Miller's Peanut Butter Pie!!!

Today after church Ashley and I had to run to Sarasota, and we decided that we wanted to eat at one of the Amazing Amish restaurants in our area. We were both in the mood for some "home cooking" but the main reason we wanted to go was for the Peanut Butter Pie!! I don't know how they do it, but the Amish make the most Amazing Peanut Butter Pies! Every Christmas Eve we have Miller's Peanut Butter Pie at Gran and Pop's. It is definitely one of my favorite desserts.

Unfortuntaley after driving to 3 different Amish restaurants and finding them all closed we figured out that the Amish do not work on Sundays.

We were both Super disappointed and both whined about how much we wanted Peanut Butter Pie the entire way home :(

When we got home we looked on the internet for a recipe and found one that sounded really close to Miller's recipe. So with Mom's help we set forth on the task of making a homemade Peanut Butter Pie.

And here is our finished product!! After 2 attempts at the Meringue we finally got it right. (In our defense the recipe called for cornstarch in the meringue. The Cornstarch totally made the meringue taste pasty so we threw it out and started again.)

The pie was SOOO GOOD!! Almost as good as Miller's just a little soupier. We were to impatient to wait for it to cool completely, so the custard was a little soupy.

All in all I think our first attempt at at PB Pie was successful. This is definitely a dessert that I will make again.

Meet Marty!!

Two weeks ago my company (Chancey Interior Design) moved into our brand new "Leed Certified" building!! It is a gorgeous, white (of course), 4 story building in historic Ybor City. We are all getting used to our new spaces, and I am getting used to my new roommate...

Blog Friends meet Marty!!

In the entry of mine and the principals area sits this Zebra hide... did I mention he is 100% real!!

Remember this guy from the Lazy 5? Guess where these guys end up??

You guessed it... in high end design firms!!

I usually do not have issues with animal hides. We put cow hides into a lot of our projects, but cowhides don't have heads and tails still attached!!

If you are at all squeamish I apologize for the above two photos, but I had to show you how they stitch the ears down and the eyes shut... GROSS!!

This shows the proximity of Marty to my desk. For those of you who are wondering I named him Marty after the zebra in the movie Madagascar.

Unfortunately, not all of the other principals loved Marty as much as my boss did. They did not feel that an animal hide fit with the Leed/Green theme that we have going in our building. So needless to say, Marty is going back to the rug store next week.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into the fabulous and crazy company I work for :)

"Spoirts"

I can not believe I am about to type this...

Luke and I have joined a Fantasy Football League!!

Shocking, I know. The most anti-spoirt family on the planet has joined one of the most ridiculous spoirt games every created.

I must admit we did it because of Peer Pressure. The Since October boys decided it would be fun to have a Fantasy Football League of all the SO boys and SO wives. So, to not be left out, LG and I joined "Rocktober Sports". LG was more into it than I (obviously!!) and has made the best out of this experience by creating our two teams, complete with Custom Logos. We Graham's can't do anything half way :)

Luke's Team is "The Parrish Face Kickers"

April's Team is "The Celebrity Baby Stalkers"

Our automatic draft is tomorrow morning and for the first games Luke is playing Jeff's team (our Brother-in-Law... he joined the league because we had to have 8 people). And I am playing Ashley's team. We promise to keep you all up to date on our exciting new "Spoirt" adventure!!

Disclaimer: We, the Grahams, still hate "Spoirts"... except for swimming, diving, and gymnastics... we have been watching A LOT of Olympics :)

Baby Shower #2

Today we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Josh and Ashley's little boy at her baby shower! She looks really good to be 32 weeks!

Table Centerpieces
Gift and Cake Table
Baby Cupcakes :)Drink Area... yes that is a rubber ducky floating in the punch bowl!!



Opening Gifts

"SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!"

Ok, maybe there aren't really any snakes on a plane, but I feel like they are taking over our neighborhood. A few weeks ago mom and I were taking the dogs for a walk at dusk (we had wanted to walk as late as possible because it is so blasted hot around here.) Well as we were walking we say a black snake slither across our path (we were on the shell walking path). We decided to stick to the sidewalk and not 2 minutes later we came up on a very dark snake with a patterned print on this body. We were convinced that he was a rattlesnake so we turned around and headed the other direction.

Ever since that incident I have been terrified that I would run into another snake on my daily walks with Rage. I have kept my eyes on the ground as we walked watching for snakes.

A few nights ago Luke and I had run to Publix and were coming home at about dusk. As we were about to turn into our driveway we say a SNAKE in the middle of road, right in front of our house. Luke jumped out to investigate while I stayed in the car with the headlights shining on the snake. That little snake (he was only about 24" long) was a feisty guy and he struck a Luke!! He started to slither away into the grass when I remembered my camera and handed it to Luke. The pictures aren't very good, but at least you can see him.

Now I am definitely terrified of our snake infested neighborhood... yuck!! I HATE SNAKES!!!!

Baby Shower #1

Last Sunday afternoon my friend Marcie and I hosted a surprise baby shower for our good friend Jenn. Jenn is due with her 3rd girl in about 3 weeks. Since she had almost everything she needs for baby Kelsey we decided to do a "Pamper the Mom" shower. We asked everyone to bring diapers and wipes for baby Kelsey or a little papering item for Jenn (lotion, new pajamas, etc). And to top it all off a bunch of people went together and got her a gift certificate to the Spa at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota. Jenn was really surprised and we all had a great time celebrating this wonderful mommy and this new little girl together!!

(Baby shower #2 coming up this weekend... For those of you who don't know I am hosting a shower for my friend Ashley on Saturday. We have 12 girls in our circle of friends at church who are pregnant and due between Sept & March. I'm convinced there is something in the water at church, so that's why I bring bottled water to church :)

THE LAZY 5

I know this post is almost a month late, but I have a good exscuse for not being able to post until now. While at the Lazy 5 we took 258 pictures!! 258 pictures of 1 hour, at 1 place!! So the reason this post has taken so long to put together is because I had to weed through 258 pictures and find a few that accurately captured our time at The Lazy 5. The Lazy 5 is seriously one of the coolest places I have EVER been in my entire life!! (check it out at http://www.lazy5ranch.com/) It is a 3.5 mile safari that you can drive through in your car or on a horse drawn wagon. There are approximately 750 animals and they all come up to your car window were you feed them buckets of animal feed. It is AWESOME!! You can touch them, you can see them up close, it is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever done!
Our Super Cute Girl (yes mom, she is tasting the animal feed)
The Bourdies are Coming!!

I'm sorry but this has got to be some form of a DEMON... look at those eyes!

Look at him!! He is in our car!! Look at that beak!! He could peck your eye out!
How cool is this?!?!? He is eating out of my hand!


Did I mention that they sometimes jump up on your car??? Yeah, they do that... good thing Ash & Chris have since sold this car... i'm sure the new owners don't mind the scratches on the door :)
Look at those eyes! They are little slits! Why?
Can you see that they are literally in our car!?!? How cool is that?!?!
Oh No... look at this beast!
A Big Tongue, for an equally Big Animal.

What is this guy??? Does anyone know?? Is he a horse? Is he a cow? Or a mixture there of??
Look at this cow... he has not teeth!! Just gums... like an old man :)

A white demon!! Why did God create these things?!?

Ashleigh closed the window on this guy... HAHAHA Look at this character... Luke said he looked like a creature from Tatooine!!

Look at those EARS!!!
We all really liked the zebra's, but they told us not to feed them out of our hands. They said to only let them eat out of the bucket... I guess they are prone to biting...

Right after I took this picture this guy tried to take Luke's arm off!! I fully believe he could have... look at those horns!

The main reason I wanted to go The Lazy 5 was so I could touch a giraffe. When we got up to the giraffe area they had them in an enclosed area with a really tall fence. I was dying to touch one so I climbed out of the sunroof of Ashleigh's Mountaineer, onto the roof of the SUV so I could reach this super tall guy!!
I succeeded!! My trip was complete!! I touched a giraffe!!

Here is a collage of some of my other favorite pictures!!

All the laughing and screaming wore her out!!

Check out Chris & Ashleigh's blog for a ridiculously cute video of Cadence retelling the story of our trip!! (www.lifewithshae.blogspot.com)