A New Year is a comin'

So a lot of the blogs that I read have a year end recap of everything major that has happened during the year. I'm not sure if I want to go through the work of trying to link all of these posts to my blog, but I guess I would like to mention a few notable things that happened during the year as to be a bit nostalgic before the new year occurs!

Major events in 2011:
- I started a blog as a new years resolution and to date there have been 365 posts (today being 367). Writing the blog has been a blast and a great way to remember all the major life events in the past year!
- Michael and I had our 1 year anniversary and took a trip to Madisonville, KY to spend 2 nights at a bed and breakfast and see my friend Maggie get hitched.

-I discovered my love for Indian food!

- I earned my Masters in Accounting!

-I had an encounter at a gas station with a meth-head
-I passed all 4 sections of the CPA exam

-Michael and I went to "Webb Weekend" in Rochester, NY and introduced the "Webb Call"

-Michael and I went to San Francisco

-Michael and I went to Atlanta and I went once by myself

-Michael and I went to Seattle (post two)

-I proved it was difficult to remain vertical while running outside
-Had a terrible time running the Derby Mini Marathon in Louisville (better hopes this year!)

-Visited Ashland, KY with Michael
-Got a big girl job but can't find the post announcing it.
-Hosted an AMAZING murder mystery dinner with my bible study

And so many other great things!! This year has really been a blessing for Michael and I. We have grown to appreciate every day we have with each other since our schedules got seemingly busier. And although our future for 2012 is kinda still up in the air, I am still excited to see what the future holds for this little Kasten family!

Thank you all for reading my blog so diligently, even during the times when I bored you to death! I wish you all a very happy and safe New Year and I promise there will be more posts to come!!

Goodbye 2011, you were pretty spectacular! Hello 2012, are you ready to rock my world?!

OOHHH Baby!

WOOOO WEEE...guess who slept in until almost 10 this morning?! This girl!! It was weird, and I still felt tired, maybe that means I slept too much? 

The hubby decided to make breaky this morning and refused to tell me what he was making. Basically it was a manly meat meal!! He made the WHOLE package of sausage, cut some up and put it in the eggs and then I made some toast. He wanted us to eat off this huge plate together but I couldn't, just too much meat in one area. So I had a smaller portion on my own and it was tasty!

After watching some "How I met your Mother" for a bit we decided we should put our outside world clothes on (not pjs) and venture out for fun baby shower!! As we entered the baby shower we were asked for our picture by the tree. Since  Michael and I didn't take any Christmas couple pictures I took the opportunity to snap one of us too!

 The shower was for our friends Ashley and Nate. They used to be in our couples bible study until they moved to Little Rock for work. I was SO glad to see this cute preggo couple!

 Of course a good portion of our bible study was there (The Birkleys and Feltners were there but weren't there when pictures were snapped) so we had to snap some group pics!

 Had to love on the baby belly! Ashley is having a girl (remember, this Ashley is not me! :) )

 Girl shot!

 Another special thing about this get together was that we got to see Drew and Catherine!! (who now live in Columbus!) We haven't seen them since they moved so it was great to see them and they are celebrating their 1 year anniversary tonight! Happy Anniversary friends! (if you might recall, Drew was in my Master's program, so we had plenty of cool public accounting work stuff to talk about!)

 On the way home from the shower Michael asked me if I would want a something delicious, of course I said yes, unknowing as to what the sweet thing was. SURPRISE SURPRISE! ORANGE LEAF! YUM!!

This girl was happy!!

 And now Michael and I are snuggling in for a night of How I met your Mother and maybe a Turbofire workout after I digest the yumminess pictured above!!

Happy Friday friends!

Blursday Thursday

My Thursday was a blursday because it went by WAY too fast than expected. Reasons?! I'll give you reasons!

REASON #1: We got ALL of the carpets cleaned in our house today in order to prepare it to sell shortly. With house selling on the brain michael and I spent a good amount of our early morning and early afternoon watching HGTV shows at his parents house while we waited with the dogs to get the carpets clean. 

An item checked off of our house prep list. CHECK! Nice and clean and I don't want anyone to walk on it ... EVER!

REASON #2: I finally got to use my Gamin watch I got for Christmas to go for a run because a. it had stopped raining and b. it was VERY lovely out today. but unfortunately c. it was also very windy! Another unfortunate fact is the route I've been running that I always thought was a 5k based on mapmyrun.com turned out to be only 2.93 miles according to my Garmin. BUMMER. Also, I felt like I was going to stop breathing approximately 10 times during my run so I would pause the run catch my breathe and then die again shortly. uGH. I wish my nice weather day of running resulted in a good run, I guess that's what you get when you eat cookies at your in-law's house for lunch and haven't been feeling your best the past couple of days.

REASON #3: I randomly got to see my Dad today because of a car issue Michael was having. My parents were in town tonight so that they could drive Lisa's parents down to Florida and luckily my dad was around to help Michael with an issue he was having with broken bolt on his wheel. My dad jabbed around at it and finally got the stubborn thing out (pictured below!):

 

REASON #4: OLIVIA WAS IN TOWN! OLIVIA YIPPEE!! I GOT TO HANG OUT WITH OLIVIA! Olivia, Michael, Becca, and I headed to dinner at Ramseys tonight and I loved getting to spend the time with her! I especially enjoy random visits from a bestie! (ps we are dressed pretty similarly, except she's like a foot taller than me!)

REASON #5: WHAA??!! SAM GIFFIN IS IN TOWN! HUH, MR. CALIFORNIA FRIEND THAT I VISITED WHILE IN SAN FRAN IN AUGUST?!!? Sam was in town for a couple of day and I got to hangout with him for a bit at our friend Clay's house and Michael, Becca, and Olivia joined as well. OH and I got to meet Sam's girlfriend Elicia! YIPPEE! I miss him!

REASON #6: UM...after a great night of hanging out with friends and being good and eating a salad for dinner this girl knows she deserves a fairly nice sized cone from McDonalds. A great way to end my grand and crazy day!

A cookie Adventure!

Due to the holidays and lack of feeling super great the past 2 days I'm just not going to post a workout Wednesday to avoid the depression that would occur from the realization of the lack of workouts. Hopefully I can get back into my workout routine tomorrow.

Today was actually a lazy day in general. However, I did get to meet up with Mrs. Vanna for breakfast at Magees like we used to do in the old days on Wednesday mornings at 8 (old days =before I started my job). It was great getting to catch up with her and everything. PLUS I haven't had my Magees sesame bagel in ages!

While Michael ran some errands and worked on his car...

I decided to make the cookies I had been planning on making before Christmas but somehow never got around to. My coworker originally made them and I wanted to try them out for myself!
 
Yes I realize the green cherries look freaky, but the recipe uses candied cherries (which freaked me out at first cause I don't normally like maraschino cherries) which are typically used in fruitcake (weird) and Kroger didn't have any red candied cherries left so I was forced to use the freaky green candied cherries!

They did turn out yummy and delicious though! Not a super sweet cookie, more of like a butter cookie covered in nuts and a barely there cherry, but I'm proud of them!

The recipe is super simple!!

Ingredients
1 cup margarine
½ cup sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
2 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
Nuts
Candied cherries

Mix 1 cup margarine and ½ cup sugar.
Stir in ½ cup light corn syrup, 2 egg yolks (set aside egg whites), and 2 ½ cups flour.
Chill the mixture.

Roll into 1-inch balls.  Dip into slightly beaten egg whites then into 2 cups finely chopped nuts (I used hazelnuts because they were cheaper than the pecans my coworker used, I think any nut will work!).
Place on greased baking sheets.  Press candied cherry halves into centers.  Bake in 325 F oven for 20 minutes.


And there ya go, a simple yummy jolly cookie!!


And now that I have watched my Wildcats win tonight it is definitely time for bed! Goodnight friends!

being old...

Being old (aka 23, yes I realize this is not old) means sometimes your day isn't full of fun activities. But still, things excite you!

You know what excited me? Cracking open this MASSIVE bag of Pistachios my parents got me for Christmas. They are like crack! Back story to this... I was telling my dad a couple months ago that when I was younger we weren't allowed to get special things from the grocery store cause they were "expensive", aka dunkaroos, gushers, etc. (I now slightly understand that maybe its cause these items are basically pure sugar!) but for some reason my mom always got us pistachios. Fast forward to 2011 when Ashley wants to purchase pistachios and realizes they are REALLY expensive. Ashley girl say whaaaa?! How could we afford pistachios and not sugary goodness. Therefore, I now have a LARGE bag of pistachios to consume! YUM!

 

While eating Pistachios with Michael a debate began about how people eat pistachios. Which meant I HAD to post a facebook status about our question we were debating. My family ALWAYS sucks the salt off the outside of the shell before cracking it open. However, Michael thought that was weird and gross (even though he loves salt). Results from the facebook post prove that I was right. I would say at least 80% of the people who responded to my question agreed with my way of eating pistachios!! success!

Another thing about being old (aka 26, Michael) is that you find extreme pleasure in putting together the piece of furniture you got for Christmas. I don't recall ever getting furniture for Christmas as a child and I believe I'd be pretty bummed if I did. BUT at this age, it's pretty darn exciting. And  Michael took pleasure in putting the thing together. We were up until almost 2am assembling this tv stand. AND when I say we I mean Michael put it together while I sat on the couch either interneting or dozing off as you can tell from the lack of movement and positioning of the photos below  ( you can see how much time was spent on this by looking at the clock behind the tv, haha!):

SUCCESS for Michael!! The tv stand was put together so well that it holds the tv and is straight ! yippee!! very happy about the results. And it definitely declutters our room. Once again, kinda sad what we get excited about these days!

 Organization?! Yes please, this was Michael's doing. We got rid of a ton of DVD cases and loaded them up in cases that held multiple DVDs and everything including video games fit in one drawer!

And last but not least. When you are old you get sick from smells. OK, well maybe that is everyone. BUt this is gross. The dogs got to take home 2 pig hooves from Matt and Andrea's house the other night because they are obsessed with them. And DANG, these things smell dis.gust.ing! I explained it to Michael's sister as a combo of skunk and urine. ICK! It's hard to decide what to do with them though, the dogs L-O-V-E these things, like that is all they have done all day. But then when you are sitting on the couch and you keep getting whiffs of the stench and you want to hurl, well yeah, you want to take the dogs favorite toy away. I wish I could febreeze these hooves, I really do!!

And now Michael and I are off to finish up our date night with a movie!! Happy Tuesday everyone!

Christmas and Post Christmas Recap

Yesterday I kinda slacked on the blogging. It was a LONG day and I was super tired and ended up sleeping until almost 10 today which NEVER happens. Michael told me tonight that my blog readers deserve a full week of involved posts since I'm rounding out the end of my year of blogging.

SO today you'll get a lovely Christmas and post-Christmas recap! Wooo!!

Yesterday morning Michael and I woke up and prepared for my family to come over to our house for some morning Christmas festivities. I'm kinda sad we hardly took any pictures yesterday, so you'll have to be happy with words!

I sneaked in a quick Turbofire workout and shower before the fam arrived. Lisa brought the food, I provided the house! Below is the MONKEY BREAD Lisa made! Probably my  favorite food that I consumed yesterday!

 After some breakfast it was gift time!! Check out this lovely shot of Lisa and I handing out gifts hahaha!

 We only captured 2 gift pictures yesterday. sad.

This is Dustin with the gift that I got for him and I got one for MichaeL!

 The dogs were sad cause they didn't have tons of gifts. So they decided to sun themselves by the front door while we made a wrapping paper mess!

 This is the awesome gift Dustin and Christina gave Michael and I! It's a picture of the Webb and Kasten coat of arms. Pretty cool huh?! (the blurry pic is Michael's finger pointing out the less cool name on the coat of arms, Kasten of course, well actually he thought Kasten was cooler but I said the Webb coat of arms was on the left, therefore superior!)

 Oh I was wrong...some more gift pictures!!

Here's my dad trying out his awesome road bike that we got for him. He was super excited about it! And below that is the ring bling that my dad gave Lisa!

 

 After family time with the Webbs Michael and I headed downtown to serve a meal with the Lexington Rescue Mission at Broadway Christian Church. Michael, Becca, Becca's mom Jan, Elyse, and I all got to work together serving the actual food! It was a great time and awesome getting to fed the hungry on Christmas day! Everyone there was smiles!

After volunteering we headed out to the Kastens for a lovely dinner and gifts!

By this time of the day I was exhausted and the camera was too heavy to lift!! The meal was delicious of course. We all had a great time hanging out and opening gifts too!!

Once Michael and I finally got home from that long day around 9:30 we busted out some "How I met your Mother" season 2 episodes and then hit the hay!

Christmas gifts received:
-Garmin watch (Michael got this before I made the list, go michael!)
-Mountain Hard Wear blue fuzzy awesome jacket
-2 pairs of texting gloves
-clothes
-2 tv stands (one from the Webbs and 1 from the Kastens, ironic!)
-Baking supplies
-Cute Michael Kors clutch size purse
-Earrings
-Wii Harry Potter video game part 2
-Gift Cards
-And random other gifts!


This morning all the Kastens met up again to hit the Legacy trail since Andrea, Matt, and Greg had new bikes to try out. IT WAS FREEZING!! Of course, I am ALWAYS cold but still, I had snot like a river flowing from my nose and my toes and fingers hurt so bad cause they were so cold! We probably rode about 17-ish miles. I was so ready for those 17 miles to be over on the way back because the wind decided to be blowing against me the whole way back. However, I'm glad we all had some good family time and burned calories together!

After the ride we headed to the Smashing Tomato for a super late lunch, Andrea's pick because today is her birthday!! Happy Birthday Andrea!!

Speaking of Andrea, we are about to head over to her house with the dogs to enjoy some cake and wii video games! So i'm outta here!!

Goodnight!

Merry Christmas!

I will leave you this Christmas with some awkward family Christmas photos!

Merry Christmas to all...and to all a goodnight!