A Date & the Bike Show

There are times in a marriage where you have to make sacrifices & do things you don't really care to do but because you love your spouse you suck it up & do it because you know he does the same for you.

Today was one of those days.

I got to enjoy a "date day" with the hubby & it was his turn to plan our day! We started out by eating lunch at Jose Peppers & then made our way to the Overland Park International Trade Center to check out the Wide Open Bike show. We met his brother James & his girlfriend along with 2 other couples that he usually rides Harley's with. Honestly, I wasn't crazy about going but I knew Shane was excited to check it out & really wanted me to go with so I did my wife duties & went along.

From the minute we walked up to the building, I knew my Ugg boots, cute lil' scarf & Coach purse was a little too "Johnson County" for this shin-dig. I was surrounded by hundreds of male & female bikers in all their biker-gear & women walking around with nothing more on than little tiny bikini briefs & a sparkly bra. Let's just say that Harley Davidson motorcycles wasn't the only thing on display!!! There were TONS of vendor booths which is where most of these girls were working at.

We both really enjoyed checking out all the bikes & all the elaborate detail that went into them. This bike was my absolute fave & if I owned a Harley I imagine that it would be similar to this color:

Painted on the fender was a "blinged" out tiara on top of a skull which was also displayed on the gal's helmet & leather coat:

Love the rhinestones!

We were walking around, taking it all in & then we both freaked out when we spotted Michael Ballard & his girlfriend Angie from the show Full Throttle Saloon. We LOVE that show!!! For those of you who aren't familiar with it, FTS is the world's largest biker bar located in Sturgis, SD. It is only open 10 days out of the year when the Sturgis Bike Rally takes place in August. This bar gets around 15,000 visitors per night & the show is about what goes on there during those 10 days. Michael is the owner of the bar.

They had a HUGE trailer on display with TONS of t-shirts, hoodies, bandanna's & stocking hats. I ended up getting a cute black t-shirt with "bling" on it & says Full Throttle Saloon, Sturgis SD on the back & looks totally "biker-ish". It will be perfect to wear while riding with Shane ;) He also got a little something - a FTS stocking hat & a long sleeved t-shirt. After we made our purchases, we got in line to have our picture taken with Michael & Angie. They were both SO cool, so very nice & more than willing to stand there with us while we got a picture:

Surprisingly, it ended up being a lot of fun & I so enjoyed hanging out with the hubby for the day participating in a hobby that he loves.

Who knows, I may end up being a "biker-babe" after all!?!

SD bound

Friday, Dec 30
With Christmas & all the hustle/bustle behind us, I was feeling myself getting rundown & before I knew it, I had a fever, stuffy head, aches, pains, a horrible cough - all the symptoms that comes with the flu. Next thing I know, Shane gets it too so we were both down & out for a few days.

We both ended up missing a day of work & I almost wasn't going to be able to make it to South Dakota for the New Year weekend. Luckily, my fever broke Friday morning & after a shower, I wasn't feeling all that bad so I ended up making my way to SD & arriving just in time for dinner.

My brother Steve & nephew Caleb were already there while my other brother Chris, his wife Rachel & nieces Kyra, Joslyn & nephew Lane were on there way. Unfortunately, my sister & her family weren't able to make it back home this year & were definitely missed.

It was great to get to see everyone & spend some time together - especially with the kids. They are growing SO fast!

Saturday, Dec 31
Today was our "Christmas Day". We did our usual Christmas morning tradition of waking up early, made a big pot of coffee, gathered around the tree & proceeded to hand out & open gifts. My niece Joslyn was so excited to wear her Christmas dress & looked so stinkin' cute:It was much fun watching the kids (& big kids) open their gifts & it seems that we were all pretty good this year as "Santa" was very kind to us!

Mom collects Santa's & got yet another one to add to her collection!

My dad got 2 huge bottles of wine - his favorite!

My brother Steve got a KU t-shirt from Shane & I as a joke. He is so NOT a fan of the Jayhawks & either is his wife, Meghan. She is a Mizzou fan - boo :( My brother was accepted into the CRNA program at KU last month & will be starting in June. Shane & I thought it would be nice to start adding to his wardrobe early so we got him a t-shirt that says "Property of Kansas Jayhawks"! We both didn't really think he would ever wear the t-shirt but much to my surprise he wore it that day. Even wore it out to lunch with his buddies! I think he secretly likes it but he would never admit it ;)

After we opened gifts, we followed tradition & headed to the kitchen where we made breakfast which consisted of banana pancakes & bacon. Even Joslyn helped!

The rest of the day was spent hanging out, having a "dance-off" by playing Just Dance 3 on the Wii & watching movies. It was so nice being able to spend the last day of 2011 with my family!

Me & my niece Joslyn

Sunday, Jan 1

Happy New Year! As usual, I ended up sleeping right through the midnight hour - thanks to NyQuil! That stuff is the "bomb-diggity" when you are sick - no joke! I started my day by my sweet niece Joslyn waking me up, crawling up into my bed & snuggling with me for quite some time. Couldn't ask for a better way to start my New Year :)

My grandparents, Uncle's Doug & Mike, my Aunt Denise & our family friend Mary Ellen came over for lunch & it was really nice to get to spend some time with them all. I always cherish the time I get to spend with my grandparents & can't help but think that every time I see them it may be the last :( They are healthy & get along really well for being in their mid 80's but unfortunately I am often reminded that they won't be here forever so getting to spend time with them means the world to me.

Before everyone left, there was one special picture taken. This is 4 generations of Freier men (& one little boy) - L to R: my grandpa, my dad, my nephew & my brother:

After our company left, the rest of us gathered around the TV to watch the KC Chiefs/Denver football game & enjoyed the rest of the day together.

My brother Chris & nephew Lane

Later that evening, my mom & I met my BFF from high school, Heather, her daughter & her mom for dinner at Ruby Tuesday. I always enjoy getting to see Heather when I am home & have fun reminiscing about our high school days & how far we have come since then.

Monday, Jan 2
My visit home has come to an end & I was on my way back to Kansas early this morning. As much as I love seeing my family in SD, I enjoy getting back home & seeing my own family of Shane & the furries & sleeping in my own bed. It ended up being an uneventful drive back & when I got home I was greeted by lots of butt wiggles & slobbery kisses from the furries - not Shane :)

So far I can say the new year is off to a great start...

Bake-Off

It almost didn't happen since I have been so busy these past few weeks but as you can see below, I managed to get it done! The 2011 Annual Bake Day was a success!

I started baking around 8am & the very last sugar cookie was frosted at 3:30pm. I put on my apron, turned up the holiday music on my iPod & me & the kitchen become one. Shane pretty much knows to stay away until I am all done & then I will have him sample everything I made to make sure it is worthy of being shared with others. He tends to like my sugar cookies the best so I always make sure to bake extra ;)
This year I tried a couple of new recipes which are definitely "keepers" for next year. Here is what I baked up today:

- Peanut Butter Balls
- Oreo Truffles
- Salty Pecan Chocolate Bark
- Cherry Almond Blossoms
- Macaroons
- Iced Sugar Cookies
- Choc Toffee Caramel Bites

I SO enjoy doing this bake-day & look forward to it every year. I just love trying new recipes, making old, tried & true recipes & packaging them all up into cute little boxes & delivering them to our wonderful neighbors. I know they thoroughly enjoy them & that makes all my hard efforts absolutely worth it.

If you are interested in any of the recipes above, please let me know! I would be happy to share the recipe with you!

And now I'm going to go grab a glass of milk, a sugar cookie...or two & go put my feet up ;)

CHRISTmas

For this is truly what the meaning of Christmas is all about - Happy Birthday Jesus!

Our Christmas morning began by following tradition of sleeping in late, opening our gifts with the furries & then I make a huge breakfast.

Here are a few pics of our morning:

Millie opening up her new Nylabone. I think she likes it!

Bubba opening up his new "stuffie"

I had to help Neo open his gifts....& so did the bullies :)

Shane LOVED his new bulldog flannel jammie pants - from the furries of course :)

It was funny how the bulldogs were attentive to every single present we opened while Neo could have cared less. Not sure why, but those bullies go crazy when we open presents around them. And as usual, here is a pic of Millie hoarding all the toys:

Santa ended up being very good to me so I guess I was a "good" girl this year!? Shane didn't do so bad himself & of course the furries were spoiled rotten :)

Hoping you all were able to enjoy the Christmas weekend with your loved ones!

Merry Christmas :)

Christmas breakfast

While we were opening our gifts this morning, I had a yummy dish baking in the oven for our Christmas breakfast. It was a Baked French Toast Casserole with a Praline topping & maple syrup. I had watched Paula Deen make this on one of her shows a couple of months ago & it looked SO good so thought I would give it a try.

The recipe says to make this dish the night before so on Christmas Eve I had prepared the casserole to let it sit in the frig overnight. I ended up cutting the recipe in half since it is just the two of us & I arranged the french loaf bread (about 20 - 1/2 inch slices) in an 8x8 baking dish.

Next I mixed the egg & cream mixture:
And poured it over the bread:
I wrapped it in foil & put it in the frig until the next morning. Once morning came, I pulled it out of the frig, made the praline mixture, spread it all over the bread & baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
This is what it looked like after it was all bubbly & done baking:
And the words from my hubby after tasting it?

S: "This is f'n awesome" :)

I must agree, it was very yummy & definitely a dish I will be making again!

You can find the recipe here for anyone who wants to copy this dee-lish dish!

Hustle Bustle

My days & nights in December have been filled with chaotic craziness. December is always a busy month for most but for some reason it seems to be more busy than usual for us?!

In the last few weeks, I have spent many late nights at work, taken a lot of additional call, spent my spare time X-mas shopping, decorating the house in it's annual holiday decor, attending holiday dinners, parties & gatherings with girlfriends, hosting parties, wrapping gifts, baking holiday goodies, spending time with Shane's side of the family & just living life.

Honestly, I hate being this busy but when I think about it, I realize how blessed I am by all this "busy-ness". It means I am employed at a great job, I can make extra money when I want to, I am lucky to have a car & money so I can shop, buy presents for others & groceries so we can eat. We are blessed to be surrounded by wonderful things & a roof over our heads. All these dinners, parties & gatherings mean I am blessed with wonderful friendships. The ability to bake holiday goods means my neighbors will receive a "goody-tray" from the Taylor's again this year & knowing they look forward to & love this little yearly tradition warms my heart! Spending time with family is what gathering for the holiday's is all about & I am blessed to have a wonderful family on my side as well as Shane's side that we are able to spend time with.

So as we gather with loved ones this Christmas & welcome a new year, we wish for you & your family many blessings, good health & much happiness.

Merry Christmas from the Taylor's :)

Millie ♥'s Christmas

Millie is obsessed with wrapped presents. It doesn't matter what is inside - she just KNOWS there are treats in that pretty wrapped box or maybe even some bullie toys or stuffies in there & tries her best to get inside the box. I have a hard time keeping gifts under the tree because Millie will have to check them all out, one by one, sniffing them, pawing at them, moving them out from under the tree & trying to get them open. Lil' stinker!

If she isn't messing with the presents, she is laying UNDER the tree. She loves to sleep under there, gather all her toys & hide them under there, lay under the tree chewing on her ball & play "hide & go seek" from her Momma under the tree.

I thought I would be sneaky & put all the furries wrapped gifts on the kitchen table in a bag until Christmas morning but I failed to forget dog's have amazing noses & can sniff out anything - especially when they are new Cuz balls, treats, stuffies & Nylabones :)

This is what we have had to put up with during the days leading up to Christmas...
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She is truly like a little kid when it comes to gifts & loving Christmas.

TSO

Shane & I had tickets to go see Trans-Siberian Orchestra today & I have been SO looking forward to going. Unfortunately, someone drank a little too much last night & wasn't feeling up to it so I called my girlfriend Jill who was MORE than happy to go with me as my date.

Jill & I got settled in our seats & were impressed with our view. Of course we had to take a self-portrait (notice the couple kissing in the upper left hand corner? I think they did that on purpose :)

From the opening song, I immediately got goosebumps. The show was narrated by a guy with an awesome low, bass voice & the music was phenomenal with all the displays of lights, lasers, pyrotechnics, spotlights among many other visual effects. There was a cast of 2 dozen musicians, singers & dancers & they rocked that place.


Towards the end of the show TSO played music other than Christmas music & it ended up being more of a rock show than a holiday show. There were dancers on the catwalk above the crowd doing their thing & lots of head-banging & hair-whipping going on:

They ended the show with a fireworks display, a shower of twinkly lights & a Merry Christmas message for all. It was a GREAT show & so glad Jill was able to come with as I would have been really disappointed to have missed it.

Annual Progressive Dinner

Last night we gathered with the cul-de-sac neigbhors for our Annual Progressive Dinner. We all look forward to this event every year & enjoy the time spent with these wonderful people. Our ex-neighbors Julie & Brian even came down from Pittsburg to join us for the festivities. They may live 100+ miles away but they will always be considered "neighbors"!

First stop of the night was Barb & Jim's house where we enjoyed frozen margaritas, finger sandwiches & different kinds of chips with dips. They are our "adopted" neighbors & live a mile away in another sub-division. We came to know these wonderful people as they are the best friends of our next door neighbors Dave & Gael.

Speaking of which, Dave & Gael were the 2nd stop of the night. When we walked in we were presented with this on the kitchen island:

They had literally brought their entire bar up from the basement for our enjoyment. The cocktail that Gael made for me was called a "Poinsettia" which consisted of vodka, cranberry juice, champagne & orange zest. It was dee-lish! Shane headed over to our house to make his first drink of the night which was his usual scotch. When we weren't busy mixing cocktails, we snacked on yummy chicken wings & crock pot meatballs.

The third stop was Mike & Linda's house where we enjoyed Slip-n-Slide martini's (which were SOOO good), Shane enjoyed scotch #2 & brought it back over just in time for all the guys to enjoy cigars out on the deck while the ladies all snacked on a cheese/meat/crackers tray, & fried cheese squares. After cigars, Shane headed back over to the house to make scotch #3 & joined us once again. (there is a point to counting Shane's drinks :)

The fourth stop was at the Taylor house & this is where things got wild. In keeping with tradition, the last stop of the night is always a fun, crazy time as everyone is a little tipsy :) It is also where we do our White Elephant gift exchange which always provides some good laughs. Since we were the last house, Julie & Brian joined me in hosting dessert. I had gotten a Stetson Cheesecake in Strawberry for everyone to enjoy along with a cookie & candy tray.

Shane filled up scotch #4 while I made these yummy martini's for everyone:























Above is a Chocolate Mint Martini with chocolate & crushed peppermint candies on the rim & on the right is a Peppermint Martini with red/white sugar on the rim. Both were SO yummy & a hit with everyone.

By this time of the evening, everyone was feeling the effects of all the cocktails drank throughout the night (especially Shane) & someone busted out the camera which wasn't me! Seems that my hubby is quite the photographer - all of these pics were taken by him:

Linda & Gael

Julie & me

Shane with the ladies

Once everyone enjoyed a cocktail, some dessert & picture-taking we headed down into the family room where we did our gift exchange.

Julie got cigars

Brian & Dave modeling their new boxers

And the backside :)

Gael got Christmas flamingos that light up which she LOVED!

Mr. Goofball Shane got Crayola sidewalk chalk

Shane was quite tipsy in this picture. There is always one in this bunch who tends to have a little too much alcohol & ends up being the life of the party. The first year it was Tom, the 2nd year it was me & this year it was Shane. Come to find out, Shane didn't have anything to eat while we were hopping from house to house so he was drinking scotch on an empty stomach. He says he wasn't hungry from eating a late lunch of BBQ earlier so it eventually caught up to him.

As the night was winding down & the neighbors were getting ready to leave Shane was nowhere to be found. We were all gathered in our family room & our bedroom is located right above us. All of a sudden we all here "thump.........thump" - the sound of Shane's boots hitting the floor.

Mr. Taylor was done.

After mostly everyone left, Brian, Julie & myself went upstairs to find Shane & this is what we saw:

He was OUT & had called it a night :) Oh silly Shane - he is not going to feel well in the morning!!!

As usual, it was another successful progressive dinner gathering with the neighbors & as always, we look forward to seeing what fun the next one brings us!!