Onsie grandpa & grandma gross bought Heidi.

She's starting to kick and hit the seasame street gang.

Heidi and daddy having fun together.

During our outing this weekend we walked along the falls.

We had a wicked storm roll through quickly with hail and flooding. My roses on ice.

Brian checking out the side street flooded. It's two houses down from us.

Pineapple Strawberry Punch:

2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen sweetened sliced strawberries, thawed

1 can (46 ounce) pineapple juice, chilled

4 cups lemon-lime soda, chilled

*In a food processor or blender, puree the strawberries. Pour into a large punch bowl. Stir in the pineapple juice and soda. Serve Immediately. (I had so much of this left over so I stored it in the fridge. It still was really good after sitting in the fridge for awhile. I used a 2gallon container from walmart ($4.00) that had a pour spout. It worked out great to get some from the fridge quickly.)

Banana Cream Cheesecake:

1 3/4 Cup Graham Cracker crumbs

1/4 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup butter,melted

FILLING:
1 package (8ounces) Cream Cheese,softened

1/2 sugar

1 carton (8 ounces)frozen whipped topping, thawed, divided

3 to 4 medium firm bananas, sliced

1 3/4 cups cold milk

1 package (3.4 ounces) instant banana cream pudding mix

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and sugar: stir in butter. Set aside 1/2 cup for topping. Press remaining crumb mixture onto the bottom and up the sides of a greased 9 inch springform pan. Or a 9 inch square baking pan. Bake at 350 for 9-7 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in 2 cups of whipped topping. Arrange half of the banana slices in crust; top with half of the cream cheese mixture. Repeat layers. (I just mixed the banana slices into the cream cheese mixture to make it easier. Who needs layers?)

(For this next part, I accidentally bought the "Cook & Serve" pudding mix instead of the instant. I still was able to use it. I just let the pudding cool for a little bit so I could pour it on top but didn't let it cool too much so it set in the pan. Then I topped it off with the remaining whipped topping. Still turned out great if you mistakenly buy the wrong pudding mix also.) In a small bowl, whisk milk and pudding mix for 2 minutes. Let stand 2 minutes or until soft-set; fold in remaining whipped topping. Pour over the cream cheese layer. Sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until set.

Here's two recipes I tried for a BBQ with friends. They are so easy to make and taste so refreshing on those hot days. A Good summer dessert and drink. The Punch tastes like a melted strawberry margarita but of course no liquor. I got both of these recipes from Taste of Home Magazine.

Brian and I haven't been up to much lately. I finally organized everything in the house to get some things ready for a garage sale. I can't wait to get rid of some things. I found some clothes from my first year of high school! Yikes.

Heidi is doing great. We went for a nice walk the other day along the falls and there were some bands playing and a bunch of people out feeding the ducks and geese. It was a perfect afternoon and Heidi got some fresh air. By the time we came home from our outing, Heidi was ready for a bottle and then a bath. What a evening for her. She was so tired by time she was done with her bath at 10pm. I think I will have to go for a walk with her every night and keep that routine going so she sleeps. She didn't wake up until 6:30am the next morning. :) She's doing really well with her nights now. She knows when it's late and when it's time to sleep.

In between Heidi's naps this weekend, Brian and I have been planning our trip to Europe. I guess it's going to really happen this time. We have our hotel booked in Germany right now for the first week of November. We will be staying in Schliersee Germany, it's right in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. We are still looking into hotels for the U.K because everything is so expensive there. We are going to ask our friend of where he would recomend to stay near thier wedding location. I can't wait to go. I'm excited but not sure if it quite has sunk-in yet.

Thrift store shopping

Today mom and I went thrift store shopping. I found so many good treasures. The best one being the bench in the picture. It is in the back entryway. I then found the picnic basket which will be used as a storage bin under the bench. This gave me some much needed motivation to finally clean up the back entryway. Things just get dumped back there, but now it's looking good. I also found some other neat stuff including an old bathroom scale, homecoming pins, souvenir glasses, and some other odds and ends. It was so much fun and a much needed break.

Light and fresh potato salad

Fred didn't like this, but I didn't expect him to. I loved it! It is a really good salad for summer. I had some red potatoes I had to use up and this was perfect with our grilled sandwiches tonight. I just left out the orange bell pepper because they're too stinkin expensive. I'm taking leftovers to work tomorrow and probably the next day. Real good alternative to traditional potato salad. Once again from Cooking Light.
Ingredients
Dressing:
1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salad:
5 cups cubed red potato (about 2 pounds)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped peeled cucumber
3/4 cup sliced grape or cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped orange bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1 (2 1/4-ounce) can sliced ripe olives, drained
Preparation
1. To prepare dressing, combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; stir with a whisk.
2. To prepare salad, place potato and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Cover with water to 2 inches above potato; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 8 minutes or until tender; drain.
3. Add potato to dressing in bowl, tossing gently to coat; let stand 15 minutes. Stir in cucumber and remaining ingredients; toss well. Cover and chill.

Bats! Why'd it have to be bats?

So summer is in full swing. The weather is getting nice, but I still haven't made it to the beach yet :( I have been working a fair amount of hours at Bombay and I've been making good money. I got a sixty dollar tip one night for a large table. It was a nice feeling to make that amount in less than an hour! :D WGVU is going well. I work there once a week and then whatever other hours I can pick up. In July, I plan on working the Field of Flight Festival again, which is the one where I got to go up in the hot air balloon. It's usually a lot of fun. OH!... I almost forgot... the show last year won an Emmy! So now I can put "Emmy award winning" on my resume! Yay! Speaking of resume stuff, some of my footage for my internship might be used in a full-length PBS special. That would be cool! I've been having difficulties with organizing all my crap though and getting a crew together. Some of my film/video friends are interested in the production and one has already committed, so that is good. The communications professor that I'm working with and has the PBS connection offered to help me with the interviews and art direction so it's more "PBS material" and I said that would be awesome, but I had already asked some of my friends (and colleagues). I just hope we can do a good enough job. We've all graduated, and I know they do great work, so I guess I'm putting the people I know ahead of people I don't and have never worked with. I hope that's a good move? I'd just feel like I'd betray my friends if I told them that I was going to work with "professionals" instead of them. So yeah... wow. That consumes my life right now. Wow.
I have also ate a lot of Indian food lately. Go figure haha. Sooo good though. I wish I could mail everyone some haha. Looks like you'll just have to come to Michigan! :D I've also been doing yoga every morning for about 15 minutes. It's awesome! I don't really drink coffee anymore because of it, which is really great. Plus it's helped me feel really good lately both mentally and physically. It's great and I recommend it to anyone! Awesome way to start the day!
Craziness in the house lately. A couple of weeks ago we found a bat flying around in our attic one night. Nothing ever really came of it until two nights ago. We thought the bat left. Nope. So I went to go to sleep one night and felt something moving around under my sheets. Something furry and web-like. Startled, I jumped out of bed. I listened and heard a faint chipping. Holy s@*#! There's a bat in my f*@$&%^ bed!!! Craziness bestowed the house as I let my roommates kill it. We finally got it to stop moving, but bats never die apparently, so we set it outside in a bucket. It was gone in the morning. So either it's going to come back in vengeance or another animal took it. Needless to say, the attic door stays shut for now on!
Eric and I are doing good. In a couple weeks, he starts a job at a Parks and Rec program. I think he's excited because he can leave his current job. We'll also be able to spend more time together since we work opposite shifts right now. So yay!
My friends and I are planing a camping trip for sometime at the end of July, so that should be fun. I do need to make it to the beach soon though! I need a nonstressful day! I also need to get my tan on. Eric works outside and so I look so incredibly pale next to him :( hahah. oh well I guess. Oh and I have a couple current pictures to share. My friend Kristen snapped them the other day (I should be smiling though) Anyways, I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!!! OH! and GO WINGS!

California Chicken Sandwich

I grilled the chicken just because it was easier and one less pan to wash. It turned out great. We didn't have avocado with it, but it was still very good. It's a really good sandwich for the summer. We had corn on the cob too.
Ingredients:

Citrus mayonnaise:
1/3 cup fat-free mayonnaise
2 tablespoons thawed orange juice concentrate
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce

Sandwiches:
4 (4-ounce) skinned, boned chicken breast halves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking spray
8 (1 1/2-ounce) slices diagonally cut sourdough bread, toasted
4 small romaine lettuce leaves
2 plum tomatoes, each cut lengthwise into 4 slices
1 peeled avocado, cut into 8 wedges

Preparation
To prepare citrus mayonnaise, combine first 5 ingredients in a small bowl.
To prepare the sandwiches, sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Place a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat; add chicken. Cook 5 minutes on each side. Reduce heat to low. Cover; cook 5 minutes or until done. Remove from heat. Cut chicken diagonally across grain into thin slices.
Spread 1 tablespoon citrus mayonnaise on each of 4 bread slices. Top with 1 lettuce leaf, 1 chicken breast half, 2 tomato slices, 2 avocado wedges, and remaining bread slices.

Graduation

Here are some pictures from graduation. The first is a picture of me outside the house I live in. The second picture is the cake eric's parents got me. then some pictures from campus and me in my cap and gown.

The weekend was fun, but it went by too fast! It rained most of weekend and it still is. Tomorrow I have a job interview. Wish me luck!

Heidi Renae :-)

Victoria is meeting the new boss in town.

Daddy, the engineer seems confused on the bottle situation.

Heidi Renae Gross

Kelly wanted me to post a picture before all 3 of us went to sleep, so here ya go! I am still in shock as to how incredibly how fast it went. I came home from work at 6:30 and she was starting to have weak contractions. By 9:30 they were 5 minutes apart and hurting, so I decided it was time to go to the hospital. She was at 4 cm once they checked her so we were certainly staying for the night. After some intense contractions, Kelly opted for the epidural and by the time the anethesiologist was finished she was going into active labor at 12:50. So that left only one hour from when she started pushing to when Heidi was born at 1:54am. She is 6lbs 12oz and 18.5 inches with some hair, blue eyes and a Gross/Seeberg schnaz. Time for some z's.

Fun times

hey everyone.

So last Tuesday Eric and I got to get all dressed up to attend a scholarship dinner that he was invited to. It was at the oldest hotel in Grand Rapids, which was really neat. I had fun, and I got to meet with some people who might be able to hook me up with an internship! :D Yay! Diner was SO good! We had hors d'oeurves, spinach cranberry salad, stuffed chicken, and vanilla creme brulee for desert. I really wanted to lick the dessert bowl, but I didn't think that would be proper haha. After diner we went down to one of lounges in the hotel and had an overpriced drink. Eric decided that since diner was free and we were already dressed up, he would buy us a drink. How nice :)

This last weekend I decided to help my friend Erin out with her film/video senior thesis project. She asked if me and Eric wanted to star as extras, so I thought that would be fun. Plus she's a good friend, so why not. The film took place in the 1940s at a school science fair. It was fun, and we shot in a really old school in Grand Rapids that was built in the 1920. Really net. It was really time consuming, but a lot of fun. We were on the set for like 12 hours on saturday and 8 non sunday. We were so exhausted by sunday! I fell asleep so fast and didn't wake up once haha. I can't wait to see the final cut of the movie, which is only 4-5 minutes long. She also shot on 16mm film, which was really cool.

Other than those two big events, not too much else to report. Eric and I have been working hard to fix up our lawn before mom and dad come to visit. It's nice to be outside after that terrible winter. Thankful for nice weather!

I'm also nearing the end of my undergraduate degree. Excited and nervous all together. Can't wait, yet I can. I've just got settled in Grand Rapids, and really like it, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the near future. Plus, Eric still has to complete another semester. We'll see, I guess :)

It's going to be a busy week though finishing up my school work...

Well here some recent pictures. enjoy.

At our house :)

Creme Burlee!

I did my own hair! Eric was suprised at how much I actually like to get all dressed up and stuff :p I told him that I occasionally do like being girly :P


Eric wanted me to put this one up. We're weird...

Downtown

Update-Mark your calenders

Baptism is at 11am on Sunday May 24th at St. Mary's Church. :-)

Baptism

Here is the Baptism date Brian and I have. We will have it on Sunday May 24th during mass at St. Mary's Church.
I have a few ideas for a potluck for everyone to gather too after church. Here's some ideas I would really like to do.

1.) First choice with depending on weather- I would like to go to seratoma park and have one of the shelters close to the amusment park and zoo. Any kids who come, can run around at the zoo, play mini golf, go on the slide, and etc.

2.) Second choice is too let kids swim for the day while us parents visit by a poolside room at the comfort? Or is this too much wild fun? But this might work out for brian, me and baby to stay at the hotel overnight if we rent a room to swim because we would probably leave the next day.

3.) Bon-fire party at mom and dad's!! Thank mom and dad. Ha Ha! Just kidding. It could be a lot of people. Who knows. But I do want a bon fire when I'm home! :-)

I'm getting stumped on any other ideas because the baby has completly taken over my mind. So any ideas are welcome and just email me or call. Probably email would be best, then it's documented and saved of what everyone's ideas are, otherwise I know I will forget. (It's getting rough lately.) Ha Ha.

Love you all and I can't wait to come home! We will be home either on May 14th or 15th. Depends if we decide to fly home or drive home.

Mommy's T.V Debute

I forgot that I was going to post something finally on here. About a week ago, I was volunteered by my boss to have a free meal in our restaurant at the hotel. Why not, right? I'm in the restaurant ready to sit down and the owner of "The London Cafe' " tells me that he's happy I can take the time to help him out with his tv commercial. Huh? Ok, my boss picks the worse day for me to be in a commercial. I felt aweful all day and I looked crummy. But I guess it was a free meal. I didn't have to say anything in the commercial, just sit and enjoy my fish n chips (which were very good).
When I came home that night, I told Brian that I will be in a commercial that was to help promote the restaurant. He was excited and said that's "cool," until I told him I was having lunch with another guy. So I won't be with my husband on tv. Uh oh. Ha ha! But the person I was having lunch with was a client who helps with rental equipment to our banquet rooms. I haven't seen the commercial yet because it's mainly on during daytime tv. I'll have to get a copy from the tv station if they will let me.

Not much else going on here. I won't be working any desk shifts anymore so that means no nights as of for now. Tonight I was able to watch some favorite shows. I had to watch "Big Bang Theory" and I was laughing so hard! I love this show. The character of Sheldon was quoteing a line from Star Wars and kept repeating it as if trying to get it perfect. Soooo, guess who says the same line over and over and over. I couldn't believe it. I just about peed my pants. Then later in the show Penny asked the guys if they are watching "Battlestar Galactica" today and I just about died laughing again! I have recently become addicted to the stupid show and have asked brian on occasions if we can watch it because I want to know what happens with the character of Starbuck or if they found earth yet. Oh my god. Also Penny started to give an example of a situation, and said "it's like in star wars when.....;" uh huh, been there too. And I have said the same thing that penny said, "where the heck did that come from???" I think the producers of "The Big Bang Theory," have a satellite homed in on brian and his friends and are making money off of them. The show is just to close to how is sounds when I'm hanging out with his friends in one big group. Creepy.

I blame the groundhog

Today we battled a blizzard and flooding. Will this winter ever end? Our snow was almost completely gone. This afternoon I heard we got 6-7 inches in this storm. Mandan called off school, but Bismarck didn't. I debated keeping Rion home, but he wanted to go to school. The day got worse as it went on and by the time I had to pick Rion up, we had some pretty good drifts in our driveway. Prairie Rose and Solheim actually closed early today because of flooding issues. I'm still a little ticked that Bismarck had school today. From what I'm hearing, a lot of businesses closed for the day. It was nasty out. I didn't go to work today either. It wasn't worth the risk. On Sunday a field in Mandan had flooded and when I went to work Monday I could see all the huge ice chunks that the river had carried into the field. I actually wasn't sure if I would make it to work with all the news about the Heart River ice jams and flooding. Some of our staff worked most of the day yesterday sandbagging the buildings in the campground. By 4:00 water was starting to seep into the campground. It started to rain heavily then and I left work early. So it has been a couple of very interesting days here. I just heard the Red River may crest higher than it did in '97. That is amazing to me and I've been thinking a lot about that year lately. I'll never forget that. And Fox Island residents had to evacuate here. I hear about Fargo all over the national news, but it's bad here too. Hopefully tomorrow is a much better day and the rivers start to go back down.

Snow pictures

That's Torii peeking out of a hole in the snow. It's been melting for a few days and we still have a lot of snow everywhere.
On Saturday Torii and Cordelia made a snowman with Grandpa. I think Maggie is eyeing the snowman. Grandpa said they used Oreos for the eyes and buttons, but Maggie and Gretchen ate them.

Cordelia exploring the winter wonderland.

Rion's birthday party and his friends from school. And Torii.

Cordelia at Snoopers.

Kuchen

Here's Brian and his pal helping him out with homework. Ha ha. Hope everyone has a nice weekend for Valentine's day. Brian and I don't have plans for the weekend which is nice. I have some crafts to finish for baby's room. We might go to a movie this weekend or something.

Here's the Kuchen recipe I used while I was home. It's so easy so I hope someone gets a chance to try it sometime. I haven't used fresh fruit yet, I used pie filling I had already and then rinsed the fruit from the juice. But fresh fruit should work just as well.
Today I made some No Bake Cookies (thanks for the recipe mom) and ooooh did they taste good. I had a craving and I used to know that recipe by heart and I went crazy because I didn't have it. Yum.


Filling:


3eggs


3 C. cream


1 1/4 t0 1 1/2 c. sugar


1 1/2 tsp. vanilla


3T flour





Mix above ingredients in large microwavable dish and microwave until thick, stirring occasionally, about 10 to 12 minutes on high. Thaw one loaf of frozen bread dough until soft and easy to work with. Roll out dough and place in lightly greased large cookie sheet or 2 large pie plates. Let set about 30 minutes. Arrange sliced and drained peaches or whatever fruit you like on dough. Add filling and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake 20 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Fun website

I just found a fun time waster. Here's the website: http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/ Basically you can upload your pictures and make them look like the famous Obama Hope poster. Lots of fun. I did two Cordelia pictures, but would like to do one each of the boys. Torii's will say Trouble on the bottom. I'll have to do that another day as it's getting late. You can also browse and look at other posters people have created. I did not make the Abide poster, I just thought Laurie would get a kick out of that one.

Here and There

Hey hope everyone is doing well. I've been busy since classes started again, but it has been nice. I don't mind being occupied with school work... well sometimes :P Classes are going well though. I have my anthropology capstone this semester, which is kind of stressful because it's quite challenging, but the topics are interesting and it's only once a week :D I also have another anthro class that is kicking my butt. To deter away from the difficult classes, I am taking a "history of documentaries" class. Super fun.

It's been really cold here. Really cold. I am sure you can relate. I feel like I need snowpants.

I've been working here and there, which keeps me busy too. I've been sort of thinking about what to do come May. I need an internship to graduate, so I've been looking into that. After that, not sure. Maybe I'll just go to school for the rest of my life haha. Excited about being done with my undergrad though... nervous too. :P

On saturday, I went to Gran Torino. See it. It's one of the best movies I've seen a awhile. There are a few others I want to see too. Want to see Slumdog Millionaire, Revolutionary road, Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler, and others I can't think of. I feel like there are so many to see right now. On tuesday, one of the theaters in town is showing Space Odyssey :D I have to go to it. It plays at 545pm and I get out of class at 430p. haha. I'm going to have to rush out of there to make it on time, but it will be worth it. In this situation- What I wouldn't give to be back in smaller town. Oh well.

Still enjoying my living arrangement. We all get along really well and have lots of fun.


Got some photos developed. Here's Eric and I at the Leinenkugel's brewery :) I hope everyone is well :)

Fun pics

Cordelia loves to sit in Fred Rion's Tonka truck.
I took this picture while Fred Rion was in school. I thought he would get really mad upon seeing it, but he thought it was cute. Well, he thought Pikachu was cute, but not those other people in the picture.

I have some cool snow pictures, but have to get the film developed. I do have a digital camera again so hopefuly I'll get pictures on here more often again. The boys and I spent two hours outside yesterday. I made a tunnel for them in one of the snow drifts. They played in that tunnel a long time. We made it to the backyard and there are huge drifts back there. I thought I was going to be so sore today, but I wasn't. It will probably hit me tomorrow. We also saw the neighbors out and the boys played with them some too. It was so nice out and it was good to get the kids out. We were going stir crazy. On Friday after school I also had Cordelia outside and she liked walking around and checking out the snow. One time she fell forward and got a face full of snow. She started to cry, but I was laughing at her. Poor thing, but it was cute.

West Yellowstone trip.

Brian and I went to West Yellowstone this weekend with some friends to get away. We were going to go to Jackson but we abviously found a better priced cabin and other things to do in Yellowstone than we would in Jackson.

We got a nice little condo/cabin to hangout in. Everyone was going cross-country skiing on saturday and I knew they would be gone for most of the day doing that, and I did want to go but not over do it. So, I decided not to go and I just wanted to relax this weekend and walk around town and take a drive to the Gallatine Mountain pass. Brian stayed with me while everyone else went skiing eventhough I told him many times to go with them. I know he would have fun with our friends skiing most of the day but he still wanted to stay with me. It was hard for him but he said he didn't want me by myself for most of the day. I think it was even harder to be in town with me because we saw more snowmobile's in the streets than regular vehicles driving around. I've never seen so many in a little area before. I think I saw a tear in his eye. I guess we will have to work into our budget somewhere to save up for a used one for next year. Poor guy.

So the pictures I'm posting are from our drive through the canyon pass of the Gallatine Mountain's. It was such a perfect day out and so gorgeous! The drive to West Yellowstone is about 2 hours from Idaho falls and then we drove on saturday through the mountians for about another 50 miles. It was really worth it. Perfect day. During our evening's at the cabin we played the game of "Life" and "Trival Pursuit." I think we had more fun with the game of Life because I thought it was pretty funny that we didn't have any kids at the end of the game and we still lost. Brian also brought the Red Eye liquor and gave everyone a few shots. I think they enjoyed it. I also brought sinach dip which is always a nice snack. Well I suppose that's about it from our trip.