Baby

So, I know I'm not so good at updating my blog. Who wouldn't be if it took 2 1/2 hours just to do one post with pictures because of crummy internet? But, I did promise that I would at least do a post about what we're having! YEAH!!! We found out today that we are having a baby GIRL! We are really excited...especially for Tessa. Now SHE, too, will have a "same-same." February 9th is the due-date and everything looked great on the ultra sound today. She's a little small, they said she'd be in the low 7 pounds when she's born, but heck...I'm okay with that!

Arizona

Austin and I have been planning to go back to Arizona to visit people from our missions for over a year! Well, it finally happened and we had a BLAST!! We started off by spending time with my family in Surpirse: Napoleon and Angie Jones and their kids Shana and Shaun, Devon, Katie, and Sam. We got to see Sydnie and Spencer for a few minutes too, so it was great for me to get to see them all. They had never spent time with Austin and I and so it was great for me to see them hit it off. We arrived in AZ Saturday afternoon and then went out for pizza and bowling. It was great fun! I probably shouldn't say this, but since it is MY blog, I am going to say it anyway....I beat my husband. I had been talkin' "trash" for a couple weeks about being able to beat him, so I was pretty happy that I actually backed it up :)

Angie took me to get my very first, EVER, pedicure! It felt so nice and I loved the results: cute toes and soft feet.
Mine are the ones on the left.

We made chocolate oreo truffles. They were a big hit at home and at Shana and Napoleon's work!

Austin, Samantha, Shana

Napoleon, Angie, Devon

Katie, Vi, Austin, Devon

Angie and Napoleon also took us out to dinner for my Graduation. It is so nice to have such wonderful family to spend time with. We laughed a lot and spent a lot of great time together. It went by way too fast.

Wednesday, we left Surprise to go to Buckeye and spend time with Austin's family, the King's. It was great to see them and spend time getting to know them better. Rick and Kim took us to Scottsdale to one of our most favorite Restraunts: Maggiano's Little Italy! It is so so so delicious.

The King's were pretty busy with some other responsibilities, so they let us borrow their car for an afternoon. We went and visited more of Austin's friends in the Surprise area, and since we were close again, we met up with Angie and Napoleon one more time for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Shana, Napoleon, Angie, Vi, Austin, and Shaun

We had so much fun on our vacation! We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to serve missions and to make such great friends while we were there. I am thankful to my family and friends who supported me on my mission and who made it possible for me to be there!

Graduation

April has been busy, but so wonderful! I graduated with my Bachelor's Degree in University Studies. It's been a long time coming, but it was worth it! My pictures are not photographer quality, but I'm not a photographer, so I guess it's okay.

It was really fun to have so much family come for my graduation! I received lots of phone calls, too. Thanks for the support, everyone!

Yes, my husband is THE cook!

Austin and I celebrated one year of blissful marriage on the 13th of December, 2009. I seriously can't believe it's already been a year! And maybe I exaggerated a little with the "blissful" part because there have been some moments that weren't so blissful. However, it has been a WONDERFUL year and we have been blessed tremendously. I am so thankful for my wonderful husband and I love him so much!
Speaking of how wonderful my husband is.... We were at a Christmas Eve party at my Grandma Teichert's house and we took Austin's chocolate truffles for our contribution to the goodie table. When word got out that he makes them from scratch, it was also discovered that he does 75% of the cooking in our house. Which leaves me with a meager 25%! I told my astonished family that it is true...he really does do the majority of the cooking in our house. They seemed floored by the fact that there is a Teichert woman that doesn't just rule the kitchen! Don't get me wrong, I CAN and DO cook, but Austin just LOVES it and he is really really good at it. Ladies, I doubt any of you would argue if your husband took over in the kitchen and came up with amazing meals! I certainly don't complain. So...here's the proof....

This is one of my most favorite meals EVER! It's a salmon steak with a salmon "paste" that makes the hasbrowns stick to the steak. Then it is smothered in a lemon tumeric sauce and garnished with chopped green onion stalks. The bread is garlic bread brushed with a balsamic-olive oil mixture, topped with slice tomatoes and parmesean cheese and toasted in the oven. And the corn came from my mom's garden. Our plates are enormous so the presentation looks a little scanty...

Austin is an amazing cook and he loves to make things up. Here are a few of the things he has made for us:

Chicken breasts stuffed with feta, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach; Chicken Pesto Linguine (he got the idea from an amazing Italian restraunt called Maggiano's); Salsbury steaks and rice, Russian Chicken, Fish Tacos, Crepes, Aebleskeever (ebil-skeevers); Tomato Chicken, and several others.

And here's the proof that I do the cleaning! I whip up clean dishes almost as fast as my mom does these days! Oh wait, I have a dishwasher....CHEATER! I could NEVER beat my mom in a dish-doing race. The apron was a gift from my mom's homemade Christmas and I love it! Thanks, Mom!!

I guess you could say that we're not the "typical" family; however, I'm sure that will change when we have children and I'm not in school and working as much. I am also so grateful for a husband who loves me and who loves to share his talents with me!

THANKSGIVING...

I'm a major slacker with updating my blog, and I would say I'm sorry except that saying you're sorry means that you'll never do it again. And....I can't promise that I'll never be a slacker again. Perhaps I should try to clue you in on what's been going on in our lives since I last blogged...but that would result in a very long, and yes, BORING post that most (if not all) of you would just pass up.

So, I've decided to just post about our Thanksgiving. This year we spent Thanksgiving in Caldwell, Idaho with Austin's side of the family. We had a GREAT time and ate LOTS of yummy food. In fact, this was the first time in about 3 years that I've actually let myself have seconds of anything....choice of food for seconds: frog-eye salad! It's soooo good and I couldn't stop at one serving.

Austin and I before the feast.

The feast!

Markie in her turkey-induced coma.....

Austin in his turkey-induced coma...

Mom, Alexa, and Sadie with grandkids of the family we ate with.

Friday, we went to IOU Sushi. It's our favorite restraunt and has THE BEST sushi I've ever had! This is also the restraunt Austin proposed to me in. Brings back great memories! We ate sooo much sushi and had some really great laughs. It was so fun to be with family!

After sushi, we went to the movie "The Blind Side." We tried to go on Thanksgiving day but it was sold out. We went ahead of time to get our tickets on Friday and then showed up 45 minutes early and STILL barely got a seat! It was such a great movie. I laughed, then cried, the laughed, then cried. It was such an appropriate movie for this time of year. The generosity, love, and kind hearts of the characters really inspired me to want to be better and do better.

I have so many blessings! I live a "charmed life" as my Dad would say. I am so thankful for all of you and hope you have a wonderful Holiday season!

My Mother

I know it's not Mother's Day, and her birthday is in late September, but I did a few things the other day that totally made me think of my mom. Okay, I think of her everyday, but this made me think about her skills, and all the incredible things she does. Since I hadn't updated my blog in a long time, and the last few blogs were rather boring, judging by the responses that I got (or didn't get for that matter), I thought this would be blog worthy and PERHAPS not so boring.

Now, I'm pretty proud of the fact that my mom is my mom....it's a righteous pride, if there is such a thing. But anytime someone asks if I'm Briant and Clyda's daughter I'm proud to say, "YES!" My parents are AMAZING in every sense of the word. I'm just going to touch on a few of the things that my mom can do.

My mom is an INCREDIBLE gardener, and grows rediculously beautiful gardens every summer. People are constantly calling or stopping by to ask her advice on how to do this or that in their yard and vegetable gardens and if she doesn't already know the answer, which she usually does, she will find it and let them know. The constant calling and stopping by gets annoying to us kids sometimes because she has such an amazing heart and the kindest spirit that she would do anything for anyone, putting all of her wants and sometimes needs (like food during the day for sustaining life and energy) aside just to help them. When we were kids, the garden was the learning center for working hard and managing money. Each of us planted our own section of garden, we weeded it, and when it was harvest time we harvested for her whatever vegetable she needed and she would pay us by the pound, plus our work. She and my dad would then sit down with us and help us divide our money: Tithing first, savings second, and spending money third.

That leads to another thing that I love about my mom. She is so kind, and sweet, and FUN! When I was a kid I never realized how much she gave up to be a mother of 7 BUSY BUSY kids and the wife of a teacher, coach, Bishop, and a father of 7 BUSY kids. She gave up so many things for us and spent her time teaching us and helping us learn essentials for being successful people. She taught us the Gospel by example and helped us learn simple but important principles that I'm sure were hard for her to get through to us sometimes. She never gave up...even on Tyson! (I'm kind of kidding, Tyson) I should say, even on me!

My mom is FIT! I don't know very many moms of 8 kids that look as incredible as she does. Much to my own dismay, she looks like she could be my sister instead of my mom, but she is healthy! I'm grateful for that because she will be around for a LONG time. One day we were hiking Big Hill together and she told me that she wants to hike Big Hill on her 80th birthday. I can't put it past her...I'm sure she'll do it!!

The last thing I wanted to brag about my mom on is her incredible home-making skills. My mom can make bread with her eyes closed, she can stir a pot on the stove with her foot while she's washing dishes at the sink. She can keep laundry going and vacuum the house, dust the furniture, and wash the windows all in one morning. She sewed all of our school clothes when I was a little girl and spend countless hours making doll clothes for my Cabbage-Patch doll, Janet Colleen, all while I was hovering over her and begging her to paint my finger nails at the same time! My mom can change the oil on all of our vehicles and still be CLEAN when she's done! She can work all day and look just as beautiful as she did when she got out of the shower that morning. Okay maybe some of those things are an exaggeration (I've never seen her stir a pot on the stove with one foot while she washed the dishes) but what I'm trying to say is that my mom is amazing!!

I was making home-made pizza the other day--dough and everything--when I had a thought "my mom could do this with her eyes closed and she could do all this WAY before she got married" and here I am, just getting if figured out. But, the pizza turned out wonderfully, as did the Peach Delight I made, and our dinner guests were huge fans so I dubbed it a complete success! Maybe, someday, I can be just like my mom!! Thanks, Mom! I love you!

Picture Overload

This first picture is for Taffy! When we were kids, Dad and Mom took us on a LONG road-trip to see all the church sites. Taffy was a HUGE PACERS fan and Dad told her we would go to down-town Indianapolis and she could see the stadium and take her picture there and go into the fan-club store. So we ventured into down-town and Taffy got to live one of her dreams. It was sooo much fun!! It looks a little different now than it did back then, but I still think of you, Taffy, every time I drive by it!

This is the beginning of our two-day food adventure!

They had buzzers at every table that you would press when you were ready to order your food.

Mom and I waiting for the bill to get paid so we can hit up our next adventure.....

the DIVE!! Mann's Grill......I tell you what, I have never seen so many "white-trash" people in one place! Everyone that worked there had at least one tooth missing. Nobody was in uniform, infact 90% of them were wairing flip-flops and sleevless/cut-off shirts that had some kind of Harley-Davidson decal on it. Honestly, I would have turned around and walked right out of this place, had I been there alone! The food was AMAZING! The macaroni and cheese was so creamy and definately worth the food-poisioning scare in the back of your mind as you watched the sweaty cook hover over the pot.

We decided to get some exercise inbetween eating sessions and went down to the White River National Park and rented a 4-seater surry bike. We rode around the canal and the river for about an hour and had a BLAST! Austin was the driver, so we also had a few scares, but we survived and had a great time together.

The baseball game.....we saw the AAA Indians play the Ironhogs. We loved it!!

I loved the old factory behind the stadium with the moon shining in the background. It just seemed to bring the 'majesty' of the game to life. I'm not a big baseball fan and I don't really know anything about it. But I do love history and I have quite an imagination and I imagined being there back in the day when baseball was America's favorite game and most-loved past time. I imagined the men coming out of the factory from a long day's work to relieve some stress and have some fun playing the game. It was really cool.

We drove to Lafayette, IN to go to the Diner, XXX Diner....sounds like a porn-shop or something, I know. But It isn't, I PROMISE!! In fact, most all the food there is named after Purdue University athletes. There are tonz of cool pictures in the restraunt of the Purdue football team eating there, as well as basketball players and just regular old student-body. It was a really neat place. I thought I had a picture of the diner, but I don't. After eating there, we decided to go walk around Purdue's campus and I took a few pictures of that. But here is just one, the old bell-tower. It's an awesome campus!

Our time with Mom and Dad Clift ended Sunday afternoon at Maggiano's Little Italy Restraunt. AMAZING FOOD!!!! I don't have any pictures of that, either. But Austin and I will go again and I will get pictures of that and post those.....tomorrow!!