Breakfast

The scones turned out good; I used craisins and almonds.

Have a nice day, more later tonight.

Recipe

I am going to try and make scones this weekend, to celebrate Brian's excellent marks in school this semester. (He found out he had straight A's last night) I found a recipe on allrecipes.com, 308 people rated 'Grandma Johnson's Scones with five stars (the best rating).

1 cup sour cream 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt
4 cups all purpose flour 1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar 1 egg
2 tsp baking powder 1 cup raisins (optional)

In a small bowl, blend the sour cream and baking soda, and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a large baking sheet.

In a large bow, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture until just moistened. Mix in the raisins.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll or pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Cut into 12 wedges, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.

Questions?

I'll have to look in my book to see what 'cut in' means.

Also, I wonder if I can use my food processor (thanks Uncle Kenny & Aunt Judy!)



I'll let you know how they turn out.

Latte Art

I want to learn how to do this.

Family Christmas in MO

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with the Prestons. Here are a couple of pictures.

Family Christmas in SC

We had three new babies this year at the family Christmas party; Samuel, Trevor Lamar and Jasmine (respectively).

























Here are a couple more pictures of all the fun.

Christmas party planning

Momma is preparing for two Christmas parties, one today and another on Saturday. Tonight is Daddy's company party and tomorrow is family Christmas night. Daddy is giving each employee a poinsettia so we have 28 of them at the house right now. Some of you might notice that the vases and plates that momma is decorating are the same ones we used and both my wedding and Bekky's wedding this year. What a deal I got on those plates!

The frozen south

We came to South Carolina and it froze. There is ice on all of the trees and all the schools are out, but it won't last very long. . . it's South Carolina.

We've got a big time planned - several Christmas parties, etc. Merry Christmas!

Printable Coupons

$10 off any $35 purchase from Bath & Body Works *expires 12.11.05*

$5 off any PS2 or PSP game from Best Buy *expires 12.31.05*

$10 off a $40 purchase from Borders

20% off total purchase from Borders *expires 12.11.05*

40% off any one item at Hobby Lobby *expires 12.10.05*

Free printable gift lables from land o lakes

Save $5 on any Toys R Us purchase of at least $25 *expires 12.25.05*

Final-ly

Finals are finished! (and there was much rejoicing...yeah.)

All I have left for the semester is a course on DVD which should take about a week to complete.

bp

Happy Thanksgiving

We are leaving for MO this afternoon. Have a wonderful long weekend!

Funny

The joke about the string who isn't served at a restaurant because he's a string so he ties himself up and fluffs up his hair and then when the waiter asks if he's the same string, says, 'No, I'm a frayed knot.'

Ha!

New Baby in the Family!

My cousin, Teddy and his wife, Heather, delivered Trevor Lamar on November 15. He was 6 lbs 4 oz and 18.87" What a cutie! Congratulations Teddy and Heather.

We are here.

Go to this web site: http://maps.google.com/

and type: 2901 Meadow Lark Ave, Louisville, KY

Click on the "Satellite" (or Hybrid) button in the upper right hand corner. Use the ladder on the left to zoom in. This is our physical address which is Foster Apartments. If you call us on the telephone we will go outside and wave at you.

Zathur - what?

We had dinner with our upstairs neighbors the Goforths.

Later we went to see the movie Zathura. It's from the makers of Jumanji - you know, the board game that comes alive. This is the same movie but it takes place in outer space and the actors are worse. Here is Jillian's comment: "It's like every bad movie we have ever seen, rolled into one." Our advice, this is one to wait and watch when it comes out on TBS, opposite of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon.

At least we enjoyed dinner with our neighbors.

Hello Again

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I know I promised Halloween pictures, but that street was just crazy with people, I didn't attempt it.

Brian is wrapping up his semester; this has been a hectic one! All he has left to do is polish up a couple of papers and study for the finals. We are looking forward to the holidays and a nice break.

We had a neighbor over for dinner last Friday night. He is an 88 year old man, who has lived in our apartment building since the 60s. He was head over the maintenance department at the seminary for 25 years. He and his wife actually lived in our apartment at one time, when they were renovating the building (12 apartments). His wife died of an aneurysm one week after he retired (in the 80s), so the seminary allowed him to keep his apartment. He walks a mile everyday and visits the guys in maintenance. Nice man.

I have been taking guitar lessons. I am getting better I think, if any of you want to call sometime, I will play you something over the phone. =-)

I am thinking somehow I could put a video stream in this blog of our way cool, totally exciting lives, but I need to think more about that. This free blogger probably wouldn't hold that much info, we may need to just get our own url. Maybe Shawn-the-agitator could set us with that?

More later.

Supreme Court

Just in case any of you are as confused as I was this morning, the new candidate for the Supreme Court is Judge Alito, not to be confused with Judge Ito who tried OJ Simpson.

We had a great weekend. My parents came to visit - great company, great food, wonderful weather....I wish they lived here.

Brian is working furiously on a research paper - due tomorrow. His topic is If God is Sovereign, Do we Have Moral Responsibility? Email him if you want to know =-)

There is a street down the road that does serious decorating for Halloween, I will post pictures tomorrow.

Later.

Good Morning

Brian and I had a nice evening last night. The newlyweds cuddled up on the couch on a fall evening watching movies....here's a picture.





















Just in case you didn't notice....the newlyweds night consisted of Brian wearing earplugs......Oh the Romance!!

Disclaimer

Honey,

Will you sign your name at the bottom of your posts please.
People are starting to think that I'm the one posting the strange blogs.

Love,

BLP :^)

Secrets

I found this website where people anonymously submit secrets; they make a postcard, send it in, and some of them are posted online. Here are a couple I thought were interesting.

I'll post more pictures this weekend.

Saturday Chores

Good morning. It is chilly here today, about 60 degrees.

I thought I would post a couple pictures of our apartment and some of the projects I have finished.

Here is the table I tiled. This was a table my mom and I bought at a resale store for $15 - for my very first apartment. I bought the tile from Home Depot, broke them and grouted it. It was a very messy project since we have to everything here in the apartment, but rewarding. I think it turned out nice. The grout is black, it looks gray in these pictures.




















































Mom and Dad visited two weeks ago, we had a nice visit. Here is Brian and my mom enjoying a little buffalo chicken dip. mmmm.



More pictures to come. I purchased a roll of flashing this morning, to put in our kitchen as a backsplash. Hopefully I will finish this up by tomorrow. Have a nice weekend!

Guitar lessons

I guess I'll post a quick note.

Jillian just left for guitar lessons. She already knows one chord but apparently that's not enough to play very many songs. She's taking lessons at Mom's Music which is just about two blocks away from our apartment. She's got such a good voice so I'm anxious to hear her play and sing more.

By the way, does anybody every read these posts? If you do, please reply to us with a comment - thanks.

Icky Kitty

So I have had a couple of requests to put something else on our blog so that you don't have to look at those kitties anymore. Sorry, they are pretty gross.

I did a search on google this morning to see what would come up with our names.

Brian Preston was found to be an author. I always thought he would make a great writer, but this choice of content was a little surprising. The things I can learn about my husband from the internet. I think this would make a great coffee table book for our apartment here at seminary.

Animal Ethics

I did a search on craiglist.org to see if there were any kitties in Louisville that needed a home. I came across a breeder who was selling 'Miny Mews', cute kitties with short legs. I had never heard of this before, so I put it into google and the only found item was from the same poster on craiglist.org. I noticed that these kitties were coming from a place call the 'Munchkin Ranch'. After a little investigation I found that this breeder genetically changes this cat to look like this.





Upon first notice of this cat, I thought it was cute, but where do you draw the ethical line in animal breeding? Breeders genetically change animals all the time for one reason or another. Swines are bred to mature quickly and produce large litters. Bovines are bred for color or whether or not they will have horns, or whether will they be for dairy or meat. These changes don't seem to effect the animal in its day to day activities as a pig or cow. This particular breed of kitty has trouble jumping due to its short legs, which also causes its hunting to be more limited. Breeders have gone as far to give kitties regular size back legs, and very short nubby front legs, where they have to sit up like a squirrel; they are called 'squittens'. Crazy.














Here are a couple more pictures of what genetic engineering can get you. Wouldn't you love having this sweet kitty cuddled at the end of your bed at night?









Most of these pictures came from www.messybeast.com