Homeward Bound

It wouldn't be Halloween without a good scare.

Well, maybe I shouldn't say good. I wish I could tell you our scare came from a terribly gory movie, a creepy haunted house or even someone popping out of the bushes, unfortunately it didn't. But never fear, this tale has a happy ending.

On Monday, our precious pups ran free out of our backyard when our gate was left open. Ryan found Cotton on a major road by our house after he was swiped by a car. I zoomed over and took him to the vet where he was checked out, given an IV, xray and some pain pills. Besides a few scratches and some soreness, Cotton is thankfully fine.

Mallie on the other hand, was the always rambunctious puppy that she is, so she went on an adventure for about 8 hours that day. I would have paid bank to have a camera tied to her collar to see where she went. We drove around all day looking for her, contacted every society we could think of, called every vet in the area and went and looked at dogs at animal control.

When our hope was dwindling and I was leaving to make fliers to find her, my co-worker called and said that she had found her! Thank God for all the caring people in our lives because this co-worker took the time to do one more loop around the area on her way home to look and Mallie popped out of someone's backyard!

When Mallie came bolting out of that car, my co-worker was crying, I was crying and Ryan was crying. It was just like when shadow returned on Homeward Bound.

And let me tell you our puppies have been SO incredibly spoiled this week! Here's Ryan loving on Mallie when she returned, Cotton was kind of loopy at this point :).



We wouldn't have been so lucky with all the support we had so I thought that I would share the resources I found with everyone if you run into the same problem (which I hope you never, ever do!).

Our dogs were both adopted, Mallie from Foothills Golden Retriever Rescue, so I contacted all the Golden rescues first. Here are others that we used, and we ended up meeting some great people:

• Your Vet


• Humane Society


• Animal Care


• Animal Control


• Area Vet Offices (contact your vet, they can supply a list of names and phone numbers)


• Fire Station


• Police Station


• Postal Service


• Local Lawn Care


• Local Trash and Recycling Services


• Neighbors


• Anyone Walking or Running


• Co-Workers!


• Family


• Friends


• Facebook


• Twitter

Basically, the more people that know the better. We were also going to hand out fliers to all the trick 'or treaters, thank goodness we didn't have to though!

If this taught me anything, it was to love my dogs every single day (and to check the fence). Now go snuggle your little buddies, or go adopt one!

Nothing Warms Your House Like BBQ

I'm pretty new at this, so bear with me...

We had our Housewarming Party this past Friday, which I saw as a perfect opportunity to use my new smoker. It's my (early) Christmas present from Erin, thanks honey!

OK, before we get started, I am going to clear up a few things:

• BBQ (verb) - cooking "low and slow" using an indirect wood/charcoal fire (in my opinon, no gas or electricity)


• BBQ (noun) - PORK cooked "low and slow" (commonly known as Carolina BBQ)


• BBQ = BBQ, not grilling


• Most BBQ uses a "Rub" which is a blend of spices that you apply before cooking, many recipes include brown sugar, because it carmelizes very nicely on the outside of the meat during the smoking process - creates a real nice "Bark"


• Some people like to "Mop" or "Baste" their BBQ with a sauce during the smoking process


• Much like Beer and Tailgating, Apple and Pork go very well together

I use a very basic rub consisting of: brown sugar, chili powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and onion powder. I also use a "Spray" which you apply during the cooking process (using a spray bottle), it consists of apple cider, apple juice, and bourbon. You can also use that combination as an "injection," which you inject the meat with before smoking.

For this particular occasion I bought 2 hefty "Boston Butts" (part of the pork shoulder), 2 racks of pork spare ribs (AKA St. Louis Ribs), and 2 whole chickens.

Deliciousness:

We started smoking around midnight on Friday night and finished at 5 PM Saturday. The aftermath:

And for those of you who think you can't smoke without an expensive smoker, here is how I have been making due for the past year. You can rig a Weber Kettle into a smoker by using bricks to separate the charcoal/wood from the meat:

Coming Unpinned: Halloween Edition

Happy Halloween Week!!!

I'll spare you my Halloween obsessions (that rival that of Claire Dunphy) for this post, but have to comment on another obsession of mine, Pinterest.

I'm sure a lot of you have already been turned on to this wonderful website chock full of amazing ideas, projects and SO much more. But if you haven't, go check it out!



I usually end up re-creating one thing from pinterest a week at least, whether its a recipe I've tagged, a surcie for someone, or something for our new house. So I decided I would share a pinterest creation once a week, come "unpinned" if you will, and let you know how successful the project was!

Here's my favorite from this week, a pumpkin pound cake. Unfortunately, I made it while trying to multitask and do a million things, so I only have a snapshot of the final product. But never fear, I've added some tips after the image that will get you through the project if you want to test it out too!



I apparently didn't ever pin the original post where I got this idea, but here is the pin for the recipe I used to make the pumpkin pound cake.

Basically, you'll need the ingredients in the recipe above, preferably two of the same bundt pans (I only had one and it took awhile to bake and cool the cakes). Other items I used were cream cheese icing, food coloring, Swiss Cake Rolls and a Ziplock bag.

I put the icing with red and yellow coloring in the Ziplock and cut a hole in the corner for an easy icing spreader.

And to achieve this spherical shaped cake, I baked two pumpkin pound cakes in a standard bundt pan and laid them on top of each other with icing in between to stick the two together, lining up the grooves.

The "stem" is made out of two Swiss Cake Rolls sitting on top of some of the excess cake I cut off earlier, this filled up my hole in the middle. I iced on top and around that hole to cover up the fact that I practically stuffed a whole third cake down the middle.

Oh and those little things sitting around the cake, those are snack sized Reese's pumpkins that I had a bag of at home and didn't want to be tempted to eat all by myself.

Now go stuff your face, share with friends and enjoy. Cheers, y'all!

Erin

Why Hello There.

We didn't know where we wanted to go or what we wanted to say in our first post. It's kind of intimidating, you know.

So that's why we're just going to play it cool and say hello. It's as simple as that. Hello.

Phew, ok, glad the pressure's off, now we're ready to get serious and do some bloggin'!

Here's what you can expect to see in the next few months...

We'll give a quick recap of our wedding, share some pictures, share some DIYs and share the crazy stories behind everything along the way. Ryan will get to brag about "smokin'" as he calls it. Smokin' meat, that is. Ok well smokin' barbecue, you get what we're saying. I'll share some of our other meals and memories we've had along the way. And then we'll jump right into updating you on our first home.

Hope you're hungry. Cheers, y'all!

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