***A not-so-cold winter***

Here's just a little smattering of photos from lately. We drove the back roads to Wichita to spend Thanksgiving with Chris's family. We had two turkey dinners with both sides of his family, visited the Nifty Nuthouse (an insanely huge candy shop), went to the Donut Whole (a Wichita legend) and spent quality time with his family.  It was a really great weekend! When we got back we bought our Christmas tree and decorated the house, which is always one of my favorite days of the year. And at the beginning of this week I did a 3 day cleanse which included a sweat with Josh in my sweat lodge, lots of juicing, an acupuncture session, eating well and drinking copious amounts of water. It was great! 

Frying the turkey in the garage.

Chris with his parents and siblings.

Staci, his sister, driving a tractor.

Love this picture of Chris's folks from back in the day.

Christmas tree shopping! We always go to the same place.

The sunset right before we got in the sweat lodge was stunning.

Carrot, celery, apple, ginger. 

Haven't shown you pics of these guys in a while. 

Chi chi and Holly Go-Lightly are our outdoor kitties.

~~Smokefest 2012~~

A couple of weekends ago, Chris and I travelled to the distant land of Topeka, our state capital, to hang out with our buddy Kevin. To eat, drink, be merry and smoke stuff. Now, I know what you might be thinking...

But this event consisted of eating smoked ribs for dinner that Kevin smoked all day long, hanging out amongst Kevin's incredible collections in his basement whilst the boys smoked pipes, slumber partying over night and smoking fish and cheese the following morning. It was mine and Chris's first time to smoke fishes and cheeses and it was delicious and FUN! Thanks Kevin, you are best host!

Kevin's awesome "man cave"

Listening to 78's all night long

Chris peeling an obscene amount of garlic for the brine.

Brining the fish overnight with brown sugar and garlic.

Prepping the goods in the morning for smoking.

Good morning!

This is how we did the cold smoke for the cheese: 

a soldering iron in a can with cherry wood and a little tub of ice

 to keep the temp under 90 degrees.

We smoked garlic and salt too. But realized after the fact, 

that we probably shouldn't have put it with the fish. 

It ended up tasting too much like fish. We tossed it. 

Lesson: put it with the cheese!

!!!**Unkie Red**!!!

Last Saturday, Chris and I spent the majority of the day at our booth at the Lawrence Flea Market. We have a lot of stuff and realized that we really wanted to get rid of some of it. It was hard work to dig through our stuff, price it, load it into the truck, unload it out of the truck, set it up, haggle, load up what we didn't sell. It was fun but tiring. We made a whopping $76 but sold almost 70% of our stuff. I don't think we'll do it again but we might try our hand at an antique mall booth. We'll see.

Later that day, exhausted, we hopped on a plane and flew to Chicago to hang out with my sister, her husband and our hilarious 2 year old niece, Hadley. She is a riot! She and Unkie Red formed a very close bond and by the end of the weekend she wanted mostly nothing to do with me. "Unkie Red?" "Where's Unkie Red?" "No! Unkie Red?" Fine with me because it was really fun to watch them bond. Chris hadn't seen her in a year! We love where they live. There is so much to do! The Children's Museum, The Grove (with walking trails), the Botanical Gardens and Wagner Farm. It's so much fun! We didn't want to leave. 

Adults hanging out in the playroom.

Wagner Farm

Drinking Pisco Sours in our PJs!

Keeping our family tradition alive by teaching Hadley to put olives on her fingers.

Yes, Chris is wearing Hadley's hair bow.

The Grove.