Vintage Victuals Giveaway

I keep posting about giveaways ... hoping that someday I will win something ... here's to continuuing to hope!!
I found the Vintage Victuals (click on the name to check it out!) website on a whim one day while "blurking" through other blogs - and it has some of the BEST recipes on there!! Everytime I try a new recipe, Michael asks, "Is this a blog recipe?? Then it should be good". And it is. Recipes made from scratch just taste SO delicious!!
She is giving away three of these:

They are hand-crafted, gourmet-quality recipes carefully layered in mason jars and decorated for the holidays. She sells them on her Etsy site and they would make GREAT gifts (especially for the lazy baker in all of us)!!

****UPDATE****

I can't believe my mom won the giveaway. I need to take her to Vegas - she always wins!!

Bravo Company Marine Corps Ball 2009

Michael had his last Marine Corps Ball as Company Commander of Co B this week! Here we are before we left for the O'Club:

Giving Katie some sass:

Michael in the taxi on the way to the club:

Michael escorting the Guest of Honor during the ceremony:

Presentation of colors and the cake:

Michael cutting the cake for the Guest of Honor and the Youngest/Oldest Marines:

Michael giving his opening remarks and introducing the Guest of Honor:

SgtMaj Vasquez giving a great speech:

Presenting SgtMaj Vasquez with a gift:

Marines enjoying the ball ... there were 694 Marines at the ball - biggest Marine Corps Ball on the island!!

Since it was such a large MC Ball, a lot of the Marines didn't bring dates so that more of their buddies could come ... hence the bro-mance on the dancefloor!

Relaxing after the ceremony:

Marines doing the "stanky-leg" ... it was hilarious!!

Me, Jim (XO) and Shelly:

Michael jumped in :)

Me, Shelly and Laura:

Some last pics before we hit the dance floor!!

It was an awesome MC Ball!! We had so much fun and it was great to see Michael's last ball as Company Commander be so successful!

MCBJ/III MEF Officer's Ball 2009

We actually had a really great time at the MCBJ/III MEF Officer's Ball this year! Our neighbor Katie was kind enough to take our picture before we left for the ball:

A group picture of MCBJ Marines and spouses:

The girls:

Heading back to the dance floor after pictures:

The guys:

This picture is more indicative of the evening ... we all had a lot of fun together :)

Our friends Travis and Elizabeth - they were also at our table!

At dinner:

Travis got ahold of my camera :)

The XO (Jim) and Shelly:

Peace out until Co B's ball next week!

MC Ball Toes

It was hard finding something to go with a red dress and a pink dress for the balls ... this is what I settled on:

Halloween 2009

We didn't get a chance to carve pumpkins until the day of Halloween! Its probably a good thing though, b/c any wilting on mine would've been disastrous! Here is Michael carving his pumpkin:

We don't have much of a pumpkin selection, but here's the real reason Michael chose this pumpkin ... hee hee ...

He's so clever ;)

It was a little chilly and Piglet got a haircut this week, so we put her sweater on her - and she hated every minute in it ... but she wasn't cold!

Me and my pumpkin:

Michael's Captain Crunch pumpkin!

My kitty-in-a-window-with-other-stuff pumpkin:

Kawaii Pumpkins! (Cute) ... definitely not Kowai pumpkins (Scary):

We didn't have many trick-or-treaters this year b/c of the rain ... but Michael was actually able to get me to watch a scary movie. Blurg. At least I got to have some caramel apples!

Toes

These were my toes for our trip to China ... and then I got my tattoo 2 days after we got back so I didn't have time to get in for some new artwork. Don't mind the bloody/inky mess that is my tattoo under the clear dressing :)

... and here are my toes for Halloween! (just in case - they are little pumpkins/skulls/stars on the big toe and spider webs on all the rest!)
We are carving pumpkins tomorrow! I can't wait - we're running really low on pumpkin designs from our booklet that we bought back in NC ... soooo ... not sure how "clear" the finished products will be since the designs are a little more difficult.

My (Newer) Obsession ... Re-visited.

Remember THIS post?

They (i.e. crazy people actually looking for these types of artifacts) found an in-tact skull. How cool! OOohhh ... I can't wait to see the pictures of it.

This pic accompanied the article (its an artist's rendition of a pliosaur attacking another animal) all 16 meters and 12 tonnes of it. A Pliosaur is a type of Plesiosaur.

Oh ya ... did I mention that the article said that a T-Rex would have been a quick breakfast for this thing?! HERE is the article.

Happy Campers

There were two little girls that were REALLY glad to see us!

They both hit the couch hard once they settled back in.
We missed them too :)

Symphony of Lights - Hong Kong

Our last full day in Hong Kong, we found out that China had just changed their visa policy and that we would have to go to the embassy and get ANOTHER visa if we wanted to fly to Shanghai the next day. We discussed it, and quite frankly - we were ready to come home! So we opted to cancel the Shanghai portion of our trip and instead fly straight back to Okinawa (it was only a span of about 36 hours that we cancelled).

We decided to spend our last afternoon down at the Ladies Market - and even though we didn't have anywhere to pack any more "stuff" - we found anything and everything we could have wanted to purchase! FYI - some people's Christmas gifts are coming from Hong Kong :)

Our last night we went to a really great Cantonese restaurant (Jade Garden) - the BEST sweet and sour pork and stir-fried beef (yes, it was really pork and really beef!). Afterwards, we grabbed some pictures of Hong Kong Island's nighttime skyline from the Star Ferry Pier.

Then we had some fun playing with the camera settings ... case in point - "motion":

Yep, I just ate part of Hong Kong. (there were a lot more pics to capture the whole movement, but I'm only gonna post so many profile pics ...)

Not only was this a beautiful area to walk ... but then the free light show began (all set to a 15 minute soundtrack).

"Symphony of Lights"

It was pretty cool that they had that much coordination/cooperation from the building owners and the city:
A random, but very cool, pirate ship:
We watched the light show from the Avenue of Stars and found Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee and Chow Yun-Fat 's stars:

Michael with Bruce Lee:
WHAT A TRIP!!

Time to go home now :)