A Month of Updates

Well, it seems our fall activities have finally slowed down. We have a few slow weekends now before the Christmas activities begin. So here are a few things that have been happening the past few weekends,
The weekend after we got back from Canaan Valley, I invited my two best girls over for a sleep over. I have known these girls since they were born. There Mother and I met as kids when we lived on the same street in Vandalia. She and her family moved away, but she and I were still keeping in touch. For the past few years, my friend has had some hard times and she and I have not been close. These girls are temporarily staying with other family until there mother can get her life straightened out. After not seeing the girls for several months, there grandma brought them again to the Swigart Family Hog Roast. I always get so emotional when I see them. It's amazing just how much they grow every time I see them. So after seeing them, I decided to invite them to our house for a sleep over. We had so much fun. We started Friday night by making some cookies, then a rousing game of Shoots and Ladders (even got Jonathan to play with us) then movies and popcorn. We snuggled on the couch to watch the lively Hannah Montana and Veggie Tales. After a VERY late night, the girls were wide awake at 7am Saturday, ready for there Chocolate Chip Pancake and bacon Breakfast. Once the revolving door of the shower was done, we loaded up and headed to Greenville to do some girls day shopping. They each got to pick out there own outfit and a pair of shoes. I should really apologize to the people at JCPenney for the possible mess we left behind. After trying quite possibly everything on in the girls section, they finally picked there out fits. I did my best to put the close back where they were supposed to go. I should also give a big thanks to the gentleman that helped us at Shoebilee. He was very patient and helpful while we had to try on every shoe before we could pick one. All the shopping left us hungry, so we headed to the McDonald's to play in the cold and wet Play land and grab some Barbie Happy Meals. I then drug them through the Grocery to grab the fixins for dinner. We headed home and warmed up with Hot Chocolate and a rest while watching Veggie Tales.......again.....and again.. The girls then tackled there Turkey Taco dinner like champs and then it was time to go home. I hope they had as much fun as I did that weekend. I just wanted to take the time to spoil them and I'm pretty sure they were sufficiently spoiled. After taking them home, I came home and crashed on the couch. WHEW!!

Next, we fast forward to last weekend.
After months of discussing when the right time would be, Jonathan and I got us a new toy. We got a new 2007 Polaris Sportsman 500X2 Limited Edition. This one legally seats 2 people. They call it a 2-up. For the moment, it will get used for plowing snow through the winter, but we are hoping to maybe do some trail riding next spring/summer.

Now this brings us to today.
I made a turkey for the first time today. It was something that I new I needed to learn how to do, but was always a bit intimidated buy such a big piece of meat. So many people kept telling me that it's Soooooo easy and that I shouldn't be afraid to try it. So, I picked the cheapest per pound (just in case I really messed it up) and started thawing my turkey on Wednesday. I new we didn't have any plans for today and it really worked out to be a good day to be inside at home. I made sure to check my cookbooks, the Internet and of course my dad for advice on how to cook a turkey. I had myself a bit frazzled while wrestling with the turkey, but Jonathan was able to finally get it closed up for me. I gave it a good Canola rub and tossed it into the oven. Since we don't have a window on our oven, I had to resist the urge to open the oven door every 10 minutes. I thought the hardest part was judging when to take it out of the oven. The breast meat was done long before the dark meat which left me worried about drying out the breast meat. I couldn't stand the wait anymore, so we took it out when the dark meat read 17o degrees. The white meat did get a bit dry but the dark meat was perfect (which is what we like). We now have a weeks worth of turkey left overs to eat. Does anyone have recipe ideas for turkey left overs?
My 2 best girls. Karizma (left) and Karma (right) showing off their fabulous cookies

Our new toy.

Hopefully if the sun dicides to ever come out, we can get some better pictures.

Turkey ready to go into the oven.

Turkey ready to be eaten. Isn't he perty????

Canaan Valley, West Virginia

This past weekend we decided to take Friday off and headed to Canaan Valley, West Virginia. After a 1 1/2 hour stop at Cabella's and driving in circles for another hour, we made it there in about 8 hours.
We stayed at the Canaan Valley Ski Resort Lodge. Obviously there was no snow, but we did get a great view of the fall/falling leaves.
We managed to get in some great hiking while we were there. Since so many leaves had fallen, we were never quite sure where we were stepping : rocks, roots, mud etc.... This made for some fancy footwork for the both of us.
The Lodge had a couple really great restaurants which supplied us with a really great breakfast every morning and a Germanfest Buffet on our second night (all of which were definitely not on our diet)
We also got a chance to ride the chair lift up to the top of there ski slopes. A little scary but very beautiful and cold.
Below are some pictures from our quick weekend. Sorry. It seems I have them out of sequence.
The deer in this pic is really this close. All around this park, the deer were not afraid of people. They walked very close to us and then kept on going. Almost like they couldn't see us. There seemed to be 3 that ran together. I started calling them Madge, Matilda and Mable. Hey Girls!!

Some pics of us hiking the really great scenic trails. We were the only hikers that had a map. Oddly, the only ones that looked lost. Go Figure!

Picture taken after we arrived at the Lodge. It was just getting dark and cold. It's hard to see all the color in the leaves.

A pic of all the ski slope options once you get to the top of the slope. We decided to take the lift back down .

A pic of all the wind turbines at the top of the mountains. This was quite a sight from the top of the ski slope..

Heading back down the slopes on the chair lift. At this point we are freezing cold and realizing how under dressed we are.

The Latest Max Pictures

What a little sweetie pie!
Just about to smile.
Happy and content Max
Her comes the sour puss!!

Think Pink!

Last week at work we got a visit from the firefighters with the Pink Ribbon Tour. This is a small group of guys from Arizona, that are traveling the country in a pink fire truck and pink gear to promote Breast Cancer Awareness

Above, are 2 of the firefighters.
OOne of my co-workers kids trying on a helmet. Lion Apparel donated the pink helmets for this tour.
As the group is traveling the country, people get to sign the truck in honor of anyone who has passed or survived Breast Cancer.

Catching up.

I know I know it has been forever since I've blogged. So now I have bunch of catching up to do. A lot has happened since my last entry. Like everyone else, we have been crazy busy for the past several weeks. Between Jonathan working long hours at work and me being overloaded at work and our weekends being crazy, not much time for blogging has been available ( I know, sad excuses). The only thing I've managed to catch this month is a cold!!
First, I managed to drop a glass dish on my foot, now 2 weeks ago. I had a very nice large glass dish that was given to me by my Aunt as a wedding gift. I was trying to put the dish in the refrigerator when the thin delicate glass snapped in my hand and crashed down on my foot. Instantly I start to panic when I see the blood poring from my foot and hand. I hollered for Jonathan. He came running to see the glass dish and the Watergate Salad that was in the dish, all shattered on my foot. He helped me get to the kitchen chair and grabbed some paper towels to help soak up the blood. After we wiped the Glass and salad off my foot, we found about a 1" cut on my foot. It managed to stop bleeding after a few minutes but my finger took a while longer to stop. Jonathan called nurse Geneva (his mother) onto the scene. She arrived and helped bandage up my foot, and we all determined that I probably didn't need stitches. So, my foot was in pain for a few days, mainly because of the bruise from the dish dropping. Last week I noticed that the cut was not healing. So I decided to go to the doctor to get an antibiotic. When I get there, they didn't hesitate to stick me with a tetanus shot (and everyone knows how much I LOVE needles!). The doctor examined my foot by pressing around the wound. She hit one spot to the right and it nearly made me jump off the table. The doctor asks "are you sure you don't have glass in your foot?" I said "uhhhhh, I don't think so". So she let me take the antibiotic for a few days to see if the pain would go away. When I went back on Friday, the pain was still there. So now, I am going to pay a visit to the X-Ray man tomorrow and then pay a visit to the surgeon sometime after to determine if I need surgery. GREAT! I will keep you all posted.

Also, the day after I cut my foot was the day the power went out. We were out of power for only 2 days. We spent one night with Jonathan's parents and then went home to power. I will definitely not complain about this. We were so fortunate compared to others (my parents) that were out of power for 7 days.

Last weekend we headed west for a wedding in Illinois on Saturday. My step brother and his now wife, Lacey, got married in her home town of Summerfield, Illinois. It was a really great time at the wedding and reception. A chance for my family, who rarely gets together, to have a great bonding weekend. On Sunday, we decided to head into St. Louis, which was only about 20 minutes from Summerfield. Since we were so close, we could not pass up the opportunity to go up into the St. Louis Arch. There was nine of us in my family who decided to caravan to the Arch. We had so much fun! It seemed very strange bonding with step-siblings we didn't always get along with as kids, but suddenly as adults we had a really great time.

When we arrived back home from Illinois on Sunday, we were met in the driveway by ANOTHER stray Kitten. It seemed as if we had the dumping corner for stray kittens. I hesitantly began feeding the kitten because I felt sorry for it. But since my cat liked to growl and hiss at it, bringing it into our house was not an option. I posted notes at work to see if anyone would take a free kitten. A lady that I work with decided to take the kitten for her kids. I agreed to get the cat checked out by the vet to make sure she was healthy. Yes, it was a she and I decided to name it Paprika. That's right. Pepper and Paprika! The only issue we had with the cat (actually a big issue) was fleas. The kitten was flea bitten. The vet popped a pill in her mouth to make the fleas fall off her and then recommended we give her a Dawn bath. It was pretty funny to watch Jonathan give a cat a bath. This long haired fuzzy kitten was suddenly reduced to practically nothing. I wish now I had taken a picture of Paprika while she was wet. Instead I have a regular picture at the bottom the post. So, yesterday afternoon, I headed to Dayton to drop Paprika off with her new family. I miss her already. She was a very loving and affectionate kitten, unlike Pepper who likes to terrorize us!
I also forgot to mention that we were finally able to get Pepper the cat fixed and declawed. His days of terrorizing us have come to a screeching halt. It's kinda sad to see him try to climb on things when he doesn't have nails anymore. Our legs and clothes are now very thankful for the claws to be gone. Now we just have to crack the habit of him biting and chewing. Ideas anyone!!




Pepper decided he was gonna hitch a ride with us on our trip tp Illinois. His first night being left home by himself. He was a good boy.
St Louis Arch. Sooooooooooo much bigger standing there then it seemed driving past it
View from the top of the Arch. The stadium is Busch Stadium

Picture of Paprika. She was not in the mood for a picture. She really was a sweet kitten.

Paula Reds Have Arrived!!

If you were reading my blog last year, you already know that I now like to make applesauce. Unfortunately, I was a bit behind last year in getting my apples. We went to Brumbaugh's fruit farm about late September hoping to find my favorite apples to make applesauce with, Paul Red. Me, being unaware, was told that the Paula Red apple is an early apple and were long past gone. I was a bit let down and settled for whatever they had sitting out at the time.
Soooo, this year, I was on it. I decided to take action. I called Brumbaugh's 2 weeks ago to ask when the Paula Red apples would be ready. They told me they didn't have any yet but should have some by that Friday. I politely asked if they "reserve" apples (hey, ya don't know until ya ask, right?) I was told yes. The girl told me they weren't expecting a big crop of Paula Red this year and that they would go fast. I panicked!!! UHHH. UMMMMM. " I''ll take 3!!" I said. Ma'am? 3 apples?? she said. "No. 3 large bags".
So that's what I have. 3 large bags of Paula Red apples. About 70 apples total just waiting to be pealed and turned into my favorite applesauce.
My dilemma. Should I feel guilty for taking so many apples when they didn't have that many this year? I missed out last year because I was uninformed. This year I was educated. So... I guess the early bird gets the worm!

Grandma's first visit

This past Saturday was my moms first time getting to see her new grand baby Max. As you can tell, she already loves him to pieces.
Isn't he the sweetest?? He was so good for Mom when she came to visit.
Mommy Betsy calming Max after his diaper change

Night of Fire!!!!!!!!!!

This past Saturday, Jonathan and I went back to the Muncie Dragway in the middle of nowhere Muncie, Indiana. The event that night was Night of Fire. Where along with the locals that like to bring there cars to the track, but also an exhibition race for anyone with a monster machine. The prime attraction was the semi with jet engines. Unfortunately just as he was at the line about to go, he broke down. Then the thunderstorm came. Luckily we managed to get some pics while walking around behind the scenes. We got to see some of the other exhibition cars go down the track, but I wasn't able to get very many pics since they are obviously going so fast. About 9:15, they called the races and everyone ran for there cars.
Jonathan and I have been to this track many times before, but this was only our second year seeing "Night of Fire". Since we saw the Jet Semi last year, we weren't to hip on waiting around for him to fix the truck. I'm a big fan of the long Dragsters while Jonathan loves all the hot rods loaded with the Nitrous.

Dragster with a really cool paint job.
Exhibition dragster "Blue Ice" loaded with a jet engine. (as if they aren't fast enough)
Awesome Corvette that did really well on the track.
Premier attraction "Shockwave". Jet Semi that broke down on the line.
Yes, this is a quad-runner also loaded with a jet engine. A bit scary to watch shooting down the track

No. This one doesn't have a jet engine. I just thought it was goofy looking
A perty Camaro doing his burnout.
This was really cool. This guy is a local that he and his wife have been building up this truck. It is just a diesel Dodge Ram loaded with 2 sacks, Nitrous and large racing tires. They said they were experimenting with the Nitrous for the first time. I can't recall how fast his time was, but he got a wow and a standing ovation from the crowd.
The only semi-clear picture we could get on the track. Only because he did his burnout all the way up to where we were. We caught this as he was backing up to the line.

Max Nicholas Swigart born: 8-5-2008

Introducing, Max Nicholas Swigart. Max is my new baby nephew born just today @ 4.24pm, weighing in at a healthy 6 lbs. 13 oz and 19" long. His proud parents, Nick and Betsy, are doing very well after the long labor and delivery. We aren't exactly sure yet, but the family suspects the red head gene had been passed down to Max.
Jonathan and I made it to the hospital after work and got to meet him. He wasn't even 3 hours old and they let us hold him.
I am over the moon happy for my brother and his wife!!!!!!!!!! Check out the pictures!!

Look!!! I think he's smiling!!!!!!
Mommy Betsy and Max.
Max's first bottle feeding.
Do I look happy or what?
Uncle Jonathan

Evening in Celina

This past Saturday evening, Jonathan and I decided to head up to Celina to stroll around Grand Lake and to grab some dinner. Got a few pics on the Lake.

We drove one lap around the lake before we decided to eat at Bella's in Celina. A really great Italian restaurant right next to the lake.

After dinner we decided to find where Jonathan's cousin Kenny and Amy live. And wouldn't ya know it, they were out working in there garden when we came up to there house. So we decided to stop in and say hi. We got to check out there REALLY big garden and received some really helpful advice for our garden next year.

With the great weather that day, the evening turned out real nice for us.