Big Cheese

So many of you know that I was recently promoted to Dean.  I officially started on Monday and this has already been a big change for me.  I have a lot to learn, but am really excited about all the new things I will be doing. 

Monday was a very crazy day with hours of phone calls, and training pieces, and oh, some actual work too....so it was a great surprise when these arrived to me:

Beautiful right?  The card simply read "To the New 'Big Cheese' !! From Mickey and his friends, Kim and Ron"

Thanks Kim and Ron...it was VERY nice of you to think of me!

New Camera... Sony DSC HX9

Jody had a minor accident with our camera, an Olympus Stylus 1010, while we were on our trip to Oregon. It is a decent point and shoot camera that takes good outside pictures, but average indoor pictures. She dropped it in Wyoming and what do you know the camera broke enough that it still took pictures, but became annoying to use. I actually put a band-aid on it so that it would keep working during the trip. We've had this camera for over 4 years now, so for a digital point and shoot camera that is a pretty good life span. (Don't get me started on how crappy things are made these days.)

While we were in Oregon we talked about getting a new one (due to the 0% sales tax), but I'm picky about what technology products I buy and I have to read about them before I go to the store and pick one out. So I found the Nikon 9100 and the Sony DSC-HX9 and both seemed to be reasonably good cameras for what I want/need to do. I take lots of inside and outside pictures and wanted something that did well with both, with minimal fuss.

So I went to two Best Buys in my area and neither store had them in stock, but they both offered to order me one and ship it to my house. I figured I could do that on my own, so I went price shopping online. Neither camera is discounted at this time, and then I remembered I got some discounts through work. I found that I could get the Sony for a good price though that service, so I decided that was the one I would get. The camera is a 16Mpix and has a 16x optical zoom, which having a good zoom is something I wanted. It also does a lot of other things and so I'll have to learn how to use those. The sweep panorama feature seems pretty cool and wish I would have had it when I was at Crater Lake.

After I got it (which took 3 days from Sony Direct, which is great) I took some sample pictures out in the yard.

Rose in the yard, no manual mode select just get close and it switches to macro mode automatically.

Stormy, taken in "pet" mode, she is wondering if she gets a treat for allowing me to take her picture.

An 8-point buck in our backyard that happened to show up the other morning. He is about 1000 yards or more from the house and if you make the picture full size by clicking on it you can seem him quite clearly.

The Sony is a little bigger than the Olympus physically, and the one thing I liked about the Olympus is that I could put it in my pocket and go. We'll see if the Sony is as "pocketable".

Heading home... :-(

So the day arrived.  Time for Pauline to go home.  7 Weeks actually went by very fast.  Granted we were busy with Chicago and Kevin's graduation, a trip to Oregon, stuff around here, but you when she arrives you think, we have a long time together...7 weeks.  Then all of a sudden you turn around and the day to head home is here.

We took Pauline to the airport Sunday Morning, she had an early flight out of DIA, to LGA, then change airports to JFK, and her flight to Berlin.  Yes that is a crazy schedule but she made it just fine. 

Here she is going through security...

All clear and ready to go to her gate...

Down the escalator and to the train.  We had to just wave goodbye here.  

It was a really great visit and wonderful to see her again after two years.   We hope she had a wonderful time here again, and that she visits us again soon.  Though she said, she thinks it is our turn to go visit her....Hmmm I think that would be super...we must start planning.

Flaky Flix Cookies

The other day I posted about a cookie I love, but that is not made any more, Flaky Flix. So I found a recipe on the web for how to make your own. It basically is getting some wafer cookies from the store, covering them in chocolate and cornflakes. They are not super pretty, but they taste pretty darn good.

The chocolate I used was a mixture of several different chocolates that were kinda left over, Hershey's Dark Kisses, Ghirardelli, Nestle, and some other stuff I'm not even sure what it was.

Packing to go home....

After 7 weeks, packing to go home is a big task.  First Pauline packed all things up and we took her suitcase downstairs and weighed it on the big scale.  She was well under (4 lbs under) her weight so all was good.

The Last Supper

Pauline wanted Italian Nachos before she went home.  So of course that is what we did.  I did tell her, she had to help with making the chips.

I know she said these were one of her favorite things....So hopefully when the craving comes back for more, she will come back to Fort Morgan.

Ikea - Chocolate

Who buys chocolate from a furniture store? Yup, that would be me.

I ended up get the dark and milk chocolate bars. After all the Ritter Sport bars with Hazelnuts in them, I just could not bring myself to get one this time. Our German exchange student, could not believe I was paying for these bars, as she says they get coupons in Germany to get these for free, I'm guessing to get people to come into the store.

As of right now, I've only had the dark bar and it was a better than average bar, nothing very exceptional, but not near as bad as a Hershey bar. This is one of those bars where if you need a chocolate fix, it will solve it, but not something you would buy to have a really good bar. Enjoy!

Ritter Sport - Milk Chocolate with Cornflakes

When I first saw this bar it really intrigued me. One of my favorite cookies is one called Flaky Flix, unfortunately they are no longer made.

They were a chocolate wafer cookie, covered in chocolate and then rolled in cornflakes. Very light chocolate snack and I could eat a box of them without even trying. In fact I recall my Mom limiting how many sticks I could have at a time.

So anyway back to the chocolate bar from Ritter Sport, which I found at Target and World Market.

This is a great chocolate bar. Everyone here at the house loved it and wished that I had bought more than one of them. So next time I am at Target I'll probably stock up. I definitely recommend this bar as it has a good flavor and a little crunch to it.

Finally...IKEA

Ok, For many of you, this is not at all exciting...but for me.  I loved it.  We finally got an IKEA here in Colorado.  However it is about 1.5 hours from the house down near Park Meadows.  On Saturday, we decided to take the drive down and see what all the fuss is about.  Here we are....almost there....

We got there a little before they opened, but they were already directing traffic....

We had fun looking around. It is a big store, and I could definitely go back again sometime.  We didn't buy much just some small things.  We also bought some Swedish Chocolate...I am sure Kevin will blog about it with his chocolate series, after we taste it.  

After IKEA, we just did the entire area....we went to World Market, Halloween City, walked the entire Park Meadows Mall, had lunch at CPK, went to Costco and Target.  It was a good day.

Chuck Crain Concert

Wednesday night we had heard about a concert at a local church, so we decided to go.  It was Chuck Crain.  Chuck sings with the Presley's in Branson Missouri . 

He had a really great voice and while the crowd was not too large, it was a nice concert. 

Pauline wanted her picture taken with the "American Star"  :-)

3 for 1 Review

Ok, I gotten a little behind on my chocolate posts. So I'm going to post about 3 bars I have recently tried (the sad part is that I have about 6 more bars waiting to be tried). Anyway, the three I am going to talk about here are the Milka Noisette bar, the Ritter Sport Joghurt bar, and the Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate with a la Mousse au Chocolat. These are three very different bars and I have to say that I enjoyed them all.

The Milka Noisette is similar to the Alpenmilch bar, but with the addition of Hazelnuts to the bar.

Like the Alpenmilch bar, it was very smooth and had a good flavor. I've moved to keeping the bars in the refrigerator so that they don't melt as quickly, and that turned out to be a good choice for this bar.

The Ritter Sport Joghurt bar has almost a cheese cake like filling in the bar. I found this bar to be quite good.

I don't think Jody's Dad cared for it much since he doesn't like yogurt, but in my opinion it didn't really have a yogurt taste to it. I would purchase this on again, if I were able to find it.

The final bar is the Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate with a la Mousse au Chocolat. A really long name for a candy bar. I found this bar at World Market and Target, so I thought since I am trying other Ritter Sport bars, I might as well try this one. I thought this was a good bar, but Jody didn't care for it much.

This bar had the dark chocolate, with a creamy center, and I just don't think that Jody cares for that. However, I would definitely get this bar again. Very smooth texture with the bite of dark chocolate.

The Year of the Dragon Fly

This summer we have had a TON of dragon flies.   I love to watch them fly around too.  The other day I went out front and there were thousands (and I am not exaggerating).  They were all over our flowers... 

Can you see them?  I know it is hard to get a good view, with the camera, they don't really stop moving and the camera isn't sure what to focus on.... There are at least three in this picture...

I marked them for you....

 

I am sure with summer being almost over, so will all the little things like this, and all will turn brown as we get ready for winter....

Fort Morgan Museum

On Tuesday night we decided to go to the Fort Morgan Museum.  Oddly enough Kevin had never been and it had been years and years and years since I had been.


 I tell ya, Kevin never follows directions....

The museum does a nice job talking about the history of the area

There was a large section on Glenn Miller

The soda fountain

Kevin again not following directions...though in this case, I don't think it was the sign he wasn't supposed to touch.

Downstairs they have an area about aviation in Colorado and some "discovery" items for kids, so that meant we HAD to play.  

Here I am learning to fly and reading the manual 

Pauline wanted to give it a try, too, but we were about to crash and we were afraid....

I think we were lost, I couldn't figure out the map (maybe because it was upside down)

Pauline decided to go on a moon walk with moon boots and everything

It was a fun way to end the work day and spend an hour or so. 

Gift for Caelum

When Pauline was here two years ago, Caelum loved talking to her and getting to know her.  However, he was only 3 years old, so after two years, he didn't really remember her.  However, after just a little while they were fast friends again.  Pauline brought Caelum a Lego to put together.  So on Sunday night after dinner, they sat at the table together to put it all together. 

The Flea Market

On Saturday we went to the Mile High Flea Market.

You can find almost anything here....including these.....hmmmm

 We didn't get a deer head....but we kept looking at all the booths...

The fruits and veggies were amazing, I could have bought a lot but I didn't have a way to keep things cool in the hot car....all I did buy was some very very cheap sweet corn.....

We did get a few small "treasures"  Kevin got a hat, I got some aqua beads, a cup cake carrier brand new never opened from Khols with the price tag and receipt on it still and I got it for 1/3 of the original price. 

We went early, and by the time we had walked the acres and acres we were glad we were early as it got HOT, in fact it was a a record breaking day.