Beautiful Mess

This title is a perfect description of my pizza making experience tonight. My dough prior to this has been too doughy and dry so I decided to try making the dough stickier. Well, it turned out to be way too sticky! Here you can see my dough balls rising in their little tupperwares. They were looking good at this point.
Here's my pizza sauce - ground up roma tomatoes (seeded) with salt, pepper, and a touch of oregano.Here I'm trying to work with the dough. Its incredibly pliable, but also very sticky...

Adding the tomatoesAnd cheese...

Cooking up on the grill!

As you can see in this picture the dough is too moist...although this is the opposite of what happened with the last batch, so I have to simply split the difference!


Finished product - The good thing is that we are learning a lot about the dough... It was very tasty but the dough needs work!

Some Random Pics

We got a very nice gift in the mail this past week. Its a framed Stations of the Cross in Italian! The pictures are beautiful and the frame is awesome! Here is a picture...Thanks Maria & Tom!
This weekend I decided to try making a pasta rack for drying home made pasta. Im sick of drying them on hangers and broomsticks! I think it worked out pretty well, I just have to make a base to stick it in.

Here you can kind of see it, its just a dowell with three smaller dowels in it. We will stand it upright and it will work great for drying pasta. Plus it all comes apart for easy storage!

We've talked a lot about Prescott but i've never shown pictures. Here are a few of the condo up there and the views from the back porch and patio. It sits on the 18th hole of a golf course, and its a great little getaway!

Grand Canyon

We made it to the Grand Canyon this past weekend. It was my first time seeing it, and Mary Ellen's third. Overall it was a pretty impressive sight. Pictures can quite capture it, but we made our best effort! We hiked down the canyon about a half a mile, but mainly drove along the road that runs along it and stopped at points along the way.

At one point we almost fell in. Luckily we made it out. After looking at the pictures it appears Mary Ellen was fine with it...I guess because I was there by her side...

After seeing the Grand Canyon we drove back into the National Forest and camped out. It was awesome! Not a soul around, beautiful forest. It was nice to get out of the traffic and heat of Phoenix! We bought a new tent, which worked out great!

And my favorite camping accessory ever, a pudgy pie maker! We made little pizza pockets, and egg and cheese pockets in the morning. it was awesome!

Here we are enjoying the roaring campfire...a good time had by all!

Melly's Belly

Long time, no post. Here are the updates. Mary Ellen's belly is coming along nicely. We are halfway there and we just had our first and final ultrasound. We are having a boy, and we are naming him...i can't remember...will have to share that at a later date.

We had a very nice Easter, went to the Vigil on Saturday, then woke up Sunday morning and celebrated with cranberry scones.

Here they are, ready to go in

hm...not quite done yet...

Done! They were awesome. If you want a good cranberry

scone recipe let us know.

We then went to the Muirs and hung out with the family. All in all a good day... here are some of the pics

Joe and the Weiland kids.

Andrea and Mary Elise Muir
John Weiland, with a studly tie

All of us hanging out...

Brandon Weiland received his First Holy Communion as well as confirmation on Divine Mercy Sunday. It was great, and Bishop Olmstead celebrated the Mass. Here is a picture of Brandon, Mike, and Bishop Olmstead...

Chillin

The weather here is nice in March so we have been enjoying the outdoors. We played a little corn toss the other day in the front yard and chatted with the neighbors, although I put these up mainly to see if you notice anything different about Mary Ellen...





We went hiking at Saguaro Lake which is about an hour from Phoenix. We got there the Forest Ranger told us you need a parking pass to get in...the funny thing is that they don't sell them there (despite the ranger being there sitting in the ranger booth), so you have to drive an hour back to Phoenix to buy one. We ended up parking outside and walking for about 45 minute through parking lots and boat launches to get to the lake. nice.

On the way back we stopped at Fountain Hills for a little picnic. Fountain hills is basically a retirement community. See if you can see why they call it FOUNTAIN hills...

While there I did a little kite flying. I bought the kite for Mary Ellen's b-day 2 years ago and we had NEVER gotten it in the air, so finally we succeeded.

More Colorado

Here are a few follow up pics of Colorado that I thought everyone might enjoy!

What a great couple!

We went to an Irish Pub for lunch and Luke was acting up so we made him take a time out to think about things...he did well after that

back yard view with some clouds rolling in..

Here is another one of us getting the car out. I had to include so you could see the kind of effort I was putting forth to get that car out. Go hard or go home!

At the hill the first day of skiing. Dad, Tom and Maria went. We met them for lunch.

lunch time!

Mom and Mary Ellen doing a little relaxing!