Aaaand, We're Back!!

Hello Everyone!! Oh, how I have missed you!! And wow, do I have a lot to catch up on! Thank you SOOOO much for posting for me, Shaylee, that was the sweetest thing ever. I feel so loved, and so do the boys. I could dwell on how sad it is that I'm already gone, but I think I'll just be happy I met you at all!!

Now, let's start with the move, shall we??

Because we knew, weeks ahead, that there would be no way to nail down a moving date, we started packing very early. Packed up everything we wouldn't need, and everything we could do without. That left us with half the kitchen, toys, clothes, and odds and ends on the last day. Stephen was a packing animal, he got everything packed himself, while I ran all the Last Day errands. He even started loading the truck before our help arrived! We also decided to skip our teeny deposit, and not stress about deep-cleaning the apartment. It's nearly impossible to clean them anyway.

We knocked 3 hours off our trip that night by driving to Green River, then had 5 hours of driving the next day. Usually Stephen is our driver, so it was different for me to drive that far! I got back into the groove pretty fast though. :) The boys and I listened to kid music, pop music, and all the stuff Daddy can't stand. They were fabulous, as usual! I took some pictures, coming over the pass, but had to stop after a few swerves...

 Dad, these colors are for you!

 The mountains are for you, Mom...

By the time we got to Denver, things were starting to crumble a bit. My back was killing me, Joe was beginning to self-destruct (3 days with no naps!!) I was hot and grimy and tired, and then there wasn't any parking!! It took just under two hours for our moving help to unload the truck, during which I found out my facebook had been hacked, our phones barely work in our apartment for some reason, and we would be without internet until Wednesday. I was craaaanky.

Yes, that is my KitchenAid being used as a doorstop... *twitch*

But as soon as everything was in the apartment, we had eaten, the boys had been calmed, and facebook had been fixed, I calmed down and really took a look around.

Our new home is glorious. (More about that tomorrow!)

Life is, again, GOOD. We have nice neighbors, we back up to the creek with some wilderness for the boys and the beast, we have time to explore and have fun before work/school start again, and we are just plain thrilled to be here!! Of course, it couldn't possibly be Home until I cooked something, so just because I love you, I'm sharing my recipe for award-winning chili! Well, that's what Stephen calls it, anyway. He's convinced it would win a chili cook-off, but to be honest, it's never been put to the test.

Simple Chili
Printable Recipe

1/2 yellow onion, diced small
2 Tb butter
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb lean ground beef
1 can tomato sauce
2 cans Ranch Style Beans (you can also use red or pinto beans, but these are my favorite, because they already have some kind of mysterious seasonings in them...)
1/2 cup-3/4 cup beef broth
1 Tb chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 Tb Worcestershire sauce
splash of Tabasco

Melt butter in a large pot/saucepan over medium high heat. Add onions and a pinch of salt, saute till translucent. Add garlic, stirr and cook about 30 seconds. Add beef, making sure to crush it up and mix those onions and garlic in. Sprinkle with about half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Cook the meat until partly browned, till it starts to soften up a bit.

Add all of the other ingredients, bring to a boil, and lower to a simmer, at LEAST an hour, up to three hours. If it starts getting a little too thick, add a bit more broth.

Top with cheese, sour cream, onions, whatever strikes your fancy!\

Chili certainly isn't the most photogenic of foods, is it?? Oh well, I did my best. One of my Dad's classic Sunday meals when I was growing up was Ranch Style Beans. Just some beans and some ground beef. Not sure if there was anything else in it. But we loved it.

You could fancy-up this chili with peppers, corn, kidney beans, wine, chocolate, peanut butter... (no really, I've heard of those last two!) But we like our chili simple around here. It took me 6 years to nail this chili down. But it has been captured at last. Oh, if you have some of those annoying crushed chip bits left in the bottom of a bag, throw those in too, along with the beans and everything. Just decrease the salt a bit in the meat. I usually do, but I didn't have any this time. Enjoy!!