Stone Mountain Date Night

Stone Mountain Sunset
Perfect Sunset

It all started with an email I received on Tuesday Apr 6th.
Jess:
while I was walking around monitoring my kids…i came up with the BEST idea. πŸ™‚

I know it’s going to be a long week for both of us, so I want us to have something to look forward to….so do me a favor? keep your plans for Friday night free. the whole night. I got a lil something up my sleeve. πŸ™‚

We both knew that Friday didn’t really have any thing going on, and Jess could sense that I was feeling a bit of the gloom monster. So she cooked up this crazy idea. She wouldn’t tell me, but she did send me several hints though out the week. Actually, they were “sniperhints”.
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And just like THAT….

no more grrrrrface! Things are still the same with the previous situation…I’m just channeling some really positive energy (from somewhere?) and going to make the best of it until May. It certainly helps that SniperBen is always there to be a voice a reason for me. πŸ™‚

In other news…I have a change in my top 5! I’ve added Bob from The Biggest Loser. We’ve been watching this season and I just love him! He’s hilariously intense and pretty damn sexy! I happen to think he looks like SniperBen as well…*delish!!!

Oh! SB also introduced me to www.thesuperficial.com this week. I have to admit that I am all about these dumbass celebs and what they are up to. This site has the goods! Check it out if you haven’t.

I hope the rest of your week goes by fast…b/c that means mine will too! Winter Break…car shopping…sleeping in…VDay weekend…*SQQQEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!*

GrrrrtotheFace!

Grrrface. That’s what I am right now. I have so many awesome, wonderful things going on in my life, but there’s just one little part to remedy. And what sucks is…it’s where I spend most of my time. When the place you spend 8+ hours a day is making you miserable, something’s got to give! Next week is Winter Break and I fully intend to hit the streets and find something closer to home. Send me good vibes, prayers, whatever it is you do. If not for my sake then for the boys I live with. Bless ’em for putting up with my foul mood for the first hour after I get home. πŸ™‚

Other than the previous, things are great lately! Life has been extremely different lately. The journey to get me where I am now is not a fun one to look back on interesting…but the destination is turning out quite beachy. <3 Also...this weekend is Valentine's Day! I know it can be silly holiday. Why not tell someone you love them EVERY day instead of waiting for a holiday?? I get that...but it's also a great reason to come up with some Special Secret Sniper Plans! I have dinner reserved and the hotel booked. I can't wait to put SniperBen in the car Saturday morning and drive to our secret destination. This is not our first Valentine's Day...but it's the first one that counts. πŸ™‚ The following week is Winter Break! Soooooooooo stoked about that! I am planning a trip to Snow Mountain that week and I’m also gonna start car shopping. I can’t believe poor Ol’ Greg has even made it as long as he has…and my tax money is going towards new wheels so he can finally be put to rest.

So…back to the grrrface. I wonder…what do YOU do to find your happy place at work? Favorite website that makes you smile? Something that gets you through the day? So far…blogging is working ok for me. πŸ™‚

On top of Stone Mountain

It was totally snowing that day
Our family adventure begins

A few weeks ago Jess and I decided it would be nice to take Chase to Stone Mountain to see all the Christmas decorations, the laser show, the Atlanta skyline at sunset, and the building of the Snow Mountain area. Despite living in Georgia my entire life, I have never been on top of Stone Mountain. I know…it is a shock to me too! We packed up the camera, got bundled up, made a quick stop to get a snack, and we were on our way.
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Jazz up yer ballz!!

Tis’ the season for ballz!! Sausage balls that is. πŸ™‚ They are a must have and a staple of almost every holiday ‘get together’. Someone says ‘finger food’ and sausage balls’ll be there! Now don’t misunderstand me, sausage balls are the bomb! SniperBen and I started a conversation about a month ago playing around with different versions of the balls. “Bacon balls…Oh..I know! Jalapeno balls! …wait…what about..” and it basically went on from there. The amazing ideas never really came to fruition, however, we talked about it again while walking down stone mountain yesterday with chase (blog on that to come btw!). I needed a good ‘finger food’ dish to bring to Girls’ Night gift exchange and we remembered the balls!! Here’s what we came up with.

Bacon/Ranch Balls
Regular sausage ball mix (the bisquick kind)
add chopped up bacon (pretty small)
ranch dressing mix (powder kind)
*these may need to be cooked a few extra minutes

BBQ Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
add your fav. bbq sauce
we added extra chopped up white cheddar cheese and spices

MexiBalls
Regular sausage ball mix
extra texmex cheeses
LOTS of chopped japs. yummmm….

Maple Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
maple syrup (go on and get the good kind, it’s worth it)
brown sugar

They were great!! I don’t really have exact measurements or cooking times, but you can free ‘ball’ it! (tehehee) The idea is, think of some awesome things that YOU would like and go great with sausage. Cook them until they look “done”. I promise you’ve never ‘sausage’ a great finger food for the holiday! {disclaimer: that corny but funny joke was brought to you by SniperBen}.
*editor’s note: somehow i don’t have a pic of the epic balls! doh…

Thanksgiving break-2009: Sniper Style Part 3 (The next day…)

DSCN0148
Not just 1 or 2, but 3 dancing machines!

Our week of thanksgiving bliss was trucking right along. I had good food and traditions with the Turner’s and lots of rest and cooking in Dwood with the boys, so the only thing left was turkey time with the Birney’s (Sniperjess’ family). For those of you that know us…the Birney house is always an interesting experience. It’s untraditional, and slightly unorthodox…but it’s always a good time with genuine intentions from all. My growing time in Dwood lately lead to what I would call a “catch up” session when we got there. The adult beverages were poured and we chatted about the previous week and just life in general. SniperBen had leftovers, but I was somewhat tired of turkey so I passed (which I would later regret…aLOT). SniperBen got yet another look into the life I grew up in. Our holidays are about celebration and believe me…we celebrate. There was laughing and jump roping and Madonna tunes blaring and dancing. I won’t sugar coat it…things get a lil crazy. It’s a lot for a person to take in if they are not accustomed to the Birney house, but SniperBen held his own. (and later held my own….blegghh). I will admit I may have over done the turkey day festivities, but I was still very thankful to have my guy there to load us up and take us home at the end of the night. (Sorry you had to tomtom your way back to my apartment babe…I owe you one! ..or two.)
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Thanksgiving break – 2009: Sniper Style pt. 2 (Thanksgiving Day)

Rosevelt the turkey
Roosevelt, meet Turner

In true Turner style the morning got started with a big plate of food and a lot of scrambling around. After breakfast Jess and I started in on the turkey, gravy base, and more chopping of vegetables. You’d think that after like three days of preparing food, we’d have all this mess done. That wasn’t really the case. There always seemed to be more carrots, onions, celery, taters… oh wait. No potatoes to cut up those had already been taken care of and were in the fridge setting up. Oh, the taters! Let me describe the ways I love thee. Ok, I’m done.
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Thanksgiving break – 2009: Sniper Style pt. 1

New Moon Queen
Maybe YOU should relax

It all started with a trip to Burger King for some New Moon paraphernalia. I got Jess’ place and we got ready and headed off for some sushi, time with friends, and a gaggle of tweens and/or begrudgingly happy boyfriends and husbands. The movie was ish at best. It was better than Twilight, but then again, Twilight was a pretty terrible movie. There were some decent fight scenes, a fast car or two, some sparkly “vampires”, enough emo looks to make a rainbow cry, and and then some credits. That pretty much sums up the movie, or at least what I recall of it. The night wasn’t a total wash however. On the way to Milner, Jess got word that one of her friends was looking to unload some UGA tix. We jumped at the chance, I stopped by the ATM, got some cash and in exchange, we got tickets to what would be our very first GA game!
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Loving October!

punkin1

punkinWe’ve had an awesome October. We flew through Halloween 1-6 with ease (except 3) and stayed super busy. This past weekend was, as usual, amazing. We didn’t do anything particularly blog-worthy, but that’s what made it epic. We got things done around the apartment, hung some pictures up, organized dvds, unloaded boxes, cooked great food, napped, smiled. πŸ™‚ I What IS blog-worthy though, is I also met some more of SniperBen’s friends. They are all really great people who I hope to hang out with again soon. Kim and James are two of them and they hosted a really fun pumpkin carving party. Here are a few pics from that…stay tuned though! Halloween and trick or treating is right around the corner. πŸ™‚