Chicken Gyros

Since I've been staying home with our dog, I've been trying to work on my cooking skills. This has always been something that I've wanted to improve. I feel like I've come a long ways in the past year and a half. Since I got married, I've been collecting cook books. My husband used to make fun of me, because I kept buying cook books but never used them. I've recently found out I can find a lot of really good recipes on the web, no purchase required.

A while ago my cousin Janssen made a blog about some recipes she had made that week. A lot of them sounded really tasty, including the Chicken Gyros (pronounced Yero..for those of you that don't know). Tom introduced me to Greek food when we got married. I'd never had a Gyro before. Now I love them. This recipe was amazing. It's pretty non-fattening too (not including the pita). As a warning, it is a little time consuming but pretty easy. It takes straining the yogurt (to get the excess water out of it) and peeling and grating a cucumber. The straining is what takes the most time.

If you like greek food or Gyros I totally recommend this recipe. The recipe also has a link for homemade pitas (which I did not make). They're suppose to be really good, maybe I'll make them next time.

For the recipe click here.

Here's a picture of me holding my Gyro.

Japan

A little while ago, Tom had the opportunity to volunteer to go to Japan for about 6 weeks to do a temporary stint on their help desk. I've always been supportive of anything that he felt he wanted or needed to do for his career. I also think that it is always a good career move to volunteer for anything that comes across your desk that is even remotely interesting to you. So, Tom put his name in for the experience. We've been knowing this was coming for a while now.

The only thing that has kind of made it strange was that I was always unsure weather I was going to accompany him. There was a part of me that would have loved going to Japan, but there was also a part of me that really wanted to find a job. If that happened, it was impossible that I could have asked for time off to go with my husband to Japan so I kept postponing the decision.

Recently I've come to the decision that there might be a reason that I'm not aware of that I haven't found a job. I just need to have faith that if I make the right decisions, things will happen in the best way for my life. So, Tom and I are looking for a ticket for me. Originally we were planning on riding in the same plane. Unfortunately, by the time we found out what flight that would be the ticket price was through the roof (it's a direct flight). So, we're probably going to buy a one-stop ticket for me on another flight. This will mean I won't be with him and it will take me longer to get there. But, we'll save a lot of money doing it this way.

Tom's leaving on March 1st and I'll leave somewhere around there too. He'll be there for about 6 weeks, but I'm only going to stay a month. We have some friends that have agreed to watch Jake for a month. That is a really long time to babysit a puppy. I kind of feel bad that I had to ask them for this favor, but I know I can trust them to take care of him while I'm gone.

Trip to "Point No Point"

A year ago our YW/YM youth group went to a place called Hurricane Ridge for our big combined activity. This is one of the few places in this area that gets regular snow fall. The kids got to play in the snow and have chili afterwards. Because Hurricane Ridge is in the Olympic National Park there was an entrance fee. Instead of just paying the one-time fee Tom decided he'd just buy the yearly fee. Have we been back, no of course not. This yearly membership is going to expire pretty soon, so Tom decided he wanted to go back. We were planning on doing this today. Unfortunately, when he went online to check the road conditions there the roads had been closed for the next 6 weeks because of a rock slide. Needless to say he was totally bummed. He'd been looking forward to this for weeks. So instead we decided to go to a place called "Point No Point". It is one of the most northern spots in Kitsap County (that is my county).

One of the benefits is it cut the trip by about a third. The day was pretty nice for Washington. A bit drizzly, but pretty clear. When we got out there, it was this cute little spot with a lighthouse and a beach. The funnest part of it was Jake. He loved the beach! Lots of things to smell and look at. We walked down the beach, while Tom took pictures of everything. Sounds pretty typical huh? While Tom was taking pictures he noticed a container ship that was just bookin' through the water. A little while later the waves from the container ship started hitting the sand beach (it's very exciting to have a sand beach, most beaches here are rock). The waves were pretty big and Jake hated them! Jake is not a big fan of water. He takes baths only because he absolutely has to, but other than drinking it completely avoids it at all costs. We have yet to get him to go play in the water anytime we go to the beach. The waves started coming in and almost got him wet a few times. He backtracked up the beach very quickly so his little feet wouldn't get wet and then just started barking at the water. It was hilarious! It was a great day and I really enjoyed it!

Happy Birthday Mom!

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my Mom when I was little. Today is my Mom's birthday. I guess my sister pointed out to her that she is the same number of years as the year she was born. That won't happen to me for a very long time.

I couldn't have asked for a better Mom growing up. She was also very supportive of anything I was interested in. She always knew exactly how to stand somewhere between a friend and a Mom. I always felt like I could talk to her about anything I was concerned with, but at the same time she was not afraid to put on her Mom hat when she needed to.

I love you Mom and hope you're around for another 55 years! I'm glad you had a great birthday!

My First Activity Meeting

Yesterday I had my first Activity Council meeting. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Most of the people on the committee have been a member of this or some other activity committee for a while. I am not only the newbie, I am also in charge. Interesting predicament. I get to make the final decision on things I really know nothing about. There were several times last night that they told me I was suppose to do something that I had no idea about. It's kind of a fine line, having them help me figure out what I am doing and at the same time staying in charge and keeping authority. I'm also a lot younger then most of them.

Another thing that was a little strange about last night was the amount of effort they want to put into each activity and the time for planning they want to expend. That just isn't me. I like to keep these as simplified as they can possibly be while still having things be nice and put together. I'm a big believer in delegation and not doing everything myself. I've found that the pickier I am with things the more stressful it become. They seem to think we should alread be planning activities months in advance. I should mention that in this particular ward, the majority of our activities are monthly potlucks. Not a lot of planning needed....which is fine with me.

I guess we'll see how it goes. I think I'll just have to learn how to be confident with something I'm not at all confident with. I'm sure that will come with time.

Jake's Issues

Ever since we moved to our new house Jake has had very itchy ears. It's so sad to see him with his itchy ears. He would try walking across the floor and have to stop every couple of steps to scratch his ears. It got to the point that he would scratch at his ears so badly that he would actually draw blood. Also at the same time, his skin was itchy also. As sad as this was, it developed the funniest quirk. He started to scratch his butt on everything he could find. His favorite spots to do this was on the railing of our bed and in the car on the back of the seat. At the same time, he would raise his head way into the air and bark and lick the air. Hilarious!

At first I honestly thought that he was having some kind of allergic reaction to something in our new yard. Then I thought maybe he had a little bit of an ear infection (those big floppy ears make him prone to them). I went through periods where I would give him a little bit of allergy medication. Sometimes it seemed to help and sometimes it didn't. It all seemed very confusing. Finally a couple of weeks ago I took him to the vet to try and decide what was really wrong. Tom thought he had mites, but I had my doubts. The vet gave us medication for the itchiness as well as steroids for the swelling in his ear canals. They couldn't verify completely weather he had an ear infection because his ears were so swollen for him scratching them. They did take a skin culture and were pretty sure he didn't have mites but the only way to be 100% sure is to do a biopsy. We decided to hold off to do that until we could verify it wasn't anything else. The vet also said if there are any allergic reactions it could be absolutely anything (including anything we were feeding him).

That night I tried to think of anything I changed with him in the past few months. I came up with a couple of options. I changed the snacks I was giving him as well as the laundry detergent we were using. I decided to change back to our original laundry detergent and snacks just to either solve that problem or rule it out. After the first night of medication there was an obvious improvement in him. Now we are through with the itchy medication and only have a couple of more days of the steroids but he is a completely new puppy. He's back to the happy relaxed puppy he was before. I'm pretty sure he was allergic to the laundry detergent. I guess time will tell, but I completely anticipate his happiness continuing because I changed laundry detergent.

Watching "Lost"

I've always been a fan of entertainment. I enjoy all the different mediums, including television. I'm a bit of a television junkie. For the past several years I've listened to people I know talk about the show "Lost". However, I was never really into it. I don't know why. I remember when it first started, I watched the first few episodes out of curiosity. It wasn't that I didn't like it, it just didn't grab me for some reason.

Since we moved into our house, we stopped getting cable TV. Because of this I found out how many shows were available online. This is how I stumbled back on "Lost". Because my sister Ashley had been talking about it a lot, I decided to give it another try. I have to admit, now I'm hooked. We've been at our new house almost 4 months now. I have watched all 5 seasons in that time and am looking forward to the final season in about a week.

I still don't really know where they are headed (what the big picture is). It's kind of fascinating to watch the character development on the show. Pretty much all the characters are messed up in one way or another, but they all have good sides as well. It's kind of interesting. It's like a garden of eden where the good forces and the evil forces are battling over the souls of people on the edge. Can't wait to find where they are all going to land.