A Visit Back Home In Texas

Last Wednesday we travelled back home to Fort Worth for the weekend. We had to get our taxes done before the 15th, and it was the Texas Rangers Opening weekend in baseball of course! :)

The weather was mid 70's to 80's, every thing was so beautiful & green, blue bonnets & wildflowers in full bloom every where you look...I just thought I was homesick before. We even got some amazing rain & thunderstorms on Sunday, all of my favorites about spring! It sure made it hard to come back to our home away from home here in Edmonton, where it was a chilly 34 degrees & snow still on the ground. Lol.

We had an amazing time at the Rangers baseball games. We attended Opening Day game, starting out with a group tailgate that our friend Dawn holds every year. We played the Chicago White Sox, and won 3-2! It was a perfect day!

We also went the 2nd game on Saturday, but we lost 2-3. Boo :(

Buuut we made it back to our home away from home last night in Edmonton. Cold & Snowy. But Brutus will be home tonight when Joey gets home from work, so I'm sure that will make it a lot better! :)

Weather Update

Yessss, keep it comin' mother nature!!

Who Said Eating Healthy Was A Pain??

Last night we had the most delicious supper! Black bean-Turkey burgers & Yam fries - both healthy! Thought I'd share the "recipes" (how I ended up making them ;) with y'all...

 Black bean-Turkey Burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground turkey

1 medium yellow onion

1 bell pepper

1/4 c of oats

15 oz can of black beans (drained)

1 package of Taco seasoning

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preheat your grill! Finely chop up half the onion & half of bell pepper, add to ground turkey. Keep other half of onion & bell pepper for slicing up to put on burgers for garnish. Add oats & taco seasoning, (and salt & pepper if desired.) Drain black beans, mash about 3/4 of beans, and leave the rest whole, add to turkey. Mix all together by hand. NOTE- Mixture will be very sticky! Spray plate with some Pam to avoid them sticking before putting on grill. Also, Turkey does NOT shrink up like beef hamburgers do. So the size you make these patties to go on the grill, is the size they will come out to be. Wish I would have known that, bc our burgers were HUGE! lol. Throw on grill, doesn't take them long to cook so keep a close eye on them! We garnished them with spinach, onion, bell pepper, sliced avocado, pepper jack cheese, pickles, light mayo & mustard. YUM!

Healthy-Crispy-Baked Yam Fries

2-3 sweet potatoes or 1 big yam

2 egg whites -(helps make crispy!)

2 TBSP of Olive Oil

Garlic salt to taste

Pepper to taste

And I used a good dash of Cayenne pepper, yum!

Preheat your oven to 450. I assume you could use sweet potatoes for this recipe, and would probably be a lot easier than slicing up a big ol' yam like I did! :) You want to stick your baking sheet in the oven for 5-10 minutes by itself to warm it up, apparently this helps with the crispiness! Slice up your fries. Mix together egg whites, olive oil, and seasonings. Toss your potatoes in mix, make sure they have a good coat! After you pan is heated up, make sure and line with either Parchment paper, or foil if you don't have p. paper. Spray with olive oil, then spread potatoes on pan. Make sure they don't touch, it helps with the crispiness. Bake for 10 minutes, then take out & flip potatoes. Bake another 10 minutes, or longer for your desired crispiness. They are DELISH!

Hope y'all try this meal out, you're missing out if you dooon't! :)

Snow Day Play

Yesterday morning when we woke up & went outside it was about 18F/-7C and several inches of snow on the ground... COLD. We came back in the house, and within a couple hours, Brutus kept looking out the window whining, wanting to go outside & play. He finally hopped up on the couch with me, and gave me this look...

Who could say no to that face? -And if you can...well good luck with your life without a soul!

So I got all bundled up & went on a nature walk in the woods behind the house, then followed on the walking trails in surrounding neighborhoods.

 (just because I love puppy paws :)

We spent about an hour and a half outside running, playing, and eating snow... We even met up with another dog owner who let his dog off his leash so we let them run around for a bit, Brutus loooves playin with other dogs. I took a video of him playing in the snow, but I cant get it uploaded, boo. :( After we got back to the apt, I couldn't find him. There's only so many places he could be...and sure enough, he was in the guest room layin down for a nap! :)

 Then he followed me in the living room & decided to take a nap in my lap instead. It's tough bein' a snow dog! :)

Spring Break Snow?!

So this morning Joey texts me & says that we're supposed to get up to 10cm(about 4 inches) of snow today & that it had already started at his work (which is about 15 minutes away). It hadn't started at the apt yet, until he sent that text. Then it started snowing. And snowing...and snowing some more. I thought maybe we would get a light covering..nah.. we got a good 4-5 inches! But it is beautiful snow! The perfect snowman building snow. I wish my niece Sydney & nephew Rhyler could be here to play in it. :) Sydney is 3, and I've been sending her short video messages showing her fun stuff around the neighborhood, and showed her Brutus playing in the snow earlier today. She LOVES Brutus, and I do believe he has currently out ranked me! Lol. I wish Rhyler was old enough to understand where I am & videos also, but he's just 1.

The snow is bittersweet for me. Being a Texan, we see snow maybe once, maaaybe twice a winter. In the winter of 2010-11 we had a week where we were "snowed in" with a good 6-7 inches of snow & ice. Of course Joey just rolled his eyes & thought it was insane that the state of Texas practically shut down for a week because of a few inches of snow. Lol. I had to remind him several times that week that we all aren't Canadian. This 2011-2012 winter it snowed one evening, not even an inch & was melted in 12 hours. I love a good snow at least once a winter. It's a change for us, and absolutely beautiful when it sticks. So when I left on March 15th from Texas to move to Edmonton, I was leaving gorgeous 80F degrees & a beautiful spring coming along. Then I woke up this morning to 27F & ended the day with 5 inches of snow. Haha. Like I said, it's bittersweet. But I am trying to keep positive about the cold, and enjoy the snow. Brutus was feelin frisky this evening when we went out for a potty break, I wish I could have caught it on camera! I will definitely try tomorrow, bc it is a sight to see. :) Earlier today I went on a little  nature walk in the woods behind the house, and took a few photos of the pretty snow! Here ya go!

The view from our living room...not a bad gig, eh? ;)

Price Check!

Shopping for Groceries in Canada... BAHAHA. And we think we have it bad! Given, along with their high prices of food, clothes, houses, cars, etc. they also have much higher wages then we do in the States, so I guess it all evens out. The other day we went to the grocery store to stock up on some food to get us through, mainly just your ordinary items you keep in the fridge & stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner etc. We got 1 basket full of food, 189 items to be exact...

Today I went back to the store to get just a few things... 19 items to be exact again.

AY YI YI!!!

But on the other hand, here are a couple of products I immediately fell in love with & I'm sure they will be in my diet for the next 6 months...

Crispy, Chocolate, Coffee Candy? Um, yes please!

Yes Mom & Grams, that just happened. Dill Pickle Cream Cheese dip. And it's DELICIOUS!

These cookies are delicious soaked in ice cold milk! At first I panicked, the packing was in French & obviously I don't know French, buuut.....

The other side was in English. :) EVERYTHING has English & French on it.

Our Morning Ritual...

Getting bundled up to take Brutus out this morning. The other day it was probably 35F & I saw a Mustang Convertible with the top down...and here I am bundling up in the coldest weather I've seen in over a year. They have to look at me & know I'm from out of town! Lol. This morning it was about 27F which is about -2C. I'm still trying to get the hang of this "Celsius" talk. Thank God for helpful Apps on the iPhone!

 He's looking at me like "Mom. What. Are you doing...I need to go!"

This is looking out our living room window, we luckily have a little wooded area inside the fence where I can take Brutus to go potty, and it's not so boring for him.

Most of the snow is melted, but there is still some in spots.

HUGE white rabbit we see every morning, and some afternoons. There are 2 of them that hang out in our little spot. He stood up this morning on his hind legs, and I'm certain he was taller than my knee. He took off shortly after this picture, and of course Brutus wanted to play with him, and took off through the middle of the trees, and I spent a good couple minutes untangling the leash from the brush. :)

All You Need Is Love...And a Dog.

Joey & Shay'le

Joey is Canadian, from Manitoba. I am an American from Texas. We reside in Fort Worth, Texas. Due to Joey's American work visa expiring, he was sent to Edmonton, Alberta to work for 6 months until we get his next American work visa in order. Since we've been separated since June of 2011, we decided we just didn't want to spend any more time apart.

And an American getting a 6 month visitor's visa in Canada is a piece of cake...So we found a furnished condo that allows us to bring along or dog, Brutus.

There is absolutely no way both of us could part from him for that amount of time, he is like our child. I don't even think he realizes he's not human. He is a 1 & 1/2 year old black labrador, and the best dog anyone could ask for. We've been in our condo for 5 days now, and he is adjusting wonderfully. We have a wooded area behind our condo complex with a wonderful walking trail, so it's just perfect for us. Joey is enjoying coming home to us every night again, and of course having home cooked meals again. :) Life is wonderful again now that we are together again. It's going to be a wonderful experience, these next 6 months!