stripping a big black leach through that channel. It was my first brown in a river, and was a special send off for me. We headed home a little after noon - what a trip.

Wagner Farm

Alex, Logan and I went to Wagner Farm with some of our friends. We started out at the corn maze. It was quite a bumpy ride for Logan, but he managed to fall asleep. Alex was walking behind me with some of her friends and their moms. At one point I looked back, and no Alex. I quickly ran back and found her. The rest of the time she helped me push the stroller so she wouldn't get lost. At the end of the maze was the pumpkin patch. Alex had a great time finding the perfect pumpkin. We then went and saw some pigs, horses, goats and llamas. Alex wouldn't get within 5 feet of the cages. Alex picked us out some yummy apples and then we took a hay ride back to the car. We had a fun time and Alex enjoyed her apple for lunch when we got home.

Flight to the San Juan River

On Saturday morning, a friend from work and I flew in a little Cessna plane from Albuquerque up to the San Juan river to fish. My friend is ex-Air Force, and he's working on his commercial pilot's license (so he knows what he's doing). He belongs to the air club out at the Air Force base, so he can check out planes when he needs them.

The flight up was awesome. It was smooth and only lasted 1 hour, vs. the 3 hour drive that I normally take. We fished all day, and caught a few. The best part of the day was the flight home. My friend actually let me fly the plane for 15-20 minutes. He had me make a series of banking turns, and then climb and descent a few hundred feet at a time. It was one of the most stressful things that I've ever done in my life, but I had a blast! At first, I was only willing to turn the plane a tiny bit because I was so intimidated by the experience. Finally, my friend taunted me into making some pretty bold turns (at least they seemed bold to me!) After 15 minutes at the stick, I was exhausted. It was the first time in my life that I'd done anything close to that - what an experience!

Balloon Fiesta Part 3

This morning at work, I climbed up on top of our 8-story bulkhouse to watch the balloons come by the plant. The plant is located just 1/2 mile south of the launching area, and the lower air currents push everything right over us. It was amazing. I had balloons flying by that couldn't have been more that 100 feet away. People in the gondolas were waving and saying hi (we were that close, that we could actually say good morning to the people!).

It was incredible. I took some pictures with my phone, and I'm going to try to get back up there for Sunday morning with our big camera to take some real pictures.

This just affirmed for me how lucky we are to be here in Albuquerque, and to be able to experience the amazing things that happen in New Mexico.

Tomorrow, I'm flying with one of our employees up to the San Juan River in his trainer plane (he's studying to get his commercial pilot's license, and needs the air time). I'm going to teach him how to fish the river. It should be really fun for both of us.

Balloon Fiesta Part 2

After feeding Logan yesterday morning, I looked out his window and saw the coolest thing. These balloons are part of the "dawn patrol." They go up in the dark and it lets the other balloonists gauge the wind speeds. It was just an amazing site to see these balloons highlighted in the distance with the sliver of moon in the sky.

This morning we got up early and went to see the "Mass Ascension." This is where all the participating balloons launch. When we got there, the Dawn Patrol was getting ready to take off. Here they are in the distance. In case you can't tell, the last one on the left is a flying pink pig!

We walked around and watched all the balloons go up. After one wave goes up, the other sets up and gets their balloons up. It was incredible to see all those balloons at one time. Alex had a blast! I bet she said "balloon" 500 times. She even let her balloon go up with all the big ones (on accident).


There were quite a few special shaped balloons. One was a cow, and it was the biggest balloon I've ever seen, I bet it was almost 3 times as big as the normal balloons. They have gotten very creative with some of the balloons. The bees you see below started out holding hands, then when they were up in the air, the one bee turned and gave the other bee a kiss and then they realeased their hands.



Ty's plant sponsered a balloon and we found it after it had launched, but we got a pretty good picture.

We had lots of fun watching the balloons take off, if you would like to see more pictures, I'll post them on the winkflash site. If you don't have access to our pictures on winkflash, and would like to see them, email me and I'll add you to my list.

Balloon Fiesta Part 1

So today marked the first day of Balloon Fiesta. We didn't partake in any of the festivities, but we could see the balloons in the distance. We also had some balloons fly over our house. I don't think they came from the Fiesta grounds though. We watched some of the festivities on tv and learned that some of the balloons do a "dunk and dash" I think they called it. They dunk the bottom part of their baskets in the Rio Grande and then go back up in the air, it was fun to watch. We will post more pictures after we go to the launch later in the week.

The Haircut

So Alex's hair was getting way to long and I decided to cut it. It looked pretty good, but I just couldn't stop myself, I cut it shorter. It looks okay, but as you can tell, I'm no hairdresser. Cutting a very active 2 year old's hair is quite the adventure.

We want to have a blog too!!

As soon as mom does something, we have to get in on it, too. It is so much fun to read mom's blog every morning and see what she and Emily have posted, that we decided to do our own. Also, this is a good way to catalog all of the fun stuff that we are doing down here in Albuquerque. Pictures and more posts to come...