Weekend in MN

It was hard to come back to Minnesota after a week in the much warmer South, but I'm getting used to it again. 17 feels ok! ...and that is mercy from the Lord!

We actually went to see the college we work at play in a football quarter finals game. Drumroll please...they won! 12-7. It was really exciting. And I was so warm! That's because I had smartwool long johns, fleece pants under jeans, 3 pair of wool socks, 2 pair gloves, 2 jackets and 4 shirts on. Haha. But really! It was so much fun. To watch a football game while snowing was a really fun experience.

Sunday night all the married couples (8 couples)on our staff team got together and had a combined small group. Every Sunday we meet in our normal small groups (4 couples) and talk about our marriages. We talk through our fights, walk through arguments, share fun date ideas, and really talk about life and marriage. It really is sweet community for us and encouraging that there are 3 other couples we know really well who are also striving (and failing and repenting and needing Jesus) like we are in marriage. Anyway, we had a potluck dinner and I was assigned to bring dessert. So wondering how I could feed a large chuck of people, I turned to Paula Deen. I know Andrew loves pound cake (his Mom makes a good one!) so I whipped up some of her "Southwest Georgia Pound Cake" of course adding chocolate chips for my chocolate-obessesed husband. It was so good! I didn't dare omit the 1/2 pound of butter in this one but did sub half-and-half for the heavy cream. Baby steps. Anyway, it was SO good.

We had the group of college guys hubs mentors over for dinner last night. They're great! I really have had to learn how in the world to cook for guys- especially college football players! Now as a rule I just double everything! Here was out menu tonight- mind you that we had an all day meeting so I only had a little over an hour to throw it all together: baked chicken cordon bleu casserole, roasted garlic red potatoes, sauteed corn, garlic bread, and the rest of the leftover pound cake that I made the other night for our married small group. Here's how comical the measurements were though: 8 chicken breasts, large hunk of ham, 4 cups cheese, 2 lbs corn, 2 huge sourdough french loaves, 5lbs potatoes! We do have maybe one meal left over though, which is nice!

Tonight we wanted to try some orecchiette pasta I'd bought recently. So I cooked up this recipe and added some chicken and a little cream and broth. It was a good mix up with pancetta and was overall pretty good.

In the spirit of learning to embrace living in MN, here are a few more reasons I like living in the "tundra":

1) You can go grocery shopping and your car acts as a fridge/freezer. I do actually love that I actually can go shopping and leave stuff in my car and it'd be just as cold in my freezer!

2) SEAT WARMERS. Thanks you JESUS that upon getting my car, pre-dating Andrew/even considering living north of the Mason-Dixon line, you were gracious to provide for seat warmers. They are a reminder that you love me everyday.

3) Snow is so pretty right after it falls. I often drive and feel like I'm in a winter wonderland. (The only thing is, that then it gets brown and slushy, but we're staying positive here)