Bird is the Word

Some pics from the Becks' Thanksgiving feast!

As part of our CSA, we got a whole chicken, and it's been hanging out in our freezer for several months. So, we decided to enjoy that free-range, organic, dandelion-and-rainbow-fed chicken for Thanksgiving.

Flame was very helpful in guarding him/her and making sure it didn't run away.


Hey wait, it ran away!


Straight into the rotisserie! Drat, foiled again.


Tasting the veggies and making the obligatory Friends "Umm!" face.


Our Thanksgiving table: rotisserie chicken, candied brandied sweet potatoes, garlic ginger green beans and a bottle of Chianti. (Don't judge, we were out of chardonnay.) Needless to say, it was delicious and we were quite pleased with our culinary skills. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Drum Roll Please...

Here you go kids -- pics of the great kitchen renovation!

Before:

And after:

You may have noticed that we did not end up going with black and white tile. I have several very grown-up reasons for this, so let's just call the idea tabled for now.

I have to give a shout-out to Empire for being all-around awesome throughout this whole process. I know, you want to hate them because their commercials suck, but I thought they were pretty fabulous. So if you're in the market for new floors, I say check 'em out.

The horror (or the cuteness)

So we went dog walking today, but it was kind of chilly! So what do we do? We put our poor, defenseless puppy in a coat (because she doesn't have very long fur, you see...)

What's that look like? Glad you asked:

While that alone probably makes us horrible people, the real pain came when we were (quite obviously, in our opinions) silently judged by little 8 year old girls as we went around the neighborhood.

In other news, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. While that means a lot of things to a lot of people, it primarily means candied yams, pumpkin and pecan pies, and delicious macaroni and cheese to me. Anyone else out there dreaming of food while the day creeps up on us?

-- Ak out

Wherein the Becks Catch Y'all Up On What's Been Going On

Hi guys! So we don't blog here so much. We each have our reasons, and here they are:

Court -- While I don't blog here, I'm the blog editor for NutriDense.com, where I blog 3+ times a week about the latest in ag and animal nutrition. Rock on.
Ak -- While I don't blog here, I'm a huge slacker. (The end.)

So here's what's been up with us over the past month or so:

• We are now an iPhone packing family -- So now we don't do anything without an app. Want to see if it's raining? App. Want to check what's on Tv? App. Walking the dogs? App. Need to open a door? App. Let me tell you, apps everywhere in this family!
• Court went part time at her job. She then proceeded to continuously bill 40 hours per week. So now she's got the ball rolling on going back to full time, but with more time working from home than before. Huzzah!
• Flame got herself a shiny new collar. Said collar gives her a little buzz when we hit a button. This collar has single-handedly made her a much, much better dog. She no longer chases cats everywhere, she listens to us on the first try almost all the time. Honestly, we don't put that collar on most days any more, and she's still remarkably good. She's quickly rising to take the mantle of perfect dog from Marty.
• We made a Hathaway family traditional chili the other day. Court's very proud of the recreation of her grandmother's chili, and I thought it wasn't half bad.
• We went to Smiffield for the annual Christmas shopping trip to the outlets. 'Twas a good outing that had us hitting all of Court's old haunts. Including Mucho Mexico.
• Work has been going well for me, but there's been a lot of it. Several nights now, I've had to crawl into bed early the next day... Court's been really supportive of it all thus far, so that's awesome.
• After repeatedly watching Flame pop over over 6-foot fence, it was determined that perhaps she was in need of more exercise. Flame has since been enrolled in Camp Bow Wow, a day camp for dogs. Yeah, yeah, we're aware of the yuppyiness of it all, but see below for why it kicks ass:

That's all for now. We're preparing for the holidays and hopefully a mega-home renovation project (oh, teaser!), so stay tuned!

Hug A Ginger Day

That'd be tomorrow, Nov. 20. I expect lots of hugs.