Looking Back Two Years Ago Today.....

This is how the Adventures Started !

I married the Best Man I have ever known. Happy Anniversary Honey!


Of course there was alot of preparations to be made that day

Then there were some that smiled and relaxed through it.




Then there were some experts on how to make every detail perfect



Then there were some experts on how to make every detail perfect


They were some really proud parents

























They were lots of happy moments!






Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone !

Boys and their Toys!

Well after many hours of sorting stuff for the garage sale on saturday, Jeff sat down with his big Box of Old Childhood toys and began to play !
A side of my husband I have never seen came out in this garage. From Comic Books, Transformers, Gi Joe's, cowboys and indians and of course Star Wars Toys.
We watched on and laughed at how he was excited about really old stuff, one comic book especially made him happy to see again!


Apparently he had quite the Crush on Ms. Veronica, she even went to Germany to visit him in this comic

Jeff's parents garage is now filled to the brim with items for this weekends garage sale at Bellaire!


Baby Alistair was even dressed in Jeff's old bonnet , he was too busy playing with his own toys to notice he looked like a little Dutch boy

"I can Talk Talk Talk , I can Talk"

We'll we are back from Florida as you can tell from the video . Boy Alistair had alot to tell Daddy about when we got home. He definitely needed some male bonding time after being with all those women in Florida.
Sorry I've been slacking on the blogging....been quite busy since we've gotten home.
We had so much fun while we were there and hope next time we'll see Disney World when he gets a little older.

Thank you Grand Mariner and Gigi for making us feel so welcome in your home.

Thank you Grammy for teaching my baby to talk....now he won't stop

Thank you Aunt Roe and Aunt Shawn for loving and squeezing me while I was there.

Florida Trip - Day Seven

Alistair's Open House !

Good Friends and Family were banging down the door to see him.

His first meeting with his Aunt Shawn changing his one of many diapers that day!

Aunt Shawn always takes beauitful pictures, she's gotta teach Aly how to pose

Aunt Pat Still showing him how to fly baby style!

Aunt Slyna holding him close...not sure when we'll see each again...he could be in school next time...haha

A quick change into his sailor suit to impress the ladies...poor baby had to model all his clothes for us...just kidding

Yolanda came over too and fell in love with our little man...sang lots of old Italian songs to him till he started singing them back at her.

All Four generations there together at last!

I LOVE......MEAT!!! (in my best austin powers goldmember voice)

So I'm sitting at work one day when I received an email from my good buddy Jay entitled "oh ya". I open it up and peer inside to see a hyperlink to the "Bacon Explosion" recipe. After reading the recipe it was clear that I HAD to make this right away (especially since Tara was not home and she will not touch pork)

Sooo.... The recipe calls for 2 lbs of bacon.. (yes that pounds with a "P") and 2 lbs of Italian turkey sausage. And that's pretty much it outside of some BBQ sauce and some BBQ rub.

So the recipe goes a little something like this...

Take strips of bacon and create a nice little weave pattern almost like your making a basket.. Keep it nice and tight because we do not want that bacon goodness to drip out of this thing. After your done..spread some of that homemade BBQ rub all over it. You may be asking yourself... "Self, that's not two pounds of bacon I just used, I have a lot left over?" Don't you worry your little head.. we will take care of it. It should look like the picture below.



Then if that were not enough artery clogging goodness for you.. your then going to take 2 lbs of Italian sausage and spread a nice little layer right on top of your bacon basket weaving project... ( I used mild Italian sausage and I think next time I'll use Hot Italian sausage)


Remember all that left over bacon we had.. Well now your going to cook it just like you would if you were having bacon and eggs. Crispy or soft how ever you like it. Now we are going to cut that into bite sized bits and sprinkle it all over our new sausage layer..Now it wouldn't be a BBQ without some BBQ sauce... So take your favorite BBQ sauce and sprinkle it on top of that, add some more of that BBQ rub and your almost done.


Now here is the tricky part.. we want to roll only that sausage up leaving our basket weaving project still flat. Roll it up nice and tight until you have a nice log of sausage. Pinch off the ends to seal in all those bacon bits. Now after you do that you are going to take our basket weaving project and roll it around our sausage log. Looks something like so.....

Now comes the fun part. We are going to smoke this over indirect heat at 225 degrees for 1hr per thickness of your log.. mine took about 3 hrs total. You want an internal temperature of 165 degrees. I smoked mine using pecan wood and it turned out great!! Here is the finished product after smoking it in my Big Green Egg.

Now when you slice it.. you do not want a thick slice! This is VERY rich.


I took it to work the next day to let some of the boys at work try some and it was GONE!.. This is such a great recipe but it is not for the faint of heart. Here is the link to the official recipe.
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/print/bacon-explosion.html

Florida Trip- Day Six

Farmer's market at the park! Grand Mariner , Alistair and I got up early and went to the farmers market down the road from their home.

Thats me eating Boiled Cajun Peanuts....I haven't had these since I was a wee lassie.

Lots of Fresh Veggies to bring home for supper tonight.

We went walking through the park to the Botanical Gardens where we found lots of Lily Pads and Crazy People getting married at the wedding Garden for Free on Valentines Day! You should have seen all the crazies lined up for this.

Gator signs everywhere...good thing we didn't get to close to the water's edge with Megan!

For Valentines Night Grand Mariner and Gi Gi went to the Symphony and a romantic dinner , leaving Grammy and I home with a movie and leftover Pizza..ha!

Our Valentine was Alistair anyways.

One last good bye to Alistair and kissed him goodnight.
Little did they know that when they left , Alistair was going to tell us his first story !

Florida Trip - day Five

Mariner made us all reservations for High Tea at the English Rose Tea Room. They even had hats for us to try on and take pictures. We didn't make Alistair wear one because he's a MAN and daddy would not like that at all.

Rosanna and I looked so English in our lovely hats. We shared a pot of Happy Tummy Tea and ate scones with special English Cream.

The food was delicous and the atmosphere was positvely radiant !

We took a stroll down the Venoy in St. Petersburg and stopped to get some Gelato.

I had the bailey's and dark chocolate mix...amazing!

Grammy had to be different and get the Pitashio favored.

Aunt Roe loved walking Alistair to the different stores we visited, she's gonna make such a great mom someday


We ended our lovely day with some homemade pizzas Rosanna and I made our all time favorite : Onions and Black Olives pizza! Check back tomorrow !