Happy THANKSGIVING Pilgrims!

Phew! What a fun crazy week we had.

We've been in Georgia all week for Thanksgiving/one of our best friend Kyle's wedding (congrats ya'll!). It's been nice and warm and relaxing. I'm not quite ready to get back to the Idaho winter that awaits me.

If I had to pick one picture to sum up our week here it would be this one:

That's Paisley. (and my Kristen Stewart buck teeth. I own them) She's our niece and the daughter of my sis-in-lawbff, Jamie. and I'm just kind of obsessed with her. Like, if you saw my cell camera pictures (my instagram photos are just the tip of the iceberg) right now you would think that she was MY child because I have so many pictures of that girl. but I can't help it, she is just too beautiful and sweet. and also really advanced for a four month old, she can already do math, probably.

I could tell you about every single detail of our vacation, but I'm not gonna. I just really wanted to brag about how precious Paisley is. Just know that we've been talking real southern up in here (can't help it) and that we ate waaaaaay too much (all week, not just on Thanksgiving) and lost all our eating inhibitions. back to dieting on Monday... until Christmas of course.

Also, I just realized that all my best friends have beautiful babies, see evidence here. 

I guess I just know how to pick em. 

GET IN MY MOUTH: Low Country Boil

So lately, I've been missing Georgia. Sometimes it literally makes my heart hurt because I miss it so bad. Which luckily, is not because I am totally miserable in Idaho, because I'm surprisingly not (yet). But, ANYWAY, I decided that there was one thing that could help curb my Georgia yearning; some good old southern food.

So, I pulled out Aunt Martha's cookbook (which if you are ever going to buy a cookbook, let that be your next one because Martha is amahzing. She's used to help write Paula Deen's cookbooks. She basically a Savannah celebrity!) and after looking through it, decided to invite some of our peeps over for :

LOW COUNTRY BOIL
Adapted from "Savannah Celebrations" by Martha Nesbit

Thanks to Sassy YGBG for the photo

Here's what you need:

Serves 8

2 pounds kielbasa Polish sausage, sliced into 1 inch pieces.

20 red potatoes, halved or quartered, depending on size.

4 to 6 ears of corn broken into halves or thirds

3 pounds large shrimp 

1/4 cup Old Bay seasoning (this is optional but I HIGHLY recommend using it, and being generous with it!)

Allow 1 hour to heat water in a 20 gallon pot*, filled about one-third full. Add the Old Bay seasoning if using (which you better be). 45 minutes before serving, add sausage. 20 minutes before serving, add red potatoes. 15 minutes before serving, add corn. 5 minutes before serving, add shrimp. When shrimp are pink and cooked through (about 5 minutes or less - you can tell because they curl up like they're prepping for an earthquake drill.). Drain and serve hot.

*Alright so, if you're anything like me, you don't have a 20 gallon pot and when you saw that you were like, Whaaaaaaaaaaat? But don't worry, it's a little bit of work but it's still possible. What I have is just two 5.5 quart pots. So, to make the full recipe (which you can half it, or even quarter it if you're cooking for less people) I had to split it up into 4 different rounds (so two for each pot for me). So I did MATH (which I suck at, but I did it) and split the ingredients up into fours. And then you follow the recipe the same (except that you don't have to wait an hour for the water to heat up). 

The best way to serve this is to just lay out some news paper (or craft paper or a plastic table cloth) on your table and dump it right on to the paper (but if you wanna be civilized you can leave it in a bowl, sometimes that's a good idea too) and serve with: Soft Butter, Sour Cream, Cocktail Sauce, Slices of lemons, and Ice Cold Coca-Cola. 

you can just see the humidity in the air from all that boilin! felt just like the south!

the almost entire month of April, condensed.

I literally just stopped blogging for a minute. Well, longer than a minute. And I know it's not like i have some sort of crazy following where I ruined people's lives from not blogging, but I am kind of sad that I didn't blog very much in April, because we kind of did a lot. Including celebrated our 1 year anniversary! Holla.

Welp, I'll start from where I left off. [and I apologize if you follow us on instagram, you will have seen most of these, cause that's what we've been doing instead of using a real camera. SORRY]

Taylor adjusted back to American life nicely.

He joined a soccer league:

Then, ALL of my sister-in-laws and their children came to visit for spring break and we went to the beach for a couple days:

Tayl put Lux in his shirt:

I got surprised with an early anniversary gift:

We spent easter weekend in Valdosta:

Pregnant karaoke!

Laney girl.

On Sunday we were basically all playing scramble against each other. TECHNOLOGY!

From Valdosta the Tayl and I headed down to Amelia Island, FL to spend a couple of days celebrated our anniversary:

My poorly timed cell phone short of the Florida state line.

Tayl & his driving glasses

 Once we got settled, we went for a walk on the beach:

Random sunglasses I found with barnacles growing on them.

Tay was trying to take this picture of the ocean when this stranger's dog ran by.

Crab shell

Jelly fish

The view from our Hotel.

 Our actual anniversary was actually what I would consider a perfect day:

We got up and went to play tennis.

After tennis we went to the beach.

If you can't tell, this is my face smashed up against the beach chair.

awwwww yeeeeaaah.

After the beach we went back to the hotel and showered and went out for dinner at MOON RIVER PIZZA:

WHEN THE EFF DID WE GET ICE CREAM?

Then we went to play mini-golf (surprisingly, our first mini-golf date together):

After our lovely little vacay, it was back to normal life:

I had to spend forever at the DMV to update my driver's license.

I finally got my georgia plates. Two years later.

I  ALSO FINALLY FOUND CORAL THROW PILLOWS!

We went fishing on the boat with Taylor's cousin Zack:

We went to the Earth Day festival at Forsyth park and learned about composting:

Later in the week we went back to Forsyth park to watch the Goonies:

And on an unfortunate note, my Grandpa Coffin (my dad's dad) passed away last weekend. I was extremely sad that I couldn't go to Utah to be with my family for the funeral. Here's his obituary, I thought it was really sweet, and I recommend it. And even though death is never easy to deal with, it's good to know that he is in a better place and doesn't have to be sick anymore. 

Hopefully I will blog more in May so that I won't have to do this again.

by the way, we went kayaking.

I can't believe I totally forgot to blog about this, cause it was kind of a big deal. Last month, we went kayaking on the river here in Savannah.

Let me tell you why this was a big deal, because Kynslie, does not like outdoorsy stuff. I like to fish, and I like to camp in a place that I didn't have to hike to. That's pretty much it. I mean, I like being OUTSIDE for like, the beach, picnics, four wheeling, tennis, outdoor movies, and being on yachts. But basically, anything that someone might wear Teva sandals, hiking boots, and/or eating granola for energy while doing, it's pretty safe to assume, I'll hate doing that thing.

Back to the kayaks. So, we went kayaking because April really wanted to, and everyone else was cool with it.. I really did not want to do, I didn't know how, and I figured I'd probably die and/or sink the kayak with my fat body. But it turns out that Taylor's aunt Martha's neighbor used to be a kayak instructor and she had like 30 extra kayaks, and since she loves Martha, she let us borrow hers, for free. So it was me, Tay, April, Jamie, and Jeff. Everyone had been at least once, except me. But she taught us some stuff before we got on the river.

me, looking like a boy, waiting to get pushed in.

First, Jamie went out, then me, I started to drift down the river slightly and Jamie had started to drift almost all the way across the river, everyone was yelling at her to come back thinking that she couldn't hear but really she was struggling to turn around. While everyone was focused on her, I started to panic because I was going down the river and couldn't turn around. Then everyone started yelling at me to come back. After much struggle and panic. some kind of miracle happened and Jamie and I both made it back. The kayak lady made us wait on the shore while she watched the others practice, because she no longer trusted us.

after i finally started to make my way back after almost drifting out to sea.

Finally, we were on our way, and I was surprisingly, pretty good at kayaking once I got the hang of it. I wasn't the fastest, but my kind husband kept my pace so I had someone to talk to. It was hard work. I was hoping that because we were traveling with the current that the river would do most of the work, WRONG. Also, poor Jeff and Taylor are so giant that the kayaks were not made for men of their stature and they both pretty much instantly lost feeling in their legs.

The entire journey took us over an hour, maybe more, it felt like we were traveling for days after awhile. ESPECIALLY when we got to the mouth of the river and the waves were crazy and I thought I was going to flip.

The lady dropped us off at our start location and then picked us up at the Isle of Hope Marina so we didn't have to fight against the current (I'm pretty sure I would have died.) While April was helping the lady pull the boats of the water her phone fell out of her jacket and into the river. It was funny. But she upgraded to iPhone so I don't feel bad for her.

The next day, my arms felt like they were going to break off of my body. But I was very proud of myself because I didn't complain, whine, cry, die, flip, or kill anyone or anything in the process. Hurray for doing new things! It was a cool way to start the new year.

sippin on juice and juice.

here's what we're up to.

recently we watched this movie (it's available on netflix and huluplus)







And needless to say, we were inspired. not only were WE inspired, but the entire Giddens clan was inspired. some pulled out and dusted off their old juicers and others bought brand new ones.  We wanted to get our juice on. 
this weekend while we were in Valdosta celebrating Kendall & Laney's first birthdays, we tried out some juicing as a family. 
here's some testimonials:
April: "It's actually pretty delicious."
Nana: "I think you could just blend and it would be just as good."
Pop: "Can I juice a honey glazed ham?"
Thomas: "No way, I'm not juicing. I don't eat food!"
Jamie: "I'm pregnant. Where's the bacon?" 
John: "I'm going full force on a juice fast. Next stop, total health transformation."
Angie: "John, get me a Dr. Pepper. STAT." 
Alex: "Taylor bribed me with money to drink some mean green juice. I would have done it for free."

As for Taylor and I, we're trying it out. Slowly. We borrowed nana and pop's Jack Lalane juicer and Taylor tried it out last night. I actually, really don't mind the juice, but it always comes out warm and I like my beverages to be icy cold. So I went ahead and tried out this smoothie recipe (which I found on, of course, PINTEREST) in the blender which proved to be satisfying and delicious:
1/2 Cup Frozen Peaches1/2 cup frozen mango2 bananasa couple of handfuls of fresh spinachIcea little bit of water to help blend
Blend, and enjoy.
Super easy, super delicious.
Anyway, back to the juicing. Juicing is fun, and it's super good for you. The guy in the movie went on 60 day juice fast and did nothing but juice. He lost 80 pounds and was able to completely wean himself off of his autoimmune disease meds. I'm not sure that we will ever get to the point where we go total juice, but I would really like to see us get into juicing regularly. we only get this one body and i want to start taking better care of it. 

FRESH BEETz

I'm not totally loving the juice yet though, but I feel like there are so many options out there that maybe I will find something that I like, or maybe it's like beer and I will eventually acquire the taste for it. I know Taylor is pretty excited about juicing and I think it's important to support him. It would probably be really hard for him if i was eating bacon and chocolate while he's trying to be healthy. 
if you are interested in trying out some of the juice recipes that we're all trying, you can click HERE!

oh yeah, Christmas.

I don't really care to write this blog post.

But for Christmas Taylor got me a super sweet gift.

He got our blog printed into a book. Which is seriously awesome, cause I am terrible at writing in my journal, and I feel like that is just as good, if not better. Anyway, it motivates me to continue to keep up with the blog and write seemingly mundane things because I like to think, if the world doesn't end in December, one day my Great Great Grandchildren will like to read about what our lives were like before they existed on this earth. I myself am kind of a sucker for family history. I used to find myself locked in the closet under the stairs at my great-grandma's house rifling through old pictures and letters.

I'm also really good at getting off track, apparently.

Eh, I'm probably not gonna write anymore. Here are some cute pictures from Christmas.

April's new wheels

Angie and Kendall the Elf

Logan's pants are off the chain.

If you look closely you can see that Curtis ruined the only photo where everyone was looking.

We love Christmas..

Fetus

Nom Nom Nom

Jammie Time

More Jammie Time

nana time

The Cutest present

In other news, I can't bring myself to take down our tree. So it's still up. Is that bad?
Jamie suggested I leave it up til Valentines, I'm considering it.
For the first week after Christmas it was up because of emotional attachment. But now I'm just being lazy, I know this because I'm clear sick of Christmas.