Southern (& Hispanic) Hospitality

This week my work schedule is Monday, Thursday, Sunday.. which gave me more time (3 days) during the week to do my own thing. So what else to do than try some new(ish) recipes for me and have people over?!

Last Sunday night we had Alan's side of the family over for dinner. I made them a Mexican dinner to represent my Hispanic side to all of those white folk ;) My Grandma on my dad's side makes WONDERFUL tamales.. she actually used to sell them. That is one of the main things I remember about her & about visiting my grandparents in Arizona when I was growing up, so that's what I decided to make. This was my first attempt at Tamales, but I think they all got eaten, which is a good sign.

The Menu was:

Green Chili Tamales (For the record, these are the easiest kind of Tamales to make, which makes them a great place to start)

Mexican Rice

Black Beans (Alan's mom kindly made this for us.)

Chips & Guacamole

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Tonight we had over my parents, brother & sister-in-law for our weekly Friday night dinner. :) (My mom usually hosts it since Virginia & I are usually working Fridays). I decided to make Chicken & Dumplings, because my Grandma (on my mom's side) used to make this for us all the time when we visited!

The Menu:

Chicken & Dumplings
Corn on the Cob
Salad
Tamales (Extras I had frozen - I wanted to see what my family thought of them)

Dessert:
Blackberry Cobbler with Ice Cream

I love having people over and cooking meals for them, even though I am very much a work in progress when it comes to cooking.

The other thing I made this week that I would really recommend is a Homemade Pizza. This was my first attempt at making it, and it was delicious. I froze half the dough, so next week I should be making a second pizza, yay :) My schedule next week is crazy.. but hopefully having the dough already done should make that an easy meal.

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As you can see, I get a lot of my recipes online. The internet is awesome :) I really recomment www.mex-recipes.com -- it is the best site I've found for Mexican food, the rice & guacamole recipes are very tasty.

I have special spots for my laptop in our kitchen, because it is almost always up with a recipe when I am cooking. Here's the laptop on the island, lol: (This is soon after we moved in.. there are different decorations now above the cabinets)

Travels

visited 24 states (48%)
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visited 6 states (2.66%)
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Italia 2009

This year for the Feast we went to Sabaudia, Italy... both mine & Alan's first time in Europe!! We had a GREAT time and it really made me want to travel more.

On the beach the first day with Tonya & Virginia. This was Tonya pre-engagement :)

Alan and I. View from our balcony. (The lake is in the background, but hard to see in this picture)

We lost our tour guide, so I was hopelessly lost in Pompeii...but I love how confident I look in this picture, lol.

Me next to a rare clothed statue in the Vatican.

Alan & I on top of the mountain we climbed!

Alan is very excited.

The group (minus Virginia taking the picture) in front of the Colosseum.

Next, Alan & I would both really like to go to Australia, but I think that is going to wait several more years. We have to wait until we forget about the plane ride :)

Books, Books, Books

My Current Favorite Books:

The Host

The Twilight Series

Books I'd like to Read Next:

The Time Traveler's Wife

A Wrinkle in Time

Ella Enchanted (I read this as a kid, but would like to re-read it)

Currently Reading:

My favorite parts of The Host

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Update: 10/28/09

I've read all of the books above, and I'm now out of things to read! A Wrinkle in Time was not as good as I expected, it took me a while to finish it. I read The Time Traveler's Wife on the plane to and from Italy... it was definitely a tear-jerker.

Chronic Babies

Almost sounds like a juxtaposition... "Chronic Babies." Babies shouldn't be old enough to have a chronic condition already!

But that's what we call our babies in the NICU that were born 3-4 months early (about 24-26 weeks gestation) and continue to have medical problems that prevent them from going home as they approach their due date. The most common problem they deal with is their premature lungs. Premature babies are born without all of the branches of their lungs fully developed, and the lungs do not grow as well once they are out of the womb, leaving the baby without enough surface area to transfer oxygen to their body. They are also born without Surfactant, a molecule that keeps the lungs open when they breathe out, so their body doesn't have to reopen our lungs every time they inhale (This is so much work that their bodies would just shut down.) The only way these extremely premature babies survive is by giving their mom's steroids before the baby is born (which helps the baby make surfactant) and by giving the baby surfactant directly into their lungs when they are born.

Of course no medical breakthrough is as good as the babies developing fully in mom's belly. These babies usually need extra oxygen (via nasal canula of bubble CPAP) for months, and often even after they go home.

And that is why I am so exhausted this week! I have been taking care of babies with Chronic Lung Disease this week, and they are a handful!

They are not happy about having something on their face giving them oxygen, so they will knock it off, and their oxygen saturation will decrease to 50% (usually when I am busy taking care of another baby), so I will have to quickly save the baby (who doesn't want to be saved based on the fight she puts up) and go back to what I was doing.

These babies as a general rule don't like to be touched at all, because throughout their little lives, they have associated touch with painful medical procedures. :( This makes even taking a temperature or changing a diaper a struggle, because the baby will fight (and they are strong) and cry (loudly). After I finish my cares on one of these babies.. I wrap them up nicely and give them a pacifier and calm them as much as I can before moving on.

In the Pod I was working in this week, 3 out of the 6 bed spaces had these chronic babies. So all day we heard the beeping of the monitors when the oxygen saturation dipped... on 3 different babies. I went to sleep last night hearing those beeps in my head. Beeeep beeeep beeeep. Lol.

At the end of the day though, I enjoy taking care of these babies. You really get to know the babies. I love it when (after nothing at all will calm them down) I pick them up and they cuddle into me, and instantly settle down. That melts my heart every time.

1st Anniversary

Today, Alan and I flew back today from our 1 year anniversary trip to New York/Canada to see Niagara Falls and a baseball game in Toronto. 

I am blessed to have married a wonderful man like Alan! :)

While we were visiting Niagara Falls (walking on planks that werebuilt near the bottom of one of the smaller falls), Alan took a video that I think shows a funny/good example of a wife hesitantly trying to submit to her husband ;)

Notice I did not wholeheartedly submit to that ;) This video was taken on what they call the "Hurricane Deck." As you can see the water is coming down pretty strong, but what you can't see is that the water is freezing too!!

A few other pictures from our trip:

Geared up for our "Maid of the Mist" boat tour of Niagara Falls...

...where we road a boat like this. :)

At a Blue Jays/White Sox game in Toronto, Canada.

All in all, it was a good trip, but it was definitely great to be home again!!

The Traveling Dave

Today, my younger brother David came over for the afternoon. We ate lunch, went over some of his college information, played ping pong (I'm not sure who we decided was finally "champion of the world"... it seemed to go back and forth), and explored our new neighborhood on the bicycles Alan's brother gave us. Good quality time with the bro! 

But it will be the last time I see David for about 2 months :( He is going to Austria for the summer to spend some time with a certain lady he knows over there ;) So another thing we did today was set up a blog for him while he's traveling. His new blog is here:  thetravelingdave.blogspot.com.

3 unrelated side notes:

1. I'm sad the Mavericks lost tonight, but at least the Nuggets didn't sweep the series.

2. At least the Rangers won, even though me, Alan, Jeremy & Sherry left that game early today.

3. Tomorrow is My & Alan's ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Woohoo. Unfortunately we are both working, but on Friday we will be flying out to New York. :)