Creamy Potato Soup

Ilda, this one's for you!  This is my mom's recipe for Creamed Peas & Potatoes, but since Wayne doesn't like peas, I modified to stuff he does like!

Creamy Potato Soup

Here's what you'll need:

Potatoes (diced)

Onion (chopped or you can use dried)

Salt & Pepper

Italian Seasoning

1 lb Sausage

1 can Evaporated Milk

1 cube Butter

1 can corn (do not drain)

Flour or Corn Starch

Put desired amounts of potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning in pot.  Cover with water.

Bring to a boil over a medium-high heat.  Stirring occasionally, continue boiling for approximately 10-15 minutes or until tender.

While potatoes are boiling, brown sausage in a skillet. Drain any extra grease. Set aside.

 When potatoes are tender, add entire can of evaporated milk. DO NOT drain any water.

 Add butter, sausage, and corn (do not drain corn).

OPTIONAL: If you need a little more soup, you can add regular milk.

Bring to a rolling boil. Stir often, you don't want to scorch your milk.

Thicken soup to desired thickness using corn starch or flour.  For those that have never thicken soup before, mix corn starch and water to create a pour-able paste. Pour slowly into soup while stirring constantly until you reach your desired thickness.  If you pour it in too fast or without stirring, you will get clumps & lumps. :(

Salt and pepper to taste.  Now you are ready to eat! Yummy!  Total time to make start to finish is approximately 30-45 minutes.

New Camper!!!!!!!

I am sooooo excited! I can hardly contain it!  Wayne is headed down to Salt Lake in the morning to pick up our new camper.  We got word about a week ago that it was done and had been picked up from the factory from a transport company.  Once it got to SLC the salesman was kind enough to send us some pictures.  We also found out that instead of a 2012 the factory made us a 2013! Here's a sneak peek.

The king size bed at the back is for Wayne and I.

And the bunks up front are for the kids.

We can't wait to try it out.  I'm sure the kids will want to sleep in it tomorrow night in the driveway!  We are thinking about taking it out next weekend to try everything out before we hit the hills for the season.

Month in Review

It was mentioned to me today that it has been a while since I've blogged.  Jana, this is for you!!! In an effort to prove that I'm still a blogger, here is the last month of our lives.

I started working for Jeff at Velocity Express in Boise.  I do office work in the mornings and deliveries in the afternoon.  My day goes by really fast and working with Jeff is going really well.  Adjusting to working full time is going a little slower than hoped.  Blogging is just one of the things I'm slacking on.  Laundry, dishes, cleaning, and grocery shopping are also suffering!  Throw in a round of the flu bug for everyone and a weekend trip to Reno and I'm ready for a weekend!

We decided to list our camper last month.  We posted it on craigslist on a Wednesday night.  The next day we got a call on it.  The guy liked it and we made a deal.  It took a couple of weeks for the banks to communicate (the buyer was from Oregon) but it is gone.  Good bye old camper.....

.....Hello new camper!  Well not yet.  It's on order.  It should be done by the end of April.  This is one similar to what we are buying.  I will post pics of it when we actually get it.  We are sooooo excited!

Of course there was a mini craft day at mom's house with mom and Donna.  At which Xander (Kayden) got his first haircut!  It's amazing how haircuts make kids look instantly older!

Then last weekend, we headed to Reno for Ilda's baptism.  Before we left for the weekend, Ellie picked out a card for her and wrote in it.  The card was supposed to say "I'm so happy that you’re making this choice to get baptized." But she misspelled baptized and it read “I’m so happy that you’re making this choice to get bath-toys”!!!!  Love it.  I love my miss Ellie.  She's got a great spirit.

As I mentioned, we had a round of the flu bug go through our house.  Most of us had it the week before we left.  But Wayne was the lucky one to get it while we were there.  He ended up spending most of the weekend in the hotel sleeping, missing the baptism.

The baptism went well.  Ilda is an amazing woman.  I admire her for making the decision to join the church.  Dad and Phil too!  I think I take for granted that I grew up in the church and what it would mean to join the church as an adult.  I am so thankful for the gospel and the blessings it has brought me as a child and with my family now.

I couldn't decide which picture to post.  The first one Ilda looks better.  And in the second the men look better.  You choose.

We had trouble finding Ilda a baptism suit.  The ones they set down for her to try on were from the 70s.  Bell bottoms, big pockets, and a large collar.  Donna and I searched and searched to find her a "normal" looking one so she was more comfortable.  I'm so glad we did.  I wouldn't have wanted to wear the other ones either.

Ellie wanted to wear the dress she wore for her baptism and get a picture with Ilda.

Well, I think this catches me up on my blogging!  Hopefully I can get on a schedule and post on a more regular basis.  I'm hoping that this weekend I can get caught up on my house, which is still currently on the market.  We have decide that it's not necessary that we sell it now that I'm working.  We figured we'd leave it on the market a little bit longer and if nothing happens, pull it off.  It's more that we don't have time to meet with the realtor to take it off the market!

We also officially stopped foster care this week. : (  It was time for us to renew our license and I let our worker know we would not be continuing. I am bummed we are stopping but am soooo thankful for opportunity Wayne gave me to try it.  Maybe at another time in lifves we can pursue it again.  I wish that we would have been able to end it on a better note but that's foster care.  There are wonderful kids and some you struggle with.  I will remember all of them and hold a special place in my heart for each of them.

Jake vs Tree

In the sad, sad story of Jake verses tree, the tree wins.  There's no other way to say it, Jake ran into a tree last Thursday.  I think it's pretty obvious from the picture what part of his body he hit the tree with.  He got a concussion.  He had every symptom, the fixed eyes, blurry vision, slurred speech, headache, etc.  The next morning he said he was feeling better and wanted to go to school.  But it didn't take long before I got a phone call at work.  He said some of his symptoms were returning, so off to the doctor we went.  Doc said as long as he continues to get better, he'll be okay!  Plus, no broken cheek bone.  We made him go home and rest and by the end of the weekend, he was feeling better.  Thank goodness!

This pic was taken a couple days after it happened and doesn't due the swelling justice.  I'm sure he'll have a fantastic black eye soon!

Changes around our place

The new year has brought some changes our way.  Last Friday, X Factor was moved to another home.  His problems proved to be too great for our family to handle.  He was still throwing things at Ellie's face and hurting her.  We were also having great deal of other behavioral problems with him.  It got to the point where we couldn't do anything as a family.  Wayne wasn't coming home after work.  Jake was hiding in his room.  Ellie starting acting out and against him at times.  And I was going crazy.  Once I realized he was having such a negative effect on us as a family, I asked that he be moved.  It was time to put my family first.  It was sad to see him go, but it needed to happen.  I feel good about my decision and it has already proved to be what our family needed.  At this point, we don't plan on taking another placement even though our license doesn't expire until the end of March.  I have mixed emotions about this.  Some days I'm okay with it and others I'm not.

Just after the new year, I accepted a position as an office assistant for a company that does developmental therapies.  It's going okay.  It's very part time, just one full day a week, but right now I am working 2-3 full days a week while the main gal is recovering from having a baby.  The one day a week would have been a nice supplement to foster care, but now that we don't intend to continue that, I need to find more work.  I applied with FedEx this week.  So we'll see what happens there.  I think my current job has great potential and the staff is amazing, but I'm doubtful that the potential will come soon enough.

And as you can see from my previous post, evenings have been busy with hunter's ed.  I'm sooooo happy this was only a two week course.  It was fun to take it with Jake.  It was nice to have that one on one with him.  He is such a great boy.  I can't believe he is 14 now!  That's right.  His birthday was last weekend.

For his birthday, we took him out to eat to the restaurant of his choice.  He chose Primos, the all you can eat pizza buffet.  Afterwards, we went to the RV show and did some dreaming.  We had a good time.

I'm not sure what changes will come next.....hopefully our house selling!

Hunter's Education

Jake and I have been taking hunter's ed the last couple of weeks.  Tonight was our last class and test.  We both passed!!  And they gave us these wonderful orange hats.  I can't say that I'll every use my license for hunting, but thought the class would be good since we like to target shoot.

Jake 98%......Christine 97%
I don't think I'll ever hear the end of this one!

I reached my goal

I reached my goal of growing out my hair to 21" long......and even more importantly, I won the bet with Wayne!

It only took me 18 months.  Not too long since I had a short cut when I started and had at least 3" cut off over that time.  I've already been looking at new haircuts.  I'll post what I end up doing.  I don't plan on going real short again, but maybe something just below the shoulders.